I wrote an essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social about what I learned about close reading when I taught at West Virginia University www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

This being named a NYT Notable Book of 2025 seems to prove it's thesis

This makes me physically ill. All hail the plagiarism machine that is destroying students’ ability to do everything: read, write, do research, think critically. There’s still time to beat it. But not if administrators are determined to join it.

alex dubilet - foucault, our contemporary read.dukeupress.edu/boundary-2/a... looks great

New at PB: In a review of Disrupted City by Manan Ahmed Asif (@thenewpress.bsky.social) Chris Moffat describes Asif's quest to walk Lahore—a city that has transformed from one of gardens to one of concrete and walls, a “series of segregations."

the new issue of _religious studies review_ includes our 20th anniversary book forum on Saba Mahmood's POLITICS OF PIETY share.google/Jcwby87NDTpI...

My book A FUNNY THING: EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE UNDISCIPLINED is now available for pre-order in a paperback priced for humans! Go get it!

props to WSJ for once on a useful notion, ADMIN PARTY for everybody

“What we have isn’t peace. What we have is a continuing genocide, albeit one that has shifted gears and has—for now—moved into the slow lane.” New: Saree Makdisi on the ceasefire in Gaza. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

hemmed and hawed with shobhana xavier about the book newbooksnetwork.com/the-dread-he...

"When I write, I don’t feel proud. I feel late. Words cannot keep up with what happens here. Language always follows loss. Still, I write, because forgetting is another kind of death. Writing does not save anyone; it only makes absence visible."

AAA and AAR panels on THE DREAD HEIGHTS coming up next week, organized by milad and ali

is this a joke aeon.co/essays/can-a...

maybe don't talk to the NYT about zohran mamdani lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...

For two years, our team of journalists in Gaza illuminated what Israel sought to keep hidden, while enduring the very displacement, starvation, and loss that they reported on. This is the genocide through their eyes: An illustrated timeline. www.972mag.com/the-genocide...

My latest article, "Genocide and the Limits of History in Gaza," was just published in the Journal of Palestine Studies www.tandfonline.com/eprint/4MBPN...

ughhhhhhhhh

"This new age will be one of relentless improvement." Read, re-read, maybe even memorize Zohran Mamdani's electrifying victory speech.

Zohran Mamdani has made history—New York City has elected its first Muslim, socialist mayor. @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social reflects on what this moment means for working-class New Yorkers, for Muslims, and for the city itself.

if democrats are serious about winning they need to learn from tonight and convert to islam

Looking for a budget summary and you aren't an oligarch or the owner of a mid-sized company? Check out what the @ccpa has put together: www.policyalternatives.ca/news-researc...

A piece about having Big Feelings about Mamdani. @mid-theory.bsky.social was a dream to work with 💖 Now glueing myself to election coverage. 🍺📺

Dick Cheney won't see your mean jokes about his death, but Tony Blair will, hopefully.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government is ramping up its drive for AI glory while deepening an alignment with Canada’s own “tech bros” movement. Christopher Holcroft writes. #canpoli

Jennifer Acker talks to Teju Cole about genre-bending and how artists bear witness to tragedy: “I really believe in the novel as an innovative form. Yet I didn’t want novelty for its own sake.”

The ceasefire continues according to virtually every media outlet. Israel is demolishing entire neighbourhoods in Gaza to make sure Palestinians never go back. The genocide is ongoing

what a guy

the voice and the nothing: the an-archic ontolinguistics of giorgio agamben link.springer.com/article/10.1... ("the language of artificial intelligence has as its sole objective the enslavement of the human, binding it once and for all to history, i.e., to injustice and to suffering")

For Giorgio Agamben, hell is the lie that blocks the passage to a happy, simple, anarchic existence. illwill.com/where-are-we

brushing your teeth is hamas

ontario fall

the best

faraj bayrakdar on my public radio www.cbc.ca/listen/live-... ideas has been consistently knocking it out of the park

Wrote a thing on the hot summer of uni AI adoption for @defector.com A huge thanks to @nathankhensley.bsky.social and @anniemcc.bsky.social. @brandyjensen.bsky.social is a legend. And anything smart in hear is thanks to hours of discussion, texting, and draft reading by @smosment.bsky.social

‘What unifies Qureshi’s beguiling case studies is the claim that extinction is “both a human idea and a political choice”, a matter of human agency – more specifically, human culpability. Even more specifically, imperialist culpability.’ Lorraine Daston on extinction. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

"The fall of the Assad regime should have brought answers but to so many families of Syria’s disappeared, it has only brought a new kind of absence. We ask for names, for lists, for truth. We are given nothing. No answers, no records, no acknowledgment." www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

It’s hard to convey just how much Chicagoans are mobilizing against ICE. Don’t want to downplay the harm, or make it seem like a fair fight. But in neighborhoods across this city, ICE is getting chased by people blowing whistles and shouting. People are running TOWARD ICE to protect their neighbors.

ethics of hope and despair, week 7: the discourse of the beneficiary (peter singer, ursula k leguin, bruce robbins -- and WOMEN TALKING www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD0m...)

"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."

Zaid Rahbani: Son by Choice, Father Despite Himself, Youthful Forever Nael Eltoukhy remembers his relationship with the life, music, and legacy of Zaid Rahbani.

what a mess

Gessen w/ Albanese on a central challenge of our time: “The ultimate promise of international justice — that it can not only punish the criminals, but also avert the crimes — has remained an aspiration.“ gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/o...

"We now live in something closer to what we would call a state of generalized psychosis: a social landscape where symbolic authority has fractured, shared reality is unstable, and appeals to common norms routinely fail to hold any weight."

A FUNNY THING has been reviewed in @thetls.bsky.social! I subscribed in order to read the whole thing but my application is "pending," so if anyone can share the whole thing with me, I'd love to see how it ends www.the-tls.com/literature/l...

This is so significant: a new comprehensive report detailing the myriad modalities of Canadian university complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. static1.squarespace.com/static/68bf2...

A blast from the past: an interview I recently did w/Jamal Maarouf,who led Western-backed Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SRF) that fought ISIS & was destroyed by Jabhat al-Nusra by end of 2014. Discussed SRF's history & how he views Syria under al-Sharaa www.aymennaltamimi.com/p/the-syrian...

Exclusive: Thousands of bodies vanished from a Syrian mass grave in a two-year coverup of Assad-era atrocities, Reuters found. The people were buried at a secret site in the desert reut.rs/42Iiuv7

People who side with the monsters who do this are monsters themselves

For @newrepublic.com, I reviewed One Battle After Another and reflected on the fantasy of left-wing political violence that both left and right are indulging right now, even though the real thing barely exists