at my eye exam i asked the doc about my eye twitches and he was like you’re tired and i go “well, there’s not much i can do about that, and he goes “well, if you don’t wanna rest, tonic water is a good muscle relaxant, now you can always add gin to the tonic to relax even more muscles.” 😎

so if the dems just caved and threw everyone under the bus what was 40 day shutdown for, the missed paychecks and all the rest?

me: why does my eye twitch often lately? the internet: 1) stress 2) too much caffeine 3) not enough sleep 4) brain tumor. we suggest you get an MRI immediately.

Happy University Press Week! Join us in celebrating how authors, university press publishing professionals & so many others #TeamUP to advance knowledge. Explore this @bookshop.org collection of university press books to find your next thought-provoking read: https://bit.ly/4nhTQcc#TeamUP #ReadUP

a gift from @bakaari.bsky.social (some of the other ones she brought were her brilliance and her humor) @mid-theory.bsky.social

what level of broken adult sunday is procrastinating on your rescheduled long run by answering a dozen emails?

The 100th episode of American Vandal. Launching the 12th season. Live at UPenn English Faculty Lounge with @cnewf.bsky.social, @whitneytrettien.bsky.social, & an incredible assembly of faculty, students, visiting scholars, & friends of the pod.

these are certainly “interesting times” because delta airlines now has free wifi and i’m squandering it by hate-reading this oxymoronic garbage. if that’s not a sign of female pathology, i don’t know what is. feminism can’t save me from the new york crimes

millions of people are working without pay because sociopathic morons rule us. overheard one TSA agent tell another about a rude customer who suggested “she get fired,” and the agent was like “i do feel fired, i’m not getting a paycheck.”

on my way to atlanta for the close reading for twenty first century symposium. last time i was in ATL was 10 years ago, the miserable summer before college. when i finally extricated myself to go to college, i met @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social who just finished grad school. time is a very strange beast.

Seems like a good day for big ideas.

We are seeking a new editor-in-chief for ASAP/Journal—could it be you?? (Deadline will be extended!) We’re also seeking innovative reviews of scholarly & artistic works (all genres) for ASAP/Review. Check out our calls for Provocations & Uncanny Juxtapositions! asapjournal.com/call-for-pap...

it’s okay to cry at mamdani winning ✨✨ “more parks, more beauty, more light”

A piece about having Big Feelings about Mamdani. @mid-theory.bsky.social was a dream to work with 💖 Now glueing myself to election coverage. 🍺📺

this is a STUNNING piece of writing! please read while we await our victory! 🤩 #zohranmamdani

when i text my ET/CT friends before 8am their time…🙈

while it’s devastating to see my alma mater abdicate the basic premise of what a university should be, every day in a new way, i’m at least glad that they’ve said the quiet part aloud…the ultimate payoff of these schemes is the glory of sounding like any other mediocre white bloke.

while it’s devastating to see my alma mater abdicate the basic premise of what a university should be, every day in a new way, i’m at least glad that they’ve said the quiet part aloud…the ultimate payoff of these schemes is the glory of sounding like any other mediocre white bloke.

i actually find it rude that many campuses have a clock towers that chime at the hour. it’s like i get it, okay, time’s arrow, the passage of time, the march towards mortality and obsolescence… you don’t need to be on my case about it.

i am not enjoying the darkness.

i’m about to commit a writerly sin in this overdue essay to @johannawinant.bsky.social & @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social & i can already anticipate dan’s response because he gave me that exact same feedback ten years ago when i was a freshman in college & turned in mediocre late essay on james baldwin.

didn’t realize i could feel things, these things anymore, things like hope, courage, charm. all goes to show that when life hands you stale desperate islamophobia you dust off your arabic and eat some knafeh with the aunties at the corner store.

i have been writing for most of the day and just realized that i only added like 40 words to the draft. what a humiliating profession.

what makes writing so hard is 90% of drafting is you losing the plot of what you make of the plot, realizing you’ve lost the plot, then trying to get back on track before promptly losing it again all the while trying not to lose your mind in the process 👻

i would love it if the quality of my sleep weren’t dependent on doing strenuous physical activity that i’m not good at, is hard, and for which i have no time 🏃

Today is pub day for my third book: Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century. It is a handbook on how to read. It argues for the foundational importance of *caring* to thought. It offers an anatomy of close reading's five steps so we can hone the skills to perform them. It argues for why to read

Happy official publication day to Close Reading for the Twenty- First Century

TODAY, 10/16 our first meeting on NEVADA takes place. Sign up here for the zoom link: tinyurl.com/4yj7xj8p

this week i taught YOU CAN’T GET LOST IN CAPE TOWN, and on monday a student asked if zoë wicomb was still alive, and i said, “alive & mighty like a crackling fire!’ i had no idea that she died that same day. i hope this week’s classes honored her mark on me and her service to humane letters

there’s a metaphor somewhere in here…

maybe it’s not entirely good idea to start your morning with the news.

Catch the ever insightful @marissafenley.bsky.social take stock of contemporary Chicago theatre scene and what it might take to overthrow realism’s tyranny mid-theory.com/2025/10/09/o...

it’s delightful to be receiving this book when i’m wrestling with another essay about close reading because opening to virtually any page of this book and reading some or all of is a guaranteed win, clarifying and inspiring!

“I am no less committed to resisting, but without the belief that history is on my side. It’s a form of stubborn resistance that is the legacy of my father.” I cried several times reading this. Who you’re now is who you will be on the other side of this. www.bostonreview.net/articles/a-g...

For MTC, Ruari Paterson-Achenbach revisits this peculiar cultural artifact and what its "recession-fueled dreams of gluttony" can teach us about present day meat-oriented masculinity.

oh, i’m only well versed in adding minutes.

MTC has partnered with Chicago Review for a pitch workshop on October 9 @ 6pm ET. Want to try your hands in public writing, not sure how to approach editors, how to pitch your idea? Join us for a discussion of our respective processes as well as general conversations about best practices.

me editing a UK writer and telling them to put periods inside the quotation: sorry, our style guide says so. me being edited by a UK publication that puts my periods outside the quotation: WHEN WILL THE IMPERIALISM END?!?

Don't miss the first of this semester's New Faculty Voices Q&A series! This semester we were delighted to welcome Professor Farah Bakaari to UC Berkeley English. A scholar of 20th and 21st Century African Literature, you can learn more about her and her work in our Q&A - link in bio!

i know teaching is being rapidly criminalized in this country but it’s life affirming when a class session goes so well and when students on their own arrive and without using its name arrive at dialectical materialism.

“…children’s liberation from adult domination remains as urgent today as it was in 1933. Children continue to be harmed in all the institutions…meant to ‘protect’ them.” i felt so many unnameable emotions reading this piece for my own boarding school self, for all kids enduring tyranny everywhere!

For the first installment of our "Hold Up" feature, Sophia Marie Niang revisits Jean Vigo’s 1933 film ZERO FOR CONDUCT and what teaches us about the rebellious lives of children and the possibilities of forging comradely solidarity with them. mid-theory.com/2025/09/18/h...

there’s being an underdog and then there’s bulldozing bridges that are too big for you. oh my beloved lynx can’t lose like this. #WNBA

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.

MTC first reading group on the award-winning translated stories HEART LAMP by Banu Mushtaq will take place tomorrow Sept. 18 at 5pm ET. Sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

i think it’s great that the wnba playoff courts are sponsored by bumble…women make the first move and it might just be a 3-pointer from downtown 😏

go bears!

amazing review essay alert! a pleasure to read, to edit, to work with @nathansen.bsky.social ✨