💥 Viktor Orbán faces a possible ousting in April 2026 — and whether he manages to cling to power or not, his regime and its global allure as a model for autocrats worldwide are crumbling. Read the sharpest analysis available.

Prediction is hard, especially about the future.

Trist leder av Mari Skurdal i dag. Bernhard Ellefsen har forsøkt å tenke originalt og konstruktivt om norsk kulturpolitikk og blir møtt med det korte og slappe “tilsvaret”. Hvilke prioriteringer vil Skurdal gjøre for å gjenreise kulturpolitikken?

It’s going to be an interest in election last year

📸 There's a story behind this breathtaking shot of Hungary’s opposition rally marking the 1956 revolution: Orbán’s government banned drones to try conceal the crowd’s size. Yet a passenger on a landing plane caught the scene in Budapest from above — the photo hit Reddit and went viral instantly.

“Understand a people’s culture exposes their normalness without reducing their particularity.” Clifford Geertz

I’m happy to see the awful Venezuelan regime being criticized but if “this is an award for an entire movement” (as the committee said), why give it to one specific person? And one with dubious friends and positions? Nobel Prize has been given to groups and movements before. Peace offer to Trump?

Krasznahorkai!!!! Great award, most deserved!! telex.hu/kult/2025/10...

Oh no, may I no longer use the em dash? Afraid I’ve been sending wrong signals for a while now: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/m...

i love ta-nehisi coates so much

Today translators, tomorrow... We need to prioritize human-to-human connection. “The more we remove human elements from human interaction, the more it could distort relationships between people. Now more than ever, we need humans connecting with humans.” www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

The dangers of AI slop: “AI content can push our emotional buttons easily, re-affirming or amplifying existing beliefs with generated imagery. Practically every social media study since 2012 has found that the secret to virality is in making you emotional . . . .”

Spurt i 2009 om Ungarere lever under bedre, verre eller samme forhold som under kommunismen, oppga 72 prosent verre forhold. Selv russerne har et mer positivt syn på regimeendringene etter 1990 enn ungarerne. Les min bokanmeldelse av Tibor Valuchs nye bok (2025) tidsskriftet-nof.no/index.php/no...

this is one of the things where they’re clearly doing it to trigger the libs, but the triggering thing is “the government should be allowed to kill people for no reason”, and if you’re not gonna ‘take the bait’ on that, why even have a politics?

Currently enjoying being a part of the group «man with an unpublished book manuscript about World War II», but a bit hesitant to having the group «man with rejected book manuscript about World War II» as a possible future

17 August 1942 | Irène Némirovsky, a French-language novelist born in the family of Russian Jews, died of typhus after a month of imprisonment in the German Nazi #Auschwitz camp. She was 39. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ir%C3%A...

Håvard Brede Aven skreiv ein veldig god tekst om Førdesfjorden og andre miljørettssaker i Syn og Segn i fjor. Kan vera verd ei nylesing no som naturorganisasjonane vann mot staten i lagmannsretten. www.synogsegn.no/2025/tilbake...

Furthest I’ve been: North: Tromsø 🇳🇴 East: St. Petersburg 🇷🇺 West: California 🇺🇸 South: Marrakesh 🇲🇦

Kjærås, NFF og leder for UEFA playmakers i Norge sier på radio at Innsiden ut 2 (!) er mer utbredt som kulturell fellesnevner enn Ambjørnsen og Moe, underforstått Askeladden. Jeg har alltid synes det har vært litt komisk med sånn kulturimperialisme-kritikk, men den har jaggu framleis sin plass!

There's something about the way men use LLMs that feel like those men at the strip club who believe that the dancers like them for their personality and wit. They just want a toy that makes them feel good.

Orban Playbook.

In July of 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered one of the greatest speeches in US history. Today it’s often presented in abridged form, though, and skips what seems like a long-winded introduction. If you read the intro closely, however, there’s an ingenious structure. THREAD👇🏽

God sommer fra Balaton 🇭🇺🏳️‍🌈 Årets sommerlesning: Contemporary Hungarian Society av T. Valuch. Anmeldelse kommer i Nordisk østforum i august!

⚡ Ukrainian writer Viktoria Amelina, who was killed in 2023 in a Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk, has been posthumously awarded the prestigious Orwell Prize for Political Writing.

Nordisk litteratursosiologi-konferansen i Helsinki var stor suksess, og i 2027 kommer den til Oslo og ABI 🎉 📚 Femten år siden jeg skreiv en bloggpost sist, tror jeg, men her er sannelig en til: #NOLS2025 #NOLS2027 uni.oslomet.no/abi/

22 June 1942 | A Hungarian Jewish boy, István Blankenberg, was born. In May 1944 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber.

19 June 1941 | A Hungarian Jewish boy, Tibi Yaakov Yisrael Veis, was born. In June 1944 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after the selection.

John Fogerty objected to Trump using "Fortunate Son" in 2020 -- because Trump was a rich, draft-dodging tax cheat, which is what the song is about. x.com/John_Fogerty... ht @karengregory.bsky.social

💡Suggestions for literature on platforms, digital media and culture? Hit me! I have the privilege of teaching this course for international and Oslo students, which is organised around case discussions - so hit med with case suggestions as well! 📚 student.oslomet.no/en/studier/-...

In exploring Cal State’s massive new deal with OpenAI, @benjedwards.com asks whether AI is really good for learning. But he also asked me about another question: Suppose AI is useful. Does that mean universities should be paying Sam Altman, or supporting open source?

Worrying👇 Let’s provide the kids with books 📚

💥Viktor Orbán made one of his biggest mistakes by praising anti-Hungarian far-right candidate George Simion. 🇭🇺 In Hungary, he hurt his “nationalist” credibility, angering many right-wing voters. 🇷🇴 In Romania, the Orbán-loyal Hungarian diaspora voted most heavily against Simion. 👎And Simion lost.

Icke skyldig. Nytt brev från Joakim Medin. Läs, dela, publicera. Allt stöd behövs. #FreeMedin

Norway officially recognizes #Palestine: Palestine's ambassador to Norway met with King Harald V in the Royal Palace in Oslo last week, "marking the official establishment of diplomatic relations between Norway and the State of Palestine.​"

Endelig et nyt nettidsskrift med nogle jæævla lange, onde essays! Grr! Eat yr veggies, boy. www.kloakken.no

Honored to be a part of this special issue with an article about Norwegian writers during WWII. Check out the other ones as well!

Fra entartete kunst i Paris til Kunstsilo og Carl-Henning Pedersens Gul fugl (1943), også han så entartete kunst-utstillinga, bare den opprinnelige i 1939 i Frankfurt.

Sad to leave Paris today after a good conference at EHESS, with «Words and Violence», ending with a visit to the Picasso museum, where the degenerate art exh. from WW2 was shown. Here Picasso’s painting on artists and war @ehess.fr

USA: “All the projects under the Office of Digital Humanities have been cancelled” - a whole research field.

Bibliotek og bibliotekarer er modige under press i dagens USA: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Debatt om akademisk ytringsfrihet i morgen kl 19, som også er en 10-årsfeiring av Sosiologen - håper å se deg der! www.facebook.com/events/26513...

Hurra for Sosiologen - 10 år! Morsom sak skrevt av Thora Sandberg sosiologen.no/aktuelt/aktu...

27 March 1909 | Norwegian Jewish woman of Polish origin, Gittel Hirsch, was born in Bergen. She arrived at #Auschwitz on 3 March 1943 and was murdered in a gas chamber after arrival selection.

Noem is pioneering a cursed synthesis of the aesthetics of Nazism and TikTok

Isaac A. Reed gave a brilliant guest lecture at @oslomet.bsky.social earlier this week, discussing the balance between under- and overinterpretation when using theory in empirical social research. The lecture can be seen here: youtu.be/3vmmafrv9kY?... #sociology #philsky

Jeg klarer ikke skille disse to fra hverandre 🤷‍♂️

In front of Parliament again with my two kids to protest against the bombing of Gaza 🇵🇸🍉 And afterwards, to support Ukraine following Zelensky’s Oslo visit 🇺🇦