Oxford Handbook to the End of Academia

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪

Save the date for the next Tennyson Talk on Thursday, December 4 at 7:30 PM GMT, 230 EST by Professor Alison Chapman, University of Victoria Her title is “Cut-and-Paste Tennyson: illustrated periodical poetry extracts and the poetic line.” Contact [email protected] for the Zoom link if needed

comrade JCO gets it completely CHOP FROM THE TOP (solemn vow never ever to screenshot badsite; solemn exception for this urgent story; rally against these anti-intellectuals detonating public goods for the working people of NJ!)

Few things bug me more than higher ed leaders saying that we lost our mission and lost the trust of the public, when we have actually been the target of a decades-long smear campaign by the right wing that worked. The moment we’re losing our mission is right now, in capitulation.

Crypto ATMs are almost perfectly designed to facilitate financial crime from the most vulnerable Americans. Be very suspicious of anyone who asks you to make a deposit into one; they are designed to make it impossible for you to get it back. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/t...

Look what @dandrezner.bsky.social started over at the hellsite?

My favourite year for oppressed literary masculinity was 2023 when the number of women on the Booker shortlist was smaller than the number of men named Paul

It’s appalling the British Prime Minister has not actively stood up for the BBC amid what is transparently not anything like a bias problem but a deeply petty nitpick of its periphery functions by partisan folk appointed by previous governments that hate the broadcaster

This is a grotesque assault on faculty expertise and self-governance. I was fortunate enough to start my academic career as an assistant professor at Montclair State. Solidarity with MSU humanists being buzzworded into a new School of Human Narratives and Creative Expressions none of them want.

🚗 EV adoption isn’t just about cars—it’s also about oil. The @iea.org’s #WEO2025 shows that the pace of transport electrification is the most significant factor in determining future oil demand. Canada can lead the EV revolution—or watch others take the wheel. ➡️ www.iea.org/reports/worl...

Meanwhile in Canada, half of the country lives in provinces ruled by people who think solar is Evil and Unmanly, and the federal government is run by a man lacking both imagination and conviction when it comes to energy and climate policy.

Major in Africana Studies or any humanities course like English Literature! You could be mayor of New York City. You could do anything.

Nuts.

😬😬😬

The Canadian Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Research is launching a US-style attack on EDI in Tri-Council funding. As part of this attack, they are demanding disclosure of confidential demographic info + reviewer comments of all Canadian researchers who have applied b/w 2000-2025.

In 2018 Ford promised he wouldn't touch rent control. He lied. Now he has the audacity to blame renters for his failure to build housing and make life affordable Ontarians. Bill 60 will accelerate the rate of homelessness, and blames renters for the Landlord Tenant Board that he broke.

Allll right! #bluejays

I cannot tell you how many tech journalists at prominent media organizations do not understand this

This would have led to catastrophic new levels of homelessness — thank you to everyone who spoke out. Now let’s keep hammering the Ford government on its bad decisions about bike lanes, supervised consumption sites and speed cameras. www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/poli...

Thanks to the swift & significant backlash, the Ford government has backed off from their plan to end month-to-month leases. Still need to fight other parts of Bill 60 such as banning converting vehicle lanes to bike or bus lanes. #BikeTO #TTC #TOpoli #ONpoli www.torontotoday.ca/local/politi...

If you know anyone who is a renter in Ontario (hint, I am!). Then it is urgent that you sign the following petition. Ford and the Cons what to make sure that renters are permanent secondary citizens and put every single renter in the position of being 1 for profit decision away from being homeless

* laughs nervously * I’m in danger… www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

11!!

Omg 9-2!!!

Maybe I should watch a ball game tonight.

Gonna replace them with robots no doubt.

An epically bad week for Canada's auto industry, and for our EV strategy in particular. Would love to hear from some #NDP leadership candidates on how to respond. Double down on subsidies to car companies? Open the door to Chinese EVs? Big issues for Canadian workers and for our climate goals.

Some data: Centrists as the NYT defines them -- pro-corporate, moderate on social issues and silent on class -- lost the Presidency against non-centrist Republicans in 2000, 2004, 2016, 2024. And AOC and Bernie regularly get votes from folks who also voted for Trump. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/o...

Everyone who writes for a living should try the exercise Renkl performs in this essay to learn how much the makers of so-called AI have stolen from us. And everyone should also internalize her final point about how grossly ignorant these machines remain. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/o...

In furious despair at the @nytimes.com lack of front-page attention to yesterday's protests. But perhaps it matters more that papers in Dothen, AL and small Idaho and Arkansas towns are leading with these powerful photos and stories. See the collection of front pages below for reassurance.

Looking at you, #Dartmouth

you fucked around and now the Episcopalians are doing memes. are you happy now. are you

It is at least *interesting* that the people making this supposedly world-changing technology think its most profitable use cases are: social media videos and sexting.

and then the cancer cures right

Does it matter where our future doctors attended high school? Doug Ford seems to think so, by @picardonhealth.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/0fc7a92... via @globeandmail #IMGs #MedEd

There will be a depressing number of institutions that say yes or flirt with this, but also doesn't opening up the offer to all-comers so quickly seem just a little thirsty? Like they're putting fascism on sale for 20% off because not enough universities are buying?

Any kid in an inflatable frog costume who shows up at our door Halloween is gonna hit the jackpot.

This just happened in Arts and Humanities at my institution #weternu in Canada. Where does this stuff come from? Is there some Bond villain’s lair sending coded messages to university admins worldwide?

congrats to Nobel Peace Prize winner Portland Frog

It’s completely delusional to think the most pressing threat to humanity comes from glorified chatbots. The world’s two largest nuclear arsenals are controlled by unhinged old men.

Cornell alums! Cornell continues to be pressured by the current administration in DC to reach a deal to restore federal research funding. Please consider signing this petition! Please also share widely with any Cornell graduates you know!

Someone is doing to die after being hit by a driver of a vehicle at a location that used to have a speed camera. This will be on you, Doug.

Of course this is why.

"No institution that is committed to the free pursuit of knowledge should submit to the degradation of autonomy and academic freedom contained in it." @acls1919.bsky.social statement on the White House "compact" proposed to universities. www.acls.org/news/acls-st...