the serious answer is that we need a wholesale recommitment on the left to public higher education as a high quality low/no cost public good rather than a jobs training licensing agency. I do not anticipate this happening.

Democratic consultants: To replicate Mamdani’s success with the young people we must appeal to their short attention spans with memes and TikTok Mamdani (actual quote): In the fifth century in what we now know as Ireland, a British warlord named Coroticus had laid waste to the countryside

Medievalist friends! Applications are open until end of Feb for a fully-funded PhD in Arthurian Literature with the brilliant Louise D'Arcens @medievalafterlives.bsky.social and myself, based between Sydney (Australia) and Groningen (The Netherlands). Please share widely! tinyurl.com/f7su6urv

Come join us, Friday the 13th!

I realise I'm just a freak, but living in a multicultural city is the best thing of all time, it's just the best possible human experience and i can not understand why anyone on earth would be like "weve got to destroy this"

Maybe they think white people in the South won’t stand up for their neighbors. I think they’re wrong. #charlotte

Jupiter says trans rights

This Friday - join us!

160 faculty from all 5 UC law schools signed this open letter detailing why the Trump demands to UCLA are unlawful, unconstitutional, and wrong: sites.google.com/view/uclawfa... Great to work with @fishkin.bsky.social @blakeprof.bsky.social @seanashiffrin.bsky.social on this statement.

Join us!

Convo w bff 6 months ago: our institutions are huge and pretty entrenched, and I suspect they won’t be that easy to dismantle Convo w bff today: at this point I want to be in a blue state when the war breaks out

The summer has seen anti-trans campaigns across the UK and US, alongside a crisis in healthcare. But what use could trans history have in these time, beyond proving 'we have always been here'? Sam Rutherford @echomikeromeo reflects on Imagining Trans Futures: www.historyworkshop....

“We have a right to know the charges against us, to know who has made the charges and to review them and defend ourselves,” they said. “But none of that has happened, which is why we’re in Kafka-land … It is an enormous breach of trust.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

go go go!

Today! Please note time: 12:30 ET (not 1:30).

Can we get some professional assessment of signatures on all those batshit executive orders? Pls and ty.

Friday - join us!

“It’s not tht traditional liberal learning is out of step w student demand. Instead, it’s out of step w priorities, values & desires of a powerful board of trustees… & an administrative class tht won’t fight for the liberal arts… even when it attracts major $$ gifts” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/o...

Tony is a local hero, having rescued two small children from drowning in the Rio Grande. He lives at Camp Hope, where he can keep his dogs and focus on sobriety while working landscaping jobs. Help Tony and other move to stable housing: tentstorents.org.

in this week's newsletter! a rant against this weird sex culture we seem to now live in: youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/everything...

“Gender studies as a discipline…is defined by a set of debates and problematics.” In this 10-Minute Talk, Judith Butler FBA discusses gender as a field of study and its interdisciplinary contributions to research, social analysis and social movements. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEvH...

"This 'burnout' that secure scholars are feeling is phantom pain where their colleagues should be."

Join us! Two-day online Colloquium on the medieval English dream vision Piers Plowman. All are welcome. Come for the allegory, stay for the cocktails!

Congress has decided to claw back previously approved funding for public media. This decision hurts people in communities across the country, but it has only strengthened our resolve to keep Americans informed and connected. (1/2)

So Stephen Miller’s really running this show, right?

Bravo to the @miamiherald.com for publishing this list in full www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

"The problem with AI isn't that it can do your job. It can't. The problem with AI is that your MBA-brained boss's boss doesn't know how your job works and thinks AI can do your job at fractions of a penny on the dollar, and hears the siren song of 'maximize shareholder value'." MBA-brain is real.

Exclusive: Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes is a three-time felon who has been released early from federal prison to a halfway house in exchange for his cooperation in the federal prosecution of Kilmar Abrego García.

we literally cannot afford them taking these weird racist side quests

One of our earliest civil rights statutes was designed to protect us against masked gangs who violate our constitutional rights. This particular history makes the masked ICE gangs uniquely repugnant. open.substack.com/pub/sherrily...

An incredibly exciting lineup of Langlandians. Please join us! DM me for Zoom link, and spread the word.

The sign game was strong in Cruces today but the clear winner: “Science keeps your dumb ass alive.”

“…a bit desultory”

Rounding up people at Home Depot looking for day work and small local restaurants means you're not raiding the factories, meat packing plants, and job sites of big Republican donors.

Our first paper of the panel is by Robert Rouse ( @rousemedieval.bsky.social ) and titled “A Left-Coast Medieval: Progressive Values in Age of Empires IV” #MAMG225 middleagesinmoderngames.net/mamg25/a-lef...

Many of our members have had grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities abruptly terminated. In response, the AHA, @modernlanguage.bsky.social, & @ach.bsky.social are convening an Information Exchange about the NEH Appeal Process on Wednesday, April 30th at 11am ET on Zoom. Register now 🗃️

Join us!!

Just got word from my college roommate - who is the state archivist for the state of South Dakota - that due to the DOGE shutdowns of IMLS, they can no longer fund InterLibrary Loan in SD. This means exchange between libraries, ability to get books delivered across the system, is gone as of 4/30.

I am a professor at Columbia University. All of the student NIH training grants have been canceled and now there are reports that ALL funding will be frozen. Why are Universities not banding together and speaking out publicly and forcibly about governmental attacks on biomedical research?

It's been noted that the last time stocks fell this sharply, we were in the midst of a global health pandemic. To which I say, please be patient. by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

"When we surrender art to automation, we risk losing not just the distinctive voices of individual creators but our collective power for creative expression."

Join us! (Date is correct now - March 28)

No offense to any of my beloveds on here, but we need an acronym for Mediocre White Guy Syndrome.

Unsolicited diptych