Looking forward to reading it!

I have entered the "kill your darlings" phase of talk preparing.

😐

I have just spent a more than modest about of money for some awesome books coming from SUNY Press and I blame @rcolesworthy.bsky.social for this entirely.

I'm averaging a cup of coffee per page of writing. Page ten is going to be absolutely wild.

The Christmas station is alternating between holiday music and nineties grunge. Burl Ives to Nirvana makes for a wild ride.

This is a foundational book series and I'm proud that my second book is part of it.

Someone seems cozy.

And now it’s time for some midwestern deliciousness.

Here we go, the inaugural issue of Rust Belt Studies: A Journal of Public and Emplaced Humanities! I'm happy to see the work that Katie and Valentino are doing—please read, submit, and support! www.rustbeltstudies.org

My first book (timely as ever if you ask me) and all of @univnebpress.bsky.social's catalog is 50% off this month with coupon code 6HLW25. www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/978...

I hadn’t seen @profdgd.bsky.social ’s book review of a book about reviewing books when I wrote my thread, but yes — bsky.app/profile/prof...

In my mailbox today. Much appreciated and timely; a perfect gift for any department chair.

“One learns through the review the bitterness of academe’s priorities: Yes, being reviewed is important (until it is not); no, reviews “count” for little to nothing on the vitae (but the expectation is that you will do them anyway).”

"The book review is central to what we do—and who we are. It is a relish worthy of savor, a form of communion that is as learned as it is precious." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care...

The academic book review is both a craft and an insight into the life of the mind. My thoughts on the genre in today’s Inside Higher Ed. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care...

The final paper for the medical humanities course, inspired by Rita Charon's work, asks students to describe how their future profession will allow themselves to display the self they admire. The drafts, so far, have been amazing.

My article on shame, the face, and the medical encounter in Richard Selzer's "Imelda" is available open-access in the latest issue of Literature and Medicine. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/issue/...

Reading Sontag’s journals. The note here is so minimal it’s hard to tell if it’s anxiety, pride, or both.

Ordered! And so should you!

Status: imprisoned on the recliner.

Recently I told students about this. First, they thought I was kidding. Second, they immediately understood the power differentials and innate creepiness of it all.

This week I learned how to derail the medical humanities class by asking students to name their least favorite organ.

The books for Literature and Medicine next semester.

Next semester's reading in the Medical Humanities course.

The majors have informed me that their Halloween reading list includes Angela Carter, Oscar Wilde, Poe, Mary Shelley, and my second book(?).

It's pub day (birthday 0?) for Writing Through Writer's Block: Lessons from Modern American Fiction! This is a study of how authors have used the archetype of the blocked writer to identify, analyze, and ultimately work through both internal and external constraints on their creative abilities.

That my review is #3 @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social suggests that the strategies (and politics) of reading continue to fascinate.

Part of the author's contract with LARB reads that they may pursue "dramatic film and television, stage plays, non-dramatic productions, and web series" derived from the author's work. So now I'm trying to imagine what "Close Reading: The Netflix Series" might look like.

It’s the official publication day for Painful Forms! I’m so pleased to see the book out in the world and grateful forever to @uncpress.bsky.social for making that happen. uncpress.org/978146968894...

And here's the first review of Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century, from @profdgd.bsky.social in @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

"Instead of mystery, Sinykin and Winant see possibility: to them, close reading is a practice that anyone can learn." I'm really grateful for @profdgd.bsky.social 's extremely thoughtful review in @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social today as he writes -- "It’s enough to make the heart skip a beat."

"The finished product of a close reading exudes confidence, obscuring how much of close reading is uncertainty." @profdgd.bsky.social on "Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-problem-of-the-parlor/

In Monday's Los Angeles Review of Books.

In my mailbox today, a book well worth reading.

Page proofs!

The subject of the theory class tomorrow.

Arrived yesterday and already through the first chapter of what I think will be a very important book.

We're beginning the formalism/close reading section this week. There's an article to be written about how Brooks and Warren, and an entirely army of formalists in critical journals throughout the fifties, agreed that "this is a bad poem." www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

A colleague down the hall taught Bartleby this week and I felt major FOMO.

The conference schedule gods looked kindly upon me this year.

Got my first e-mail about Spring 2026 courses.

Glad to have been a part of it!

Got a page of writing done and

Science dude who wants to separate science from the humanities (for uncompelling if not stock reasons) also teaches professional ethics, which is more than a tinge humanities.

Velcro chihuahua.

Beware English professors who encounter this on their way to the office.

This week's reading is quite good and, sadly, quite timely. @thesaramarcus.bsky.social

lfg! preorders for THE CAMPUS CRISIS TOOLKIT edited by @thetattooedprof.bsky.social and Lisa Di Bartolomeo are now available! get 30% off the low, low price of $29.95 with code SBACK25 during @sunypress.bsky.social's back-to-school sale. 💪📚 sunypress.edu/Books/T/The-...

Having burned my balding pate twice so far this summer, I have opted for a comfortable but ridiculous hat.