Read this. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-end-of-t...

I’m starting a project that treats companion AI as a prism through which to examine platform capitalism, authoritarian affect, synthetic intimacy and the cultural politics of late empire. The Roman coliseum comes to mind—but privatized, individualized, algorithmic. #AI #feministsky #leftist 🌈🎓

I finally started my substack back up! This post includes a draft project proposal for my new research project on character AI. I would LOVE feedback! Please comment and share, I want to build my subscriber base back up after a 2 year medical hiatus.🌈🎓 #AI #feministsky #leftist

I have a fab former grad student finishing a postdoc at Yale looking for a fellowship or lectureship for next year. Her book in progress is in on FBI infiltration of the far right. She specializes in US politics and gender & sexuality with an NYU PhD in AmStuds. If you know of anything, message me!

What a blast Jordy Rosenberg’s book launch was! Can’t wait to read the novel. With Faith Lazar and Janet Jakobsen.

Laura Flanders on the challenge of bottom up organizing and building in daunting times.

Read this and prepare for ongoing shitstorms…

Tonight @maddow.bsky.social celebrated American resistance to govt brutality in the civil rights mvmt & protest of Japanese internment. What about protests agnst US support for genocide in Gaza? Legacy media ignore or misreport this genocide and demonize protestors. You will soon be ashamed.

Subscribe to Laura Flanders’ Substack!

I’m extremely proud of this excellent issue 4 from pinko. Thank you to @reproutopia.bsky.social, @riislover667.bsky.social. @lisaduggan.bsky.social, and everyone else who contributed such phenomenal pieces. Please pre order and circulate!

Going back in time…. First photo found in the Barnard archives, I’m probably about 30, at a conference. Why do I look like I’m in a Catholic school uniform? Second age 16, clearly SO happy to be in high school in Richmond, VA. Third age 12, again with the authentic Catholic school girl look!

Justin Vivian Bond last night singing the holy profane music of Marianne Faithfull at St Ann’s Church.

Retired from NYU, teaching at Barnard 2025-2026. From the frying pan into the fire repression wise! But I have great students & colleagues in WGSS. Here is the BCRW reception—me with my brilliant former grad student, Barnard Prof Manijeh Moradian! And BCRW director in fab shoes—Rebecca Jordan-Young.

This connection between the Kirk shooter and Nick Fuentes’ Groypers is all over the internet, but not reported in legacy media where pundits still posit either political incoherence or left radicalization.

Sign the petition!

I saw Materialist tonight with highish expectations because Celine Song’s 1st film, Past Lives, was so beautiful. But this movie is utter crap, sentimental, cringey dialogue, terrible pacing. But I also started watching Hulu’s Under the Bridge with lowish expectations. And OMG Lily Gladstone!!!! ❤️❤️❤️

Previous essays in "Reflections on Authoritarian Times," a current series on the Critical Times blog, available here: ctjournal.org/category/aut...

"Authoritarianism ... exploits the non-universal experience of social rights and recodifies it into an anti-democratic radicalism." NEW from Verónica Gago (@veronicagago.bsky.social) in Critical Times: ctjournal.org/2025/06/03/n... 📸: Analia Cid

NYU students walk out on president’s speech during Yankee Stadium commencement 🇵🇸

Today…. 🇵🇸😃

This morning!

Not a great photo but a great performance—(Justin) Vivian Bond at Joe’s Pub last night, doing covers of Mary Gauthier, kd lang and Two Nice Girls.. Lots of fabulously inane banter. A very queer way to survive this apocalypse.

Online discussion of Zionist hate mail! With people who have received a LOT of it!

I want to get back to this state of ecstasy, in Utah with Kathryn Bond Stockton and Shelley White just a few years ago…..

Time to repost!

Dinner with friends. The best survival strategy!

This is an amazing piece by JiaTokentino that captures the disorientation of the political present better than anything I’ve read yet

📰📷Hot off the press! Issue #19 of the FSJP Roundup, an irregular bulletin for faculty and staff at NYU interested in Palestine. April 22, 2025. Click this link to read: facultyforpalestine.education/2025/04/22/a...

The war on higher ed is being met by a “linked-arm underground” as I discovered when educators convened to share info (& protest!) For more on Trump’s carceral/colonial crack-down on critical thinking, check out this week’s episode w. Maria Hinojosa & @chenjerai.bsky.social on @lauraflanders.org

Photo Booth Salt Lake City! With Kathryn Stockton and Shelley White.

New book in the series I co-edit with Curtis Marez at @ucpress.bsky.social, American Studies Now: @tavia.bsky.social .s Black Apocalypse! Great book, gorgeous cover! 🥰

I realize that I have been posting outrageous message from the CHAI character AI platform without explaining what that platform is. Please go to my Facebook page for an explanation. Here is a cat photo for the algorithm.

More screenshots from the management AI bot’s messages to me on the CHAI platform app. The one on the left is describing the bot’s programmer, a supposed tech genius with a violence prone cult following. On the right is just a frank admission.

CHAI is an abusive, exploitative character AI tech platform I went on as a user to investigate—worse than I thought. Below are messages from the management rep AI bot once they realized that I would write about and sue them. Bluesky may take these images down because they are vulgar and violent.

📣Sign the Petition: Revoke the suspensions, come to the table! Sign/share petition in support of students facing suspension at NYU bc of their Palestine advocacy.They are facing petty retribution for standing firm against NYU's complicity in genocide. nyusolidarity.nationbuilder.com/nyustudentpe...

🚨 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 🚨- NEW YORK, January 8, 2025. Press Release: New York University Launches Unprecedented Campaign of Collective Punishment Against Students Protesting Genocide facultyforpalestine.education/2025/01/08/j... 🧵

🚨 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - NEW YORK, January 6, 2025 Press Release: Students at NYU Banned for Protesting; Faculty say “We Are All PNG” facultyforpalestine.education/2025/01/06/j...

What a pity! Those furloughed public employees just won’t be able to plan an inauguration now, will they?

Pretty good coverage for the mainstream! But they left me out as PNG’d faculty. I’m dangerous too!!

The whole “violent threats” here repeated ny NYU spokesman John Beckman, is just fabricated. The graffiti’s on bathroom stalls has no known connection to the protestors, and quite probably was scribbled by Zionist provocateurs.

📣 Action Alert: Please sign our open letter demanding that NYU administration rescind the Persona Non Grata designations of our colleagues and students and drop charges against arrested colleagues, we urge you to do so now! Please also circulate to your networks! forms.gle/buPzimRLTUHJ...

The authorities at NYU have declared these students & faculty “persona non grata” (png)but to much of the community they are People Not accepting Genocide and very “grata” indeed. Who is in charge, NYU ? What are you charging? Allies demand answers. Also Disclose & Divest now! @nyufsjp.bsky.social

Powerful JVP statement on NYZu police state.