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Dhananjay Jagannathan

@dhananjayj.bsky.social

570 followers 420 following 960 posts

academic, essayist Substack (on culture and identity): https://culturedopinion.substack.com/ Writing portfolio: https://dhananjayj.com/ Books: ARISTOTLE'S PRACTICAL EPISTEMOLOGY (OUP 2024); CULTURE AS CONVERSATION (PENGUIN forthcoming 2026)

culturedopinion.substack.com

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · Aug 4

Hey y'all, I've launched a newsletter focused on culture and identity. I'll be writing about food, travel, music, religion, politics, and other topics, as I work toward my first trade book CULTURE AS CONVERSATION, to be published by Penguin Press in 2026. Subscribe here: culturedopinion.substack.com

Cultured Opinion | Dhananjay Jagannathan | Substack

Philosophical and personal essays about culture, politics, music, food, travel, &c. Click to read Cultured Opinion, by Dhananjay Jagannathan, a Substack publication. Launched 3 hours ago.

culturedopinion.substack.com

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 22h

(Yes, I know OP is a joke. I can meme.)

Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 22h

Homer was more like “This is my main character Sadman. He is a sad man. I tell his story in my new epic Sadmantimes.”

Classical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens @csmfht.bsky.social · 1d

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 2d

I take the bus to get to work. We’re not going to make much progress without dedicated offset bus lanes and better enforcement of double parking where that isn’t possible. Buses with dozens of people end up stuck behind one driver who thinks their errand is the most important thing in the world!

Reposted by Dhananjay Jagannathan

Paul F. Tompkins @pftompkins.bsky.social · 3d

FanTASTIC news let’s get this done

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

As taxpayer supported institutions, the university and the college are accountable to the public as a whole. They must contribute to the common good, not to a private guild ("network") of alumni and donors. As a result, they cannot stray from their agreed-upon mission, which is, anyway, a noble one.

Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

My compensation from the university is fair – and the faculty are unionized public servants. (My position, while not currently a permanent one, is full-time, at the rank of Associate Professor.) The institution strives for excellence, but it knows it cannot abandon its students in flights of fancy.

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

But the bargains between the students and the institution and between the faculty and the institution are radically different. My primary job is to be an excellent teacher while maintaining my scholarly research profile and contributing to the community. It is one I am absolutely delighted to do.

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

Hunter College is rather different. Our students are here to get an education, one they are, for the most part, hungry for. A majority of them are the first in their families to go to college. Many are from the immigrant and diaspora communities of New York City. The credential matters, of course.

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

Most importantly, they can always hire more faculty who like me were excited to live in New York and to enjoy the subsidized housing the university provides to make it financially manageable (though it's nowhere near enough to comfortably raise a family or get care for elderly parents, etc.).

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

That bargain has begun to break down, but the institution holds all the cards. They get to decide how many faculty and graduate programs there are and what resources they get. They can adjust the ratio of tenured to adjunct faculty or class sizes relatively freely.

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

But, perhaps naively, I didn't think it reached as deep as I found it did. Columbia is a brand. As an institution, it sells credentials. Meanwhile, its largely idealistic faculty maintains educational standards without a particular incentive to do so and, in exchange, gets to have graduate students.

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

I also already knew something about the rot of Columbia and places like it, even though I hadn't ever attended an Ivy League or comparable school (the University of Chicago, where I did my PhD, despite its academic seriousness, is not in the same league, especially when it comes to resources).

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

I was a semifinalist or finalist for other positions that cycle, including one at the City University of New York, that I didn't get. That's perfectly normal and I understood those committees' reasons. I was a particularly good fit for an institution that combined liberal arts teaching and research.

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

Like a lot of academics, I applied for many jobs and received just a couple of job offers. I was still a finalist for a job at a public university when I received two job offers, one at Brown and one at Columbia, that I felt I couldn't pass up. But that's because I wanted to work with PhD students.

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

But I still had another year on my contract, and leaving meant a couple months of unemployment between contracts, a lot of uncertainty at an already difficult and uncertain time in my life, and a pay cut. What I came to find intolerable about Columbia is related to my commitment to public education.

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

Highly underrated feeling: opening your work e-mail and not feeling existential dread.

My next essay for my Substack will be a bit more personal, about my decision to leave Columbia University for Hunter College, part of the City University of New York. Part of why is just that I was denied tenure.

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 3d

Okay, I changed my mind. Send the soldiers in.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 3d

#WarRavagedPortland

Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 6d

What strikes me is the sheer boredom with humanity that is required for their worship of the bullshit machines.

Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 6d

Casually doing a supersesh

Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 6d

They do this – they risk their lives – to make videos to post on social media and they learned to do it by watching others do the same. PSAs with celebrities offer no solution to social contagions of this kind. What we need is a complete social media ban for children under 18.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 6d

Breaking News: Two teenage girls, believed to have been subway surfing, were found dead on top of a J train in Brooklyn, officials said.

2 Girls Found Dead Atop a J Train in Suspected Subway Surfing Accident

The teenagers, found unconscious on the roof of a train in Brooklyn, appear to be the latest casualties of a popular and deadly game.

nyti.ms

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 9d

A room (sacristy) of one’s own.

Reposted by Dhananjay Jagannathan

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 10d

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 9d

Ban phones and have little trays of postcards with each of the works of art on them in high resolution, one per visitor, ten total per visit, at the museum exit.

Reposted by Dhananjay Jagannathan

Colin Dickey @colindickey.com · 9d

Man, I'm sorry, but reading all these AI generated essays from students, it just sucks all the joy out of everything. It's exhausting, makes you into a weird paranoid cop, grinds you down, wastes your time, makes you feel like shit about everything.

Fuck this shit technology and all its enablers.

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Dhananjay Jagannathan @dhananjayj.bsky.social · 9d

“a triple” is my attempt to capture the sense of the neuter plural in English though the contrast with tres (masculine plural) is just gender