I propose to make universal the old policy of the Blackfriars conference at the American Shakespeare Center: If you do not end your paper on time, you will be forced to exit, pursued by a bear. Literally, a bear will come take your paper from you.

Once these detention camps were created at GTMO, the infrastructure was put into continuous use. These camps provided the foundations and materials for the War on Terror camps. GTMO has been used for detention almost nonstop since the 90s. Once camps are built, a purpose is always found for them.

The Cartel of the Suns is a fiction circulated by the US govt to justify actions against Venezuela. Insight Crime keeps repeating the fiction.

I don't think we can understand US government policy on the Americas without centering the pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández, ex-pres of Honduras. @jeanguerre.bsky.social makes sense of what would otherwise be this baffling (and quickly forgotten) pardon. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/o...

Stumbled upon a bunch of PDFs in their natural habitat.

Constellations not cancellations! www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

Would that be the same “social cohesion” that led to Adelaide Writers’ Week falling apart?

I wrote about the “gunboat isolationism” practiced by the US government in the 19th century, and how it’s coming back today.👇

He’s published a bunch of books but doesn’t covet the Nobel Prize in Lit.

Why the new food guidelines look like Cards Against Humanity

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into

This is also the outcome many in Venezuela fear most: they capture Maduro, wash their hands of any real regime-change plan, and unfurl a “Mission Accomplished” banner. Meanwhile, the same players keep running Venezuela, nothing materially changes, and conditions on the ground could actually worsen

I always tell students if you ask a good question the article will write itself

He estado preguntando y hasta ahora nadie tiene una respuesta inmediata y satisfactoria: si les pido que recomienden una novela latinoamericana reciente (digamos, los últimos diez años), que sea divertida, en el sentido de graciosa, y que no sea sobre violencia ¿cuál recomendarían?

Just read this passage in “We Are Green and Trembling” by Gabriela Cabezón Camara… “Here it is. The lightning-thunder.” “It is a hummingbird.” “A lightning-thunder.” “What does the lightning-thunder do?” “Fire. It makes fire when it is angry.”

NYT copies Tiny Desk concerts, but makes employees work through the whole set.

Editor: You get that frontispiece for Leviathan? Etcher: Sure did boss, real fucking sexy just like you asked.

I'm excited to share my piece in Los Angeles Review of Books @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social, which examines OpenAI's claims about ChatGPT's creative writing skills, Big Tech's weaponisation of grief and nostalgia, and the collapse of the academic humanities. lareviewofbooks.org/article/lite...

Bora Chung asking the big questions in “The Midnight Timetable.” (Many thanks for the translation to @antonhur.com)

What if the problem is not reading but the way we expect students to read? Couldn’t be that, not at all.

Yep - using the USA as an excuse to gut environmental approvals.

I taught a little module on Ned Kelly for three years, but never read one of the most famous tellings of his story. Finally doing so and it’s an adjectival delight.

🎶 You bring me closer to guard! 🎶

Love this read on dark academia. We need a name for the vast majority of academic institutions, which are extremely dark but look nothing like dark academia. I’d have said dank academia, but now that sounds too cool.

This is pretty poor from @insightcrime.org, opening with the misleading assumption that the drone strike is reliable evidence of drug trafficking. The strike prevents gathering any proof at all, it does the opposite of what this article suggests.

Have to give it to @themonthly.com.au for nailing 3/3 #Auspol cover story titles. All three covers going straight to the pool room.

E is for Extremely big coincidence.

now that eric adams has ended his campaign for mayor it’s time to stroll down memory lane

People always ask me : “Cristi, how do you manage parenting a baby while going up for tenure?” It’s easy. The secret is *flow-based-scheduling*. Here are its three core strategies for new academic parents: Sleep when the baby sleeps Cry when the baby cries Publish when the baby publishes

This is truly the saddest looking game of cards. Place the six of red on the table, stare at it silently until someone plays a five of black.

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.

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.”