“…its endowment had swelled to nearly $57 billion during the fiscal year that ended in June, an increase of about $3.7 billion. The university also said it had pulled in a record amount of donations it can use immediately.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...

Picking up steam… #highered #academicfreedom www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...

A poet & his politics: Harlem Renaissance author Claude McKay www.theguardian.com/news/2025/oc...

“…we proudly take the side of muckraking journalists, constitutional lawyers, and undaunted jurists, of the artists and actors who are fighting for their creative freedom, and above all, of the Constitution-­defending citizens who will not yield…” www.thenation.com/article/soci...

“In other words, that ‘war’ she declared on her own body is but a microcosm — and a descendant — of the actual wars that, historically, have determined who gets to be considered beautiful. (Hint: It’s always the victors, the powerful and the rich.)”

“Ms. Hilal argues that personal aesthetic judgments are neither personal nor ‘aesthetic.’ Instead, our perceptions of human beauty (or its lack) derive from politics, & are determined by wide-ranging, international factors such as war, imperialism, colonial conquest, power hierarchies & economics.”

“…we proudly take the side of muckraking journalists, constitutional lawyers, and undaunted jurists, of the artists and actors who are fighting for their creative freedom, and above all, of the Constitution-­defending citizens who will not yield…” www.thenation.com/article/soci...

“It wanted to signal strength. Instead, it’s revealing its weakness. The administration’s need to break the academy is forcing it to make a desperately risky gamble.” #highered www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/o...

“Kimmel responded by saying: ‘And by “statistical fact”, he means “complete bullshit”.’ Kimmel went on to cite a study that found far-right groups were the greatest source of domestic terrorism and extremist violence in the US. The Department of Justice has removed the study from its website.”

Tsai Ming Liang’s Abiding Nowhere, the 10th of his Walker series, following the slow walking of a monk across modern settings, this time in Washington DC with a new intriguing counterpoint of a second character, featuring the Smithsonian, which co-financed the film. In theaters

My department @uwmadison.bsky.social is hiring an assistant professor with expertise in environmental politics. Send us your application. jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...

“The Professor Watchlist is a straightforward intimidation campaign, and you can draw a line directly from Kirk’s work attacking academics to the Trump administration’s all-out war on American higher education…” — @jamellebouie.net www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/o...

The Gaza Famine is the world’s famine. A preventable, predictable famine. Enough. Ceasefire. Open all crossings, north and south. Let us get food in, unimpeded and at massive scale.

Call out the collaborators. This regime is propped up by those who have surrendered to them willingly.

In case my recommendation wasn’t enough, the Northern California Book Award committee agrees you should read Grace’s book! @ohiostatepress.bsky.social @joy-castro.bsky.social

“The literacy level in the US is estimated to be about 79% which ranks as 36th globally.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

In #LNK right now

Kiva-step vase, 1993, by Jean Bad Moccasin, artist of the Lakota Sioux Nation #WomensArt

Lizzie Magie (1866-1948) a US game designer who invented 'The Landlord's Game', the precursor to the globally famous 'Monopoly', which demonstrated the evils of capitalism #WomensArt

"Seed Corn Must Not Be Ground" final lithograph of Käthe Kollwitz, 1942. The death of her son in battle in 1914 profoundly affected the artist, who expressed her grief by creating many prints on the theme of mothers protecting their children from the horrors of war #WomensArt

www.theguardian.com/education/20... “…the special issue was just about ready – all articles had been edited, contracts with most authors had been finalized, and the issue had been advertised at academic conferences and on the back cover of the previous one. But late in the process…”

In #LNK right now

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... “Festivals and fairs are a mainstay of small-town American life. But now from rural Indiana to a tiny village in Washington state to cornerstone Appalachian towns such as Harrisonburg, #Latino and other international festivals are being cancelled this summer…”

“This post-literate world favors demagogues skilled at code-switching between the elite language of policy and the populist one of meme-slop.…It does not favor those with little money, little political power and no one to speak up for them.” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/o...

“It is also painful to focus on the art, but impossible to process the world as anything but art.” — @karlarrriot.bsky.social

Not every town has an espresso & wine bar named after a poem (& a very fitting one, at that)—but not every town was the childhood home of Edna St. Vincent Millay, one of our best. Happy to be back in Camden, Maine.

“…[S]he didn’t need to abuse anything to create, though she herself had been so badly abused. Her paintings are in a sense walls against abuse—they receive the abuse and hold it and transform it into cleanness and sanity.” —Rachel Cusk for @yalereview.bsky.social

Morning pages before Pilates class…

“…[S]he didn’t need to abuse anything to create, though she herself had been so badly abused. Her paintings are in a sense walls against abuse—they receive the abuse and hold it and transform it into cleanness and sanity.” —Rachel Cusk for @yalereview.bsky.social

BREAKING: Mahmoud Khalil speaks out after being released from ICE detention. "The Trump administration are doing their best to dehumanize everyone here," Khalil said.

Words fail me. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/u...

We want peace. We want clean energy, clean water, & clean air. We want freedom from fear. We want freedom from being made complicit in injustices we did not choose & do not endorse. We want a future for our children & grandchildren & all beings on this earth.

Which is why I create assignments for which students can’t use ChatGPT, despite its increasing acceptance in #highered. Fostering underperformance is not my job.

“Researchers used an EEG to record the writers’ brain activity across 32 regions, and found that of the three groups, ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and ‘consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.’” time.com/7295195/ai-c...

FINALLY Democrats are putting out HARD-HITTING ads. WATCH AND SHARE: #MAGAKidnappers

Love thinking about how the micropolitical & macropolitical are connected… www.nytimes.com/2025/06/14/o...

We want peace. We want clean energy, clean water, & clean air. We want freedom from fear. We want freedom from being made complicit in injustices we did not choose & do not endorse. We want a future for our children & grandchildren & all beings on this earth.

“We have nifty, elegant and cheap solutions to global hunger.” Let’s get it done. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/o...

In the spring of 2008, I feared America was on the verge of war with Iran — and, believing that it’s good style to get to know people before you bomb them, I made “Rick Steves’ Iran,” a one-hour special that could (and would) only debut on PBS. Sadly, this special has become pertinent again today.

The day started with tragedy with political violence in MN and instead of being scared, neighbors SHOWED UP to stand together at No Kings Twin Cities. We packed the Capitol Mall all the way to the Cathedral. Estimate 80,000+ right now. So proud of our state. #nokings #indivisible

Tulane scientist resigns, citing ‘gag order’ on environmental justice research “After being affiliated with Tulane for 25 years... I cannot remain silent as this university sacrifices academic integrity for political appeasement and pet projects...” #AcademicSky lailluminator.com/2025/06/13/t...

Love thinking about how the micropolitical & macropolitical are connected… www.nytimes.com/2025/06/14/o...

“assassinated at her home” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/14/u...

Key West, FL

Feels weird to announce in the midst of … everything, but Ohio State Press's fall catalog is up—two great story collections, feminist essays about class and labor by a woman truck driver, and suuuper timely scholarly stuff. I have ARCs! Highlights in🧵 bit.ly/s_F25 #essays #fiction #booksky #ReadUP