Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 14h

Emezi gets me a take on politics and violence, YA as a publishing category, some interesting allusions (Assata Shakur, Gwendolyn Brooks, maybe Paul Robeson, via the quoted Brooks poem), and the nature of Virtue, which could make for an interesting discussion. Also Emezi as social media presence.

Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 15h

The Hayden opens out on Hayden's poetry, Douglass himself, the sonnet as a form, some Baha'i topics, and political theory (re: freedom). The Clifton opens onto other Bible-revising Clifton poems, Paradise Lost, quilting, and that new book about LC by Kazim Ali could be a secondary text.

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 15h

I think (THINK) I've narrowed down the options to Robert Hayden's sonnet about Frederick Douglass, Lucille Clifton's Tree of Life sequence (about Lucifer, Eve, and Adam), and Akwaeke Emezi's YA novel Bitter. Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora was a contender, but I think it's too long, alas, at 4-500 pp.

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 17h

For the first time in years I'm completely stumped as to what poem or novel to have my students focus on in their Senior Capstone Seminar. Not sure what they OR I will find valuable to read in depth this winter. Unpleasant feeling.

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 18h

I think there was a whole issue of Poetry East that did this: poems paired with little prose pieces by each poet about the writing process

Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 1d

Wow! So much to explore--thanks, Laura!

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 1d

This update got very long, but maybe that means there's a higher chance of it including something you'd be interested in reading?

Most of the entries are to open-access publications, so they're free to view.

A very long list of new (and some not so new) publications about romance

The open access journal TEXT dedicated a special issue to romance/romantic fiction, under the subtitle " Trope Actually – Popular Romance" b...

teachmetonight.blogspot.com

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Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 7d

For The Conversation, @dramyburge.bsky.social and I wrote an obituary for the late, great Jilly Cooper.

Jilly Cooper: why readers still cherish her ‘fat, fun, frothy novels’

Many of Cooper’s depictions of sex are very funny. However, there is a clear message throughout.

theconversation.com

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Esther Schindler @estherschindler.bsky.social · 8d

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

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Owen K.C. Stephens (He/Him) @owenkcstephens.bsky.social · 8d

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Laura Ashe @lauraashe.bsky.social · 8d

Epic; no notes

Headline from the Times: "Bestselling novelist Jilly Cooper dies in fall aged 88", illustrated with a rather famous black and white picture of Virginia Woolf

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Susan Kaye Quinn is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱 @susankayequinn.bsky.social · 20d

They've lost the 9yos

JA Westenberg
@Daojoan@mastodon.social

My 9 year old and his classmates have started using “that’s AI” to mean “I don’t believe you.”

Me: we’re having dinosaur meat for dinner

Kiddo: that’s AI
Sep 24, 2025, 07:36 AM

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 20d

Curiosity, research, understanding: such a fun process when it all goes well!

Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 20d

Spent an hour or so this morning figuring out whether the phrase from Psalm 34 that Stephen Mitchell and Chana Bloch put in their translation of Amichai's "Song of Lies on Sabbath Eve" is in the original (it isn't), and then figuring out what the actual Hebrew bit is, so I'd know why they did that.

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@AuthorMsBev @authormsbev.bsky.social · 21d

Join me. Free. events.howard.edu/event/black-...

Black Love is Resistance: A Conversation with Beverly Jenkins and Kristina Forest - International Black Writers Festival 2025

events.howard.edu

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Nomadic Warriors for Pritzker @nomads.bsky.social · 21d

Hey everybody - I was raptured, but then chose to return to Earth to aid all sentient beings in their quest for nirvana. This may not have been the eschatology you were expecting but my advice is to start practicing compassion and loving kindness right now. Svaha!

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 21d

If you’ve waited four months and the feeling ain’t gone…

Lauren S. Hallion, Ph.D. @laurenshallion.bsky.social · 22d

United States academic landscape got you down? Apply to join my lab at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada!

I’m planning to accept a graduate student in Clinical Psychology. Additional information:

https://www.uregina.ca/academics/programs/arts/master-phd-clinical-psychology.html

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 21d

@dramyburge.bsky.social and Joseph Crawford have a short article out on the legacy and impact of Twilight

Twilight at 20: how Stephenie Meyer’s vampire saga changed young adult fiction forever

In 2005, Twilight’s adolescent female readership made it a target for mockery. Today, that same demographic is the most coveted in publishing.

theconversation.com

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 22d

Folks in the romance scholar community, take note--my materials probably won't be there much longer. A pity; they recommended a lot of useful material to me over the years.

Justin Weinberg @dailynous.com · 22d

A popular online service for academics is claiming an irrevocable right to use its subscribers' voice, signature, photograph, likeness, etc., "in any manner"...

What Will Academia.edu Do with Its New Rights to Your Name, Likeness, and Voice? - Daily Nous

Users of the Academia.edu service are cancelling their subscriptions in response to perceived overreach by the firm in its recent update to its terms of service. Catching users' attention was a new pa...

dailynous.com

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 26d

Popular romance scholars, keep an eye out for this--I wonder when it will start showing up in books....

N.V. Binder 𓀨 @nvbinder.io · 26d

wow sounds like a cool consumer technology that everyone wants

ChatGPT Is Blowing Up Marriages as Spouses Use AI to Attack Their Partners

Across the world, marriages are being destroyed as spouses use AI like OpenAI's ChatGPT to attack their partners.

futurism.com

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 27d

I'm on the Board of this new series from University of Wales Press: "Romance, Power, and Desire." If you have a book idea or proposal, I hope you'll get in touch!

A flyer advertising the new University of Wales Press series "Romance, Power and Desire."

Romance, Power and Desire provides a focus for scholarly debates in the humanities around sexual/romantic power and agency, fantasy and social reality, relationships and sexual practices.

The series is global in scope and interdisciplinary in nature; it comprises of cutting-edge research in monographs and edited collections across a broad historical period, from the ancient world to the present day.

Series Editors: Dr Jo Parsons Falmouth University and Dr Meredith Miller Cardiff University

Would you like to write for this series? We’d love to hear from you. Please contact Chris Richards, Journals and Assistant Commissioning Editor, with your proposal, including a brief synopsis of the proposed work: chris.richards@press.wales.ac.uk

To read more on the information we require at proposal stage, see our Publish With Us page https://www.uwp.co.uk/publish-with-us/ .

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Jon Becker @jonbecker.bsky.social · Sep 12

Perfect

Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · Sep 12

Education report calling for ethical AI use contains over 15 fake sources

Experts find fake sources in Canadian government report that took 18 months to complete.

arstechnica.com

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · Sep 10

Oh, that’s a smart way to frame it!

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Annie Abrams @annieabrams.bsky.social · Sep 9

talked today in class about how ai doesn’t, can’t have a unique perspective, so it’s irrelevant to the work we’ll be doing in high school english

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Journal of Popular Romance Studies @jprstudies.bsky.social · Aug 7

CfP 🚨 The Journal of Popular Romance Studies is now accepting paper submissions for its Special Issue "Romancing the Posthuman", focusing on romance, critical love studies and posthumanism:

📆 Deadline: 31 October 2025
📄 Send 300-word abstracts
➕ More information: www.jprstudies.org/submissions/...

Special Issue Call for Papers | Journal of Popular Romance Studies

JPRS publishes special issues on a range of topics relating to the study of romantic love and its representations. These issues contain at least 3 articles on their shared topic, as well as an introdu...

www.jprstudies.org

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