As a historian, I can certify that we are in the bad times. But bad times eventually end. In the meantime: • Figure out a small way to help someone • Figure out a small way to fight back • Figure out a small place to find joy • Figure out a small way to grow and thrive And do it often.

Three years after my husband died, I’m still trying to prove our life together was worth losing his family. What I live with isn’t forgetting — it’s the blurring of memory. On the third anniversary, I wrote about grief, memory, and continuing without answers. www.dataandpolitics.net/the-blurring/

We need to talk about how social media algorithms push moms down a slippery slope of distrust. From "Are my kids getting enough support in school?" To "Maybe I should homeschool." To "Maybe modern medicine is bad." I've seen this first-hand in research I'm doing on parenting apps. 1/🧵

1. This has been the rule for non EU visa applicants in the #RestofTheWorld for a while. 2. We told you that the dragnet was only going to get smaller. The visa process in the UK has been a cash grab for years now. 3. Spain, Portugal and France have an opportunity to do the funniest thing ever.

EU rules on political ads – aimed at countering information manipulation and foreign interference in elections are now in effect. Here's what will change for users. www.euronews.com/next/2025/10...

You're living through one of the biggest technological transformations in world history and it has nothing to do with AI

Forgot to update: Tried it, it is great. 5 minutes in the air fryer and çıtır çıtır simit. It is not some Americanized bagel wannabe. It is the real deal. So good. I hope it is a permanent product, not seasonal. Definitely give it a try.

🇰🇷Check out this recent article, “Contested Identity and Prejudice Against Co-Ethnic Refugees: Evidence From South Korea,” published in Political Research Quarterly by Jae Yeon Kim and Taeku Lee👇 journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

If you are teaching a class, unit, or workshop about immigration, I have a tremendous amount of multimedia resources, explanatory posts, digestible data, graphics, photographs and more over at austinkocher.substack.com. You might find something useful!  

NVIDIA and OpenAi: Concerns that their “increasingly complex and interconnected web of business transactions is artificially propping up the trillion-dollar AI boom.“ @bloomberg.com $NVDA 👀 www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

everybody should read alice miller. i haven't read this one (i read the drama of the gifted child (which is not about what you think at all)) but now it's on my list.

At @priec.bsky.social this morning — @fulyafelicity.bsky.social presenting on the ways that authoritarian regimes engage their diasporas and how those emigrants respond (or don’t!)

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

OpenAI's VP for education recently said the company wanted to become "core infrastructure" for schools and universities. Any infrastructure, though, always depends on habituating users to its technical affordances - so I've been trying to track how it's doing that 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...

🧵 Fellow academics in N. America if a Sudanese student has been admitted to your graduate program MA or PhD please please do your best to help them gather the necessary paperwork for their visa. So many are getting into great programs but (1/3)

AI and authoritarianism are “two sides of the same coin,” George Packer argues. “We’re surrendering our ability to act as free agents of a democracy at the same moment we’re building machines that take away our ability to think and feel”:

Trader Joe’s, here I come!!! Hem de Ankara simidi! (Although, I have to say, we need a Trader Osman or Trader Can label on this).

You mean things like both parents having to work full time and not being able to afford full-day daycare regardless? Or the ridiculous cost of healthcare and living? Or like having to worry for real about our kids getting shot to death at school? I could go on…

AI companies are about to become very *very* unpopular.

My article "Film-Making the Nation Great Again" with @draege.bsky.social is out in Perspectives! Poli sci work on authoritarianism and populism largely overlooks audiovisual strategies. Our multi-modal study uses a new dataset of 11,000+ regime YouTube videos in Turkey. doi.org/10.1017/S153...

This is what you get with AI, not your perfectly tailored entertainment, but an endless pile of slop and shit produced for the minimum money possible. Just Adorno’s culture industry taken to its absolute extreme.

“We find that women report ethics more than men, women and men report on different dimensions of ethics, and these differences are starker at the intersection of gender and method. We identify a new dimension of gender-based inequality in the profession…”

One of the most genuine insights I’ve had into the messy realities of research design, case selection, and fieldwork, and into what it means to truly feel a sense of belonging in the field and academia.

How do authoritarian regimes keep power over people who have left their countries? @fulyafelicity.bsky.social's job market paper “Remote Control: Authoritarian Diaspora Engagement Policies and Emigrant Political Behavior” (and the dissertation from which it draws) answers that question! 🧵

The human toll of European externalization efforts to contain migrant and refugee movements in Africa. A new @hrw.org report on migration control abuses in Mauritania.

All in stock @stanfordpress.bsky.social books, including their wonderful Middle East Studies list, are 50% off from now until September 8!

Stop offloading cognitive tasks to "generative AI." Stop using systems w/ "AI" features either inextricably woven through them or prominently displayed at the top to nudge you into their use. Stop *Designing* "AI" tools & integrations that way. Stop building or using "AI" like this. Fucking Stop it.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree ... "Researchers built a social network made of AI bots. They quickly formed cliques, amplified extremes, and let a tiny elite dominate." www.businessinsider.com/researchers-...

With so much going on, it’s hard for anyone to focus. My MENA writing group, which aims to provide structure and solidarity, just finished Week 122. Even today we had a new participant. MENA scholars at all levels are welcome to join to help meet writing deadlines. Message or email me

In this video, I talk about a really neat study recently published in @electoralstudies.bsky.social. I recommend reading it! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Want to make a conjoint experiment in Qualtrics? I'm sharing a template + how-to I made while Survey Lab manager this past semester. I hope it is helpful! sierradavisthomander.com/blogposts/de...

Think about how differently you think about these people when they are "tech workers" versus when they are refugees. Same people. But dignity only afforded them in one context.

If you're interested in religion & migration, follow @stephaniekramer.bsky.social, lead author of our recent @pewresearch.org report on the topic:

Did you know Africans lead the world in attending community meetings and joining with others to raise issues? See how African levels of citizen engagement compare to other world regions, in our latest in @thecontinent.org. #VoicesAfrica

“American Academy of Arts&Sciences reports 96.3% of humanities grads age 23-32 fully employed. Earnings in humanitiess comparable to social/life sciences, job satisfaction levels too. A serious mismatch bw actual employment for hum grads +general perception." www.mellon.org/voices/human...

It's still August 1, so there's still time to propose presenting at UCR's PRIEC meeting -- scheduled for Friday, October 3rd: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... PLEASE JOIN US TO CELEBRATE 20 YEARS OF PRIEC! @priec.bsky.social

Happy to share my latest: "How introduction programs help and hinder refugee integration: evidence from Norway", coauthored with Edit Bugge and Marte Nordanger, is now online at @scmrjems.bsky.social (a short thread) 1/9 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A very cool technology that allows students to interact with John Maynard Keynes’ ideas as he develops them is called a book

Five things that I believe about actually-existing AI today. open.substack.com/pub/davekarp...

CEO of Oreo Cookies: the oreo cookie is as important as oxygen

I've been a huge fan of @turkeyrecap.bsky.social from the outset. It's an outstanding independent news source on Turkey. So it was an extra bonus to be able to chat about a bunch of my projects. And to be able to connect my work on media to many of the (rapidly!) unfolding political developments.

Why do so many Europeans say they support redistribution but not vote for left-wing parties? Hear UCR professor @dadakim.bsky.social describe a recently published study on ambivalence towards redistribution in Europe: youtube.com/shorts/xufTk...

Qual researcher here and was a French trained fine dining pastry chef before I went to uni. The qual/quant divide here is a false dichotomy. The real division is how particular you are about methodological precision. Care a lot= baker/pastry chef. Happy to go "looks okay" and wing it= cook

There's so much going on, but I'm pleased to share my study of the vernacular politics of gender construction. As a former pastry chef, I gathered data from 600 hours of cooking shows to unpack what I term "conservative gender edutainment." Read open access at Politics & Gender cup.org/46pO43h