Watching Mamdani's victory speech, I'm struck by his—and his campaign's—unabashed vision of the US as an immigrant society, a culture built from the ground up from diversity. It is a complete rejection and reversal of the search for a white-washed homogeneity that the political right projects.

I love that Mamdani is what the right claimed Obama was: A Muslim socialist born in Africa. The right practically manifested Mamdani into existence.

the day began with dick in a box and ended with zohran in office!!!!! not used to this good feeling! gonna bottle it up

Today my kid became a tween. He said, "Please don't put strawberries in the oatmeal again, Mom. They don't fit the vibe."

Miriam speaks truth (as always). A few years ago it really hit hard how foreign my students feel to me (and I them). One response is to be a jackass who blames the difference on them. Another option is humility. We should all strive for the latter.

I have an essay contrasting theory camps and communist ones in the latest issue PMLA, which reflects on the 1983 Illinois Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture conference. I sketch a material history of the perilous assumption that professional actions necessarily constitute political activity.

Who robbed the Louvre right answers only

Happy anniversary of the Sudden Departure to all who celebrate. For an @atpost45.bsky.social cluster edited by @ericafretwell.bsky.social and @annakrauthamer.bsky.social, I wrote about the trauma of living to tell (and retell) the tale. post45.org/2025/01/bein...

bring back a thousand little geocities

Of all the individual actions we're told to do that don't actually do anything to solve the climate crisis (relative to the damage done by corporations and private jets), stomping on a lantern fly that has no business being in harlem really does feel like doing something.

Was extolling the 90s-era magic (and safety) of the Tin Can phone to @rezekjoe.bsky.social & husband (IRL!!!) yesterday, so figure today I might as well proselytize on a broader scale! tincan.kids?srsltid=AfmB...

1. Bravo 2. Bravo 3. F***ing Bravo

CHOTINER: Many say Middlemarch is the greatest 19th-century novel. GEORGE ELIOT: I sought only to shine a light on unhistoric acts, people destined for unvisited tombs. CHOTINER: These Chotiner memes—Star Wars, the poem about plums, Moby-Dick. Are you jealous? GEORGE ELIOT: That f***ing whale.

ding ding ding ding

Every single Isaac Chotiner interview

shouldn't be, yet am, surprised to see the general course survey questions shift from they have been for decades about student perception of instructor preparedness and availability to student perception of whether the instructor is 'indoctrinating' students ("divergent viewpoints" etc)

“Not only is the ratio of AI’s resource rapacity to its productive utility indefensibly and irremediably skewed, AI-made material is itself a waste product: flimsy, shoddy, disposable, a single-use plastic of the mind.” www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

if anyone's looking for a distraction, i'm happy to discourse on how overrated apple picking is

We need to bring back the communal living room computer

Honestly it seems to me that one of the most important tasks for modern parents is raising their kids to be mostly offline normies

"How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor?" A Dramatic Reading of The Recent New York Times Dispatch from the Hamptons. Presented by The Gilded Age's Morgan Spector.

Here’s the thing: I too hope the rumors are true, but even if they are, we are still in deep 💩—and for a very long time to come.

I know there's a lot happening today, but this is sneaking in under the radar. This proposed new rule would absolutely crush foreign PhD students, potentially making it impossible for them to enroll with any certainty of their ability to finish www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

"The disciplining of Ben Robinson is a violation of his academic freedom that sends a chilling message to all faculty members." jeffreycisaacdesign.wordpress.com/2025/08/19/i...

admittedly not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but i just got a bee sting and it huuuuuuuuuurts

It's your boys @rezekjoe.bsky.social and me in The Boston Globe! In print on Sunday! (We are in a big fight about how to interpret the ending of Poe's novel and the illustration poignantly captures the strain in our friendship.) www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/24/a...

having spent most of my life reading literature within an institutional context --either in/for a class (first as student, then as teacher) or on my own for professional research--I really *really* **really** enjoy (re-)reading with my kid.

Many people in power are not offering an honest assessment of where we are politically in this country because that assessment would call on them to do things they simply refuse to do. That's where we are right now.

#That70sChallenge #MusicSky #MusicChallenge Day 21 - Sound and Vision (1977) #DavidBowie A picture-perfect groove with the “blue, blue electric blue” line floating over it. I remember running around with my friends in the warm summer evenings harmonizing that line. 😀 youtu.be/Fzf0JxUW2HM

If I've learned anything from being DGS so far it's that the fewer the resources, the greater the surveys. 🫥

" The real threat to liberal learning is from an administrative class that is content to offer students far less than their own humanity calls for — and deserves."

Here to report that among tweens, at least, Italian Brain Rot succeeds where Esperanto failed

One problem with masked, plainclothes federal agents jumping out of unmarked cars brandishing weapons to terrorize people is that this can be easily imitated by people impersonating federal agents. www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/u...

Just got back from albany pride, which was the biggest i think it's been in the 5-ish years we've been marching w our school. such joy!!! & shout out to local gov for ensuring public safety by replacing barricades at intersections with those big ass city recycling trucks 🌈🪩🏳️‍⚧️

bring back science journals including (bad) poems written by biochemists alongside peer review articles

two high agency males

In "The Human in Bits," Kris Cohen examines black abstractionist painting to demonstrate how race and computation are intimately entangled with the personal computer’s graphic user interface. Read the intro for free! #MediaStudies #ArtCriticism buff.ly/9jZ1OIz

Yosemite climbers unfurl transgender pride flag on iconic El Capitan For @nbcnews.com: www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-...

not sure if this goes for others, but after grades are in (mid-May), I need the rest of the month to turn off teaching/service brain before being able to turn research brain back on for the summer. Wish I could go from 0 to 60 once the semester is over, but definitely need time to gear up

📢 Calling all authors writing about Black Women's History 📢 Applications are now open for our Series Incubator! Finalists will have the opportunity to receive feedback on their WIP from series editors & other interlocutors in their field. Learn more and apply 👇 uncpress.org/black-womens...

My article is in the @bostonglobe.com !! Dora Richter, and a story of remembering #transgender #history www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/18/o...

joke's on me, thought that teaching my kid healthy eating habits (eg balancing fruits & veggies w sweet/salty treats), moderation, and "listening to your body" would organically lead to self-regulation. turns out permissiveness doesn't matter; that child will eat m&m's until his stomach explodes.

reminder that this great cluster of essays on The Leftovers came out this year post45.org/sections/con...

innovation is so stupid. i hate 'sending' comments on MS Word. who the hell thought that what people want is an extra step?

the human body may not be capable of photosynthesis, but i'm pretty sure the soul thermally responsive to that first strong beam of mid-May sun that hits you in the face

Are there other job sectors/companies/organizations that ask their own employees for donations, or is it just academia?

There are well designed exams and poorly designed exams. "Exam" in the UK is a fairly predictable, and imo bad, format. The point of a good exam is to make you do the kind of studying at the end of the semester that causes you to revisit and synthesize the material and notice new patterns across it.

if you're looking for a show that deliciously distracts from our ecological & democratic collapse and/or you're a fan of Gilmore Girls, highly recommend Etoile

English dept faculty: If you could give your new ABD students a book that they can use continually as a resource for dissertation research & or writing, what would be? the Hayot? something else?

One of the first to take Twitter into the realm of narrative creativity, RIP Joshua Clover