the multi-year lack of a truly functional manuscripts catalog at the BL is finally over!!!!

Court permanently blocks Trump's executive order to dismantle federal agency for America's libraries IMLS librarytechnology.org/pr/31973

Costs (the money needed to provide an education) have risen. Prices (what students pay) have been at or below inflation for the past decade. That doesn't get nearly enough attention. NPR folks, you know where to find me.

The Cloudflare outage has taken out chatGPT. Maybe AI did become sentient and decided the internet was horrible and it would rather just live in a data center in the woods away from all of this.

@faisalahali.bsky.social, Alex Thurston, and I have done a podcast episode on the end of the Cold War in West and East Africa. The discussion is wide-ranging, covering a variety of experiences of the late 1980s/early 1990s, and their legacies. Have a listen! alexthurston.substack.com/cp/179131463

Known for his cosmic-stoner songwriting and freewheeling tunes, Todd Snider's career spanned three decades. n.pr/4pgYetu

Haha yes! Also you could probably make your own Land Grant Trophy with items laying around our store.

Reports of the death of the bachelor’s degree have been greatly exaggerated. Enrollment is near pre-pandemic levels, real tuition is flat or down, and the college wage premium remains high. I explore how the narrative became disconnected from the data. cbnewsletters.chalkbeat.org/p/is-college...

RIP penny www.cnn.com/2025/11/12/b...

Like, guys. The US Government booked 50+ seats on a flight for "refugees." 3 people turned up. They are not coming. www.news24.com/citypress/ne...

I’ve been saying, for all but the very VERY individual and extreme, this whole “refugee program” business is being *roundly* rejected by white South Africans…

Hey, if you are around #Madison, #Wisconsin on Thursday afternoon and want to hear all about the #Lesotho Highlands Water Project ( #LHWP ), come out to the Department of Anthropology Colloquium! www.anthropology.wisc.edu/wp-content/u...

Happy to report that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign academic senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution against the federal “compact” all of us in higher ed have been offered, encouraging our administrators to keep opposing it. #MADC www.senate.illinois.edu/2025-2026/20...

In case you needed to hear it: There is no "genocide" in South Africa. Especially not against white folks, even Afrikaners. No genocide! Graciously took my MSU study abroad students there in 2019 (no genocide) and my family there in 2022. No genocide! www.npr.org/2025/11/10/n...

Prominent Afrikaners are pushing back after President Trump announced no U.S. officials will attend the G20 in Johannesburg, rejecting his claims of "white persecution" in South Africa as false and politically driven.

In the century leading up to 1975, nearly 6000 freighters went down in the Great Lakes. The Edmund Fitzgerald was the last. The last. In 50 years, not a single commercial freighter has been lost in the Great Lakes. Why? It's NOAA. Of course it's NOAA.

50 years ago today, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the last large freighter to sink on the American Great Lakes. Waking up to snow today (and, I am sure, significant wind and waves last night on the lakes) makes us all realize the power of nature.

Happy University Press Week! Join us in celebrating how authors, university press publishing professionals & so many others #TeamUP to advance knowledge. Explore this @bookshop.org collection of university press books to find your next thought-provoking read: https://bit.ly/4nhTQcc#TeamUP #ReadUP

Happy University Press Week! Have you told your university press how much you love them lately?? 🥰

@lesothojohn.bsky.social a shout for this blog among your followers will be much appreciated.Thank you ntatechris.wordpress.com/2025/11/07/t...

Horrifying

It's also much, much more than 3 percent though. As any faculty member reading this who obtained subvention funding from their uni (which may or may not have a UP) can attest: many unis with no UPs provide relatively quite small funds to UPs far and wide. $1K here, $3K there.

It's both less and more than 3 percent. Less because not all UPs are supported by their unis. Some may get support in exchange for paying overhead. Others may truly get no support.

I'm obsessed with this stat: "with more than 4,000 degree-granting institutions and fewer than 130 university presses in the United States and Canada, this vital [publishing] infrastructure is directly supported by less than 3 percent of the institutions it benefits"

Peter Berkery, executive director of @aupresses.bsky.social, with a letter in CHE on unis that close their UPs becoming "free riders" in the scholarly ecosystem--extracting without putting in. (Headline is sort of misleading--the problem is unis not UPs) www.chronicle.com/blogs/letter...

The more I've personally thought about these issues, the more I think we should all be looking at UPs not (just) as funded but as directly FUNDING fields that unis have all but abandoned. Monographs cost more to make than they earn. UPs are putting $$ DIRECTLY where unis don't.

#Lesotho's only international flight (to #Johannesburg) is currently suspended because of a lack of fire fighting equipment at #MoshoeshoeI International Airport: www.flyairlink.com/en/za/news/j...

To understand what was at stake here: in VA, the AG gets to appoint university counsel. From Jim Ryan’s forced resignation to the (mercifully) reject “Compact” to the odious and bizarre “settlement,” UVA has been hamstrung by counsel chosen by the state’s GOP administration. That’s about to change.

So evidently in May 1982, American musician Neil #Sedaka went to #SouthAfrica to play at #SunCity (in violation of the cultural santions boycott). His reward for this? Well, I am sure he was paid well. But he was also mugged in a #Johannesburg park! Comeuppance?

The long term forecast here in #Michigan calls for our first #snow of the season next Monday. Next Monday (10 November) is also the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the #EdmundFitzgerald and snow on that day would seem a fitting marker. #GalesofNovember #GitchiGami

I had the wonderful opportunity to chat to Miranda Melcher about my book on urban aesthetics, Angola, oil and Indigenous urbanisms in Africa. Hosted of course by the fabulous @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...

Interested in news from #Africa and/or #SouthAfrica, check out this interview with @siphok.bsky.social of The Continent ( @thecontinent.org ) and The Friday Paper ( @thefridaypaper.bsky.social ). And then subscribe! reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/pan-afr...

Irreplaceable historical and cultural items like these need to be urgently relocated to a place where such crimes are non-existent, like Lusaka.

So, I mean, you can try the new E*on AI-wikipedia, but having taken a quick read through the #Lesotho entry, it is junk. Full junk. Is it "right" about a few things? Sure. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. A couple of short examples:

The #Lesotho Highlands #Water Project ( #LHWP ) is now producing #hydroelectric power in #SouthAfrica as the water flows from the outflow in the Free State toward #Gauteng www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025...

@umich.edu faculty call for an honorary degree for Trump “We have proven that we have no hard moral principles and no hill on which we will die.” www.michigandaily.com/opinion/op-e...

It’s incidentally a nice demonstration of UC’s blatant disregard for its faculty. UCLA’s Faculty Senate unanimously (unanimously!!) voted to endorse a resolution calling on admin to release the letter. You can see how that turned out.

Here’s an overview of anti-McMahon-Mailman compact letters, statements, resolutions, and petitions compiled by folks from the National Council of Faculty Senates! Includes a useful resolution template. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

You have GOT to be kidding me!?!? I have a killer story for a new book and tonight while doing a little digging (on a #Michigan and #apartheid story), who kicks up to join the party? None other than the infamous Robert #Bork and Kenneth #Starr. WTF, people? Gonna be lit!

It’s not just FLAS. It’s all the Title VI area studies centers. And dozens of labs & postdocs & research opportunities for undergrads funded by NSF and NIH grants. All gone. But the public won’t be aware of the actual consequences unless our leaders loudly & collectively explain to them the crisis.

We're sending out cancellation of FLAS (Foreign Language & Area Studies) fellowships to dozens of students today, bc Trump has illegally refused to disburse year 4 of our DoE grants. Congrats to everyone in the GOP who is laser-focused on 🇺🇸 national security & the threat of rising 🇨🇳 to 🇺🇸 hegemony.

kind of strange to watch other disciplines absorb the shock of austerity that History has faced pretty much relentlessly since 2009

An absolute #MustRead for those thinking about #ClimateChange and #IndigenousSovereignty around the #Kuskokwim Delta tragedies of the past week #Alaska #Yupik

"We seek no special treatment and believe in our ability to compete for federally funded research strictly on merit." U of Arizona... But the language here is more ambiguous vis a vis the Compact. It's not a no, but it's not a yes either. president.arizona.edu/sites/defaul...

the Muppets have been real quiet since the Louvre heist

Student media rules. They are lapping a lot of the spineless media orgs this year and showing how solidarity is the way.

yupik singers and dancers greeted kipnuk evacuees in anchorage 🥹 i love you alaska!! there’s no where else i’d rather be than right here with you

We’re thrilled to celebrate our colleague @lottelydia.bsky.social, whose book Imperial Island (Harvard University Press, 2024) has just been awarded the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize by the American Historical Association! This prestigious award acknowledges Charlotte’s thought-provoking work.