I think one of the most staggering industry shifts in my 16 years as a tech reporter is that it’s not become a question of “should our product help the government kill and/or surveil people?” but “to what extent?”
www.anthropic.com/news/where-s...
If you're thinking about heading to #MLA27, there are several session calls I'm involved with that could be of interest to DH, electronic literature, and games folks: first up, the MLA Committee on Information Technology has calls on AI in DH & language pedagogy: mla.confex.com/mla/2027/web... (1/3)
Literally the first thing academics pointed out about LLMs YEARS AGO was that they would be used for catastrophic levels of fraud—how nice that now the AI bros are confirming what we all knew by running fraud experiments to tell cheats which LLM to use to cheat
Another good news year for Bloomsbury Open Collections!
Obviously a good thing that checks and balances are hardwired into these things, if we DO have to live with them, but OpenAI is a gutless, craven, unprincipled cesspool of a company.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
'Reasons for positivity around the humanities...!'
The humanities research community: *cheer*
'...Aaaaand they're related to AI!'
The humanities research community: *sigh*
Nice review of Lucas Hardy's 'Theologies of Pain' in Transatlantica: 'Lucas Hardy’s compelling book deepens our understanding of the epistemology of pain in the Puritan imagination': www.bloomsbury.com/theologies-o...
A rather lovely short documentary based on @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social and @bloomsburylit.bsky.social book 'How to Weather Together' by Astrida Neimanis and Jen Hamilton. Check out the doc here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tQn... and the book here: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/how-to-we...
BAVS Rosemary Mitchell Prize now open for submissions!
Jen and Astrida also appeared on the Sydney Environment Institute's podcast here: www.sydney.edu.au/sydney-envir... @bloomsburylit.bsky.social
Awesome to see (well, hear) @bloomsburylit.bsky.social authors Jennifer Hamilton and Astrida Neimanis talking about their new book 'How to Weather Together' on the 'Cultures of Energy' podcast: cenhs.libsyn.com/249-weatheri...
Grab a copy of the book here: www.bloomsbury.com/how-to-weath...
Heading into the city to see the Constable/Turner exhibition and then to see Fatboy Slim at Alexandra Palace. Afternoon/evening ahead looking lovely!
Just what we needed...MORE resources funnelled towards developing AI!!! Hooray...
Worth flagging the series here as well, actually! Edited by Bryan Cheyette and Martin Eve - New Horizons in Contemporary Writing: www.bloomsbury.com/series/new-h...
A huge CONGRATS to the @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social editors of 'The Many Worlds of Anglophone Literature' for winning the BACLS edited collection prize. CHeck the book out here: www.bloomsbury.com/many-worlds-...
Just scorched earth (literally) from him at this point. What a horrendous human being. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Really interesting call for papers for next year's MLA, on 'Precarity Reimagined—Working-Class Representation since 2020'. Any interest, reach out to Simon as below. Please repost and recirculate as you can!
Picture shows a bus stop advertisement for the Wuthering Heights film half pulled out of its casing.
Enraged Brontë fans making their feelings known in Fleet
Image displays the front and back jacket of 'Unsettling Extinction', a book in the Global Challenges in the Environmental Humanities' series. The jacket image depicts a bird on a perch in a bell-jar with a spike through it. Jacket blurb reads: Biodiversity loss threatens to transform the ecological foundations of all biological life on the planet, yet solutions to this crisis are fiercely contested. This book addresses extinction by exploring species decline and conservation with a particular emphasis on divergent cultural framings, temporal scales, and media. Drawing on the disciplines of anthropology, cultural geography, environmental history, philosophy, literary studies, media studies, and studies of religion, this book explores how the engagement with biodiversity loss challenges basic assumptions in these disciplines and opens up new avenues of thought and activism for shaping the multispecies communities of the future. Featuring contributions from key names in the field alongside some of the most exciting new voices, this collection presents cutting-edge work on species extinction from a wide variety of perspectives across the environmental humanities.
Really nice to see the final paperback jacket proof for the latest in @bloomsburylit.bsky.social 'Global Challenges...' series. Edited by Roman Bartosch, Ursula Heise & Kate Rigby, 'Unsettling Extinction': www.bloomsbury.com/unsettling-e...
"Reform UK's threat to defund Bangor University 'shows how bullying would be its style in government'"
#EnglishCreates: Futures
We are thrilled to share today's blog by Caroline Lucas, Britain’s first Green MP:
'Literature is the way we exercise the muscle of the imagination... And unless we can imagine a greener, fairer world, we’ll struggle to achieve it.'
universityenglish.ac.uk/englishcreat...
Congratulations to Fatima Naveed, winner of the @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social Academic Writing Fellowship for 2025! www.bloomsbury.com/connect/late...
⚠️ 12th February is the deadline to apply for the role of Impact Associate at University of Nottingham, working with the Indigenous North American Collection.
Also out now from @bloomsburylit.bsky.social - another I've been waiting for, 'How to Weather Together: Feminist Practice for Climate Change' by Astrida Neimanis and Jen Hamilton: www.bloomsbury.com/how-to-weath...
I know I've been banging on about this for ages but it really is BRILLIANT! 'Listening In' from @bloomsburylit.bsky.social tells the story of audio surveillance from the very first (and tragically unsubtle) bug, to in-home AI: www.bloomsbury.com/listening-in...
Interesting take on AI and the various vested interests surrounding it; www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
My fab colleagues are at the APA conference this week and keen to mingle, so if you're in the area and at a loose end then do swing by!
Image shows the jacket proof for 'Black Feminist Theories: Transnational Approaches'. Front cover has a green background with multicolour leaves edging it and an illustration of a Black figure in profile, wearing colourful dress. Back cover copy reads: An innovative contribution to the field of Black Feminist Studies, this landmark collection brings together the most influential historical and contemporary thinkers in Black feminist theories across transnational contexts. Featuring ground-breaking new work alongside canonical essays from key thinkers, this book adopts a truly global approach to its subject. In doing so, it looks beyond North America to showcase a diverse range of continents and perspectives. The collection includes not only standard academic essays, but also vital statements, interviews, manifestoes, and creative work, which transmit and embody Black feminist thought. The book is broken up into five carefully curated sections: - Black Feminist Foundations - Statements and Manifestos - Cultures and Aesthetics - Bodies, Genders, and Sexualities - Black Feminist Futures Timely and important, this is an indispensable resource for students and scholars of Black Studies, Women & Gender Studies and Black Feminist Studies, as well as more generally to American Studies, African Studies, Caribbean Studies, and African Diaspora Studies. A number of endorsements are also included from Amina Mama, Rhoda Reddock, Barbara Smith, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall.
Also publishing in Aug (but you can order your paperback copy now): 'Black Feminist Theories', an amazing collection which brings together the most influential historical and contemporary thinkers across transnational contexts. Perfect for course use! www.bloomsbury.com/black-femini...
Image shows a jacket spread (front and back) for new book 'Vonnegut's War' by Susan Farrell. The front cover is a cartoonish image of a stickperson being beamed up by the icon of a UFO. This image is surrounded by icons of eyes. The back jacket contains endorsements from John Irving, Ken Kalfus and Suzanne McConnell.
Delighted to have a final jacket for @bloomsburylit.bsky.social 'Vonnegut's War'! A fetching £20/$27 jacketed hardback, it fuses biography with popular history & textual analysis, telling the story of the making of a modern classic and the writer that created it. www.bloomsbury.com/vonneguts-wa...
