I almost only listen to leftist baseball podcasts but that’s just me. So many thanks to @alixbeeston.bsky.social and @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social for letting me talk about Downtime. Alix is the best reader and not surprisingly the best here too. Book is available from @columbiaup.bsky.social.

History professor Cate Denial says, “There is nothing that I ask my students to do in my classes that benefits from being done by generative AI.”

Even allowing that GenAI/LLMs might have valid uses, it doesn't matter bc they are inherently unethical bc they're trained on stolen work. Period. Any use of it condones that. Until they undo that (which would mean rebuilding it from scratch) and fix the environmental impact, it's a no go. Period.

‘Most of the opprobrium aimed at universities is fantastical. I only wish that academic life was as radical and subversive as its detractors believe.’ Ed Kiely on UK university finances: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

If your business model doesn’t work without breaking the law, then you’re not in business. You’re in organized crime.

Written for writing studies but definitely more broadly applicable across the humanities and other disciplines. refusinggenai.wordpress.com

this is a letter to the editor from a high school track runner who came in second to a trans girl in a race. her state house rep in maine started talking about it. so she wrote this: www.pressherald.com/2025/05/14/r...

"Women are PIs on 58% of the canceled grants, although they are PIs on only 34% of all active NSF grants. Similarly, Blacks are PIs on 17% of the terminated grants, although they make only 4% of the total pool. Hispanic PIs and those with disabilities were twice as likely to lose a grant."

Apart from all the other miseries of the Immigration White Paper, it’s depressing to see an actual government uncritically relying on the unbelievably flawed media-driven university rankings.

It's so revealing that this government has spent a year ignoring the crisis in higher ed, and the first time it offers any serious policy proposals they are intended to make the UK a *less* attractive place for international students

Our NEA grant was canceled. Here’s a letter from our development director about what’s happening.

STATEMENT: 'Not In Our Name: Feminist Academics and Educators Speak Out Against Transphobia' Read the statement online here: tinyurl.com/mud7va29 Co-sign the statement, fill in this form: forms.gle/oDYgnobrMiSc...

The latest entry in our Visualities forum, ed. @alixbeeston.bsky.social and Pardis Dabashi, is John Lurz on Barthes's 'semiographic' work. Read "A Secret Practice: Roland Barthes and the Writing of the Visual" here: modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...

I'm happy to be co-supervising a funded PhD project on the Valleys archive at Ffotogallery Wales (especially at a moment when the funding landscape is so dire). Please share/consider applying: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

"As UK academics and universities consider how they can assist their US colleagues, they should be asking the same question about those in other countries whose academic freedom is limited by the actions of their politicians—and ours." www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

If there is one thing, ONE THING, that students want, it is for their human tutors to get to know them as individuals, take their work seriously, & engage in meaningful conversation with them about their ideas. It is extraordinary that, as a sector, we are deliberately moving away from that.

There are great conferences and science in the US, but with the way things are right now, it’s too risky to attend.

British Steel employs 3.6k people. Coventry Uni group, which auditors say may not survive, employs 7.7k. But there is an emergency debate in parliament for British Steel and nothing for the whole HE sector imploding

Sometimes it feels like my whole career has been a chain of gatherings where UK & US academics trade stories of the particular kinds of stress & grief & short-sightedness that shadow our work. I want better for all of us.

Applications for GATES fellowships at the Maison de la Création et de l’Innovation are now open for next calendar year! Being in beautiful Grenoble for a few months, and at a center that actually values the humanities and arts, has been a total dream. maci.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/en/internati...

I'm happy to be co-supervising a funded PhD project on the Valleys archive at Ffotogallery Wales (especially at a moment when the funding landscape is so dire). Please share/consider applying: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

To celebrate #Incomplete's @scmstudies.bsky.social #SCMS25 award for Best Edited Collection, @stefansolomon.bsky.social and I wrote about 5 projects we see as essential to the expanding horizons of the feminist incomplete! Up now on the @ucpress.bsky.social blog: www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/t...

🎊🎊🎊🎊 Celebrating Incomplete, best edited vol of 2024 AND 2025 at #SCMS25 awards!!!!!! Congrats CONGRATS @alixbeeston.bsky.social & @stefansolomon.bsky.social !! Such a privilege and joy to be a part of this project!! ❤️❤️

Unreal: the story of an Australian MMA coach sent to a harrowing detention prison upon arriving in the US with a visa to lead a seminar. In case you had any doubt if it’s worth the risk of trying to enter the US unless absolutely necessary. www.instagram.com/p/DIEA_nBpCC...

haaaaaaaahahahahaha this is the best one of course you know fish, Ota Pavel, you've been a penguin for fifteen years

#Incomplete (@ucpress.bsky.social) wins the 2025 @scmstudies.bsky.social Award for Best Edited Collection!! And is accepted by a gorgeous gaggle of contributors - a fitting expression of the book's collective feminist ethos 💫💫💫 @stefansolomon.bsky.social #SCMS25

The recipient of this year's SCMS award for Best Edited Collection, co-editors Alix Beeston and Stefan Solomon discuss their book INCOMPLETE: THE FEMINIST POSSIBILITIES OF THE UNFINISHED FILM: www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/t... #SCMS25

Excited to present a screening of Kathleen Collins' LOSING GROUND - and give a lecture about women's unfinished work - in Grenoble on 8 April: maci.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/fr/actualite... I'll give the same lecture at Edinburgh Napier University at 3.30pm BST on 30 April (hybrid; msg for details!)

As someone who hates finishing things, I really like this (well, apart from the inability to finish things imposed by lack of funding bit)

Come see @alixbeeston.bsky.social talk at Edinburgh Napier on ‘Creativity in Motion: Unfinishing Feminist Film and Literary History’? Wed 30 April, 3.30-5pm (plus drinks after). All welcome; online attendance possible (message me).

A group of academics including former Education Minister Leighton Andrews has released details of an alternative plan to avert 'macho' cuts at Cardiff University by drawing on £285m in cash reserves and investments ✍️ Martin Shipton

Both of my books and several of my articles have been stolen by Meta to train its AI model. #LibGen is an outrage. Please consider signing and sharing this petition from @societyofauthors.bsky.social: www.change.org/p/protect-au...

Editors @alixbeeston.bsky.social and @stefansolomon.bsky.social on “the ongoing (after)life of Incomplete.” Many congrats to Alix, Stefan and their esteemed group of contributors for winning 🌟Best Edited Collection🌟 at the #SCMS2025 Book Awards!! www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/t...

To celebrate #Incomplete's @scmstudies.bsky.social #SCMS25 award for Best Edited Collection, @stefansolomon.bsky.social and I wrote about 5 projects we see as essential to the expanding horizons of the feminist incomplete! Up now on the @ucpress.bsky.social blog: www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/t...

"Some other ghosts haunt the grounds of the film. Or rather the grounds themselves are the haunted thing, present but also occluded..." Alix Beeston & Robert Lloyd examine the haunted ground of Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter (2022). www.sensesofcinema.com/2024/feature...

In which I sound off about Black Narcissus, Michael Powell, and uncredited actors stealing the show. Thank you for reading 🙏🏾

Happy to be hosting filmmaker and scholar Sibil Çekmen for a conversation and screening of her short desktop film #MissingDocumentaries @ugrenoblealpes.bsky.social on 26 March! maci.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/fr/actualite...

The latest in the "Visualities" Forum (edited by @alixbeeston.bsky.social @pdabashi.bsky.social): Read @ria4983.bsky.social on the aspects of "Black Narcissus" that "elide, evade, and ultimately refuse to be controlled" by its directors: modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...

For Reverse Shot, I spoke with Zeinabu irene Davis about the rejuvenation of her incredible classic COMPENSATION — a film I think is one of the great films about Chicago, deafness and Black life.

EoIs due to me at [email protected] by this Friday 14th February!

A *very* robust open letter to Cardiff University’s Executive Board about its cruel & unnecessary cuts from Cardiff’s Labour MPs Jo Stevens, Stephen Doughty, Anna McMorrin and Alex Barros-Curtis👇 CC @ucu.org.uk

📢 Paid opportunity for filmmakers in/from Wales! I'm commissioning 3 women/non-binary filmmakers to develop lecture–performances about their unfinished films this summer! Call for (super-short and easy) EoIs here: tinyurl.com/eoi-unfinish.... Pls share/submit! @imageworkscardiff.bsky.social

Read my review of this brilliant work here: online.ucpress.edu/fq/article-a...

Congrats to @alixbeeston.bsky.social and @stefansolomon.bsky.social whose *phenomenal* collection INCOMPLETE won Best Edited Collection at this year’s @scmstudies.bsky.social Book Awards!! Proud to have it in my Feminist Media Histories series @ucpress.bsky.social www.ucpress.edu/books/incomp...

📢 Paid opportunity for filmmakers in/from Wales! I'm commissioning 3 women/non-binary filmmakers to develop lecture–performances about their unfinished films this summer! Call for (super-short and easy) EoIs here: tinyurl.com/eoi-unfinish.... Pls share/submit! @imageworkscardiff.bsky.social

Did they ever explain the in-universe reason the baby shoes were never worn? I know there are fan theories or whatever but did they ever actually address it in a spin-off? Or are the writers being lazy again 🙄

Super grateful to see #Incomplete (@ucpress.bsky.social) mentioned by Jiří Anger as recommended reading alongside Maryam Tafakory's Razeh-del in this @sightsoundmag.bsky.social roundup of 2024's best video essays: www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

I'm spending the next few months in France 🥳🥳🥳 www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/28...