Thanks to @evankindley.bsky.social for shepherding this into print. www.chronicle.com/article/peer...

my college kid was heartbroken when on the first day of class the professor said "I used to spend 3 weeks teaching this part, but just have AI create it for you and we'll skip it." Skipping the most creative part of the work. The part my kid most looked forward to.

Here’s a thing I’ve started to do: leave a little “Survival Kit” for our graduate student instructors in their offices before the first day of classes. It includes…

It was such a joy today to get to fan girl all the way out and introduce our graduate student instructors in English to Catherine Denial, whose work has influenced so much of the work I’ve been doing these last several years with our grad program. 😍

Any other Hopkins authors get the LLM licensing email? Thoughts?

“Work a little harder. / Work another way.”

💯

There are whole movies that don’t have the twists and turns of this paragraph.

The work of the ACLS matters now more than ever, and I’m floored by the honor of being among this year’s awardees!

Let ‘em cook!

In my happy place.

Here's a VERY Rare Book! Dare I say.... a UNICORN? How could I (almost) miss that it's #NationalUnicornDay? #volvelle #interactive #popup #NewberryLibrary i-share-nby.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...

Data providers like EBSCO, ProQuest, Sage + Cengage are “implementing “local controls” on databases, particularly related to health + race. ‘Under even the smallest of threats, the co’s have provided the tools or have secretly put on the tools… that apply the content blocking on these systems”

I guess even the cats are angry hedge fund managers now, and nothing makes sense anymore.

This exciting resolution from Rutgers University Senate is exactly the kind of model I think higher ed needs: a mutual defense pact of, in this case, Big 10 schools. They call for member institutions to create a joint defense fund and make resources available to any member institution under attack.

Fire up your typing fingers, friends, because I can’t wait to read your essays as a new member of PMLA’s advisory board starting this summer.

For all you #severance fans, don’t sleep on this brilliant essay about the show by the one and only @drew-strombeck.bsky.social. the-rambling.com/2022/10/21/i...

Eighteenth-Century Studies is looking for a new Book Review Editor! Deadline to apply is April 15. Details are at asecs.org/publications...

Delighted to feature this essay—a must-read for anyone interested in eighteenth-century numismatics—as part of the Vetusta Monumenta project!

These are the days, it never rains but it pours…

The irony that now we really do need someone in the government to “stop the steal.”

I’ve got a new essay in @thepointmag.bsky.social reviewing books by Michael Chaouli, Jonathan Kramnick, and Lauren Oyler, and talking about what I love about (reading about) literary criticism, and how I do not love The Discourse. thepointmag.com/criticism/a-...

Check out @drew-strombeck.bsky.social with work from a new book project in the latest issue of NOVEL! 😍

Good news! My beloved little wonder book is freshly published by @cambridgeup.bsky.social ! Digital access is available for free through 27 Feb 2025. Please share! Please welcome this beauty into the world! #C18L #18thcentury DOI: doi.org/10.1017/9781...

New at PB, Eleanor Courtemanche reviews Elizabeth S. Anker’s “On Paradox,” which combines a genuine commitment to the work of abstraction with a critique of the contemporary tendency to political doomerism.

You’ll get 25% off my book if you pre-order today-Friday via Barnes & Noble. I’m really proud of IN THE RHODODENDRONS & I want to find its people. AND other beautiful books are coming out soon and you can use the same offer to pre-order them as well, so I wanted to share a couple recommendations.

Everything is insane right now but one little ray of sunlight is that I just got a new gig trying to use public policy to create as many local journalism jobs as humanly possible. mattdpearce.substack.com/p/ive-got-a-...

Season 2 of Severance comes out today (finally!). Here's a piece I wrote for @therambling.bsky.social about how the show reflects how attitudes about corporate work have evolved (and have not) since the 1950s and 1960s. the-rambling.com/2022/10/21/i...

high school teacher asks: "is there a site w short videos of people describing their professions+their college major, to help guide students, show them all the different things people do?" we made humanitiesworks.org and individual depts have alumni roundtables, but got video testimonials? please RT

“The notion of living with actual illness is anathema to our self-directed, time-prizing society.” Julia Kendal on the intersection of illness and beauty trends, historically and now.

"I’ve spent many years searching for some version of my story, yet what seems a simple premise—'daughter carries on without father'—is not so simple to find in children’s literature." Abigail Spencer on the Amber Brown series

"By then, I knew that what I had always wanted from a story was what I had wanted from life: to make it mean something despite what seemed like utter chaos." Samantha Colicchio on her journey with the hit TV show Lost. the-rambling.com/2024/11/23/i...

Pretty sure Walter is also a kind of turkey…

For its 50th anniversary, I wrote about Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. Cities! Haunted houses! Heads growing out of butts! And more… the-rambling.com/2024/11/23/i...

Turkey trot your way over to @therambling.bsky.social straight away, because our latest issue is out—from Lost to Lord of the Rings, reality TV to “succubus chic,” you will not lack for conversation at the dinner table after reading the essays at the-rambling.com. 🐌🦃

Kiddo home from college: “Why is there so much prosciutto in the fridge?” Partner: “Your mom’s been buying prosciutto for the cats.”

If you aren’t following @therambling.bsky.social yet, you might wanna do that before next week. #teaser

Feeling homesick for deep snow in the holler.

"The Quilt Index is an open access, digital repository of thousands of images, stories and information about quilts and their makers drawn from hundreds of public and private collections around the world." (via The Syllabus Project) quiltindex.org

“Jo, Beth, Meg, and Amy constantly chose unexpected paths. Despite being separated from these four women by a century and a half, by continents and culture, I sought refuge in their company.” the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/i...

“Now, as a writer and precocious kid grown old, I reread I Capture the Castle with more awe than I had when I packed it in my suitcase and stole it from dear Nana. I’m better armed for awe now—by education and by experience.” the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/i...

Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw “showed me, as a child, that books didn’t simply happen—they were made by people who cared about the written word, and those people were once children who loved the written word.” Matthew Luter’s essay is so full of tenderness. the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/i...

"Rereading The Black Stallion alongside Robinson Crusoe today, I can see that, in addition to their carapace of imperial masculinity & all of its attendant violence, these novels create space for the girl I was & the woman I’ve become." Read more by Alison Conway! the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/i...

“[W]atching my students experience reading a serious, grown-up novel for the first time helped me heal my relationship with reading after graduate school.” All the feels in this essay by Katie Nolan. the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/i...

The answer to every story about elite college admissions is to make sure every American has access to a low price high quality public education within a reasonable drive of their hometown. The wild thing is we mostly achieved this. Then destroyed it.

“As with the Dashwood sisters, death precipitated my own adolescent plot...” Grab a box of tissues and go read Shawn Lisa Maurer’s beautiful, personal tribute to Jane Austen in the latest issue of The Rambling! the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/i...

The “absence” of 18th-century books “from conservative ban lists seems to align somewhat uncomfortably with the pop-academic idea that eighteenth-century texts and ideas are naturally right-wing friendly." Read, laugh, rage, cry more here: https://the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/issue16-santesso/

The Rambling’s been moving a little slow lately 🐌, but we are out of our shell now with a stunning new issue over at the-rambling.com. Please help us get the word out by sharing your faves!

Dennison's Bogie Book, 1920. A catalogue of Halloween party supplies & decorating ideas, from the legendary producer of stationery & notions. archive.org/details/denn...