h/t: @alexanderchee.bsky.social — “The plan's $38 billion budget is more than the total annual spending for 22 states, according to state budget data.”

“So much depends then, thought Lily Briscoe, looking at the sea which had scarcely a stain on it, which was so soft that the sails and the clouds seemed set it in its blue, so much depends, she thought, upon distance…” Currently teaching Virginia Woolf // “To the Lighthouse” 💙 #literature #booksky

About small liberal-arts colleges, Ian Bogost writes in @theatlantic.com: “The form of higher ed that they provide seems poised to be the most resilient in the years to come.” 🎓 #educationmatters #academia #liberalarts #academicsky #SLAC

After the past week, this headline from @mashagessen.bsky.social in the @nytimes.com says it all.

New semester, new office — starting to feel like I’m settled in. For everyone who’s with me returning to the classroom this month: stay warm, stay strong, keep up the good fight. Education matters. #academia #highered #humanitiessky #officehours

“Perhaps most surprising is that these trends were distinctly robust among the youngest American adults — those under 25. This group increased its animus against marginalized groups in general and gay people in particular at a faster rate than older Americans did.” #stophate #gaypride

“Georges de La Tour’s scan of the visual field is a stark, bold testing out of basic facets of experience. What is it to face another human, when that person cannot see you?“ 🕯️🔥 @lrb.co.uk #baroque #arthistory

“The crisis of the humanities has been revealed by the events of the last year to be a crisis of civil society writ large. … Many [non-humanities] educators now see that defunding the humanities is the tip of a spear aimed at them as well.” The answer is “to organize.”

Reasons for hope, from @adambonica.bsky.social “There is another America inside this one, visible in the statistics of nations that made different choices. Call it Latent America: the nation that would exist if our democracy functioned to serve the public rather than protect the already powerful.”

“Mamdani — the son of the filmmaker Mira Nair, a onetime rapper and a sometime patron of comedy, music and theater — this week prevailed upon the annual Under the Radar festival, which is running through Jan. 25, to make 1,500 free tickets available.“

From the “Strength in Numbers” Substack: “Americans do not want war with Venezuela”

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs - Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75% - Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60% - Social Sciences by 50–70% - History by 60% - Biology by 75% - The German department will lose all PhD seats - Sociology from six PhD students to zero

UNTIL IT’S DONE, Ep. 4: Sylvia Rivera In the 1970s, queer New Yorkers had been pushed to the margins of NYC. Our trans neighbors faced immense cruelty. But in Sylvia Rivera, they found a champion. As we combat Trump’s politics of darkness, her legacy can light the path forward.

“The crisis in criticism is not just about fewer jobs but about the intellectual health of of our culture. If we let art criticism become an exclusive club for the well-connected and well-funded, we risk creating an echo chamber that flatters power...” @nyobserver.bsky.social #artswriting #criticism

Dispatch from the University of Chicago: “The university’s trustees and leaders view it preeminently as a tax-free technology incubator, and its debt load is so great that it is abandoning ideals it once held dear in order to sustain that goal. We are simply choosing not to be a university.”

Portait of the sculptor Alessandro Vittoria, Giovanni Battista Moroni, 1551-1552, oil on canvas, 87.5 cm × 70 cm (34.4 in × 28 in), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. #portraiture #arthistory #moroni

(1/14) So many tributes these past few days in honor of Robert Wilson (1941–2025) — widely hailed as the most significant American theater director of his generation. Here’s a memorial thread. #RobertWilson #avantgarde #contrmporary #opera #performance #theaterhistory #theater #InMemoriam

We should be ok then:

Early design for Bernini's baldacchino in St. Peter's, topped by the Risen Christ (rather than orb with cross as executed). #HappyEaster

Turns out Millennial Grey was a thing in the 1420s too…

We are living in a new branch of history, created by Covid and only now, five years later, really coming into view. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Needed a momentary break from the headlines, the gloom, and the doom, so took a daytrip into the city to catch Cy Twombly at the Gagosian, and Isabelle Huppert and Robert Wilson at NYU’s Skirball Center. 💛 #cytwombly #isabellehuppert #robertwilson #contemporaryart #nyc #nyu

Really wishing I lived in London right now, not least of all so I could go catch Jonathan Bailey play Richard II at the Bridge Theater. I meannnnnn.... www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/t... #williamshakespeare #theater #londontheater #jonathanbailey

Butler: “Those who celebrate his defiance and sadism are as claimed by his logic as those who are paralyzed with outrage. Perhaps it is time to stand apart from these passions to see how they work, but also to find passions of our own.” — @theguardian.com, 6 Feb 2025 #RefuseFascism #DemocracyNow

Useful reading, with some much needed perspective and recommendations. *9. Prepare for a long fight* “This is the fight of our generation, and it will take time.” #defenddemocracy #refusefascism

Spending the afternoon in editor mode, working to prepare a new collection of the nonfiction writings of Thornton Wilder. Here he is with Gertrude Stein, visiting her summer home in Bilignin, France, ca. 1937/1938. #thorntonwilder #gertrudestein #moderndrama #modernism

New research from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University “finds that as humans increasingly rely on generative AI in their work, they use less critical thinking, which can ‘result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.’” #brainrot #forreal

Useful reading, with some much needed perspective and recommendations. *9. Prepare for a long fight* “This is the fight of our generation, and it will take time.” #defenddemocracy #refusefascism

In honor of the birthday today of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)—poet, theorist, and dramatist—here’s a YouTube video adaptation of one of his short prose texts, “If Sharks Were Men.” More urgent and disturbing today than any time in recent memory, seems like. 🦈 #brecht #antifascist #refusefascism #HBD

Opening this week in Saratoga Springs, NY, a *major* exhibition of queer lives, queer visual art, queer performances, and queer archival practices. "a field of bloom and hum" Tang Museum Feb 14-Jul 20 #queer #queerlives #queerart #queerarchives 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Info below: ⬇️ ⬇️ tang.skidmore.edu/exhibitions/...

Here’s the political theorist and historian of reactionary conservatism, Corey Robin, writing on Facebook about recent a recent shift in how left-liberal pundits are responding to our country’s unfolding hostile takeover. @joriegraham.bsky.social

H/t @alexanderchee.bsky.social: “They’re shortselling on our destruction.”

John Singer Sargeant, “Piazza Navona, Rome,” 1906, watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper (21 x 17 in.)

In 1933, fascists undertook a wholesale purge of Germany’s academic system, emptying universities of all professors who were Jewish (or leftist, or simply critical of Naziism) who were branded as “enemies” of the new regime. Reckless talk, dangerous territory. #Remember #History #ProudProf

Little postcard from the past, from the long history of autocrats and autocracy. #otd

“Nobody other than Raymond Chandler and Mike Davis ever nailed down a vision of Los Angeles as beautifully rendered and terrifying and complete as David Lynch did with Mulholland Drive.” — @jacobinmag.bsky.social pays tribute to the genius of #DavidLynch (1946–2025)

“I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down – I just didn’t expect them to be such losers” 💣💥🔥 #requiredreading

“Epic theater does not develop action but mirrors reality by making it strange (Verfremdung). Brecht’s theatrical images and captions, on the other hand, aim at ‘exorcizing their sensationalism.’” Worthwhile reading on Bertolt #Brecht as a visual artist. #collage #epictheater #eflux #bertoltbrecht

RIP Richard Foreman (1937–2025), American #avant-garde playwright and #theater director extraordinaire. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/t... 📸: Joseph Moran/Brooklyn Rail. #newyorktheater #downtown #contemporary #performance #postdramatic #richardforeman #RIP

Lots of us still wondering what we need to read and discuss to better understand the recent US presidential election. I found this roundup from the PLE Project (Law & Political Economy) blog especially helpful. @lpeproject.bsky.social @lpeblog.bsky.social lpeproject.org/blog/what-we...

“Hope’s biggest obstacle is failure. Hope falters, we lose hope, but we need hope to think otherwise in the face of odds that are stacked against us.”—José Esteban Muñoz

“A society in which liberal values have lost all credibility or have never gained sufficient traction in the first place will be inclined toward atavism rather than progress, and it will deploy democracy against itself.” — Peter Gordon on our current moment, writing in @bostonreview.bsky.social

For the last issue of *PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art*, editor Bonnie Marranca invited me to contribute something on the subject of criticism. The issue's now available online and my essay’s available for open access. (Link in comments below.)

Here’s a fantastic memorial for Fredric Jameson (1934-2024) by Bruce Robbins, Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. Jameson gave us new ways to understand modern literature and art, global modernity, and political economy. thebaffler.com/latest/fredr...

Still not 100% sure how (why?) to use this app, tbh (comments welcome) so I’ll start out by reposting some excellent long-form reads.