Catching up on The Gilded Age like 😴

Absolutely terrible, terrible news. Trinity University has announced that Trinity University Press will close at the end of the fiscal year--described by one author as a "South Texas outlet for stories and culture" for which there is no replacement frankly. Awful. www.tpr.org/arts-culture...

just wrote my first real discursive footnote in, like, a decade. I don't know if you guys have heard about this thing called scholarly writing but it is the jam. everyone focuses on its supposedly oppressive, exclusionary elements but do you know what you can do with scholarly apparatus?! amazing!

If you’re on academia dot edu, let me suggest that you strongly consider deleting your account.

I’m really excited about this, but going into it, I want to ask teaching ppl on here: what are the ways that AI has been forced into your teaching life in a new way this fall? I will not share any specifics during this public conversation, just want to be able to talk about where we are now.

If you, like I, owned a cassette of Poison’s Open Up and Say … Aah, are a big fan of David Ben-Merre & @profchander.bsky.social’s, and can’t get enough of theories of address & apostrophe, you truly must read the epilogue to David’s wonderful book forthcoming from @sunypress.bsky.social

The number of university presidents who beclown themselves to please the far right, only to end up being shark chum anyway just keeps growing

a key reason they see an opening for such a blatant speech crackdown is that they already did one to Palestinian and anti-genocide activists and it got enthusiastic bipartisan approval

Thinking about Sundance (RIP Redford). Ruby in Paradise is the first movie I cognized as a Sundance movie — also Ashley Judd’s film debut but I already knew her from Sisters (Reed & Kirby/Paul Rudd 4ever). Did not know until right now that Ruby is an…adaptation of Austen?? Jane truly is omnipresent.

We just filed a lawsuit on behalf of faculty, staff, students, and unions to protect free speech within the University of California system. The Trump-Vance admin's use of financial threats against academic institutions in an attempt to stifle views it opposes is both unconstitutional and illegal.

I highly recommend that you read @leximcmenamin.com's latest: "When the WSJ reporting came out, I knew it didn’t matter if it was true or false; the damage was already done. It’s not about truth or reality. It’s about demonization and easy targets and reaffirming their own rhetoric."

Someone just liked this post from 2 years ago and if you had asked beforehand if either Bluesky or I was here 2 years ago I probably would have said “no” because what even is time anymore?!?!

It’s official: the United Nations Commission of Inquiry concludes Israel is committing genocide. The UN body calls on nations to stop sending weapons to Israel, ensure people within their jurisdiction aren’t aiding or inciting the genocide, and hold those who are accountable.

doing work and madly muttering “ground offensive AGAINST WHAT?!” all day

my favorite robert redford story is that mike nichols considered him for dustin hoffman's part in THE GRADUATE. during their conversation nichols asked redford something like, "have you ever struck out with a girl?" and redford's response was basically, "i don't understand the question"

Been meaning to share this for a while: BROKEN RECORD: GENDERED ABUSE IN ACADEMIA ft 40+ contributors & THE Sara Ahmed from @sunypress.bsky.social. Because higher ed is not a bastion of the radical left. It's A WORKPLACE where abuses happen all the time & it's NOT OK. sunypress.edu/Books/B/Brok...

“In West Hollywood, the trans and Progress Pride flags were both lowered to half mast in Matthew Shepard Square this weekend.” I just— JFC www.them.us/story/weho-f...

Tomorrow the UC regents are meeting at UCSF to discuss Trump's extortion attempt. This is a defining moment for the UC system, for public education, and for the university as an institution. We demand no concession, no capitulation, no cuts.

wtf is with german unis requiring diss publication for the PhD? is this for real? it would be great if unis could get on the same page with presses about what's actually a good idea / at all feasible. like, I'm sorry but publishing is an actual industry not JUST your personal prestige machine.

Javier Bardem at the #Emmys: "Here I am today denouncing the genocide in Gaza... Free Palestine!" (via @Variety)

FINALLY

Oh hell no

on the penultimate episode of our 30 Rock rewatch. then what do we do with our lives??

I am having a hard time reconciling "Charlie Kirk was a fierce advocate of open dialogue and free expression" with "we must identify and persecute everyone who is insufficiently mournful"

So impressed with the zine section at the Multnomah County Public Library. Human creative expression at its best 📕💪🏽💥

“He created a professor watchlist to get academics fired. He offered the standard right-wing plaint abt left-wing indoctrination in American unis even as he went on campus tours trying to indoctrinate young people into his hard-right Christian nationalist worldview” www.thenation.com/article/poli...

I wrote my own Charlie Kirk obituary, and about valuing truth over manners: www.thenation.com/article/poli...

Oop.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... I don’t have words

I have a couple of classes I assign Anzaldúa in and she’s a consistent student favorite. Spread the joy (and incisive activism)!

blanket statements about guns on campus > blanket statements about so-called political violence

“This radiates with joy.” Perhaps you too are desperate for some friggin’ joy. Publishers Weekly has given Prieta Is Dreaming — a posthumous collection of stories by Gloria Anzaldúa forthcoming from SUNY P — a starred review. 💫 www.publishersweekly.com/9798855804553

I can’t believe how many liberals take this stupid person seriously

Back to our rewatch of 30 Rock in which we’re now up to the 2012 Obama vs Romney presidential race plot line in the last season

Y'all were so concerned about a few tents impeding the teaching mission of the university. What do you think it might do to the teaching mission if one little video from your classroom results in a campaign from [clears throat]: the President, the feds, right wing trustees ... I'm not finished (2/3)

I know there are tenured professors out there who breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that the A&M firing happened to a non-tenure-track faculty member. It’s going to come for you too, so maybe this is a good moment to do unto others etc.

*taps the sign* tenure is, at its core, a promotion and not a promise of anything

It's publication day for UNIVERSITY KEYWORDS. Across 27 sharp essays, the book offers a critical account of the political economy of US higher education, how it came to be structured this way, and how together we might build a better university together.

If *your department head and your dean* can be removed for supporting your colleague in teaching in their area of expertise, then you have no academic freedom. In a functional sense, you don't work at a university at all.

"How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor?" A Dramatic Reading of The Recent New York Times Dispatch from the Hamptons. Presented by The Gilded Age's Morgan Spector.

My kid's kindergarten teacher was a member of the last graduating class at the College of St. Rose in Albany before it closed. She seems GREAT and I am once again reminded -- as I am all the time -- of what a colossal failure of leadership and disaster for the region its closure was.

I had my autoreply on for much of Aug so my inbox is what you'd expect but my next column, when I eventually write it, will be called something like "Your Editor Hasn't Responded--Should You Panic?" Hint: No. We <3 all our book-children equally but have a lot of kids & I promise replies are coming!

This. This entire thread. According to the Powers that Be in academia, university presses are a vital step in the faculty career path but in the same breath devalued/defunded. Make it make sense.

I started reading the list of Bucknell English dept faculty. I don't think I know any irl or on here but every single bio lists a current book project or a/many published book/s--expected, presumably, for tenure. Will Bucknell--upon closing Bucknell UP--stop expecting their own fac to publish books?

🚨After the archives… the contract! I am delighted to report that my book project - on antiracist Jewish writers, Hollywood, and the blacklist - is now under contract with everyone’s favorite #SkyEditor @rcolesworthy.bsky.social at @sunypress.bsky.social! Hope to have it to y’all in 2028!🤞🎬🗃️

Ahahahahahaha 💀

It just occurred to me that quips about having so many issues you need a magazine rack are extremely archaic if not incomprehensible to many and it made me sad

How your email finds me today

If there is anything I have learned from writing a book that spans 67,000+ years and a great many disciplines, it's that SO many academics have really poor citation practices.

A couple weeks ago an author reached out because their uni wanted to know what percentage of submissions we ultimately publish because in the year of our fascism and casualization 2025 the prestige police are still worried they’re not promoting The Best of The Best