"nearly 75% of instructional staff in American higher education now work outside the tenure system. Contingency no longer exists at the edges of academic life; it increasingly defines the structure through which the university teaches, adapts, + reproduces itself." working-mass.com/2026/06/04/i...

although it's kind of adorable that they talk so much about postmodernism, like how my 88 year-old father in law likes to talk about the time forty years ago when he took my sister-in-law to see "The Sting" in concert.

just one thing to add to all the talk about this: they were given this charge in August 2025. The idea that they could make sweeping pronouncements about multiple fields after less than a year of study is laughable on its face.

when news of the invasion of Normandy hit, press associations named my grandfather, part of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, as the first man ashore. No way to know that for sure but we do know he never recovered from the war experience so fuck that shit.

that's right; let's not let cede to them the ground of reasonableness!

oh shit, can't wait to listen to this one! www.theamericanvandal.com/p/the-produc...

You can’t tell because they’re not blooming yet but this is a planter of rainbow colored flowers for pride month.

ISLE, a leading journal in the environmental humanities, is seeking 2 Associate Editors to begin on July 1, 2026. Read the call for applications (deadline June 15) at www.asle.org/stay-informe...

just recorded a podcast, blundering around inarticulately. I don't see why I can't just submit all my answers to any and all verbal interactions in writing.

I want to protect the Great Lakes and all but as I explain in this post, Line 5 has been killing creatures and poisoning First Nations in Canada for decades. The disaster is already here.

Apparently, my university thinks we are all so stupid that if they call it an “initiative to modernize university teaching and research infrastructure” instead of a data center we will all be fine with it.

best student comment of the semester so far: reading Zora Neale Hurston's play "The Filling Station" was "as fun as seeing Napoleon Dynamite the first time."

I spent yesterday making and planting these tidy garden rows

I thought we all came here so we didn’t have to listen to people respond to whatever stupid shit people like that Walsh guy says or whatever. It’s okay to just ignore it.

Murphy’s just laying there

What better way to celebrate RW Emerson’s 223rd birthday than by joining the @emersonsociety.bsky.social and perusing the latest issue of the Dial? @c19americanists.bsky.social emersonsociety.org thedialjournal.org

If this place is such a bubble, how come I’m the only one talking about the Indy 500?

Where my Bluesky Indy 500 peeps?!

Just wrapped up a two-day Sustainability Across the Curriculum workshop with faculty from across every school at our University. It was such an exhilarating exchange and so engaging, I forgot even to take pictures, except for this one from the tour of the amazing biopreserve we have on our campus.

Can confirm from experience

and by "times like this" I mean the fucking guy with the AI book who used the fucking AI. like just to be clear.

it's times like this when I wish cancel culture was a real thing

“The future has not been decided. Except for this one part of the future. That has been decided. But you can decide to decide how to participate in its decideness.”

I...worked on this novel for eight years...and... they just...they tweeted it out. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/202659...

everything is so terrible so I just keep buying plants so many plants

Same www.oakland.edu/cetl/teachin...

It's like nobody saw Snowpiercer

Samantha Bee laid this all out a decade ago www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LFk...

spent the day planting the gardens and listening to a podcast about Marx. You can see Murph back there dialecticin'.

Yeah, I feel like this is our students + AI

Really excited these two are working so hard to make sure Haley Stevens is the candidate.

We can try to understand the New Yorker's effect on man.

If anybody need 1500-3000 words on this and Moby-Dick hmu

I'll tell you what needs to go away: the claim or assumption that this or that or whatever "isn't going away." We can make shit go away.

I put so many plants in the ground today. Murphy didn’t do a goddamn thing to help.

Oh apparently Murphy wants dessert

Fuck yeah, smash it!!!

I’m really sorry for all the faculty who have to deal with this bullshit on top of all the other bullshit but otherwise I’m super happy the hacking of Canvas.

It took a minute but good to see this out in the world-- and pleased that my essay "Emerson's Times" kicks it off. And such fine company!

this is a solid proposal. but make it 5 years

👇 this

Straight out the window where I often work goldfinches like to frolic on the trees and shrubs and right now it’s pretty the best thing I’ve got going. There’s one you can see blurrily if you zoom in.

As bad as they were, Andrew Mellon and Andrew Carnegie used their wealth to build libraries, museums, and universities that benefitted the public. What cultural institutions have today’s wealthy elites built? Almost nothing.

This is great and you need to read it.

how come it's always a "college seminar" and not, like, "a gen ed class at a regional public university with 55 students in the basement of the oldest building on campus."

Mood

dear @newyorker.com @theatlantic.com and related publications: many of us remain at the ready to help you understand higher education and the challenges facing it, not a single one of which, I promise you, will be solved by youtube videos and claude, as recommended here.

The most important thing, as always, is that universities pretend like environmental/ energy don’t exist. #ailiteracy

The only "AI literacy" we need to teach kids is that it's really super easy to just not use it and they won't be missing out on anything whatsoever and then if somebody wants them to use it it's totally fine to just be, like, "nah, I'm good. Thanks."

Yet another reason why there is no situation where I would not prefer to write rather than speak