“Sunsetting: How Universities Naturalize Ideologically Motivated Cuts and Closures,” forthcoming from a university press probably on its way to being sunsetted

"universities are being infiltrated by a commercial industry that exploits students+faculty as data mines frenzy w/o consulting their faculty, collecting empirical data on whether gen AI is pedagogically useful, or pausing to inquire about the long-term impact" www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...

Even Momo is disturbed by the state of my graduate school budget Christmas tree 🫣

pouring one out for everyone in my academic literary and cultural studies networks who'd said during my critical university studies PhD "well at least universities provide us with jobs, i'm grateful for that" -- sincerely

University administrations are eliminating the best critical theory programs on purpose.

Carnegie Mellon’s literature PhD is being liquidated in favor of “computation,” casualized labor, and AI. That has profound ramifications for, students, faculty, and program alums like myself. I wrote it about it (w/ Catherine Evans, a current PhD student). www.chronicle.com/article/a-co...

No one wants to watch their PhD program be eliminated. It’s nearly the same story when it’s “innovated” away. Me & @seeshespeak.bsky.social in the Chronicle. Read it below ⬇️ www.chronicle.com/article/a-co...

When I leave for campus, Momo sits on his bread toy like this and blocks the door. Let the semester end so he can live in peace and I can stop answering to these big eyes!

Don’t mind me. Just thinking about @kippdawson.bsky.social seeing her shirts on display for the first time 🥹

Again, it is worth keeping in mind when comparing the rate of discoveries that public funding for medicine and the sciences is orders of magnitude larger than for the humanities. We work slow in part because we work on a shoestring.

🚨🚨 @utaustin.bsky.social is working to eliminate its Black studies, Latin studies, and gender studies depts -- utterly reneging on its mission and depriving students of the full educational opportunities they deserve. Please--scholars AND publishers--share & write to UT leaders. #SaveUT

Oh hey. I curated this show all about feminist tshirts at Chatham University. Please come through! Opening reception (Oct 15) will feature a talk by Dawson which will also be live-streamed. Register for the opening here: chatham.edu/events/detai... Design by the very talented Megan Urban

Everytime I travel for work, this exact image of Zuko greeting me after a trip pops into my head and I suddenly feel immense guilt. Shout out to @rachaelvm454.bsky.social for giving him all the pets while I’m gone. 🫶

“Scab Terminator” mutt circa 1980s picket line from @kippdawson.bsky.social’s Solidarity Scrapbooks.

Our co-founder @prisonculture.bsky.social is also running a summer book drive to help support Bluestockings in keeping their doors open. 📚 Drop off or mail new or gently used social justice focused books! More details in the flyer.

1967. “The Medium is the Message.” Carnegie Mellon’s Fence

T’was the night before D*n*ld Tr*mps visit to Carnegie Mellon, and I’m here to remind you CMU students have always been anti-fascist. Some of my personal favorite CMU responses to fascism on campus through the eyes of student journalists. 1/7

Y'all know I love publishing industry mess and The Crimson is delivering today! I had no idea Harvard University Press was publishing so little. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

"It’s time to stand our ground: not only against homophobia, transphobia and censorship, but for diverse public media, libraries, schools and other institutions," writes @lilmisshotmess.bsky.social. www.huffpost.com/entry/marjor...

virginia tech's ETD repository has been crashing so often from being scraped by so many bots that they've had to close off external, non-university access. In case you needed more evidence of how LLM training hurts open access.

FORTY remain active. Almost FIFTEEN HUNDRED canceled.

Not all activism is meant for public consumption. If you think all activism requires that everyone know what you're doing, are you doing work for others or for yourself?

The 2024 NEH budget: $207M. One F-35 jet: ~$100M. The cost of two jets exceeds the entire NEH budget.

⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

This has been a discussion among many of us for years now. Funding for Humanities was already grossly inadequate; we never had anything to compare to the NSF and NIH. We had a little from NEH, a little from ACLS, but most of us were producing our scholarship with next to no resources. 1/2

Hey @aaup.bsky.social

For folks who don’t know, ethnic studies programs like African American/Africana Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies and the like come directly from civil right era campus activism. Attempts to disempower such programs should be framed as attacks on civil rights same as much else rn.

Economic boycotts are actually very easy for me because I have no money

It’s a @kippdawson.bsky.social t-shirt sorting day in the Evans household. Tune in for some highlights!

It’s our job as educators to foster opportunity, dignity and engagement. This vague and clearly unconstitutional memo is a grave attack on students, our profession and knowledge itself. That is why we are suing. www.aft.org/press-releas... www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

I had a nightmare that we all started to call women’s, gender, and sexuality studies “and studies” after being prohibited from using the words “women,” “gender,” and “sexuality.”

Democracies rely on educated citizens to function and, as a result, they seek to invest in both education (schools) and information (public media, research, etc). Dictatorships rely on the opposite—ignorant subjects—and so invest in neither.

"Gay Prison Liberation," by C. Chris Wheeler, Come Out!, Vol. 2, Issue 7b, Spring-Summer 1971.

NEH has posted updates to the funding restrictions for some grant programs.

Everything is bad. But sometimes I see something this absurd and look for the camera punking me despite sitting alone in my home.

I find the word “talent,” when used in the context of HR speak, to be gross and dehumanizing. As in, “We’re asking all our talent to do _____ this year.” Please just call it labor, because that’s what it is, and call us workers, because that’s what we are.

www.aaup.org/report/again... “Unfortunately, troubling recent events suggest that some administrations are … engaging in what scholars of authoritarianism call anticipatory obedience—that is, they are acting to comply in advance of any pressure to do so.” Absolutely true. #AcademicSky

Momo’s having a “That’s So Raven” moment and processing the full horrors of 2025 yet to come.

Here’s to more supportive environments and drawing connections between folks with shared interests and struggles in 2025. And, as always, grateful to @kippdawson.bsky.social’s modeling of this 🫶

Congratulations to Literary & Cultural Studies PhD candidate Catherine Evans, who was awarded the National Women’s Studies Association’s Lesbian Caucus Award in recognition of her doctoral dissertation project “The Provocative Lesbian: Queer Media in the Long Seventies,” at their recent conference.

64 degrees in Appalachia on NYE, cash out that 401k babes

An anecdote: this year at UMass, the College of Humanities & Fine Arts slashed our funding to attend domestic conferences to $300, & if we apply to the union for funds first. But if we want to collaborate with the College of Computer and Information Science, then we are eligible for a $20k grant.

Required reading on humanities research, by Christopher Newfield : www.cambridge.org/core/journal...