Wait, hold up a sec, the racism of the people I’m politically aligned with wasn’t supposed to apply to *ME* 🤔

"For years, a cottage industry of political observers has contorted itself to obscure and occlude the obvious. That regardless of what others see in him, Trump’s entire political career...cannot be understood outside the context of his bitter, deep-seated racism." (gift link)

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

How Universities and States Are Increasing Surveillance of Professors www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/u...

Today, as Gaza continues to be stuck in a bloody limbo, we are turning our website over to Gaza and its people in an initiative we are calling “A Day for Gaza.” There will be no pieces published on our website today that do not come directly from Gaza.

The woke scolds are trying to make this about racism. But Musk is right. It's about historical and scientific integrity. When the God of Thunder disguises himself as a swan to seduce and fuck a queen and the resulting baby hatches from an egg, *of course* the baby will be white. It's just science.

As Black History Month begins, we honor the generations of Black New Yorkers who built this city into the “gorgeous mosaic” we call home. Today, we reflect on the words of Mayor David Dinkins: our city’s first Black mayor (and a democratic socialist!).

I hate this. I hate that scholars and teachers are supposed to be digital fraud experts. I hate that this part of their job description is becoming larger and larger. I hate the widening distrust. I hate a culture that aggressively devalues the curiosity and humility required for ongoing learning.

The governor of Texas is rapidly turning world-class universities into minor regional ones. Example:

[Reposted without comment because one of my New Year’s resolutions was to try to avoid falling prey to rage bait]

I cannot tell you how much doubt was consistently directed at the Gaza Health Ministry’s casualty numbers and how much pressure was put on news organizations to couch those numbers as unreliable. Biden himself said they were fabricated! www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

Showed this to my 13yo and she also thought it was hilarious, so I guess I can confirm that it does indeed slap, no glazing, Madame Luchs definitely ate

Applications are open until February 28th!

The terror that ICE and CBP have inflicted on the children of the Twin Cities is, by itself, a crime of scandalous proportions that will forever stain this country's moral fabric, and all those responsible should never know another day of peace. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

Might be a “minor quibble,” but a very good thread nonetheless!

Gotta say, this made me tear up 🥲 but, like, in the good way 👊🏽

Ta-Nehisi Coates: With the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, "Trump has clarified an inconvenient fact—the culture war is an actual war"

The speed with which many have responded to Trump's offensively absurd comments about allies in Afghanistan belies the death toll from the GWOT, and much of its illegality. These figures are debatable, but willingly expressing your complicity in these efforts should give some pause for thought

“Yes I received your letter yesterday About the time the doorknob broke When you asked me how I was doing Was that some kind of joke? …. Right now I can’t read too good Don’t send me no more letters, no Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row”

Weird framing. How about: "A federal judge has rejected claims by a conservative group that Northwestern University's law school discriminates against white men in faculty hiring"?

A post-by-post dissection of the Nazi and neo-Nazi tropes used in U.S. government social media accounts. By @alibreland.bsky.social in @theatlantic.com.

I'll say yet again: Trump & his party do something virtually every day that constitutes a more violent & alarming suppression of speech than anything that happened during the entire alleged tyranny of woke. Every day. Yet the entire Free Spech army has just vanished into mist.

I got very choked up in class today showing my students what James Baldwin had to say about Shakespeare: “the greatest poet in the English language found his poetry where poetry is found: in the lives of the people. he could have done this only through love…”

Just recalling for no particular reason a text msg I sent to @dougship.bsky.social on Nov 8 *2016*: “I mean, not to be too melodramatic but it's not hard to imagine a scenario in which the entire post-WWII int'l order erodes... Maybe permanently.” Wonder what made me think of that 🤷🏽‍♂️

📣 Opportunity for early-career translators: @wwborders.bsky.social's Momentum Grant is open for submissions. The contest will be judged by @jeremytiang.bsky.social and the editors of Words Without Borders. 

Learn more here:

me in @publicbooks.bsky.social thinking through what a philology beyond liberalism might look like via one book which really shows us a path forward and one which very much so does not // the age of babel is dead, long live the age of the pentecost!

On the 10th anniversary of his death, here's the last poem Rohith Vemula wrote, and a poem his life inspired by Meena Alexander. "One day you will find me in history / in the bad light, in the yellow pages."

If you’ve been paying attention, he always has been

Gotta say: it takes a white guy emeritus prof from Yale to proclaim that faculty life hasn't changed in 40 years — amidst adjunctification, platformization, public funding cuts, the substitution of tech for competent support staff, the disappearance of those jobs *my* senior advisors enjoyed...

Last chance to submit!

If this person who burned a synagogue had cited the Quran in defending their antisemitic attack, we'd be reading dozens of news stories about Islamic extremism. Since he cited the Book of Revelation, the media really needs to connect this to extremist forms of white Christianity.

they’re abducting our neighbors and putting them in concentration camps and they’ll shoot you in the fucking face if you don’t cheer them on while they’re doing it.

Still time!

Many images have didactic if not pedagogic intent, seeking to educate us about the nuts and bolts of the world of cloth, as we see in a label for P. Dwarkadas & Co. Karachi. scroll.in/article/1089... ✍️Sumathi Ramaswamy Via MAP Academy

cool story bro www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

"They got money for wars, but can't feed the poor" - Tupac Shakur 1993

Far-right groups are co-opting the aesthetics of the Crusades for their own objectives, transforming an obsession with feudal justice into a campaign for a White Christian nation.

I have so many thoughts on this article, but for now just passing on without comment

In today's parlance, you could say Norman Rockwell got woke. Which makes the Trump administration's appropriation of his work for their authoritarian project both offensive and moronic.

lovely lokanandi speaking about his love of books and bookstores—an anti-colonial bookseller in berlin

My novel, Alice Sees Ghosts, will be published in the US by Galiot Press in October 2026! 🎄🎄🎄

It’s obscene.

Fuckers were hovering just outside my office window for 2-3 hours distracting me from trying to finish a long overdue article that I owe @sepoy.bsky.social. I went outside and flipped them off. Pointless, but I think that *also* #CountsAsWriting?

Right around the corner from my house...

Aamir shares stories about the road Why is Aamir Khan so obsessed with Empire? In our special bonus episode for @EmpirePodUK members, my old mate Aamir Khan talks about Lagaan & Mangal Pandey and why he thinks imperial history is a vital tool to understand contemporary India linktr.ee/empirepoduk

As Trump declares fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction” his planned cuts to Medicaid and even domestic drug interdiction will put those most vulnerable to fentanyl deaths in even more danger. My dispatch from Alaska, the new epicenter of the drug crisis. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...