a very Vancouver sort of evening

Today! Register&join us for a talk by @loriemerson.net on alternative and forgotten networks and the futures they might hold. cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...

Woke up to that upenn hack email thing. Isn’t it ironic.

Haven’t these numbers suffered enough?

Lots of people read my newsletter every week when I link to it from here, but don't subscribe. I would be delighted if you would subscribe: the numbers keep me motivated. It's free, but you can pitch in some change if you want. Money, after all, is also motivating. Thanks! mail.cyberneticforests.com

i love playing the AI-overview-quote-guessing game. Enjoying the assertiveness here "this phrase is almost certainly a quote or a strong opinion about xyz" Nope.

Torn between going as “experience designer” or “judgment coach” this Halloween 🤔

Stumbled on this acct on insta: what is this casserole of pseudo-linguistic Romanianist nonsense? I can assure you that “Balkan and Dacian” 🤪 do not in fact “come alive in harmony” when I speak.

Striking that Lindt bunny/ Dieter Roth Karnickel pose

#litcrit pals, a really interesting question about the history of discipline from a graduate student here, a question that has me totally stumped: "which journal in literary criticism was the first to implement modern peer review?" (I think he might mean blind review) Thank you for your suggestions!

“one and three benches” Not quite a Joseph Kosuth, but look at the mossy patches underneath this bench, pretending to be a second shadow.

Tell me what you're teaching this/next week.

A couple of years ago, I found toddler Benjamin's hussar outfit in an 1890s toy catalogue (16.50 marks, pricey!) Still best online find ever...

Admin workflow, simplified.

If there was truly any conviction for the public interest, members of the AI Strategy Task Force would resign in protest for the configuration of their group.

The world is literally burning and I’ve asked my students to read Derrida. 😑

Hier geht's zur Petition der Studierenden bsky.app/profile/bild...

skies this evening

Oh, the memories

on this note: has anyone else received emails at their uni address from said producing company inviting us to teach the film?

Monday 8 am walking to class vs. Monday 5 pm, leaving campus

Goose x crow crossing

what a time to be teaching Benjamin’s Thesis IX and picturing ‘piles of debris growing skyward’

“The standards are clear, and we must act accordingly”

And in infinitely happier news on Tucholsky’s legacy in Germany today, best to focus all attention on these excellent writers instead: bsky.app/profile/leil...

"Laleh Khalili reflects on the hidden stories behind late capitalism, from seafarers abandoned on debt-ridden container ships to the nefarious reach of consultancy firms and the cronyism that drives record-breaking profits."

In many respects, «artificial intelligence» is less a model of the human mind than a technical implementation of neoliberal market theory: a simulation of supposedly superhuman rationality optimized for efficient problem solving, which leads to mostly irrational and ultimately destructive results 1/

UBC Queer and Trans German Studies is hosting Andrea Rottmann (FU Berlin) as the next Tobin Distinguished Lecture in Queer and Trans German Studies! The event will take place in person at UBC as well as online. We would be grateful if you could pass the announcement on to your networks.

teachers! excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone. take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE against-a-i.com

inner monologue every one of the days

For international cat day, here are a few lovely bunnies which my photo app identifies as kittens. Love them all. 🐱🐰🐈🐇

I might be totally wrong but “AI literacy” sounds like a Russian reversal joke. With any other form of literacy, they do the prompting and you do the learning. With AI, you’re tasked with the prompting, and the companies learn (from) how you use the bots.

Berthe Weill by Émilie Charmy. Weill would have made an amazing therapist, I am sure)

Best hiking snack. Doubles as clinometer. Fougasse overlooking the Malbaie.

Tadoussac ❤️

Now in print- so excited to be part of this project!

“Innovation for the future”

grateful for all the syllabus help I got from all of you here! Here's my pitch for a Literary Criticism intro course if it helps anyone in turn:

syllabus time, teaming up for the herculean efforts of reinventing writing assignments. here, some prompts for required weekly low stakes 250-500 word reflections/ process pieces that have proven relatively conducive to real writing in lit class. please share any similar suggestions in thread.

Best park name, best summer treasures

“Anxious about facing another year in academia in the age of slop? Fools, let me put it this way: I’ve been raised on the invisible beings of shadows, this timeline got nothing on me.”

Something to look forward to this month: the publication of Cultural Journalism in Germany, 1815–1848, edited by Sean Franzel &Michael Swellander. Here's to more critical anthologies and more translations of 19th c texts!! boydellandbrewer.com/book/cultura...

I had the honour of collaborating with @beverlyweber.bsky.social on the most recent issue of English Language Notes on "Refuge and Displacement," with an extensive focus on solidarity structures. Grateful for the journal team and comrades @dukepress.bsky.social. read.dukeupress.edu/english-lang...

We're happy to announce that the open call for our 2026 residencies is now online 👾 ► transmediale.de/en/news/open...

Welcome to the mean streets of Vancouver.

There are so many layers to this though. Take Eastern Europe- resistance to AC comes in many forms, and it’s not necessarily always a weird flex, or classism, or anti-American arrogance.

Resignation of series editors and editorial board members following the sale of Amsterdam University Press to Taylor & Francis. mediastudies.hypotheses.org/6850

Mickey the bodega king pretending not to look while taking in everything and mercilessly judging

paper theory too