Since the dawn of time, the corrupt postmodernism youth of Athens have put Socrates to death, again and again. Oh wait, n/m. Onward!

Also, using Zotero takes 3x as long as typing them by hand because I’m constantly using new sources that have crappy/not-quite-right metadata.

I never really believed in mimetic desire, but my 3yo is trying earnestly to convince me it really is at the root of all human motivation.

Sure, why not, instead of writing this essay why don’t I spend hours tweaking my CSS to make my markdown editor look exactly like a column of New Yorker type?

A party primer…

Am reminded that Bay Area summers are, fairly literally, bone-chilling.

Making progress.

I’ll just swap out the existing AI policy on my syllabus and refer students to this.

Dr. No is a wacky novel.

I have never really worried about giving spoiler warnings in criticism before, but writing this essay about James, I wonder if I should.

Are there any nationally representative surveys re: which books Americans have actually read? I’ve found a YouGov survey indicating how many people have, e.g., *heard of* The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But does anyone know how many people have actually *read* it?

The Fort Dupont Ice Arena reno cost $39 million and it’s basically completely empty. Also it’s awesome.

I seem not to own medium-sized books.

Not all the news in DC is bad.

The cops are investigating.

Thanks to all our authors from April: Elaine Wik, Robab Vaziri, @johncke.bsky.social , Kim Moody, and @lkonstan.bsky.social . Links to all of these pieces in the thread.

Ah yes, content directly pandering to me

Second generation e-lit. 🐹

My review of @roberttally.bsky.social's great book on Tolkien's Orcs. This one was fun to write.

Wonder what China Miéville has been up to since he wrote that book with Keanu Reeves, well his next book comes out this fall and it is 1260 pages long. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554904...

Transcription is good but there’s not enough on unboxing videos.

The Book of Elsewhere is quite odd.

Look, what I'm saying is, it isn't a genre or a tradition... it's a, um, tendency. Totally different thing.

The moral of the story is obviously that competitive markets are bad for the arts.

There are a zillion markdown editors out there; sadly, only a handful bother to properly implement footnotes.

Abstracts are due today for POETRY'S PROGRAM ERA INSTITUTIONS--a seminar at ASAP/17 in Madison this October. A heavy line-up is shaping up--join us! @asapartsnow.bsky.social

it's officially out! :)

Anyone out there have a PDF of Joshua Clover's "The Genealogical Avant-Garde" (2014) handy?

I assume the only authentic way to read Transcript is on one’s phone.

Do you believe that this world I have described—in which people no longer grossly misread "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"—might exist? No? Then let me describe one more thing.

No need for AI here. I cognitively surrendered many, many years ago. 🤪

bruh www.cia.gov/resources/cs...

"The most persuasive and engaging account I’ve read of how the internet ... has become a legitimate and exciting site of literary creation." -- Vauhini Vara Coming later this Spring, WE THE PLATFORM, by Aarthi Vadde. tinyurl.com/4tw79pyp @aarthivadde.bsky.social @columbiaup.bsky.social

Is my inability to decide if the relation between X and Y is a *tension* or *contradiction* a tension in my argument or a contradiction?

The most shocking thing about Home Alone is that the family gets through airport security in under 45 minutes for an international flight.

Reclaiming "it's not an x—it's a y" from the robots.

As it turns out, writing every day is highly correlated with finishing pieces of writing. It's always nice to learn new things at midcareer.

Look, if you’re gonna use an LLM to write or rewrite your book, at the very least have the dignity to claim that it was some kind of conceptual art project/critique of the low standards of the publishing industry when you get caught.

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!

👀

On this day, I found myself forced (no choice folks) to use the word "thinkfluencer" in a sentence. It had to be done—really!—but I still feel deeply ashamed.

Guess it didn’t have legs

Experiencing an existential crisis because I am not sure if I should capitalize Elves, Orcs, and Goblins when writing about Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Ultimately, I use the word "ultimately" far too often in my writing, and ultimately as a substitute for thought.

My book, MIDDLEMEN: LITERARY AGENTS AND THE MAKING OF AMERICAN FICTION, comes out in six weeks!It shows how literary agents went from "cankers" to "mere peripheral necessities" to "the center of the literary establishment" to "the biggest fish in publishing." press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

If only Homer had sung about the joy of Achilles.

Finally, I understand Kant.

Hot off the press! AMERICAN LITERATURE'S WAR ON CRIME: NOVELS & THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF MASS INCARCERATION, by Theodore Martin. Use the coupon code MLA and save 30%! tinyurl.com/482zmjsw @columbiaup.bsky.social