Dr. Katie Sagal
@aksagal.bsky.social
970 followers 470 following 230 posts
Associate Professor; 18thc Brit Lit & Science. Author of Botanical Entanglements (UVA Press). New project on marine ecology in the works. Super into plants, running, art museums, libraries, cheese, pandas, and video games.
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Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
aksagal.bsky.social
☠️
angryblacklady.blacksky.app
My pop culture references are older than people who are whole ass adults
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
ninaheise.bsky.social
The CfP for the 1st themed issue of our journal Fandom | Cultures | Research is out & I'm especially excited for this one, since it combines two of the things I'm most interested in: #fanstudies & #memorystudies. Added bonus: a workshop in Marburg in Feb 26.

journals.uni-marburg.de/fcr/announce...
Call for Abstracts - Themed Issue 2/26 & Accompanying Workshop: “Fan Practices of Memory and Remembrance” | Fandom | Cultures | Research
journals.uni-marburg.de
aksagal.bsky.social
We can be pretty flexible! What are you thinking? You can also email me at my institutional address if you want to chat there.
aksagal.bsky.social
I've started to have increasingly specific AI policies that tailor my reasons against them using it to the content of the course. Who knows it if works, but we'll see! But yes, I hate having to have one.
aksagal.bsky.social
Hello #academicsky! I'm sharing a cfp for an edited collection on "Naming & Classifying," pulled together by me, Kristin Girten, & @aaronrhanlon.com . We'd love to see your work! Please also circulate to anyone you think might be interested. Deadline 10/31. docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Naming and Classifying cfp final
CFP: Naming and Classifying in the Long Eighteenth Century Whereas “the nineteenth century can be seen as the century of counting and measuring,” the eighteenth century can be seen as the century of ...
docs.google.com
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
andreahart.bsky.social
Delighted to have come across this lovely book for a patron visit - Isabella Sinclair’s Indigenous Flowers of the #Hawaiian Islands (1855). The first book published with colour images of Hawaiian flowering plants. A great blog here blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2019/03/isab... #rarebooks #flowers
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
garyhornseth.bsky.social
A website that lets you select a country or state and move it around a Mercator projection map to yield better size comparisons.

thetruesize.com, created by James Talmage and Damon Maneice
Five rescaled maps of Minnesota on a Mercator projection map, covering 1) a large part of northern Greenland, 2) a large part of northern Scandinavia, 3) a part of central Europe, 4) a region of southern India, 5) a region of southeastern Australia.
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social
Highly recommend this chapter on "elevated horror" from David Church's book. It's a fantastic history of the genre even as it's unfolding. It starts with a line from @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social!
Title page for ""Slow," "Smart," "Indie," "Prestige," "Elevated": Discursive Struggle for Cultural Distinction" in Post-Horror
Art, Genre and Cultural Elevation by David Church
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
otsumamiboy.bsky.social
I hope this helps someone:

Regardless of your intention when using AI, it doesn't change the processes involved in using it, which include excessive consumption of water & other finite energy sources and data centers that are placed in vulnerable communities, polluting both people and land.
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
djolder.bsky.social
If I have to explain to you why it's a bad idea to use a machine that makes shit up 15-80% of the time AND destroys the environment AND contributes to rising fascism and genocide AND puts brilliant skillful creatives out of work by stealing their work, then we're already speaking different languages
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
calthalas.bsky.social
If historians know something it is this: nothing is inevitable just because it is popular. AI is not an exception. Nor is fascism.
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
ianbetteridge.com
Essentially, as @mildlydiverting.bsky.social points out, a lot of the use cases which techbros put forward for AI are ones which require them to develop adult skills - like knowing what to say to women. It’s a way of letting them be perpetually toddlers.
seemo.bsky.social
Grounds for divorce imo
A screenshot of a news article from the verge. It reads “With Gemini, Williams says, you can just give the details of the message and a tone. Maybe you're running late, so you say, "Tell my spouse I'm 15 minutes late and send it in a jokey tone." Instead of having to think of what to say, the bot will write it for you.”
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
mcsweeneys.net
"It’s so predictable and pathetic how there’s some big uproar every time a cute young lady winks at the camera or a creepy old man who is president sloppily covers up his involvement with a pedophile sex offender."
Liberals Get So Upset About Every Little Jeans Ad and Blatant Corruption Scandal
Some hyper-sensitive Americans love to cry buckets of liberal tears over every minor provocation, like the Sydney Sweeney jeans ad or how the polic...
buff.ly
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
erinbartram.bsky.social
I am still haunted by this poem, "The Myth Was Never The Unicorn," written by one of the teens who participated in the creative writing program at the museum this summer. A reminder that girls are always aware.

Read the full piece and listen to the author recite it: journey75.org/2025/the-myt...
They say unicorns bow to virgin maidens,
but they don’t say what happens after they kneel.
They don’t say what the horn is for.
They say they are gentle,
but only in the way a trap is gentle when it waits.
aksagal.bsky.social
I've purchased plenty of fiction and a handful of academic titles. This is my primary source for finding out about new books, with publisher newsletters or genre roundups coming in a distant second and third.
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
abojournal.bsky.social
Next up in our Phillis Wheatley Peters Pedagogy Special Issue:
@grubstreetwomen.bsky.social's "Reimagining the Single-Author Seminar: Teaching Wheatley Peters, Milton, and the Master’s Discourse,” ABO 15.1. Abstract 👇 digitalcommons.usf.edu/abo/vol15/is...
#philliswheatleypeters #pedagogy
Ozment abstract
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
journal.transformativeworks.org
Stevie Leigh's article "Fan fiction as a valuable literacy practice" was published in #TWC34! This article argues for more use of fan fiction in the classroom and emphasizes that fan fiction is a crucial and valuable practice. Read it here:
buff.ly
Reposted by Dr. Katie Sagal
aktange.bsky.social
Here you go! I'll write some new ones for this semester too. They loved them. The "read without your phone or screens in the room" was a revelation, and many of them decided to keep doing it. They had NO IDEA (& were horrified) how often they interrupt themselves to look at a phone for no reason.
Reading Scenario Experiments. This series of prompts is designed to get you thinking about how the setting for reading affects concentration, comprehension, and even the existential experience of reading. Every week, one of the following prompts will appear on the syllabus. I encourage you to try all of them that you are able. How does a different reading setting affect your mood? Your receptiveness to the prose? Your pleasure or difficulty reading? What are the particular impacts of changing your lighting or surroundings? What do you notice about yourself and about the work you are reading during this experiment? 
1.	read by candlelight (use a small lamp in dorms where no candles are allowed!)
2.	read for one hour without checking any devices, answering texts, etc.
3.	walk out into nature (climb a tree, sit on a rock, grab a spot in a hammock) and read
4.	host a reading night with friends & food (sit in companionable silence, reading without chatting)
5.	read aloud a chapter to someone else
6.	climb into bed at night and read by flashlight under the covers for at least 30 minutes, as if you’ve already been told “lights out” as a kid
7.	reread a chapter and see what new things you notice the second time through
8.	change your ambient-noise level: add music if you normally read in the quiet; or read without music if you are normally a music-listener
9.	read with a sketchpad at hand and sketch scenes, characters, or other elements from the story
10.	practice focused listening: have someone read to you
11.	make yourself a special, fancy snack on a real plate to nibble while eating: pay attention to the cooking or arranging or choosing of ingredients to make it especially appetizing first
12.	make tea (even if you’re not usually a tea drinker), and read and sip
13.	invent a new reading scenario for yourself, or repeat the one you liked the best from this term 

[writing assignment using these prompts follows; text character limit prevents inclusion of it in full]