This is SO COOL — a lost Méliès film from 1895 in which a person plays a briefly out of control robot. How timely. So glad some of my tax dollars are still going to stuff like this

This resonates sooooo much.

A very necessary response, but most enamored by fact that the president of a major university can name actual specific research projects undertaken by his faculty

The US isn't the exception; it's the outlier

Why oh why is it an essential part of my writing process to spend at least 24 hours per chapter in a state of complete and utter conviction that everything is a mess, that I have no good ideas, and that I never will

The most helpful men in the world still do less unpaid labour than the vast majority of women. Yeesh. Lots of fascinating data and charts in this one! www.not-ship.com/hey-guys-you...

Why are the Luddites the current emblem of tech resistance? I think it's that the Luddites safely constrain the problem space--and also, maybe inadvertently, the scope of possible solutions. Glad to be able to write some of this down in the February AIAI newsletter. mailchi.mp/707b81b70010...

reposting as this will be such a valuable book for PhD students, postdocs, and really anyone who wonders how to combine humanities & technology in the workplace - abstracts due March 15! Edited by an amazing team - @kallewesterling.bsky.social @lisaironcutter.bsky.social & Jeanelle Horcasitas

Today's viz inspo

Concerned about ICE's $45 billion plan to convert warehouses into immigration detention centers? This is what they'll look like inside. From ICE's plan for the Social Circle, GA facility. Each little dot: a person. www.socialcirclega.gov/home/showpub...

Ah, it’s the waking up in the middle of the night with a line edit phase of finishing this book

👀

Waiting to see how long it takes institutions reinstate the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs they shut down, re-hire those they pushed out, and rewrite all the language they rushed to change. Something tells me it'll likely be a long wait.

CDH announces new role as publisher of @culturalanalytics.bsky.social! New website launches with expanded vision for cultural analytics scholarship, supported by @schmidtsciences.bsky.social HAVI program. JCA also joins @ojcollective.bsky.social. More on editorial team and new features below.

My contribution to the discourse, which I've said before and will say again: DH isn't over. DH has won. 1/

There is only ever one complaint about "woke humanities" at its root: sheer fury that somewhere, someone "undeserving" (to be clear, they mean Black people) could get funding, however little. It is exactly the same as attacks on the NEH, attacks on welfare, the DOGE cuts. Different verse, same tune.

I wrote up the talk I gave at CESTA a couple weeks ago, on how we're overdue on changing the narrative about what digital humanities prepares students for. It's not fallback jobs in tech, it's getting involved in your community in moments of crisis. And craft helps build those skills. #DHmakes

Very public humanities!

Lisa Lowe is an essential missing interlocutor here (and in all discussions of AI, Marxism, labor, the erasure of bodies), but I am enjoying this debate and this particular intervention into it!

Bluesky, your time is now! Who can suggest a replacement for my very favorite nonstick turner, which has at long last met its end. Needs: strong enough to flip a quesadilla, thin enough to get under an omelette, long not short, doesn't flop under weight. Send me your links!

New! Anuli Akanegbu’s report “(404) Job Not Found” interrogates what it means to be perceived as “AI literate” in today’s labor market, & how those perceptions are shaping the career outcomes of Black workers who are already navigating a wide range of inequities. 1/6 datasociety.net/library/404-...

Quilicura, Chile, one of the communities I wrote about in EMPIRE OF AI, has launched a brilliant initiative to inspire more responsible AI prompting. Today, don't use AI; ask the townspeople instead: quili.ai. So heartened to see this creative act of resistance.

ACH is holding our annual virtual conference, ACH 2026, from June 24 to 26, 2026. We are excited to announce that we have extended our call for papers to February 23, 2026: buff.ly/Rltfrcu

Join us in Bologna, Italy, 4–6 Nov 2026 for Visualising Climate — the first global conference fully dedicated to climate data visualization and its power to transform public understanding of a changing planet. Come see the data. visualisingclimate.org #VisualisingClimate2026 #DataVis #ClimateCrisis

On February 20 we'll host two events @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social to celebrate the upcoming release of _The Campus Crisis Toolkit_ (SUNY Press). @thetattooedprof.bsky.social and Lisa Di Bartolomeo will be joining us for a day of reflection, connection, and solidarity.

More good news, this time on the local front. DATA BY DESIGN has a page on the MIT Press website and with that, an official pub date! October 20th, 2026. Watch the skies! mitpress.mit.edu/978026205618...

This must be weird news to see if you’re one of the literally hundreds or even thousands of university administrators who preemptively censored faculty, scrubbed websites, changed the names of centers, etc.

More in Prize Studies, a field I did not know I cared about until today

🔥 "to address what is missing from the cultural record, we should not replace the real with the fabricated. We must elevate the accountability, specificity, and reflection that has long accompanied archival work" arxiv.org/abs/2502.19190

I was today years old when I found out that Knut Hamsun gave away his Nobel Prize medal, too -- to Joseph Goebbels in 1943.

How does DH travel outside the academy? What impact and what careers do DH skills enable? CFP for our next excellent (and necessary) book in the DDH series, edited by Jeanelle Horcasitas, @lisaironcutter.bsky.social, and @kallewesterling.bsky.social dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/page/cfp-dh-...

@miriamposner.com bringing it like she always does

This is so niche and I love it

Can't wait to hold this amazing book in my hands!

Still plenty of time to put together an application. Three scholars held this role previously. Each of them made a significant impact working with graduate student instructors at CUNY, and then moved on to a tenure-track position at other universities.

Love this!

Found the coolest website that takes random found cassette tapes people submit and digitizes them. I’m listening to an NYC hip hop station from 1994: intertapes.net

Grateful to have had a small hand in shaping this program, and thrilled for these awardees. I cannot wait to see what they do!

Care is the holy grail of automation. Because we need it to survive, but it's too labor-intensive to be profitable, even as it gets more expensive. And because we could make it a public good, but only by raising taxes on billionaires. So, be *very* skeptical when they claim AI can replace care.

Incredible book, if you haven’t seen it. I think about the “technologically precocious boy” all the time.

So many great pieces in this volume. Can’t wait to see it out in the world!

Favorite natural experiment or favorite natural experiment?

Our School of Information Sciences is running four searches, and we can hire more than four candidates. Here’s the first link, for a job that might appeal to people working in history of information, history of science, or digital humanities. +

The first of a series of talks about DATA BY DESIGN, this one with @chronictanvi.bsky.social about how vis history can shape current design practices, is now online--along with all of the other amazing talks from @infoplusconf.bsky.social. Check them out! informationplusconference.com/2025/talks/

@wearehighered.bsky.social has designed a quick survey to gather information about current state and federal attacks on higher ed, program closures, budget cuts, etc. There is a lot happening all over, and a lot that isn’t being reported on. Take a moment to document it here:

My new big visualization project is out: The Trans News Initiative, a collaboration between UM's School of Communication, the Trans Journalists Association, and Polygraph (The Pudding): transnewsinitiative.org Here's a piece about it in the Columbia Journalism Review: www.cjr.org/news/visuali...

This is a 52-pound 9000+ page accordion-bound artist’s book of Donald Trump’s lies, conceived, printed, and bound by Jill and Ray Nichols of @leadgraffiti.bsky.social in Delaware. Each of the 9000 pages has the text (per the Washington Post) of one or more of Trump’s lies; none are repeated.

Excited to be up in Boston with @chronictanvi.bsky.social for Info+, a conference I’ve long admired

Just need everyone to Google the name "Rosalind Franklin" at this moment.

Cannot wait to share this with all of you!