Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Aug 7

m.youtube.com/watch?v=uOKU...

THE HERDS reach the edge of the world

YouTube video by THE HERDS

m.youtube.com

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Aug 7

THE HERDS’ 20,000km journey has finally come to an end at one of the furthest reaches of the world. Since April, the animals’ route has led them through the Congo Jungle of Central Africa, the desert of the Sahel, and towns and cities across Europe.
@theherds.bsky.social

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Aug 7

m.youtube.com/watch?v=txIv...

THE HERDS scale the largest Glacier in mainland Europe

YouTube video by THE HERDS

m.youtube.com

All Our Yesterdays @allouryesterdays.bsky.social · Jul 14

On this day 48 years ago (July 15, 1977) the New York Times article ran a front page story "Scientists fear heavy use of coal may bring adverse shift in climate"

allouryesterdays.info/2023/07/14/j...

Tile about New York Times article on July 15 1977 "Scientists fear heavy use of coal may bring adverse shift in climate"

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University of Illinois Press @illinoispress.bsky.social · Jul 10

Introducing a ✨ special issue✨ of Italica (Vol. 101, No. 3) on postsecular Italy, guest edited by Clodagh Brook, Monica Jansen ‪@utrechtuniversity.bsky.social‬ , and Maria Bonaria Urban. cc: @fmussgnug.bsky.social‬

scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/ital/art...

Cover of Italica, Volume 101, Number 3, Fall 2024
Journal of the American Association of Teachers of Italian
Blue background with lighter blue silhouette of the country of Italy.

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Jun 27

THE HERDS in London: seeing the animals arrive at the far end of the street I was moved to tears

@theherds.bsky.social
www.theherds.org

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Jun 26

The UCL Stampede for the Arts on a Heating Planet continues with Prof. Emma Bond’s Ravindranath Tagore Lecture in ComparativeLiterature @efbond.bsky.social “The Work of Literature in Times of Eco Crisis”.

www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropocene...

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Jun 26

Very proud and happy to be hosting David Lan, producer of THE HERDS, and Maryam Pasha, London producer of THE HERDS at UCL.
@theherds.bsky.social
www.theherds.org

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UCL Anthropocene @anthropoceneucl.bsky.social · Jun 23

The Visual Arts on a Heating Planet 🌍

Join us for this roundtable event where artists & scholars explore the role of the arts in responding to the accelerating climate crisis.

📆26 June, 12noon - 1.45pm
📍IAS Common Ground
🔗 Book here! shorturl.at/gXFmr

Part of the UCL Stampede events & The Herds 🦁

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UCL Anthropocene @anthropoceneucl.bsky.social · Jun 17

📣Next week!

The UCL Stampede for Arts on a Heating Planet🌍

Life-size puppet animals🦁 are travelling a 20,000km route to symbolise their flight from climate disaster as part of THE HERDS public art & climate initiative

Attend our event to mark the arrival in London👇
26-29 June
🔗 shorturl.at/T64aV

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UCL Anthropocene @anthropoceneucl.bsky.social · May 28

How might history help us understand the material and social significance of heat? In what ways do these histories connect with domestic structures, gender & patterns of consumption?

Join us for an Anthropocene Histories seminar on Histories of Heating🔥

📆4 June,3-5pm|
📍online
🔗 shorturl.at/a7VZD

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · May 18

répétitif?
ripetitivo?
sich wiederholend?
повторюваний?
përsëritës?
επαναλαμβανόμενος?

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · May 17

Lovely to hear so many different languages at Eurovision 2025. Is this the most polyglot Eurovision in history? Does anybody have stats? 🇪🇺

UCL Anthropocene @anthropoceneucl.bsky.social · May 13

📣Join us for the first seminar in our Interdisciplinarity: new reconfigurations of the social and natural sciences seminar series!

Georgina Born and Andrew Barry will speak about AI, Environment and Art on 20 May from 5-6pm in the IAS Common Ground.

Sign up here👉 shorturl.at/fSi6c

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · May 13

How long until it occurs to the US government to offer political asylum to members of the now-banned, far-right German Reichsbürger?

Tagesschau Bot @tagesschau.bsky.social · May 13

Innenministerium verbietet "Königreich Deutschland"#Reichsbürger#KönigreichDeutschland#Vereinsverbot

Innenministerium verbietet "Königreich Deutschland"

Das "Königreich Deutschland" ist eine der bekanntesten "Reichsbürger"-Vereinigungen. Nun wurde es verboten.

www.tagesschau.de

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Tagesschau Bot @tagesschau.bsky.social · May 13

Innenministerium verbietet "Königreich Deutschland"#Reichsbürger#KönigreichDeutschland#Vereinsverbot

Innenministerium verbietet "Königreich Deutschland"

Das "Königreich Deutschland" ist eine der bekanntesten "Reichsbürger"-Vereinigungen. Nun wurde es verboten.

www.tagesschau.de

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · May 12

No Island is an Island

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · May 12

Fredric Jameson, “Of Islands and Trenches” (1977)

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · May 12

Fredric Jameson’s early work on the fallacies of island thinking sheds light on Starmer’s gratuitous, pointless, hurtful remark about an “island of strangers”: island fantasies = nostalgia for feudalism where a coherent critique of capitalism appears impossible.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

UK risks becoming ‘island of strangers’ without more immigration curbs, Starmer says

PM unveils policies to ‘significantly’ drive down net migration including English tests and degree requirements

www.theguardian.com

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UCL Anthropocene @anthropoceneucl.bsky.social · May 12

Join us for this Anthropocene Histories seminar where Kristin Asdal & Tone Huse discuss how the ocean, in the years proceeding WWII, has been harnessed to become a space of ever-intensifying capital investment and innovation 🌊

📆14 May, 3-5pm
📍Online - zoom
🔗 shorturl.at/qQGsE

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · May 12

m.youtube.com/watch?v=sezc...

Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Apr 16

Super! Can I audit the module?

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Apr 16

Note also how “Freedom” (“Libertà”) replaces “Liberation” (“Liberazione”)

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Apr 16

By contrast, the national government has chosen omit any reference to Fascism.
This poster reads: “Freedom, a history that we defend every day”.

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Apr 16

Italy’s national holiday on 25 April 2025 will mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation from Fascism. This is how the City of Rome is marking the occasion:

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Apr 16

Poland’s underground “flying universities” of the 1970s and 1980s are a hard act to
follow, but an interesting model. In the Humanities, this kind of education would not require summative assessment, I think, but could be entirely focused on Socratic dialogue.

Philip Gourevitch @pgourevitch.bsky.social · Apr 16

M. Gessen makes the essential case here for colleges and universities to meet the Trumpist attack by recommitting to their core mission of education rather than attempting to safeguard their prestige & pocketbooks—and cites, for example, Bard & @bpi-bard.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/o...

Opinion | This Is How Universities Can Escape Trump’s Trap, if They Dare

It’s been tried in other countries facing authoritarian crackdowns. It works.

www.nytimes.com

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Philip Gourevitch @pgourevitch.bsky.social · Apr 16

M. Gessen makes the essential case here for colleges and universities to meet the Trumpist attack by recommitting to their core mission of education rather than attempting to safeguard their prestige & pocketbooks—and cites, for example, Bard & @bpi-bard.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/o...

Opinion | This Is How Universities Can Escape Trump’s Trap, if They Dare

It’s been tried in other countries facing authoritarian crackdowns. It works.

www.nytimes.com

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Apr 15

“The Stronghold” (“Il deserto dei Tartari”) is his most well-known novel, and probably more accomplished than “The Singularity”, to be honest. Then again, “The Singularity” features a massive AI, who occupies an entire valley, self-identifies as female, and has fits homicidal jealousy. Pretty cool.

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Florian Mussgnug @fmussgnug.bsky.social · Apr 15

How odd that Dino Buzzati’s wonderfully odd, satirical SF novel, “Il grande ritratto” (1960) is now available in A.M. Appel’s elegant English translation - reviewed below by the great Michael Wood - but that the Italian original remains out of print. Mondadori, please act!

London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · Apr 15

‘“The Singularity” shows us what happens when we don’t wait, and it takes us back to original sin.’

Michael Wood on Dino Buzzati’s weird fiction: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Michael Wood · Clean Machine: On Dino Buzzati

In a late interview Dino Buzzati offered his theory of a secular form of original sin. ‘The human being is a...

www.lrb.co.uk

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · Apr 15

‘“The Singularity” shows us what happens when we don’t wait, and it takes us back to original sin.’

Michael Wood on Dino Buzzati’s weird fiction: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Michael Wood · Clean Machine: On Dino Buzzati

In a late interview Dino Buzzati offered his theory of a secular form of original sin. ‘The human being is a...

www.lrb.co.uk

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