Laura Vrana
@callmevrana.bsky.social
Scholar of African American poetry (author of https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814215753.html); Univ of South AL Associate Professor; former Emory FCHI Poetics Fellow & Rutgers postdoc. Opinions mine. She/her/hers.
Pinned
Can't believe I missed the one-year anniversary of the publication of my monograph on contemporary Black women's poetry last fall! I appreciate all support of the work so far and would love to speak to people about the book, available here: ohiostatepress.org/books/titles...
African American lit colleagues: which works by Hortense Spillers do you consider the most indispensable to recommend first to folks recently discovering her brilliant theorizing? A colleague has asked, and I'm struggling not just to say *ALL OF IT*!!!
December 2, 2025 at 8:01 PM
African American lit colleagues: which works by Hortense Spillers do you consider the most indispensable to recommend first to folks recently discovering her brilliant theorizing? A colleague has asked, and I'm struggling not just to say *ALL OF IT*!!!
Last week of classes: teaching Carmen Maria Machado's "The Husband Stitch" in my gen ed American literature survey and screening/discussing "Sinners" in my 400/500-level Contemporary Black Fiction class, so yea, loving my job!
December 1, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Last week of classes: teaching Carmen Maria Machado's "The Husband Stitch" in my gen ed American literature survey and screening/discussing "Sinners" in my 400/500-level Contemporary Black Fiction class, so yea, loving my job!
Reposted by Laura Vrana
Home Depot wanted holiday cheer, got a whole-ass choir calling out their partnership with ICE instead…
November 29, 2025 at 6:18 AM
Home Depot wanted holiday cheer, got a whole-ass choir calling out their partnership with ICE instead…
Reposted by Laura Vrana
It remains not only so shameful and such a profound betrayal but also just so EMBARRASSING that universities are signing things that are like:
"Men" and "Women" are defined the way President Buttface said in his Big Fancy Statement.
Signed,
The Leader of an Actual Institution of Higher Education
"Men" and "Women" are defined the way President Buttface said in his Big Fancy Statement.
Signed,
The Leader of an Actual Institution of Higher Education
November 29, 2025 at 1:29 PM
It remains not only so shameful and such a profound betrayal but also just so EMBARRASSING that universities are signing things that are like:
"Men" and "Women" are defined the way President Buttface said in his Big Fancy Statement.
Signed,
The Leader of an Actual Institution of Higher Education
"Men" and "Women" are defined the way President Buttface said in his Big Fancy Statement.
Signed,
The Leader of an Actual Institution of Higher Education
You could purchase my monograph Pitfalls of Prestige: Black Women and Literary Recognition via Bookshop for Small Business Saturday! bookshop.org/p/books/pitf...
Pitfalls of Prestige: Black Women and Literary Recognition
Black Women and Literary Recognition
bookshop.org
November 29, 2025 at 8:35 PM
You could purchase my monograph Pitfalls of Prestige: Black Women and Literary Recognition via Bookshop for Small Business Saturday! bookshop.org/p/books/pitf...
Reposted by Laura Vrana
“If vaccines work, why would you need a booster?” he asks as he changes his oil for the third time that year.
November 28, 2025 at 5:17 PM
“If vaccines work, why would you need a booster?” he asks as he changes his oil for the third time that year.
Enjoying a lovely, low-key Alabama Thanksgiving working on midday food preparation for our traditional enormous feast (with many leftovers) for just 2! Well, I guess for 3...Therefore feeling *extremely* extra thankful this year!
November 27, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Enjoying a lovely, low-key Alabama Thanksgiving working on midday food preparation for our traditional enormous feast (with many leftovers) for just 2! Well, I guess for 3...Therefore feeling *extremely* extra thankful this year!
Reposted by Laura Vrana
Hang onto these pictures because Hegseth will have the offending sign removed as soon as he sobers up today.
Sign at the US Military Academy at West Point:
November 23, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Hang onto these pictures because Hegseth will have the offending sign removed as soon as he sobers up today.
Reposted by Laura Vrana
A senior ICE official just admitted in an evidentiary hearing in Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case that someone else drafted his declaration in the case and he didn’t know what certain words meant.
November 20, 2025 at 5:18 PM
A senior ICE official just admitted in an evidentiary hearing in Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case that someone else drafted his declaration in the case and he didn’t know what certain words meant.
Reposted by Laura Vrana
Patricia Smith’s The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems has won the National Book Award for Poetry! Read more here: buff.ly/HKCSQQQ
Patricia Smith on How a Poet Ages
Nobody—and I mean NOBODY—warned me about my pubic hair. It glistened for years, springy and sprite, an Ivory Soap-scented welcome mat for lucky episodic visitors. I never gave it much thought, cert…
lithub.com
November 20, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Patricia Smith’s The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems has won the National Book Award for Poetry! Read more here: buff.ly/HKCSQQQ
Reposted by Laura Vrana
this would have been a month-long scandal in 2011
President Trump walking past the flag at the Whitehouse which has fallen to the ground
November 18, 2025 at 12:38 AM
this would have been a month-long scandal in 2011
Reposted by Laura Vrana
Reposted by Laura Vrana
I just don’t see how we can pretend even for a moment that anything involving our federal government is remotely normal when the president is covering up his involvement in a child sex trafficking ring. Like, what are we doing here
November 15, 2025 at 1:14 AM
I just don’t see how we can pretend even for a moment that anything involving our federal government is remotely normal when the president is covering up his involvement in a child sex trafficking ring. Like, what are we doing here
Reposted by Laura Vrana
Can someone dial the Unprecedented Times meter back down to a respectable number because I’m tired.
November 14, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Can someone dial the Unprecedented Times meter back down to a respectable number because I’m tired.
Can't believe I missed the one-year anniversary of the publication of my monograph on contemporary Black women's poetry last fall! I appreciate all support of the work so far and would love to speak to people about the book, available here: ohiostatepress.org/books/titles...
November 11, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Can't believe I missed the one-year anniversary of the publication of my monograph on contemporary Black women's poetry last fall! I appreciate all support of the work so far and would love to speak to people about the book, available here: ohiostatepress.org/books/titles...
Reposted by Laura Vrana
“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.”
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
November 9, 2025 at 5:26 PM
“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.”
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
Excited this afternoon to finally dig into Tiana Clark's newest poetry collection, Scorched Earth! Been eager for a new book by her since the extraordinary I Can't Talk About the Trees Without the Blood.
November 8, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Excited this afternoon to finally dig into Tiana Clark's newest poetry collection, Scorched Earth! Been eager for a new book by her since the extraordinary I Can't Talk About the Trees Without the Blood.
Reposted by Laura Vrana
Once again, the main day of Tea Party protests had about 300,000 nationwide, but saw endless coverage.
The No Kings protests had about 7,000,000 nationwide, and many media outlets reacted with a yawn.
No Kings was nearly 25x as big as the Tea Party but the Tea Party got 25x the attention.
The No Kings protests had about 7,000,000 nationwide, and many media outlets reacted with a yawn.
No Kings was nearly 25x as big as the Tea Party but the Tea Party got 25x the attention.
Ask yourself this: How would the New York Times have covered the protests if it had been seven million MAGA supporters flooding the streets? We don’t even have to guess: We know how they and other mainstream outlets covered the Tea Party protests during Obama’s first term.
October 26, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Once again, the main day of Tea Party protests had about 300,000 nationwide, but saw endless coverage.
The No Kings protests had about 7,000,000 nationwide, and many media outlets reacted with a yawn.
No Kings was nearly 25x as big as the Tea Party but the Tea Party got 25x the attention.
The No Kings protests had about 7,000,000 nationwide, and many media outlets reacted with a yawn.
No Kings was nearly 25x as big as the Tea Party but the Tea Party got 25x the attention.
Reposted by Laura Vrana
If you think that professors exist as repositories of knowledge that students ask for answers, you’re missing the entire point of a college education.
We’re here to teach students how to do research, how to analyze and argue, how to think for themselves — how to find the answers on their own.
We’re here to teach students how to do research, how to analyze and argue, how to think for themselves — how to find the answers on their own.
Wow. Just wow.
"Students pay premium prices for information that AI now delivers instantly and for free. A business student can ask ChatGPT to explain supply chain optimization or generate market analysis in seconds. The traditional lecture-and-test model faces its Blockbuster moment."
"Students pay premium prices for information that AI now delivers instantly and for free. A business student can ask ChatGPT to explain supply chain optimization or generate market analysis in seconds. The traditional lecture-and-test model faces its Blockbuster moment."
When Knowledge is Free, What are Professors For?
Higher Education Must Stop Competing with AI on Information and Start Teaching What Machines Can’t Do
www.forbes.com
October 16, 2025 at 1:45 PM
If you think that professors exist as repositories of knowledge that students ask for answers, you’re missing the entire point of a college education.
We’re here to teach students how to do research, how to analyze and argue, how to think for themselves — how to find the answers on their own.
We’re here to teach students how to do research, how to analyze and argue, how to think for themselves — how to find the answers on their own.
Reposted by Laura Vrana
BREAKING: USC HAS JOIN THE RESISTANCE!
That’s four (MIT, Brown, Penn, USC) of the nine schools Trump targeted.
Stay tuned! 🍿
#DefendHigherEd
#StandUpFightBack
That’s four (MIT, Brown, Penn, USC) of the nine schools Trump targeted.
Stay tuned! 🍿
#DefendHigherEd
#StandUpFightBack
USC rejects Trump education compact aimed at shifting the university to the right
USC interim President Beong-Soo Kim said in a statement that he had sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education turning down the Trump offer.
www.latimes.com
October 16, 2025 at 9:01 PM
BREAKING: USC HAS JOIN THE RESISTANCE!
That’s four (MIT, Brown, Penn, USC) of the nine schools Trump targeted.
Stay tuned! 🍿
#DefendHigherEd
#StandUpFightBack
That’s four (MIT, Brown, Penn, USC) of the nine schools Trump targeted.
Stay tuned! 🍿
#DefendHigherEd
#StandUpFightBack
Hi all: the lovely, hospitable English dept at my home institution (University of South Alabama) is about to begin a search for a TT Assistant or Associate Professor of English with a specialization in
Rhetoric and Composition, starting August 15, 2026. I'll have job ad soon, but please spread word!
Rhetoric and Composition, starting August 15, 2026. I'll have job ad soon, but please spread word!
October 13, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Hi all: the lovely, hospitable English dept at my home institution (University of South Alabama) is about to begin a search for a TT Assistant or Associate Professor of English with a specialization in
Rhetoric and Composition, starting August 15, 2026. I'll have job ad soon, but please spread word!
Rhetoric and Composition, starting August 15, 2026. I'll have job ad soon, but please spread word!
Watching the new doc about the prison system in my home state, The Alabama Solution. (Can't help but think about Orisanmi Burton's book Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt too.) Watch. Learn. Get activated about the horrors of America's "justice" system.
October 12, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Watching the new doc about the prison system in my home state, The Alabama Solution. (Can't help but think about Orisanmi Burton's book Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt too.) Watch. Learn. Get activated about the horrors of America's "justice" system.
Highly recommend Eunsong Kim's book The Politics of Collecting: Race and the Aestheticization of Property, which I'm currently reading!
October 11, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Highly recommend Eunsong Kim's book The Politics of Collecting: Race and the Aestheticization of Property, which I'm currently reading!
Reposted by Laura Vrana
I think we’re really going to have to do a lot more of this. A massive deprogramming so that people can read more than ten words at a time without anxiety.
www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?
www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?
Universities teaching literature students how to cope with long novels
Critics blame GCSE English for deterring teenagers from the subject, describing the literature syllabus as boring and repetitive
www.thetimes.com
October 4, 2025 at 2:49 PM
I think we’re really going to have to do a lot more of this. A massive deprogramming so that people can read more than ten words at a time without anxiety.
www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?
www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?
So glad I've been teaching Thylias Moss's Slave Moth in my 400-/500-level class! They're doing so much with it!
October 3, 2025 at 6:05 PM
So glad I've been teaching Thylias Moss's Slave Moth in my 400-/500-level class! They're doing so much with it!