it's annoying that books contain the most substantial engagement with our work, but now are basically totally impossible to digitally search? basically no idea who is citing me therein

the only thing i care about is bogs now. gonna turn bog into a personality trait.

Settler colonialism and political theory Critical Exchange -- Open access with contributions from David Myer Temin, Morgan Mowatt, Max Ajl & Phil Henderson link.springer.com/article/10.1...

in the 1970s, the University of Minnesota had an "Underground Space Center" to explore a variety of possibilities to expand city life to the subsurface realm, particularly for energy conservation. as you can see, this included thinking about campus space -- leading to Williamson Hall, i think!

Very cool version of this monthly global average surface temperature anomaly chart showing both El Niño and La Niña years

I'm two late papers away from sabbatical levels of freedom

I think I don't have the burning hatred of canvas that others do. but I came up in its midst so maybe it's just the water I swim in.

a global canvas leak/outage is amazing development for this particular week

Documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple speaks with Marya E. Gates about the legacy of her two trailblazing films on labor unions and the fight for workers’ rights, Harlan County U.S.A and American Dream, to celebrate their new restorations. https://boxd.it/37M

New higher ed dispatch presenting a concrete guide to holding meetings with immediate coworkers in departments, labs, and other work groups which make up the university. longhaulmag.com/2026/04/27/a...

yo social scientists are there any transcription tools these days that are actually secure enough to use? would really like to cut down on this time-consuming task but i'm worried about the ubiquity of offered services

Times have been worse than they are today in the U.S. Important to remember not because some people aren't living under terrible conditions right now but because it shows that things can in fact change for the better. They change if we change them.

the quality of information gap between FT and NYT is wild.

the college band in downtown Oxford has so far played pretty well executed Interpol and Modest Mouse covers??

Welcome to the second keynote at the 2026 Midwestern History Conference! Dr. Kai Bosworth (@kaibosworth.bsky.social), Associate Professor of International Studies at Virgina Commonwealth University, will present "Pipeline Opposition and Midwestern Regional Identities". #MHA2026 THREAD:

at the history conference and someone told me "you showed a map that broke me" 😬

Ohio is a pretty funny state to have a town named Oxford

In honor of the 10th anniversary of Prince's death, we're rereading @drshabazzz.bsky.social's luminous geography of the Minneapolis Sound. It opens with the concert where Prince debuted "Purple Rain," collaborating “not only with his bandmates, but with the histories that created the city itself."

Video from "The Data Center Frontier": A recent NHM roundtable with Jordan B. Kinder (Métis), Krystal Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota / Northern Cheyenne), Vivek Bharathan, and Thea Riofrancos on the movements rising to stop data centers. thenaturalhistorymuseum.org/the-data-cen...

Last weekend, I was honored to visit Erin Moore's "Pipeline Portal" structure in Oregon--and to talk with Larry and Sylvia Mangan--on land where the Pacific Connector LNG Pipeline was proposed, but was ultimately stopped due to opposition.

"theorymax" has entered my vocabulary

protip - if you ask a discussion question framed as "how do ethnographic methods show X in a different light," chatgpt will tend to give an answer that ethnography demonstrates their complexity, nuance, situatedness, etc -- have found it to be a very easy tell as to whether students are using it.

Huge news: Jordan Acker, who infamously pushed state to prosecute UM student protestors, loses bid for re-election to UM Regents. The winner: Amir Makled, who provided pro bono legal support to those same UM students. Enormous victory for the Palestine/student solidarity movement.

"AI" search results do offer some benefits in answering simple questions, since Google results algorithms (and other search platforms) begat ad-ridden websites juiced to the front with 8 paragraphs of explanation, description, and Q&A - websites that are themselves written by LLMs anyway

Since January 2025, 47 people have died in ICE custody. In 2026 alone: 16 deaths, that's 1 every 6.3 days. At this pace, 2026 would exceed 60 custody deaths for the year.

a quirk of language that drives me up a wall is that terms like ecology, geography, and geology can refer to processual "study of...", the object itself under study, or the subject or disciplinary community of study. it makes writing and communication unnecessarily annoying!

Had a great time chatting with @yessfun.com about why environmental journalists should be covering crackdowns on protest. www.sej.org/publications...

good morning colson whitehead, most accomplished of maker workers! "Some people say, “I just use it to brainstorm ideas.” If you don’t know what to paint, or compose, or write, you’re in the wrong job. Art is the business of making up stuff — go make up some stuff." www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/o...

new from Charmaine Chua:

I put on the mask so everyone else can take theirs off

what's the genealogy of the "we answer your questions" as news article? is it a recent post-2016 attempt at faux populism / "we're actually in touch with you masses"? horrific form of writing as the questions are already pre-curated to be the most potted variety.

programming note -- i am on research leave to work on my next book, Protectors of the Subsurface: Militant Investigation and Critical Imagination in Anti-Oil Activism, until Jan 2027! I have plenty for visits, talks, students, etc! (i am also saying no to peer reviews on anything but this topic)

telling that even jacobin germany has a palestine issue before jacobin usa.

Excited to share a new paper in @societyandspace.bsky.social, co-authored with 8 graduate students from a Fall 2023 Black Geographies Seminar. I am grateful for them and our collaborators at Highlander, BattleField Farm, and the Children’s Defense Fund/Alex Haley Farm. doi.org/10.1177/0263...

The war on Iran about oil. Its about the US's declining grip on the future A regime of energy abundance is emerging. It won't stop climate change below 3C. It is upending the existing structure of global production, displacing the US from it centre tinyurl.com/mtuuwwu5 | @theecologist.org

compelling article in @antipodeonline.bsky.social -- "The Metabolic Rift in Radical Geography: Massimo Quaini and the Territoriality of the Ecological Crisis" Pasquale Pennacchio onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

bought some veggie sausages advertised as "27g protein" which the label says is now only 4% of recommended daily value lol

I know a lot about petty regional grievances, but LeBron's Ohioan hatred of Memphis has me lost

obviously a good portion of the Forest Service is DOGE-style austerity slash and burn. but closing regional offices in favor of states is devolution of federal authority to reactionary local power. South Dakota forest management e.g. is gonna be pure fireworks. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Henri Lefebvre wasn't a fan of previous missions to the moon - "the sacrifice of a considerable part of the earth's resources in order to gain possession of one of the ghastliest of all the piles of pebbles rattling around in space" (La Fin de l’histoire in 1970, p. 212, Key Writings, p. 182).

I have gotten EIGHT peer review invitations in March 2026. I really try to say "yes" but that is WAY too many for one person (I've already done five since January and have two more on deck).

The Atlantic article "plants the image...'not of tunnels perhaps, but of whispered channels: mosques that doubled as surveillance nodes, schools and ministries laced with informants...A hidden circulatory system beneath the city’s surface.'" www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/ren...

Now available for preorder - Working Nature: A History of the Energy Economy by Daniela Russ "Consistently brilliant and illuminating, Working Nature announces the arrival of a major new voice on the scene of ecological Marxism." - Andreas Malm

dream: an author meets critics session on my book. all three discussannts were noise musicians, and their commentary was only guitar feedback and the like. I had to respond with words.

I read this book when i was like 22 after picking it up at the US Social Forum in Detroit. now a bunch of these ppl are my friends and comrades and we continue to work on this stuff. writing about this history reminds me that if you think someone is doing cool work you can just like...do it w them

ok, this is an oddity. 1915 thesis on "swamp land drainage" in...political science? curious to read...

I have a couple of speaking events in Oregon and Ohio to kick off the end of the semester/summer transition. say 'hi' if you're around! more details to come

one benefit of going to a teen rock show is that I'm a foot taller than everyone

today at #AAG2026 I'll be presenting my work on subsurface geographies at 10:10am! Then at 12:50, an author meets critics on Alyssa Battistoni’s Free Gifts

today at #AAG2026 I'll be responding to some brilliant papers at this session on "Santa Cruz School of Political Ecology, Past and Future 2: New Directions." 2:30pm! #geosky