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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson
@amndw2.bsky.social
1K followers 570 following 1.5K posts
Librarian, literature geek, knitter, opera fan, book history person. Writing a book about commonplace books and poetry readers. Opinions here are my own. She/her/hers. Queer and furious. 🏳️‍🌈
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 13d
All right! I think I've sorted out the feed issues. Here's the link to the new and improved #pleasingterror feed for our October M.R. James ghost story reading club: bsky.app/profile/amnd...

And the reading schedule is below. Join us for some antiquarian horrors next month! 😱📖🐋🛖💐💯🪵🌰🪛🪞🚀
A Pleasing Terror - October 2025
docs.google.com
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Reposted by Amanda Watson
dearsarah.bsky.social
Sarah Szalavitz💡 @dearsarah.bsky.social · 23h
Rutgers Professor @mark-bray.bsky.social, who studies & writes about Antifascism,Tries to Flee to Spain After Death Threats

By the time he & his family reached the gate, their tickets were cancelled.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/n... flagrantly & appallingly lawless. Hope he & his family are ok.
Rutgers Expert on Antifa Tries to Flee to Spain After Death Threats
www.nytimes.com
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Reposted by Amanda Watson
lkfazio.bsky.social
Lisa Fazio @lkfazio.bsky.social · 21h
"American civil society has more than enough financial and organizational muscle to stop this authoritarian offensive. But it requires collective resolve. And it requires leadership, which has been in painfully short supply."

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Harvard Must Take a Stand Against Trump’s Compact | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson
Harvard, rather than quietly pursuing its own appeasement strategy, should lead the way to preserve academic freedom and democracy.
www.thecrimson.com
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 1d
Still love the delightful weirdness of the protagonist composing impromptu poetry in his hotel room in the style of the heroine of The Mysteries of Udolpho. And the ghost inexplicably dancing: "a gaunt leg was kicked up with surprising agility." 😱
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 1d
I think maybe James was still working out how much explanation to give his readers. He wrote this story a few years before "Oh Whistle," which to my mind is especially terrifying because the ghost isn't really explained at all. 😱
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 1d
On rereading, I think "Number 13" is one of James's odder stories. There are gestures at a backstory for the disappearing and reappearing room, but it feels simultaneously like too much explanation and too little (and they found...a manuscript no one can decipher!). 😱
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 1d
This saga continues to renew my faith in humanity.
arstechnica.com
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 1d
Based on the scale of the vandalism, it's clear that many New Yorkers are not on board with the concept of a wearable AI pendant.
Vandals deface ads for AI necklaces that listen to all your conversations
Critics attacked subway ads to defend human friends and broadly criticize AI.
arstechnica.com
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 1d
Hooray! Ordering it for our library collection!
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Reposted by Amanda Watson
rweingarten.bsky.social
Randi Weingarten 🖇️📚✊🇺🇸 @rweingarten.bsky.social · 2d
Thank you @TimothySnyder.bsky.social for joining @AFT.org & @AAUP.org in calling on university leaders, faculty, staff and students to reject Trump's proposed compact and to defend the principle that no president has the right to buy obedience or sell off freedom. snyder.substack.com/p/save-ameri...
Save American Higher Education (video)
A petition that you can sign, which I read aloud
snyder.substack.com
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 3d
💯💯💯
adapalmer.bsky.social
Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 3d
I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections
afterdinnerconversation.com
After Dinner Conversation® @afterdinnerconversation.com · 3d
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Reposted by Amanda Watson
rezekjoe.bsky.social
Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 3d
ACLS statement against White House “compact”: THIS IS SOVIET SHIT
Screenshot from statement “Universities and colleges have one mission: to advance knowledge. Faculty carry out the mission by conducting research and teaching students. The knowledge they produce and circulate is independently assessed by professional peers. Interfering with that process by forcing knowledge to pass through a political filter is a tactic adopted by the Soviet Union and other authoritarian states. The White House is dressing up its compact as a reasonable corrective to what it views as problems in campus culture. Let no one be deceived. This proposal imposes government censorship on academia. It is anti-American, and it weakens our democracy by devaluing academic expertise.”
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 4d
Hahaha, wait till we get to "Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad."
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 4d
I'm more than a little startled by the way this post took off. I had no idea there were so many other antiquarian ghost story people on here. Hi!
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 4d
Yes, glad you like it!
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 4d
Count Magnus! I think that's the only tentacle story, but I love that they're in there.
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 4d
Watching this chat right now, and I just learned of the existence of a 1798 gothic novel called More Ghosts! (exclamation point in the original title). Now I must read it!
kjcharleswriter.com
KJ Charles @kjcharleswriter.com · 6d
This Sunday (October 5) at 12 noon EST/ 5pm UK time, I'm talking with @alexandravasti.bsky.social and @felicityniven.bsky.social about all things Gothic Romance!

Catch us at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfmk...
Flyer for Gothic Romance Extravaganza with KJ Charles, Alexandra Vasti and Felicity Niven running the conversation. With images of Ladies in Hating by Alexandra and All Of Us Murderers by KJ.
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 4d
I couldn't resist. #pleasingterror
A bingo card for the ghost stories of M.R. James. Boxes read: "Spiders Terrible hotel stay Narrator makes fun of golf Latin passages Eerie disembodied voices Confirmed bachelor main character Vengeful spirit Evil magician Working-class character as comic relief Bleak East Anglian coast Visit to an archive Narrator in guidebook mode FREE SPACE Unholy doings in a church Frogs or toads Queen Anne style house Cursed artifact Don't buy that rare book! Something hairy and horrible Someone gets too curious Tentacles Story told via old manuscript Research trip gone horribly wrong Beds are scary Tactile horror
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Reposted by Amanda Watson
rsgat.bsky.social
Josh Michtom @rsgat.bsky.social · 5d
Today, I drove an hour and a half with my wife and a couple friends to pick up a neighbor who was summarily, inexplicably arrested by ICE at a check-in ten days ago and then just as inexplicably released, 100 miles from home today. It was a happy occasion, all things considered, but...
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Reposted by Amanda Watson
dburbach.bsky.social
David Burbach 🌹 @dburbach.bsky.social · 5d
The sort of people the administration calls 'terrorists' :

"[the 84 year olds] were rushed by federal officers “for no apparent reason.” She said her husband was leaning on his walker and wearing his Vietnam veterans cap as he was pushed to the ground."
oregonian.com
The Oregonian @oregonian.com · 5d
An 84-year-old said she sustained a concussion and was hit with a projectile after she and her husband, a Vietnam vet, were knocked down by federal officers.
Federal agents knock down elderly couple during Portland protest
An 84-year-old said she sustained a concussion and was hit with a projectile after she and her husband, a Vietnam vet, were knocked down by federal officers.
www.oregonlive.com
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 5d
Ha, I did think "someone should write something about queer friendship in the English ghost story, especially MRJ, and maybe it should be me if nobody's already done it," but it might not be this year!
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 5d
*checks back*
*drops candle*
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 5d
And this one has Anningley Hall vibes (no creeping figure in the foreground, though):
Category:Court of Noke - Wikimedia Commons
commons.wikimedia.org
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 5d
So many Queen Anne country houses crop up in M.R. James's stories that I started searching for images. This one is how I imagine Aswarby Hall in "Lost Hearts": 😱
Rainham Hall | London
Visitor information for Rainham Hall, a fine example of Queen Anne architecture on the outskirts of London, near Havering.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk
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Reposted by Amanda Watson
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 5d
important for us in the US to note: even a solidly right wing government can't ignore this.
apnews.com
The Associated Press @apnews.com · 6d
Over 2 million people across Italy have rallied in more than 100 cities for a one-day general strike.
2 million rally in Italy for Gaza as general strike halts key services
Over 2 million people across Italy have rallied in more than 100 cities for a one-day general strike.
bit.ly
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Reposted by Amanda Watson
pehjackson.bsky.social
Patrick Jackson @pehjackson.bsky.social · 6d
UVA Faculty Senate passed a resolution strongly opposing the Trump “Compact.” We, at least, remain committed to the historic values and mission of the university.
Resolution Opposing the "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" WHEREAS the United States Secretary of Education has requested that the University of Virginia enter into a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”, and WHEREAS the Compact contains provisions antithetical to the mission and traditions of the University, and WHEREAS the Compact contains provisions which endanger the independence and integrity of the University, and WHEREAS the compact likely violates state and federal law, and infringes upon the constitutional rights of members of the University community, and WHEREAS the University of Virginia exemplifies American academic values of the highest standard, including universal right to free speech and the cultivation of academic freedom; therefore BE IT RESOLVED that the Faculty Senate of the University of Virginia firmly opposes this Compact as written and calls upon Interim President Mahoney and the Board of Visitors to also reject this Compact outright as well as any similar proposal compromising the mission, values, and independence of the University.
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amndw2.bsky.social
Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 6d
update:
Another defaced friend.com subway ad, this one with "BULL SHIT" inscribed in bright red on the ad's photo of the round "friend" device on a chain.
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