"Civic thought" and "civic education" is a right-wing dog whistle to attack and undermine the humanities in higher education. When you see those words in a new initiative or report, that is what is going on. Please do not be 'civic center' curious on your campus!

When you see a program in "civic thought" at a university, you should ask whether it takes its inspiration or has connections to the American Enterprise Institute's corporate-funded, right-wing program to remake the humanities into conservative propaganda. www.aei.org/research-pro...

Yale dropped 'improving the world' from its motto, endorsed the creation of a "civic education initiative" (a wink & nod to the right-wing), and promoted 'viewpoint diversity' all but in name so it's disappointing, but not entirely surprising that its administration would make a deal with Trump.

The corporate university is determined to attack and cast doubt on the humanities precisely because the dependence of predatory capital on university R&D in STEM is genuinely threatened by endeavors like the energy humanities, critical university studies, and critical AI studies.

There is great value in refuting the specific charges in the Vanderbilt Report against various disciplines but we also need to repeatedly say is that this Report is about invalidating critical thought to pave the way for the tech-fascist takeover of the university. That, in the end, is the motive.

More evidence that the purpose of the Vanderbilt Report is to pave the way for tech-fascism by discrediting those disciplines that are at the forefront of the critical study of AI: www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithint...

Come be my colleague! American University's History Department is searching for a tenure-track assistant professor of science, tech and society. I am chair of the search and pleased to answer any questions either on here or email (grao at american) american.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/AU/job/Main-...

How the interim director of this indoctrination outfit describes its purpose: www.chronicle.com/article/a-fl...

Broke: Freedom = Slavery Woke: Freedom = We Don’t Have to Teach About Slavery

MLA Career Center New Literature Job Posted Today: Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda

Check out the stellar group of Republicans and cranks you’ll have to answer to! cif.uiowa.edu/advisory-cou...

Right-wing vision of the future of the American university: civic center runs humanities/social sciences, tech companies run STEM, & everyone’s behavior becomes AI training data.

I know times are beyond desperate for academic job-seekers, but does the AHA really need to be promoting fascist career opportunities like this?

The American historical profession is rapidly careening toward a future where the only jobs are at the Joseph McCarthy Center for Viewpoint Diversity and the only research funding available is the Dan David Prize. 🗃️

Thanks to all sending messages of support as me and my colleagues in Humanities and Social Sciences at Exeter face being made redundant in September. I'll be back here once it's less hot & I can think. Please consider signing & sharing this petition: www.change.org/p/stop-redun... #EarlyModern 🗃️

When are the Visiting Scholar positions in Phrenology, Alchemy, & Mesmerism being announced?

That salary range would look attractive to senior administrators at my institution, let alone faculty lol Also, when's the last TT position you ever saw listing a signing bonus in the job ad? JFC

You can make more money undermining the humanities, faculty governance, and critical thought than you can make actually doing serious, peer reviewed research and teaching

You can make far more money being a conservative hack at these right-wing university centers than you can doing actual teaching and research as a faculty member. Moreover, there are actually jobs for right-wing bizarros in higher ed but no jobs for credible scholars.

The biggest distortion of the Vanderbilt Report may well be its rendering of the scholarly standards it wishes to restore against ’politicization.’ open.substack.com/pub/asheeshk... 🗃️

"...the history of knowledge is inextricable from the history of politics. The 'norms' of 'rigor and objectivity' that the Vanderbilt authors laud were developed in order to advance specific forms of political power..."

Occasional reminder that if you do serious empirical humanities research, you’ll be attacked, defunded, and probably persecuted out of a job, but if you have wacky right-wing views you can become a highly paid newspaper columnist with a large platform.

Do you have wacky right-wing views and need yet another platform on which to foist them on everyone else? Contact Ross Douthat‘s booker to schedule your “Interesting Times” interview.

don't douthat

Subscribing to the New York Times is no longer any different from subscribing to the Wall Street Journal. You just have to decide whether you want to read right-wing reactionary views edited by Kathleen Kingsbury or Paul Gigot.

The data center-driven price spike for computers and tablets is no longer theoretical, Apple just explicitly called out data centers as the reason for its MacBook and iPad price hikes.

The biggest distortion of the Vanderbilt Report may well be its rendering of the scholarly standards it wishes to restore against ’politicization.’ open.substack.com/pub/asheeshk... 🗃️

This points to the deeply political nature of ”decline of the English major” discourse: low enrollments in right-wing civic centers don’t = program cuts, as they do in mainline departments, but rather mandates that everyone has to take the propaganda courses www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/p...

People will do literally anything in order to avoid funding excellent public higher education

Are the many “Intellectual Freedom Centers” being placed on college campuses nationwide really just mandatory ideological indoctrination centers? 🤔 #AcademicSky

Just to +: since 2019/2020, the PMC was brainwashed by the MSM into believing anti-trans, anti-Black, and anti-Palestinian ideologies & to blaming universities in general & the humanities in particular for fostering support for trans, Black, and Palestinian people in millenials/gen Z.

There actually are extremely well-paying academic jobs in the humanities . . . provided you are willing to become a conservative hack who promotes "viewpoint diversity" rather than peer-reviewed scholarship.

Holy shit

and is there a Vinicius Senior?

Isn’t it funny how all the “reports” attacking the university as too woke and left-wing biased get all the media attention but the empirical research that shows college students don’t actually experience any of this never gets discussed?

This effort to replace peer review in scientific funding with political decision-making is exactly the same thing the center-right is doing in pushing civic centers on college campuses: undermining teaching based on peer-reviewed scholarship with right-wing beliefs

If you asked me, off the top of my head, to name a non-Oxbridge university in England synonymous with excellence in the Humanities - I would probably think of Exeter first. This feels like a very deliberate, targeted and ideological Bonfire of the Humanities

I don’t even think that is possible because the operating epistemic principle of civic centers is “viewpoint diversity“ and the operating epistemic principle of the university is peer review, and these are fundamentally incompatible approaches to knowledge. asheeshksi.substack.com/p/introducti...

I can only assume that the Iowa legislature intended to create a situation where only one faculty member was obligated to teach thousands of students—because of their innovative new ideas about higher ed. Good luck to them.

Interesting to see talking points 2 and 4 here. Having been in conversation with AEI fellows, they’re very on-message yet duplicitous. They know the administration’s attacks on universities are unpopular/illiberal, so maybe they’re testing ways to say “it’s bad, but actually good”…

My book currently discounted @bookshop.org! bookshop.org/p/books/whit...

There is a cruel irony in the fact that Johns Hopkins, America’s original research university, is partnering with the right-wing to undermine peer-reviewed academic research. open.substack.com/pub/asheeshk...

Lol - and JHU is completely unserious for participating in this bs and partnering with an evil institution like AEI. open.substack.com/pub/asheeshk...

Okay. Ai can go bankrupt then. This is not our problem, this sounds like a rich tech billionaire problem.

done c.org/Nhvqd6nygp

“Too little, too late." observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Let’s hope that Haiti or another country he has slandered wins.

I will be the 60th person on your timeline to post "Ghana wins 0-0"

Ghana needs to go for the win not the tie!