Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
banner
caitcoker.bsky.social
Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
@caitcoker.bsky.social
Curator, fangirl, utter nerd. Assoc. Prof/Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at U of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Co-Editor Women in Book History Bibliography at womensbookhistory.org. Fan Studies, Tolkien Studies, SFF Studies. I just really love books ok
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
If you missed last night’s stellar talk with @imaniperry.bsky.social and @tananarivedue.bsky.social on Octavia E. Butler, you can watch the entire program for free on YouTube. Hear these acclaimed writers delve into the genius of the Xenogenesis Trilogy, and catch rare audio of Butler herself!
The Radical Imagination of Octavia E. Butler
YouTube video by Library of America
youtube.com
November 25, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
Poetrye, theatre, storyes, daunse, art, scholarlye researche about literature, historye, and language -- all of these thinges mattir more now, not less.
November 23, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
I know there’s a lot going on but if you have any money to spare, please consider protecting a vital wetland area, or share this link.
secure.qgiv.com/event/beonei...
Be One In a Million
We are asking YOU and 1 million people to give $10 to protect and preserve 1,400 acres of wild lands on West Galveston Island.
secure.qgiv.com
November 23, 2025 at 5:40 PM
I’ve taken in my head I want to do a session on early modern “cannibals” at some point, and lo I am reading a book on Romanticism when boom:
November 23, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Dunno why this hits me, but it does. Being 101 and a barista for 60 years.
www.reuters.com
November 22, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
Seth Rockman: 'Experiential research as a method for IDing questions you didn’t know to ask, rather than providing answers you wouldn’t have had...an experiential research method lets us envision more things we want to know about the past' (experiential=do something the way it was done in the past)
November 22, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
theyre never letting us have another american pope after this huh
He said "Amen" straight into the drop

Lmao Pope Leo threw a rave for an archbishop's 75th birthday this is kind of incredible
November 22, 2025 at 12:42 AM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
Thanks to the wonderful staff in the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Research Collections, today my 2nd-year tutorial groups have been thinking about book history and reading practices from the Middle Ages to the 18thC, including this copy of Sidney’s ‘Astrophel and Stella’ (c.1592)
November 20, 2025 at 2:27 PM
RSA 2026 program is up which means I better write my paper!! (I'll be presenting on my work on Zacharias Kallierges!)

rsa.confex.com/rsa/2026/mee...
The 72nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America
rsa.confex.com
November 21, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
And that's why you can't have ink in the reading room! Historic damage to a 1647 pamphlet on infant baptism by John Cotton #readers
November 19, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Scott thinks that green bean casserole is disgusting.

However, I learned that he has no objections to "green bean and mushroom gratin" for Thanksgiving and am intrigued by what this means for my future culinary suggestions.
November 19, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
Did not expect a note about Saddam Hussein to show up in the Wikipedia entry about the famous fantasy artist Rowena, but it's hilarious:
November 19, 2025 at 4:18 PM
The link said "These Nu Metal Albums Aren’t So "New" Anymore" because Discogs chose violence today. ::crumbles to dust and blows away in the wind::
The Records That Made Nu Metal Impossible to Ignore
A deep dive into the 10 albums that shaped the legacy of nu metal, from Korn’s unsettling debut to Linkin Park’s world-dominating breakthrough.
www.discogs.com
November 18, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Theater class deeply impressed by the Venetian doge…
November 18, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Poured my coffee into my cereal bowl, that's how today is starting. Hopefully improving from there.
a man in a black shirt is holding a cup of coffee in his hand
ALT: a man in a black shirt is holding a cup of coffee in his hand
media.tenor.com
November 18, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
Imperative reading. 📖
I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care?
The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity
www.cityam.com
November 18, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
Me: What did you do today?

5-year-old: I don’t remember.

Me: Okay.

5-year-old: what did you do? Tried to remember for other people?

Me: Yup. That’s basically what all of history writing is.
November 18, 2025 at 12:43 AM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
Some on the right, including Elon Musk, are misinterpreting the game Dungeons & Dragons—and the intention behind its original story—to further a racist agenda, @adamserwer.bsky.social argues: https://theatln.tc/YRKYtIjQ
November 17, 2025 at 12:15 AM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
Time to bring back this Patricia Lockwood banger.
November 16, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
November 16, 2025 at 6:10 AM
Work in progress.
November 16, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!

The production of TWELTH NIGHT with Lupita Nyong’o, Junior Nyong’o, Peter Dinklage, Sandra Oh, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Daphne Rubin-Vega is now on the PBS app!!!!

www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/t...
November 15, 2025 at 5:21 PM
PSA NYRB having one of their sales this weekend!!! Get 20/30/40% off!!

(I am filling some gaps in my Slavic shelf tonight, I tell you what!)
New York Review Books
The homepage of New York Review Books.
www.nyrb.com
November 15, 2025 at 4:03 AM
Friday vinyl!!!!
November 14, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Reposted by Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>
Anyone who’s ever used emergency contraception or gains peace of mind by even having it on hand owes Dr Camp a debt of gratitude. What a force.

(Also, I just learned one reason the FDA rejected it at first was that they said the name Plan B was too glib!)

Great obit—no paywall.
Sharon Camp, Mother of the ‘Plan B’ Contraceptive Pill, Dies at 81
www.nytimes.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:58 PM