It’s boiling in October because you’re using ChatGPT to write your emails, Janice.

Great call to arms by @cnewf.bsky.social, following the tactic of Jed Esty's "Future of Decline" by looking to Stuart Hall & the New Left, & urging us to forego "private agency within our universities" in favor of "collective agency by running them."

Hmmm it’s almost like cooperating didn’t work out as planned (from Robert Sklar‘s Movie Made America)

brown alums sign and share standstrongbrown.org/reject-trump...

Still time to register for Monday's @aaup.org webinar on the state-backed threat to independent higher education accreditation www.aaup.org/event/politi...

hi, it’s me, joining team ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, there’s just a lot to love about this movie

ah so only “some” see it this way, can’t wait to hear about that other side

Here's the assignment folks. Write op-eds for your local papers and campus newspapers too. Just. Say. No. This is a classic authoritarian move and risks the future of higher education and science and innovation in the US. Speak out today. No time to lose. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

We need a bigger national spotlight on this building raid, fam. Agents dropped from helicopters onto the roof. Citizens and non-citizens alike were dragged from their homes in the night. People who weren't kidnapped during the raid had their belongings seized after the fact. This is madness.

If you're interested in Paramount, CBS News, the Free Press, or the right-wing takeover of the media, please help spread this around and let's see if we can find out anything interesting :-)

Some schools will be starved of resources. Other schools will be offered bribes. The end goal is the same. To make the universities an extension of the Trump administration. Shame on any of these institutions willing to take the bribes.

Ok, I think I’m ready for a Charlie Cale-Lee Raybon crossover episode

For a minute I thought the people lined up down the block tonight at MoMA were there, like me, to see Akerman’s D’Est — and not a new A24 film — and I was deeply impressed by the dedication of NYC Chantal-heads

fall flair

I can’t believe I’m watching interviews of city mayors talking about how they are coordinating with other mayors to discuss how to protect their residents FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES I know we are “used to it” but it is absolutely insane

Join NYC Public Library Action Network THIS Saturday 10/4 for a People's Assembly in Manhattan. Come learn more about how our public libraries operate and importantly about how you can organize to make them better and stronger - www.eventbrite.com/e/nyc-public...

This headline is fucking nuts. Are you kidding me right now

There is a special corner of the Medium Place reserved for drivers who creep slowly through the crosswalk while waiting for the light to change

sometimes when outlook asks me if I ”trust the sender“ I really have to think about it

I fully understand how difficult it is to remain focused on any one particular atrocity but this really ought to be a serious scandal and people need to pay heavy prices for this

This is the best news I’ve seen today 🌈🌈🌈

Not sure how we settled on the idea that the real political liability for liberals or progressives is a collective inability or disinclination to talk to people who think differently, a lot of us do this every day and I'm tired of the bad-faith line that we're all suffering from debate deficit

I reviewed ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, an exquisitely, unbelievably beautiful film about the overwhelming, life-ruining burden of trying to fight fascism while also living some kind of human life. www.patreon.com/posts/139949...

seated for The Mastermind 🖼️

The thing regular people don’t often grasp about ‘academic freedom’ is that if you don’t allow experts to research & teach in their fields of expertise, guided by their professional judgment & decades of training, you have effectively given up on the concept of knowledge & shut down your university

Something I’ve noticed anecdotally: narcissists seem to really appreciate other narcissists. Is this some sort of messed-up game recognizes game thing?

As Charles Grodin responded to all the griping about ISHTAR’s budget, “Why should the public be concerned what the budget of a movie is? Coca-Cola financed the movie. It's not as if Coca-Cola was going to give that money to the people of America rather than spend it.”

Spent 10 minutes searching for my copy of Lukács's Theory of the Novel only to realize I had already put it in my bag, is this the academic version of looking for your glasses when they're on your heard

To read the university’s triumphant all-campus email about restored NIH funding, you’d think UC administrators made it happen. But that’s not true. In fact the UC *Faculty Association* organized the lawsuit; administrators kept their heads down and hoped it’d go away.

ACLS Fellowship application submitted! Godspeed little proposal, here's to taking the long shots ✨

For their first project, my Kids and Society students have to create an infographic clarifying a common misconception about "kids these days." I'd prefer that they not use AI to create their projects, so I made my own infographic explaining why : )

My latest column for the Chronicle of Higher Ed is now live. It's an argument for including AI-critical voices in campus conversations and policymaking workgroups, and I'm proud to get this dissenting piece into the mainstream genAI/higher ed discourse. Please read and share if you're so inclined 🙂

If you need an incentive, we're offering 10% off new subscriptions through tomorrow night!!

part of my continuing series “punctum in the mise-en-scene of family movie night screenings,” I present what was apparently a real board game, Wall Street Finance, featured in The Great Outdoors

❤️

periodic reminder putting grapefruit on your yogurt and granola is very nice

Every profession has its own PR problems, but I sometimes wonder if higher ed is uniquely misunderstood by the public—whether due to all the blinkered/ideologically driven reporting on a non-representative 1% of elite institutions, or the persistence of belief in a rapidly obsolescing ideal?

Everyone in academia should read this piece about our dear, brilliant colleague @durba.bsky.social www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

a million and one reasons to be furious about the autism/tylenol press conference but telling pregnant women they should really really "tough it out" rather than get pain relief is the one that's ... wow it makes me mad

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

You and me both Nancy

New statement: Academic Freedom, academic responsibility, and the attack on higher ed. www.aaup-osu.org/post/aaup-os...

Had a blast watching SNEAKERS for family movie night, now obsessed with the array of condiments the guys keep on a lazy susan in their office

all vaxxed up 💉💉

writing its wild, you can mull over an idea for weeks—months!—noodling and note-taking around the edges, and then suddenly, you sit down, and the argument is THERE

New issue of @intransition.bsky.social! Featuring OM SHANTI OMNIBUS—the first published work of the IVERN collective, of which I am very happy to be a part along w/ @ludology.bsky.social @llamasjr.bsky.social @kathleenloock.bsky.social & many others: intransition.openlibhums.org/article/id/1...

texting w/ an 11yo is like "hi darling, can't wait to see you and hear about school, xxxoo mommy!" and they're like "k"

The thing everyone can do right now is to find your lane if you don't already have one and work that lane diligently and with commitment.

ah fall, that special time of year when public school teachers are forced to ask parents for help purchasing supplies for their classrooms 🙃

See below for a post-Emmys reading list, courtesy of the @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social! Featuring brilliant essays on THE PITT (by @charlotteerosen.bsky.social), WHITE LOTUS (by @cinementalist.bsky.social) & SEVERANCE (by @jordanrbrower.bsky.social) (plus something partly sorta on THE STUDIO by me)