“Roblox aesthetic is key to 2010s nostalgia" is a sentence I just wrote for a handout. That's how my morning is going.

#ResearchDispatch 2 Sad that they don't really fit into the book project, but I will one day write about Amrita Sher-Gil's wondrous portraits in some way so help me...

Tired: footlong Wired: longform

Made Melissa Clark’s Vietnamese Coffee Brownies and my swirl action is not the best. Hers look like foliage. Mine not so much.

I’m gonna try posting a few #ResearchDispatch skeets every week as offerings to the book fairy. #ResearchDispatch 1: Excited to finally start reading this book

This essay over the new Wuthering Heights

Post the best picture you have ever taken of your pet. An Aesthecat.

My colleague’s brilliant work has been such a blessing as I begin to plan my art chapters

He’s always hated Mondays

Worrying signs that the lambs in the fields around here are developing a gamboling addiction

Actually there’s a great Bengali expression for this, which literally translates something like “the critter inside the head is moving again”

Happy Easter, also saving these for my image and text course!

Is there mutual aid setup for no-judgement financial advice?

Cats in my life: ours, friends’, deli’s, pet shop’s

Scone Pie Quiche Rusk

Four guardians of my mental health

Can’t tell you how fun it is to wake up in cold sweat on March nights because d e c a d e s ago annual exams used to be held in March

Two movies that proved to be decidedly much better than word of mouth had me believe - ‘Babylon’ and ‘Materialists’. The first is exquisite, the second I’m hoping to teach soon. Wondering if ‘The Bride’ is suffering from a similar problem.

a milestone has been reached i feel because yesterday in class i said the word "aura-farming" while teaching benjamin

I'm at the airport on my way to the east coast for series of events for Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century! Weds, 2/18: Princeton's McGraw Center Thurs, 2/19: Rutgers English Fri, 2/20: CUNY Grad Center Details and RSVP info threaded below -- hope to see some of you!

Listen to the Emory launch…and then join us for the NYC one! @johannawinant.bsky.social will be at the CUNY Graduate Center Friday, Feb. 20 at 5pm for a talk and workshop, followed by a reception. RSVP here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

partner reading Anna Karenina for the first time and it might as well be Real Housewives of St. Petersburg. suddenly in the middle of complete silence: "NO! She did NOT go back to him!"

reading Persuasion for the 5th time and the trick of having Wentworth write the letter in front of Anne - my god what a device!

what is an experience you've had in the past, that still seems unreal? when i was 15, I got to see the Taj Mahal for hours on a moonlit night, after it had closed for the public, with only a few security personnel and dogs for company.

Kim Adams, one half of High Theory, has written about @eramalam.bsky.social's new book, "The Care of Foreigners", for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social . Check out our episode with Eram here: hightheory.net/2023/07/07/s... #academicsky #booksky #HealthCare #medicalhumanities

could this work? for one, i'd eat at regular hours, and get about 300% more sleep than i currently do

Three Cheers for Tosh! But also for Ashley Jensen who can do both Agatha Raisin and Ruth Calder, what range!

I’m gonna do the same and I’ll also change my horses at Bromley

Look who’s back in the New Year!

put Carol Kane and Richard Kind together on Actors on Actors you cowards!

It was, by every measure, a banner year for The American Vandal. Every episode is my favorite episode, but here were 2025's top 5 by downloads, starting where you would guess. The episode cited in Slate, Defector, etc. It coined a slogan. The first of 3 appearances by @yanisvaroufakis.bsky.social

MTC New Year's Letter from our editor-in-chief plus our editors' picks of 2025. Thank you everyone for helping us have a great year! See you next year and happy holidays ✨ tinyurl.com/bddh3y4r

went to fancy restaurant, debated with friendsa whether person at far table was Sam Rockwell. person probably overheard discussion because they looked at us with amusement. person was indeed Sam Rockwell.

One of my favorite places on the internets is the Public Domain Image Archive and here are four images, sans explanation, that represent my 2025. #happynewyear #artsky

Romancing the Worm

I wasn’t sure they were going to publish this. So good for them.

Gorgeous work from a book designer I had always wondered about; delighted to see this contribution to graphic design and #bookhistory! Tanya George, Sylvie Vodáková’s Book Covers for Květy Poezie (@letterformarchive.org; #skystorians): letterformarchive.org/news/sylvie-...

Additionally, let’s not add -ness and -y to make nouns and adjectives. Let’s do the hard and beautiful work of description.

I wouldn’t kick “The Matchmaker Matched With Her Brother-in-Law” off the bookshelf

Oh Christmas Shrimp Oh Christmas Shrimp Thy eyes are so unblinking! #Caturday

Ok one thing I really am proud about this year is the multimodal writing class I designed around the concept of ~core aesthetics. We discussed a TONNE of art, and figured out a vocabulary for ‘vibes’

Our Christmas movie tradition for the last three years.

a bit of a do (every year around this time I rediscover that fruitcakes are apparently an acquired taste)

a festive feline

in combination with this, i am also increasing the portion of in-class writing in my courses and reducing 'homework'. they write things, we discuss it right after. I have to say in general they don't hate it, I imagine not being in a position where using AI to write could be an option, is freeing

this is true, but many a passable turkish delight has been ruined by c.s. lewis

Why does Agamemnon's armor look like a Marvel superhero suit?

I've been teaching Bong Joon Ho's Parasite and Suh's incredible Seoul Home series together for the last couple of years. Living for the day I see it in person in LA!

Hate that my nightmares have become so inventive in my 30s. What’s wrong with ordinary monsters?

thank god roses aren’t toxic to floofs