less A quotas and more of this! THINKING remains the sine qua non

For the Boston Review, I wrote about Somaliland and Israel, the consequences of imagining political freedom as a struggle for national sovereignty, and what growing up in and alongside Somaliland had meant for my political education.

Going on leave next year and what I’m most looking forward to is not having to debate the merits of AI in my university committee meetings. On the record: it sucks, it is terrible, I hate it.

🚨: My new monograph ARRESTING ECOLOGIES: GLOBAL LITERATURE ACROSS AIR, LAND, and SEA, 1926-2014 is available for preorder from OXFORD UP, with 30 percent discount.

It’s the weekend! You could touch grass OR read the new OA issue of @victorianpoetry.bsky.social on the material conditions of Victorian Poetry/humanistic knowledge production, incl my essay on “critical uni press studies.” Here’s a snippet. So honored to be included. 🖤 muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

LYRIC LOGIC is out in the world now!

We the Platform is available for preorder with the discount code CUP20 if you order directly from the press! cup.columbia.edu/book/we-the-... A thread on the argument below:

this is today if you’re free and interested and it’s also today if you’re busy and uninterested

If you’re near Georgetown on Thursday it would be good to see you for this. The great @nicolerizzuto.bsky.social will be talking about ed-tech contracts & members of @guaap.bsky.social will be sharing results of a student survey of GU working conditions 💙

BlueSky: If you've started reading my new book, AESTHETIC IMPROPRIETY: PROPERTY LAW AND POSTCOLONIAL STYLE, and are enjoying it, please consider sending me a sentence or two explaining why. It's for a thing I'm applying for (and a small monetary award for future research funds). Thanks!

I really don’t know what to say about this. Ricardo was probably the most generous and kind academic I have come across ever and I loved working with him. It is unfathomable that he is suddenly gone. Beloved and respected by colleagues and students in and beyond Georgetown. I will miss him.

I just submitted the book I have been working on for a decade to Oxford University Press, where it is under contract. I’ll be taking a nap til the semester starts.

Read this book and highly recommend. Meticulous readings of form and politics poco lit and drama and pairs very well with another stunner on eco politics and form, Aesthetic Impropriety by @rosecasey.bsky.social

Out today: a must-read for anyone interested in po-co literature, law, including environmental law: AESTHETIC IMPROPRIETY: Property Law and Postcolonial Style, by @rosecasey.bsky.social. I loved this book and cannot recommend it enough. Get it!

A little warm in NYC. Hope people are staying cool.

I’ve posted about @nathankhensley.bsky.social ‘s new ACTION WITHOUT HOPE: Victorian Literature and Climate Collapse before, but just got the gorgeous book in my hands. Come for the stunning visuals, stay for the superb argument and analyses of literature and ecologies.

Grades in, no emails denouncing me for said grades, knicks hopefully about to clean the Celtics clocks. Good day.

Awesome if true. 😂

Chartering an AAUP chapter at Georgetown. Please join AAUP, please join us to stand up for our profession, our colleagues, our students, staff, and rights. Email me if you need more info. Trying to end social media forever but needed to announce for colleagues interested.

Congratulations to one of the best to be doing it. Obviously Nathan’s scholarship is exceptional. What people might not know about is his absolute commitment to teaching and to service in all its forms in and beyond g-town. Proud to have @nathankhensley.bsky.social as a colleague and bestie.

I have had the honor of reading much of this book as it was being composed and it is truly a banger, and I cannot wait to get the final, beautiful version in my hands.

For those attending the MLA, the illustrious @bakaari.bsky.social and @lilysaint.bsky.social organized a great panel on the African historical novel and I’m thankful they included me. Come by, Thursday at 3:30.

In my grad theory seminar yesterday a student did a hilarious surprise PowerPoint presentation modeled on Spotify. He called it “critical theory wrapped.” He revealed he’d tracked, secretly, for 10 WEEKS who most mentioned theorist was in the course. Drumroll…..

Just awoke from a nightmare in which I had to take the GRE (currently, lnow, 11/2024), but I failed to charge my computer and battery died before I began. Consequences: very bad. Glad my unconscious is so secure this many years into my professional life. 😵‍💫

You too can read our collection of awesome essays on aesthetics of visual, sound, literary, and architectural infrastructures! I think there’s a link in my bio? Title is The Aesthetic Life of Infrastructure: Race, Affect, Environment.

Today the students in my critical theory class actually asked me if I had advice for what to read to deal with this moment of misery. I told them to read this. www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/exit-right/

I’m in a starter pack! That my friend Aarthi made, and which is very cool. Novel people—heads up on this.

I guess we’re doing this for real? Based on the outrageous number of followers I got in 2 days?

Ok, I started a starter pack for novel scholars and the people who love them. Long live long forms! Happy to add anyone I missed. go.bsky.app/FcvMAmd

A little over two years ago I had just made the move from the USA to Canada and from academia to government when this little doorstop came out. Still very proud of what Alex Goody and I assembled here and still amazed at the brilliance of our contributors edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-edi...

I didn’t know Stuart Curran’s work well, but I believe @drbibliomane.bsky.social and @nathankhensley.bsky.social that he too fits this description. Very sorry for this loss.

Tomorrow.

RIP Fredric Jameson. No book has been more central to my life than The Political Unconscious. I reread it like you do a favorite novel.

I found this discussion about cynicism and democratic capitalism interesting in this podcast. I’m wondering how this affective cynicism relates to postcolonial literatures, and if we could periodize changes in affect around Cold War, post Cold War, contemporary moments of po-co lit production.

Tagging plenary speakers, seminar leaders, and NOVEL journal folks! Please help spread the word about SNS 2025: Novel Languages hosted by Duke University @stephaniedegooyer.bsky.social, @isanchezprado.bsky.social, @nicolerizzuto.bsky.social, @charlottesussman.bsky.social, @jackquirk.bsky.social

This one looks so good!

It's pub day for my critical edition of Nella Larsen's magnificent novel, Passing! This is a novel I've been reading for more than half my life, so what a surreal experience creating this was for me. Larsen's most recent biographer calls the edition "the best we have," but find out for yourselves! 🥳

Tomorrow at MSA Brooklyn. I discuss work and wasted energies (labor and fossil fuel) in maritime literature, modernist and proletarian.

Just liked my own post on x/twitter/whatever so that’s how well it’s going for me right now.

The best days at work are the days my colleagues let me dog-sit their good boys.

Help: would you say that the opposite of the reality effect according to Barthes is Genette’s idea of metalepsis, as a transgression of boundaries between diegetic and extra-diegetic levels? Is text that appears descriptive but can be read as an IMPLICIT, prescriptive address to readers metaleptic?

This seems fun.

Huge congratulations too to @noreenmasud.bsky.social who is touring in support of *another* amazing book : www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/720860...

WE'RE BACK! And this season we're weeeeird. Look out for a special drop later today, featuring the brilliant @katemarshall.bsky.social! 👀👽

Just received. I'm not crying you're crying.

Ben is here, no doubt looking forward to making me scream at him for his puns. Follow him and join me!