I was so struck by how callously this sentence followed one about people losing their jobs. Devastating for thee but fun for me.
04.03.2026 00:54
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I was so struck by how callously this sentence followed one about people losing their jobs. Devastating for thee but fun for me.
it is the oldest ideological trick in the book, one played by bosses and books alike, to take a realist investigation of real estate, race, and class mobility and neuter it into smut and THAT rather than “faithfulness” is the problem we experts have
I teach a lot of working class first generation students at Nicholls in South Louisiana. I will never give up my conviction that my students deserve Homer and Sappho and Sophocles and Ovid and Dante too. It's not too good for them.
It’s finally done. Absolutely thrilled to have submitted THE SHAH'S GREAT TOUR – my global microhistory of the epic royal journeys of Persia's monarchs to Imperial Europe – for production. May it reshape our understanding of monarchy and the world order in the imperial age.
I'd like at add a few things to this. (1) humanists have not been able to convince any political party that curiosity-driven humanities research is a public good that should be funded using tax dollars. Republicans don't believe this, but neither do Democrats.
reupping this -- if you are a historian who works on any aspect of Indigenous-European relations in the French Americas, please consider about submitting!
We are starting an AI literacy effort at UA libraries and yours truly, who has been doing this for a long time, is working on some foundational basics. I revived the old blog to share this snippet from a larger training I'm putting together: hfroehli.ch/2026/02/11/w...
Close Reading Is For Everyone Dan Sinykin and Johanna Winant Call for Pitches Based on our previous Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century, we are at work on a new version that’s shorter, slimmer, and aimed at a more general audience. We’re looking for a new set of contributors who would write excellent, brief, model close readings of texts that high schoolers might know and care about. Think: “The Gettysburg Address,” Macbeth, and Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” but also song lyrics, idioms, or even a visual image. What is your best, most instructive, most exciting, most welcoming example of how a close reading builds a real argument out from a tiny, perhaps overlooked detail? If you’re interested in pitching us, please send us your 250-word close reading of the text you propose. Your close reading should be mappable using our vocabulary of close reading: the five steps of scene setting, noticing, local claiming, regional argumentation, and global theorizing. (Our close reading of “The Red Wheelbarrow” in the early pages of our introduction is the sort of thing we’re seeking.) If we think we can use yours, we’ll ask you to expand it to a 1,200 word essay in which you explain how your close reading works step by step. We seek close readings both of texts that are canonical and also ones that aren’t. And so we invite contributors both from the discipline of literary studies, and other disciplines across the university, and the public humanities beyond it. Send your pitches—please include your name and contact info—to daniel.sinykin@emory.edu and jwinant@reed.edu by March 15.
CALL FOR PITCHES
@dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and I are at work on a new version of Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century aimed at a more general audience.
We’re looking for new contributions: your model close readings of texts, canonical and not, from literary studies and not.
Details below!
MLN Comparative Literature issue. A soldier holding a baby in one arm. He has a rifle on the other soldier and two children next to him. MLN vol. 140, no. 5
New issue muse.jhu.edu/issue/56303! open access @hopkinspress.bsky.social
This issue includes an archival find: a typescript of a lecture Erich Auerbach gave in 1941, during his exile in Turkey. The subject is literature and war (who gets to write about war? Who feels they have agency? etc.) +..
An extraordinary number of banger lines in this masterpiece of the genre of critical academic book review, but this in particular is straight up🔥: doi.org/10.1215/2834...
This is a great question. I think for me it is about teaching them to handle experiences of boredom, frustration, and confusion. Sitting with uncertainty, finding your way through an opaque image, letting go of your need to be better than the film, etc., are all skills that can be taught.
One of my most cherished classes is my 18th century novels course where the primary learning objective is "learn how read long novels." We did a "couch to 5k" approach to attention span and note-taking.
Sometimes I forget that the greatest gift we give our students is the example of passionately loving our own curiosity
When using Microsoft Word or Google Docs, don't just make text bigger and bolder to make it a heading. That will work for sighted users, but screen reader users will miss that and just hear it as normal paragraph text. Use actual heading styles, like level 1 through 6.
How does DH travel outside the academy? What impact and what careers do DH skills enable? CFP for our next excellent (and necessary) book in the DDH series, edited by Jeanelle Horcasitas, @lisaironcutter.bsky.social, and @kallewesterling.bsky.social
dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/page/cfp-dh-...
For all of us worried about gAI in higher ed, there is an entire journal issue dedicated to critical perspectives on this topic, which Im sure has been shared before but I missed it, so for others like me, here is @criticalai-journal.bsky.social's special Issue:
read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/...
NCFS Unbound returns 1/23 with @srocher.bsky.social Susan Hiner in convo with @addressingart.bsky.social Justine De Young about her fab new book The Art of Parisian Chic 🔥
Register here!
southalabama.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
"Edtech presents its agenda as apolitical, as a matter of efficiency or smart management, concealing a far more insidious mission: the monetization of teaching and learning" - late to this by @ehayot.bsky.social @mattseybold.bsky.social but it's great to see such analysis out there
archive.md/PHqyF
The Academic Work Tracker spreadsheet is now updated with 2026 dates! If you don't already, 2026 is a great time to start treating your academic work like the wage job where you are paid to work a certain amount of hours that it actually is: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
If you are a resident of California, the state now has a portal where you can demand deletion of your personal data from 500+ registered data brokers with a single request form, for free.
consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov
English lit - 6.4% unemployed
Maths - 7.5% unemployed
So kid, in your heart you want to study humanities but you worry about your job prospects? Let’s play a game.
On the latest data, who is more likely to be unemployed after 15 months after graduation. The English Lit grad or the Maths grad?
WRONG!
Yes! Truly gripping work.
![On official UC letterhead:
UNIVERSITY
OF
CALIFORNIA
James B. Milliken President
Office of the President
1111 Franklin Street Oakland, CA 94607
universityofcalifornia.edu
CAMPUSES Berkeley
Davis
Irvine
UCLA
Merced
Riverside San Diego San Francisco
Santa Barbara Santa Cruz
MEDICAL CENTERS
Davis
Irvine
UCLA
San Diego
San Francisco
NATIONAL LABORATORIES Lawrence Berkeley Lawrence Livermore Los Alamos
DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES
November 18, 2025
Dear Chancellors:
I'm writing with regard to the President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PPFP) and the program's associated faculty hiring incentive.
As you know, for more than 40 years, PPFP has provided postdoctoral research fellowships, professional development, and faculty mentoring to scholars in all fields whose research, teaching, and service advance the academic and research missions of the University of California.
Since 2003, UC campuses that hire current and former PPFP fellows into ladder-rank positions have been eligible for a hiring incentive funded by the University that provides support for newly hired fellows for five years. Since the creation of the incentive, more than $162 million has been invested by the University to support PPFP faculty hires. This commitment has enabled our campuses to successfully recruit and retain outstanding faculty across a range of disciplines.
Given the myriad challenges currently facing UC - including disruptions to billions of dollars in annual federal support, as well as uncertainty around the state budget- reasonable questions were raised in recent months about whether the University could maintain the commitment to current levels of incentive funding. After considering a recommendation to sunset the incentive program due to these significant fiscal constraints, I consulted with all of you as well as faculty and campus academic administrators and systemwide Academic Senate leadership.
[continued on next image]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rzn6yramffebefeitqifiqqz/bafkreigiwq5ongzwpj4wqmgjam3yfvhyjnv5e3dbq6cnrrbwblqvs624gq@jpeg)
On official UC letterhead: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA James B. Milliken President Office of the President 1111 Franklin Street Oakland, CA 94607 universityofcalifornia.edu CAMPUSES Berkeley Davis Irvine UCLA Merced Riverside San Diego San Francisco Santa Barbara Santa Cruz MEDICAL CENTERS Davis Irvine UCLA San Diego San Francisco NATIONAL LABORATORIES Lawrence Berkeley Lawrence Livermore Los Alamos DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES November 18, 2025 Dear Chancellors: I'm writing with regard to the President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PPFP) and the program's associated faculty hiring incentive. As you know, for more than 40 years, PPFP has provided postdoctoral research fellowships, professional development, and faculty mentoring to scholars in all fields whose research, teaching, and service advance the academic and research missions of the University of California. Since 2003, UC campuses that hire current and former PPFP fellows into ladder-rank positions have been eligible for a hiring incentive funded by the University that provides support for newly hired fellows for five years. Since the creation of the incentive, more than $162 million has been invested by the University to support PPFP faculty hires. This commitment has enabled our campuses to successfully recruit and retain outstanding faculty across a range of disciplines. Given the myriad challenges currently facing UC - including disruptions to billions of dollars in annual federal support, as well as uncertainty around the state budget- reasonable questions were raised in recent months about whether the University could maintain the commitment to current levels of incentive funding. After considering a recommendation to sunset the incentive program due to these significant fiscal constraints, I consulted with all of you as well as faculty and campus academic administrators and systemwide Academic Senate leadership. [continued on next image]
After learning more about the history and success of the program and weighing the thoughtful perspectives that have been shared, I have concluded that barring extraordinary financial setbacks, the PPFP faculty hiring incentive program will continue while the University continues to assess the program's structure as well as its long-term financial sustainability. As a result of our continuing consultation and review, there may be consideration of some changes to elements of the program including the total number of incentives supported, a number that has fluctuated significantly over the years, and how the awards are distributed among campuses. In the meantime, the University will continue to fund the PPFP faculty hiring incentive program and campuses may continue to take advantage of these incentives. We will have an opportunity to discuss any potential changes prior to adoption. As we look to the future, I will continue to engage with faculty leaders, program stakeholders, and UC community members about this important program. I especially appreciate the thoughtful perspectives shared in recent weeks by Academic Council Chair Palazoglu and Vice Chair Scott, the Council of Graduate Deans, UC faculty members, and you as our campus leaders. Sincerely, James B. Milliken President
WE JUST KEEP WINNING. (UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program RESTORED!!!!)
A (long) thread of (anglophone) #StarterPacks and #feeds of interest to #EarlyModern #skystorians.
The first two posts list a sample of hashtags for which Bluesky feeds currently exist. The following forty-two(!) posts list starter packs for scholars of various aspects of early modern history.
🚨🚨30 years after coming out in English,
Michel-Rolph Trouillot's SILENCING THE PAST
est paru *enfin* en français!!!
Veuillez partager ces bonnes nouvelles avec vos meilleurs amis et collègues francophones! 🗃️🇭🇹
www.amitiefm.ht/post/michel-...
Text: Découvrez 20 figures résistantes contre l’esclavage : une exposition CASDEN Banque Populaire et Fondation pour la mémoire de l’esclavage Connaissez-vous ces héros et héroïnes de l’histoire de France ? Connaissez-vous notamment Emond Albius, l’Abbé Grégoire, Héva, Thomas Alexandre Dumas, Paulette Nardal, Louis Delgrès ? Plutôt, que savez-vous de l’histoire de la France et particulièrement de l’histoire de la France et de l’esclavage ? Saviez-vous que des hommes et des femmes se sont opposés à ce système profondément injuste et inégalitaire ?
Do I know the abbé Grégoire? Yes I do! But check out these
nouvelle ressources pédagogiques en fr. sur l'histoire de l'abolition/New teaching resources in French on the history of abolition
if you teach on the history of slavery/si vous enseignez en français sur l'histoire de l'esclavage!
Text: We’re updating our Terms of Service on November 3, 2025. We’re also making changes to how we use and share data with our “Affiliates.” See what’s new for your region and how you can control the use of your data. We encourage you to read the revised User Agreement and Privacy Policy and visit your settings to make the choices that work best for you. Note: An “Affiliate” is a term that refers to a family of companies that are related by ownership. At LinkedIn, this means LinkedIn Ireland and LinkedIn Corp. and also our parent company, Microsoft, and its subsidiaries.
Hey y'all, if you use LinkedIn - as of Nov. 3, they'll have you opted in to train AI on your data (including DMs) unless you opt out.
Opting out is not hard: click on settings and just turn it off.
Adaptation, seriality, film, media, literature, and cultural studies scholars, come to the fifth annual online To Be Continued conference, Sept. 18-19! Presenter and (free) registration information can be found on this flyer. Hope to see you there! docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Thys emayle koude have been a sonnet