"Whether hailed or feared, AI is framed as an unstoppable technological, epistemological, and ontological trajectory. Awe invites enthusiastic adoption; anxiety calls for adaptation and preparation. Both discourage more fundamental questioning." — @samiraibnelkaid.bsky.social
The Spectator, a right wing news magazine owned by Paul Marshall, falsely accused a HOPE not hate journalist of committing a serious criminal offence.
They were forced to retract the story and apologise. But instead of stopping there, The Spectator couldn’t resist one more swing.
15% cuts across faculty and staff at The New School 😢
If I started writing weekly blog posts, would people read them and consider subscribing to the blog?
I tend to have a strong desire to get written thoughts down on a variety of topics that are too long for social media threads, but not long enough for more traditional publishing outlets.
book Heartbreak and Other Geographies
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“…with new political alliances uniting against higher ed + in favor of rapid AI dvlpmnt, privatization, + the dismantling of the professional-managerial class, the hatred of theory threatens not only to reshape universities ideologically but to replace them with a data-driven ‘machine empiricism.’”
Image of author Kit de Waal in a red jumper with images of recent book jackets, Without Warning and The Best of Everything
This Monday novelist Kit de Waal will be talking to our colleague Dan Taylor about working class writers and the class ceiling, part of our series, Borders in Literature, with @mklitfest.bsky.social
16 Mar, 7pm, Zoom. Tickets (free): bit.ly/mklfdewaal #classceiling #workingclasswriters #literature
🧵 Trump administration AI policy is widely described as deregulatory. This description is misleading. What's happening is not the absence of governance but its rearrangement--intensive state intervention operating through mechanisms we don't typically call regulation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
We were very sorry to learn of the death of political theorist William E. Connolly this week. He published six books with us. Here is our appreciation.
Sixty years ago, Jennie Lee's vision created The Open University 🎓 Welcoming all backgrounds, millions have started life-changing journeys. #OUfamily #TheOpenUniversity #OU60 💙
The UK universities cutting geography have lost their bearings www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/uk-u...
With @jennypickerill.bsky.social @peterhopkins.bsky.social Beth Greenhough & Jamie Woodward
African Decolonial Theory: A Conversation (with an incredible lineup). A longread of 68 pages @antipodeonline.bsky.social
#geosky @demonicgrounds.bsky.social @udadisi.bsky.social @roapejournal.bsky.social @africamultiple.bsky.social @pollenetwork.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Graphic reading 'the UK Government-commissioned 'Sullivan Review' of sex and gender in data and research collection threatens British research and trans inclusion. Here's why.'
📣 Today @felicitycallard.bsky.social and I have published the first peer-reviewed response to the 'Sullivan Review' of research and data on sex and gender.
doi.org/10.1111/tran...
The Review could threaten trans rights and inclusion, erode academic freedom, and undermine research quality.
Screenshot of the front page of an article published in the journal Social and Cultural Geography called Remapping the body: an autoethnography of pain, paraesthesia, and the co-production of functional neurological symptoms
New paper outlining a spatial account of #FND and proposing an approach to the co-production of functional symptoms. It draws on my longstanding work on geographies of health knowledges, my recent health experiences, and emerging interdisciplinary conversations www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
AI models are trained on books, journal articles, teaching materials without agreement of academic authors who then have to redesign their courses to try to minimise inappropriate use of AI models embedded in software provided by universities for students to use. Go figure
A non-existent paper attributed to Ben Williamson has already been cited 42 times.
It's like Scholarly Communication has been injected with misinformation bombs. Events are totally out of control. No one has a handle on its extent. And, there's no plan to stop it.
@benpatrickwill.bsky.social
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
“When people try to sell you on the idea that the future is already settled, it’s because it is deeply unsettled.”
Hard no to this: French publisher Harlequin has told translators that their work will now be done by AI. They can ‘revise’ AI translations at much lower rate. It’s a subsidiary of Harper Collins so treat this as a test for rollout elsewhere
;Eliminating funding for 3* research in the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) would benefit Russell Group institutions by about £50 million a year, suggests modelling into how potential changes to funding formulas may play out.' 1/3
Last week, the New School issued voluntary separation & early retirement offers to 40% of the full-time faculty & the majority of non-union staff. These cuts to the bone are an ideological attempt to decimate historic spaces of critical inquiry & social justice. Share our statement tr.ee/qQBIDCpIuj
Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252:
Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email.
Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk
Excited to announce @leverhulmecal.bsky.social posts - we are looking for 7 interdisciplinary fellows to join our Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life, closing date 30 January 2026 (1/3) durham.taleo.net/careersectio...
Huge congratulations to the wonderful Donna Haraway for winning the 2025 Erasmus Prize:
erasmusprijs.org/en/laureates...
Join us in calling for the removal of the divisive flags from Brum lamp posts.
www.change.org/p/request-fo...
As set out in this thread, the causes of the court backlog are chronic lack of funding and absurd inefficiency.
The government has made no proposals to address either. Their answer is to remove juries.
Rather than fix the leaking roof, their solution is to burn the house down.
This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started
Universities are assembling larger and larger teams to deal with academic integrity issues--mostly focused on AI--while simultaneously holding AI "writing" contests, AI-themed events, "hey, come play with these fun tools!" The messages are so mixed, it's criminal. Because AI is bloated with money.
Via "discussions of figures such as Toni Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Édouard Glissant, Paul Gilroy, Nina Simone, and Sylvia Wynter [it] spans McKittrick's investigations into scientific method, liberal modernity, the cycles that perpetuate racial violence, and the poetics & sonics of black livingness."
