Nicholas Birns

@nicholasbirns.bsky.social

1.3K followers 2K following 610 posts

Academic, literary critic etc. teaching at NYU. Books from Cambridge UP, Bloomsbury, Broadview, Palgrave, U of South Carolina P, Sydney UP, Routledge. He/him

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Nicholas Birns is a scholar of literature, including fantasy and Australian literature. As a Tolkien scholar he has written on a variety of topics including "The Scouring of the Shire" and Tolkien's biblical sources. His analysis of the writings of Anthony Powell and Roberto Bolaño has been admired by scholars. .. more

Art 28%

Political science 22%

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Nicholas Birns @nicholasbirns.bsky.social · 5h

I never managed to meet Graeme Turner but his work taught me a lot about Australian culture. So sorry to hear of his passing..

Australian Academy of the Humanities @humanitiesau.bsky.social · 11h

It is with deep sadness that we share the passing of Emeritus Professor Graeme Turner AO FAHA FQA — one of Australia’s most influential humanities scholars and a towering figure in the Academy’s history. humanities.org.au/our-communit...

Reposted by Amanda Lotz, Dave O’Brien, Nicholas Birns , and 1 more Amanda Lotz, Dave O’Brien, Nicholas Birns, Libby Robin

Australian Academy of the Humanities @humanitiesau.bsky.social · 11h

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

Michelle Scott Tucker @mst-writes.bsky.social · 15h

Finally found a use for the marble and pewter Selangor thingy for serving pate which we were given as a wedding present (so approx a thousand years ago).

Photo of a wooden bathroom bench. A hair straightener rests on a decorative marble disc.

Nicholas Birns @nicholasbirns.bsky.social · 1d

peopleandpaintings.com/exhibitions/... you can vote for my mom’s painting” Pavel and Peter throw the bride to the wolves” (of course, from Cather’s My Antonia) at the above link.

Exhibition: From the Gallery's Storeroom 2025 | People And Paintings

peopleandpaintings.com

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

Ben Railton @americanstudier.bsky.social · 2d

Starting with today's post on one of my favorite recent books, a moving family memoir (& history of one of my favorite places, Martha's Vineyard) that's also much more, @josephvlee.bsky.social's Nothing More of This Land!

blackwhiteandread.com/november-24-...

November 24, 2025: Indigenous Voices: Joseph Lee’s Nothing More of This Land – Black and White and Read All Over

[Thanksgiving is a hugely fraught holiday for us AmericanStudiers, but I also have a ton I’m thankful for. So this year I wanted to combine those two perspectives by highlighting indigenous voices, pa...

blackwhiteandread.com

Nicholas Birns @nicholasbirns.bsky.social · 2d

Hal was a fine and entertaining poet who faced illness with great bravery. My condolences to his friends and family.

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Nicholas Birns, Kathleen Kennedy , and 1 more Anna O. Law, Nicholas Birns, Kathleen Kennedy, Mary Burke

Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 2d

Haven't received as many contributions as usual for this year's lists--could be many things, but one aspect is surely that our ability to get this in front of people is much diminished. If you know folks whose stuff should be on here, please suggest it! contingentmagazine.org/yearly-pub-l...

Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians

Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...

contingentmagazine.org

Reposted by Nicholas Birns, Timothy D. McBride

Peter Baker @peterbakernyt.bsky.social · 3d

Greene's departure represents another political notch in Trump’s belt, the retreat of another would-be Republican rebel. But the defiant nature of her video announcement hinted at the fissures now dividing the president’s movement. Lisa Lerer @reidepstein.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/11/22/u...

Trump Shows His Power, and Greene Reveals His Weakness

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

Rusudan Djakeli @rusudandjakeli.bsky.social · 4d

Every day, Georgian police carry out countless unlawful orders.
Today, they suddenly decided that standing on the raised platform in front of Parliament is forbidden — and arrested young activist Sopo Markozia for simply being there.

Day 360.

🎥 Tornike Jandieri

Nicholas Birns @nicholasbirns.bsky.social · 4d

William Merritt Chase at Princeton Museum.

Nicholas Birns @nicholasbirns.bsky.social · 4d

Still life by Giorgio Morandi at Princeton Museum of Art

Reposted by Marina Jirotka, Diane Ravitch, Nicholas Birns , and 3 more Marina Jirotka, Diane Ravitch, Nicholas Birns, Ben Tonra, Gerald Friedman, Michael H. Whitworth

Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 4d

Rewarding a dictator-aggressor always leads to another war. One that is usually even worse.

Nicholas Birns @nicholasbirns.bsky.social · 5d

Finally out! Written in 2020, great to see it finally appear in such good company…

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

Joseph Reaves @josephtheythem.bsky.social · 5d

Remembering Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray on her 115th birthday

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

august 🍂 @auguststreet.ca · 5d

toronto looking magical this afternoon

late afternoon photo showing a downtown streetscape with people, bikes and a streetcar, and a tangle of overhead wires.

the city skyline looms in the background, with the cn tower

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 5d

From Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, Rep. @velazquez.house.gov has always been a champion and tireless advocate for immigrants, small businesses and working families. Your grace and fight showed us what real leadership looks like. From the bottom of my heart, thank you La Luchadora.

Nicholas Birns @nicholasbirns.bsky.social · 8d

I met Robert Gray once, and briefly, in Sydney but I had a 40 year relationship with his poetry, one of the finest bodies of poetic work produced by an Australian .

Laura Harding @lhsyd.bsky.social · 8d

Robert Gray was an extraordinary poet who I found late, after a recommendation from a friend who knew him. This story from his autobiography whispers to me every time I am walking in boggy bush. Vale.

Cope if a page from his autobiography - a story of his encounter with a gully full of leaches as a boy…falling on him like fat raindrops…

Nicholas Birns @nicholasbirns.bsky.social · 8d

A tribute to my late uncle in the journal, which he edited.,

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

Tolkien Society @tolkiensociety.org · 8d

Great news! A new edition of J.R.R. #Tolkien's Unfinished Tales by @harpercollins.bsky.social is due out on 12 March, just in time for Tolkien Reading Day! RRP of £16.99 and ISBN 9780008785697 - this will match in perfectly with the other hardbacks.

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

Laura Harding @lhsyd.bsky.social · 8d

Nicholas Birns @nicholasbirns.bsky.social · 8d

Sauerkraut fish

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 9d

who benefits when you cheat yourself?

"Students can use AI to replace the previously irreplaceable: studying w friends, learning from professors, + putting their thoughts into writing. The gray area of cheating not the system but themselves."

thenewjournalatyale.com/2025/10/insi...

Inside Yale’s Quiet Reckoning with AI | The New Journal

Amid ChatGPT's rising popularity and a computer science cheating scandal, Yale students, professors, and administrators wrestle privately with the proper role of AI in education. What happens when eve...

thenewjournalatyale.com

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

Juan E De Castro @juanedecastro.bsky.social · 10d

Efraín was one of my professors while he visited USC. His teaching, his books on Vargas Llosa, Borges, and Peruvian indigenismo, and his masterful essays, in particularly, "Considering Coldly . . ." (in New Left Review 15, 2002), have left a. profound influence on my writing. He will be missed.

Nicholas Birns @nicholasbirns.bsky.social · 10d

So sorry to hear this. I worked with Efraín as a contributor to the Cambridge Companion to Mario Vargas Llosa, I met him a couple of times later, he was a great scholar and his passing is a huge loss to the academic community

StephenHenighan @stephenhenighan.bsky.social · 10d

Efraín Kristal, author of one of the best books on Vargas Llosa, and of a brilliant book on Borges and translation, dead at 66. Mi más sentido pésame. I once had the pleasure of meeting him, in Quebec City. He was both dazzling and modest.

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

StephenHenighan @stephenhenighan.bsky.social · 10d

Reposted by American Library Association, Martin Paul Eve, Lesley A. Hall , and 7 more American Library Association, Martin Paul Eve, Lesley A. Hall, Nicholas Birns, Robert C. Richards, Laurent Dubois, John Palfrey, Roopika Risam, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Karin Wulf

KEW @kidadaewilliams.com · 11d

‘We don’t even know all of what we have.’ Howard University fights to preserve Black newspapers. www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/... Last year, during a move, workers found two whole boxes of Frederick Douglass’s’ The North Star’s first year of publication.

‘We don’t even know all of what we have.’ Howard fights to preserve Black newspapers.

Across the United States, scholars are working to preserve the history of the Black press before the brittle pages are lost forever. In a basement at Howard University, uncovered treasures have includ...

www.csmonitor.com

Reposted by Nicholas Birns

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 11d

I love that new #transit smell!

Getting a press tour of #Montréal’s new REM line this morning. Starting at Edouard-Montpetit station.

A clean, light, modern édicule (entry kiosk). And there’s parking for my bicycle…

🧵