I wrote about deadly US strikes in the Caribbean. A lot has been said about the illegality of the strikes, but impunity (and not legality) is the whole point.

Australia's universities are blighted by a "culture of consequence-free, rotten failure", according to the former chair of a senate inquiry examining governance at public universities. ... "There's no other sector in the country where failure is rewarded so handsomely and with so little scrutiny."

From yours truly and Chelsea Estancona

RALLY TO SAVE MEANJIN Thursday 11 Sep 9am Outside the Melbourne University Publishing office, 715 Swanston St, Carlton. A number of Australian writers and editors will speak in support of this vital cultural institution

This is so very surprising and so very cool! Of course Enriquez would choose Tasmania, but I did not see Launceston coming.

The loss of Meanjin is devastating news for Australian writers and readers. Always meant so much to see my work there. Some of my best experiences of being edited. An entirely avoidable disaster.

It's not going to get that much press, but Bolivia had an election which upended the longstanding MAS dominance in the country, but then upended the predictions about who would replace MAS. The (self-inflicted) end of a political era in the country. www.ojala.mx/en/ojala-en/...

I was one of these foreign PhD students. I had to take 2.5 years of classes (while teaching undergrad classes) as part of my program. I only started doing my actual doctoral research in my 4th year.

I'm genuinely surprised @aunz.theconversation.com would publish such a misleading article. This is not 'journalism you can trust' it's propaganda. theconversation.com/australia-co... #auspol #climate

Why bother to entertain this question when we should be asking who is suffering because of AI?

Sometimes you can just tell, from the moment the cat walks into the room, that he’s on a mission to bite your face.

I took at look at the US govt’s not-so-secret plans for military operations against criminal groups in Latin America. 👇

First of these US military deployments positions warships close to Venezuela. But one of the main "cartels" that the US is targeting there doesn't exist as anything more than a name. As with some other cartels, the name was cooked up by US agencies. nacla.org/2020-04-07-n...

The US govt is looking to deploy the military against Latin American crime groups. What could possibly go wrong? I wrote about growing consensus around fentanyl and border security, and the probs with using military to fight cartels. @aunz.theconversation.com theconversation.com/the-us-gover...

What an amazing resource!! Sharing for all those grappling with how to handle AI in the classroom. Huge thanks to @annakornbluh.bsky.social @ehayot.bsky.social and the other contributors #History 🗃️

This is going to be so epic! Enrigue’s vision of Tenoxtitlan was so rich in You Dreamed of Empires. Excited to read his treatment of the border (in three timelines). 🌵

It's 25 years since Australia's favourite son, Peter Carey, wrote an award-winning novel about Australia's favourite son, Ned Kelly. Carey reflects on writing The True History of the Kelly Gang, and the influence of Australia's favourite son, Sidney Nolan. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

👇I reviewed Enrigue’s “You Dreamed of Empires” along with Herrera’s “Season of the Swamp.” (The dreams in Herrera’s novel are more of the yellow fever kind, but they do involve vampire hunters…)

“Against any conception of history as Important Personages, as great men wielding power and shaping destiny, Herrera and Enrigue offer outsiders and unruly rabble, language that shifts like uncertain ground.”

I wrote about Season of the Swamp by @yuriherrera.bsky.social and You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, two novels rethinking grandiose narratives of Mexican history - like López Obrador's "Fourth Transformation." Just published by @publicbooks.bsky.social! www.publicbooks.org/once-upon-a-...

well. at least there's new worms

Essay coming next week from @publicbooks.bsky.social! I’m reading these novels as responding to six years of government by Lopez Obrador, and the complicated legacy he leaves behind in Mexico.

Is this some kind of snarky new CAPTCHA trick?

Haven’t seen anything ratioed this badly in a long time. The emotional truth has been found.

Exciting news article “Grammar of Threat” with co-author extraordinaire @phillegitimate.bsky.social just won the 2025 Lee Ann Fujii Best Article Award from @apsa.bsky.social ’s Interpretive Methods group! 🎉

Submitted final grades for the semester, breathed a deep sigh of relief, and then made the catastrophic mistake of taking a quick look at my inboxes.

With $15 billion, political scientists would be able to incorrectly predict election results on a truly massive scale.

I had the chance to interview Alvaro Enrigue about his novel, Tu sueño imperios han sido (You Dreamed of Empires), for the Novel Dialogue podcast. It was a great conversation! Check it out! noveldialogue.org/2025/06/05/9...

Here's a long thread on an issue dear to my heart. This Tuesday evening I’m doing an Intellectual Publics with Macarena Gomez-Barris on publishing. Like last year’s conversation with Denise Cruz, or the prior year’s with Racquel Gates, we will talk about how to find a publisher, turn a thesis... 1/

Nothing captures #Adelaide better than all day coffee and breakfast served until 1:30pm.

Political science types, what are your fave conferences that are usually held outside of the US? I don’t mean like APSA, which happens to be in Vancouver this year. I used to go to Conflict Research Society, annually held at a campus in the UK and with a great sense of community.

Turns out AI is bad at referencing sources but great at referencing sauces.

There are fewer ghosts now than in Victorian times because of the rapid rise in global warming following the Industrial Revolution

This. As someone studying populism & the far right for over a decade, it drives me insane when Aussies pat themselves on the back for compulsory voting allegedly keeping these guys out. Sure, that's 1 factor, but the main explanation is that they're weird, unlikeable & terrible at party organisation

An almighty shout goes up from the Australian electorate “Suffer in your jocks!!!” #Ausvotes2025

Illingworth Masonic Hall opens a last minute democracy sausage sizzle plus cake stall.

It’s Election Day and I am psyched! Voting is mandatory here in Aus, but I haven’t voted since 2007 because I’ve lived abroad (even then, last time I voted was at the embassy in Seoul). I’m so ready for this boring little civic obligation on a Saturday morning.

This is such an exquisitely nursed grudge 👇

📣 Call for Papers 📣 The Conflict, Violence & Terrorism Research Centre is pleased to announce a one day Symposium on: 'Popular Culture and World Politics: Portraying War, Conflict, & Political Violence' 📅 24/07/25 at Stewart House, London ⏳ Submission deadline: 23/06/25. Full Call for Proposals 👇

And they were copying Australia

📣 Fully-funded #PhD alert 📣 Join my excellent team at the Uni of Adelaide investigating authoritarian repression & blacklisting. 📍Adelaide, Australia 🎓 3.5 year project 💰AU$32,500 annual scholarship ⏰ Deadline 20th April 2025 ✉️ [email protected] Please share!

This will be my FIRST DEMOCRACY SAUSAGE* since the tradition really took off. *Assuming I can find a vego snag.

This essay is actually, possibly happening. Full draft sent off, and I really struggled to not just title it “Dorks for History.”

And understand that the El Salvadoran government makes its own media to sell its own punitive policies of mass incarceration.

I highly recommend reading this beautiful review by @phillegitimate.bsky.social on Fuiji's last, unfinished book. On what complicity might mean for scholars of violence lareviewofbooks.org/article/taki...

So we were studying a few executive orders in class this week, and a student asked Grok for an assessment of one. There was rather a lot of ideological bias, just not the kind the govt is hunting for. Like for once, an AI response didn’t even bother to both-sides the argument.

🎓📣Here is a reminder that we are editing a special issue of @poppublicsphere.bsky.social on "Political Science & the University" with a special focus on academic freedom. The topic seems more relevant than we originally thought. Submit your articles by August 1, 2025. More info ⬇️⬇️⬇️

ok sincere post: im so fucking pumped to be able to post that im a nebula finalist. look at my boy go. by boy, i of course mean my "scathing critique" and "short story" and "riff on ursula k le guins the ones who walk away from omelas"

It’s not like the Trump govt didn’t know. Trump promised to fill Guantánamo while campaigning in 2016, but then balked at the price when he was trying to fund building his border wall.

My article for @crikey.com.au (one of Australia's very few independent news outlets) on the realities of deportation and fentanyl at the US-MX border under Trump and Sheinbaum 👇 www.crikey.com.au/2025/03/11/m...