Today I need to you to hear about Paul Éluard, a French poet and #Resistance fighter against the Nazis. An important surrealist artist before the war, during the Nazi occupation, he joined the underground resistance network, and used his #poetry as a weapon.

The President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, PPFP, has been a jewel in the crown for faculty development and recruitment at the University of California for years and the results have been an expanded faculty with almost 100% tenure rates — unprecedented success.

Love, love, love @dieworkwear.bsky.social. Doing the work of a public sociology with every post.

I'm pro-union because I think workers should organize to balance the power that business owners have in various negotiations. It's true that unions have been weakened, but it's not because of multiculturalism. I would argue, it's because people seek to exploit divisions for their material interests.

"knowledge is humanity's spiritual birthright. Making it, playing with it, revising it, sifting through it, making sense of it -- it is baked into who we are as a species. [...] Every generation is responsible for protecting this legacy for the next generation." Printing this to hand to my 13yo:

It’s happening…

LinkedIn thinks I might want to be a part time bookseller. What do the AI overlords know that I don’t?

In 2019, after more than half a decade of studying youth suicide, I began writing a bit about disintegration of attachments, pain, and trauma. Real happy stuff. COVID made these ideas more urgent, in my mind. Here is my fave piece, on social trauma: sage.altmetric.com/details/1569...

Academics: can we please collectively agree to turn down the heat on ourselves and each other? Three easy things to do: 1. Say out loud “nothing is on fire” and repeat it until you believe that very little in our jobs is actually on fire. 2. Recognize the distinction between urgent and important.

Today I broke my own cardinal WFH rule: never attempt to do IRB work at home. Leave all those bad feelings at the office.

Anyone know what Jon Meacham is up to these days? I/we could benefit from hearing his voice.

A powerful essay from Joan Scott as universities become sites of fear.

Not only is it possible to believe that political violence is bad AND Nazis are bad (and not to be mourned as part of public life), it’s… a very consistent worldview

The professor has been fired and senior administrators removed from their post. No mention of this in the New York Times, The Free Press, The Atlantic or other outlets who drove the campus speech moral panic.

Chilling.

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars. OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

My book, Called to Care? Health Care, Burnout, and the Search for Meaningful Work, has a publication date — June 9, 2026!

It’s only 11:15am and I’ve already listened to this 80 times.

I disagree. I will tell you what's wrong with his jeans. 🧵

The part I think about all the time is how it was a compliment to be told “you’re not like other girls.” All the girls trying to not be like other girls, just because we all hated women so much.

This is very bad. Although entirely predictable. Once more the humanities are being cut back to prop up STEM and, increasingly, AI investment (including at the expense of bench science). In the past, cuts to humanities were promoted on two separate logic streams that do not hold true: /1

May even the bats mourn with us. www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6-T...

Talk about The Wire, Sopranos, Game of Thrones all you want, but the greatest US television program ever made is Sesame Street. It's not even close. 50+ years of treating kids across class, ethnicity, religion not as mini-consumers...but as citizens with a stake in this world.

Clever.

I loved this episode when it cane out in 2022. The bits about fashion sizing and data were intriguing. But I listened again today and the fascism and eugenics angles really struck home. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r...

It’s ok to be jealous.

End of an era. Lots of legitimate critiques of Joann, but regardless, this is an enormous loss for all current and potential future makers. $42 of many, many, many dollars I’ve spent over the last 40 years.

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view... #highered

Great point. Power, resistance, creativity.

I'm fucking giddy about this for such bigger reasons than just more kiln space, more work space. In this time when it feels like we're losing so much, *gaining* more of this creative community space is a blessing. 😭

Since student use of AI is on our minds again, might be a good time to report on my experiment with oral exams. I taught a 400 level sociology of death and dying course to 25 undergrads. The course is fully online asynchronous, so blue book essays weren’t an option.

The first got me. I love a dark sense of humor.

In 2022, I taught an undergrad course where students picked a topic they cared about and created art to forward social change. One group picked rural health disparities in AL, with a special focus on hookworm. I still have their collage hanging outside my office. Sadly even more relevant today.

New baby quilt top inspired by some of my favorite springtime blossoms. I’m thinking about writing this pattern up. Maybe even scaling it to full/queen size.

France opens its doors to science researchers and scholars, including those fleeing the United States. anr.fr/en/latest-ne...

🚨 The NIH’s sweeping cuts of research grants are inflicting pain almost universally across the U.S., @raelnb.bsky.social and I found. At least 43% of organizations that had grants terminated are public universities. About 40% are in states Trump won in November. kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

The plan for NIH is in, source with full 64 page proposal for all of HHS is linked. Reported in WaPo. This is catastrophic. Reduction to 8 centers. 40% cut in budget. 15% IDC cap. This will decimate science across America open.substack.com/pub/insideme...

I worked in a factory when I was a teen. I can confidently say that most people who think bringing manufacturing stateside have zero desire to work in them.

This week ASA member Christine L. Williams @utaustin.bsky.social was featured in a question on Jeopardy! What a milestone for public sociology!

Because no one can live off of bad news alone.

And he also suggests that a certain presidential advisor who goes by SM on Signal is the real strategist behind all of this. I suspect that's true of a lot of stuff that's happening. While we all go on about President Musk, we should also be talking about President Miller.

🚨I converted the list of terminated #NIH grants (as of 3/22) into a google sheet. I added activity codes and award jurisdictions (see tabs for grant count and $ by each). Note this HHS list likely does not include all planned/completed terminations as of this date.🚨 Please use, share and distribute!

We're closing in on 2000 signatures just over 48 hours since we launched.

13. And anyone who has been part of this grand humanist tradition is someone who will not lie down and cower before these sad bullies. I don't know what happens to science in the US over the next four years, but I have no doubt as to where the arc of history bends. We aren't going anywhere. fin

I have signed this important letter and urge my academic colleagues to do the same. Defending the core institutions of liberal democracy is a matter of great urgency. I hope all university administrators step up to the task as well. Thank you for your leadership, @daniellaurison.bsky.social.

Former President of my current University. I’ve never felt so much fear in University spaces in my 25 year career. As an 80s kid, it feels at least a little bit like how I imagined people might feel (and behave) in Soviet Russia.

In occupied France, people would drop their used matches folded into a V, as a secret sign of resistance. People who opposed the Nazis would see them, knew they weren't alone, & felt emboldened to take action. Some modern day equivalents here--small but powerful actions you can absolutely do:

New (Special) Issue of Symbolic Interaction: Frame Analysis edited by Iddo Tavory #sssi #sociology #Goffman #interaction #openaccess onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15338665...

The public really needs to understand this. Every university system in the world rests on public funding, there has never been an alternative model at any time in history. We have universities for literally the same reason that we have roads and armies.

A dear feminist science studies mentor passed on March 5. Have a good journey Sandra Harding. ❤️ Harding was UCLA Distinguished Professor Emerita of Education and Gender Studies, former Director of the Center for the Study of Women. Link is an oral history interview with Sandra on her career.