I wanted to take a moment to let folks know that Ted Martin's extraordinary book _American Literature's War on Crime_ is out! The book surveys almost 100 novels to explore how the War on Crime was waged on the page & how fiction made the policies & ideologies of crime control legible. It's amazing!

I wanted to take a moment to let folks know that Ted Martin's extraordinary book _American Literature's War on Crime_ is out! The book surveys almost 100 novels to explore how the War on Crime was waged on the page & how fiction made the policies & ideologies of crime control legible. It's amazing!

Donated! Prof. Willoughby-Herard followed her duty and put herself on the line to protect students protesting genocide. The UC and the state see her as a threat and want to make an example out of her. She needs our solidarity and help.

The Return of the '90s (edited by me & @seanobrien.bsky.social ) will be out in June & can now be pre-ordered from @plutopress.bsky.social! Featuring work from many wonderful contributors, with an afterword from Annie McClanahan (@anniemcc.bsky.social): www.plutobooks.com/product/the-...

Hi all--The amazing scholar and activist Tiffany Willoughby-Herard is still facing significant financial burdens as she defends herself against disciplinary action at UCI. Please consider donating and/or share within networks.

Oil prices are going parabolic. This is insane.

So this is gonna be like when we all started following epidemiologists in March 2020, huh.

For reasons @ubiquity75.xyz helps unpack, this interview with UC President Milliken on why the UC refused to join THEIR OWN FACULTY in SUCCESSFULLY suing the Trump admin and preventing UCLA from being forced to pay 1 billion in extortion money is reeeeeeeeally something....

Kirkus Reviews calls Annie @anniemcc.bsky.social's "intelligent and timely" Beneath the Wage "an eye-opening look at today’s service work and the forms of solidarity that have emerged to meet it." Read the full review here:

A useful thread about today's UCLA lawsuit. He suggests that the significant narrowing from the "giant" Title VI case--involving a fine, funding freezes, and a slew of "demands"--to this might reflect an awareness of "the major weaknesses" of the Title VI case...which CUCFA/AAUP are so far winning!

UCLA faculty stopped a $1.2 billion ransom payment to Trump while their bosses hid in the corner

I find this question about whether chatbots are “alive” to be truly, truly boring. You can torture a definition of “life” so that it includes chatbots or you can listen to actual, unequivocal flesh-and-blood people talking about harm it does them *right now*.

To me the chatbots pose zero interesting questions about the ‘nature of selfhood’ but dozens about the nature of manipulation. Here the Claude team pretends they are programming the robot for ethical responses but they land on one that is false and disingenuous.

I got to give a talk last week about one of my very favorite topics--prison education! So much gratitude to @ucilifted.bsky.social

"'AI' may simply be a way of papering over other forms of cost-cutting. 'Outsourcing is a very popular one,' he told The Register. 'They’re firing people because of AI, and then three weeks later they hire a team in India because the labor is so much cheaper.'" futurism.com/artificial-i...

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW: “.. In our in-progress research, we discovered that AI tools didn’t reduce work, they consistently intensified it.” hbr.org/2026/02/ai-d...

this has been going on in non-fiction and low content books for a long time -- it was only a matter of time; Ms. Hart is selling access to her technique and developing proprietary tech, just taking advantage of how many people out there are desperate for some kind of income

My book is now available for pre-order!

I am fucking DYING inside: "AI Slop serves a social function: it offers a supply-side solution to a variety of problems in cultural and economic demand—that, collectively, people want more content than humans can supply."

Working more with adult students--many of them multilingual learners--who are wonderful thinkers and readers but struggle as writers really makes me reconsider my assumptions about the connections between writing & thought. I don't have a thesis about it but it vexes me in interesting ways!

2000 agents are still here. Woke up this morning to horns and whistles down my street -- panic jumped out of bed ready to run outside, but the cars were being pursued. ICE is still kidnapping people, still getting stymied at every turn, still brutalizing observers because they know they're losing.

I'm in the new look @publicbooks.bsky.social talking with @anniemcc.bsky.social, Vineeta Singh, Dan Nemser, and Rana Jaleel about higher education, how we have studied and organized around it, and what possibility lies therein.

English Associate Professor Annie McClanahan talks about her upcoming book 'Beneath the Wage' (Zone Books, April '26) at UC Irvine Labor Center's 2026 Winter Quarter Research Talk Brown Bag Lunch from noon-1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, in Social Ecology 1, Room 315. RSVP: https://ow.ly/JjsH50Y22JT

While I couldn't be farther from it today, I grew up *deep* in the Protestant church and I gotta say that I find the singing of hymns in this context almost unbearably moving & powerful.

I gotta go eat brownies and hang with people I love because they kidnapped a baby and I'm gonna lose it thinking about all the other children they've taken that I don't know about. Be kind to yourselves and your neighbors. I'll also share this in case you're able to help www.standwithminnesota.com

The disconnect between management and employee on AI usage is big. At the same time, CEOs are reporting they aren't seeing any revenue growth from AI. 🤷 www.wsj.com/lifestyle/wo...

Check out this @wortnews.bsky.social interview with @anniemcc.bsky.social, author of Beneath the Wage: Tips, Tasks, and Gigs in the Age of Service Work:

This thread compiles what happens to be some of the best Marxist cultural criticism of the year (including a few I'd missed!) by the inimitable @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social

first year without a Jclo top 10. I miss him all the time

I did a really engaging (for me) interview for a rad Wisconsin radio show!

Amazing expose, a must-read. "In any given work day, Asia would assume “three to five different personas” simultaneously...He was paid per message, a flat rate of $0.05 per...He also had to type at least 40 words a minute, and keep up with a dashboard displaying the total number of messages sent."

This is a wonderful list of great pieces!

Weird situation. AI adoption in the work world is stagnating, while higher-ed institutions are rushing to embrace it so that students will be prepared for…the work world?

Applications are open for MIR Summer Seminar 2026 on the theme of Marxist Internationalism! See the call for applications: docs.google.com/document/d/1.... Open to all non-faculty University of California affiliates (undergrads, grads, staff, lecturers). App deadline Jan. 16. Please share!

This book is so good and important. Currently reading “Ed-Tech” by Annie McClanahan & Louise McCune, who see in an anecdote of a dead professor’s course materials used for online teaching a symbol of the broad project of deskilling that’s only accelerated with AI 🔥 @anniemcc.bsky.social

everyone is talking about getting copies of University Keywords (or other JHU Press books) for all their friends, students, and comrades for the holidays, especially when it is 40% off with the code HHOL25.

LA Times asks "The UC faculty just won a big court victory over Trump. But why didn’t UC join their lawsuit?"--WHY INDEED? archive.is/P5zjD

Sarah Brouillette (@sarahbrouillette.bsky.social) reviews Madeline Lane-McKinley's (@lalouverouge.bsky.social) Solidarity With Children, from @haymarketbooks.org—a deft Marxist-feminist, abolitionist call to liberate children from the status of parental property. proteanmag.com/2025/11/19/h...

If an attractive young woman a third my age didn't want to date me, then why did she ask me for feedback on an economics paper? by Larry Summers

The UCFA/UCLAFA/AAUP victory is on the front page of today’s LA Times. (No leadership or administrators were harmed in actually standing up to the Feds. because they didn’t.)

Impt thread re: UC's ongoing efforts to persuade faculty that we are management

WHEN WE FIGHT, WE WIN!!!! www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/u...

How does service work change how we build worker power? Check out this @truthout.org interview with @anniemcc.bsky.social, author of Beneath the Wage: Tips, Tasks, and Gigs in the Age of Service Work.

Interview with me about service sector stuff in advance of my book release next year! truthout.org/articles/imp...

The President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is one of the most coveted & prestigious positions for UC graduates. It gives a hiring incentive to campuses who hire recipients for a tenure track position. What a DAMN travesty. This is capitulation to Trump's demand letter & anti-diversity agenda.

This article presents the end of the PPFP as a done deal, but it’s not—until the chancellors’ meeting this afternoon.

Folks may remember the video of Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, arrested while protecting students from cops as the UCI Free Palestine encampment was raided. She is still fighting a legal battle and needs support--please donate if you can and spread the campaign! chuffed.org/project/1562...

Applications are open for MIR Summer Seminar 2026 on the theme of Marxist Internationalism! See the call for applications: docs.google.com/document/d/1.... Open to all non-faculty University of California affiliates (undergrads, grads, staff, lecturers). App deadline Jan. 16. Please share!

This is a great essay--a must-read for anyone concerned about the use of AI as deskilling, automation, labor techno-discipline, etc.