Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 1d

The cruciverbalist and the democrat battle in me here. My first thought: aha! That makes a beautiful sense followed, just in time, by remembering that it doesn’t make any sense at all.

1

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 1d

First entry for gimbap from 1966, a nicely evocative description of a North Carolina picnic. www.hani.co.kr/arti/english...

From ‘kimbap’ to ‘maknae,’ Oxford English Dictionary sees explosion of Korean loanwords

The lion’s share of terms of Korean origin have been added within the last four years, with a total of 48 Korean loanwords now listed in the OED

www.hani.co.kr

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 2d

Wishing you all the best Eleanor.

1 2

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 2d

“Poetry is not a democratic process!” badapple.gay/2025/08/08/v...

Very Good, In Fact – bad apple

badapple.gay

1

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 2d

I really am!

2

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 2d

“In a culture of artificial lights, flashes, and filters, what transforms is not what shines but what burns. Not what seduces but what guides. Genuine religious practice is the art of listening for what no machine will ever pronounce” www.commonwealmagazine.org/technology-a...

Influence Is No Longer Enough

Genuine religious practice is the art of listening for what no machine will ever pronounce.

www.commonwealmagazine.org

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 2d

First cast out the beam of thine own eye: once again, the blame for this rubbish slopping through education doesn’t start with students (the least powerful) but with those in positions to push it (the most powerful), some of whom are no better than they ought to be!! www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/5...

University wrongly accuses students of using artificial intelligence to cheat

An Australian university has accused thousands of its students of cheating with artificial intelligence. The problem? Many have done nothing wrong.

www.rnz.co.nz

1

Reposted by Dougal McNeill

Johanna Winant @johannawinant.bsky.social · 2d

you're going to want to read Glavey reading Berlant reading Ashbery

Brian Glavey @glavey.bsky.social · 2d

Get in losers, we’re about to ride the SNaiLRuG.

Photo of Close reading for the twenty-first century beside Victor, a you alligator

2 3 22

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 2d

“If war is the test of reality, then all poetry is unreal; but in that case unreality is a virtue.” I found this beautiful, wise & extraordinarily careful & caring book quite by accident in the stacks yesterday. I wish I’d known it years ago.

2

Reposted by Dougal McNeill

Anna Jackson @flewoutof.bsky.social · 3d

Out in the world, our book celebrating the swerve poetry has taken towards exuberance, intimacy, eroticism, artistry and a gaudy beauty! I especially love the artist statements by the featured poets (Oscar Upperton: a rhyme is a way of getting an exclamation mark into a poem by stealth). !

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 3d

Our book is released today. It's edited following the "grand elementary principle of pleasure". I love all the poems and critical essays we've gathered together, found much insight & delight in my co-editors' insights as poets, & hope youse can too. aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz/te-whariki/

Te Whāriki: Reading Ten New Poets from Aotearoa

Chris Tse to Tayi Tibble – what New Zealand poetry looks like now.

aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz

3 5

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 3d

There’s a フン / NO FUN pun on a sign urging you to pick up your dog’s poo in our local park so simple and yet so earth-shatteringly chaotic I need to avert my eyes on my way to ラジオ体操 every morning.

1 1

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 3d

I’ll gladly cede “content creation” to whoever wants it if it means I can watch actual films, read books, listen to music, respond to, uh, human design and form!

1

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 3d

Nice thing about editing other people’s wonderful work: I can agree and say I think so too without seeming too arrogant.

1

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 3d

Our book is released today. It's edited following the "grand elementary principle of pleasure". I love all the poems and critical essays we've gathered together, found much insight & delight in my co-editors' insights as poets, & hope youse can too. aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz/te-whariki/

Te Whāriki: Reading Ten New Poets from Aotearoa

Chris Tse to Tayi Tibble – what New Zealand poetry looks like now.

aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz

1 8 15

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 3d

Yes please!

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 4d

“It's not an album. It's a product for sale, and it sounds like one”: defector.com/taylor-swift...

No Good Art Comes From Greed | Defector

The packages arrived square and thin and carefully wrapped on Saturday afternoon. There were three of them, but only one was mine. If I could have rejected my package, sent it back from whence it came...

defector.com

1

Reposted by Dougal McNeill

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 5d

Aifter the boombers cleck
and the sodgers traik thro the skau
there’s an auld air sterts up –
bubblin and greetin.

It’s a ballant mithers sing
on their hunkers i the stour
for a bairn deid.

They ken it by hert.

—Alastair Mackie, “Pietà”
The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse, @canongate.co.uk 2021

Pietà
Alastair Mackie

Her face was thrawed.
She wisna aa come.

In the trams o her airms
the wummin held oot her first bairn.
It micht hae been a mercat day
and him for sale.
Naebody stoppit tae niffer.

His life bluid cled his breast
wi a new reid semmit.
He’d hippens for deid claes.

Aifter the boombers cleck
and the sodgers traik thro the skau
there’s an auld air sterts up –
bubblin and greetin.

It’s a ballant mithers sing
on their hunkers i the stour
for a bairn deid.

They ken it by hert.

It’s the cauldest grue i the universe
yon skelloch.
It niver waukens the deid.

4 12

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 5d

Brava!

2

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 5d

Scandal: “occasions of sin that lead others into moral error” www.americamagazine.org/faith-and-re...

What are Black Catholics hearing when church leaders praise Charlie Kirk?

For many Black Catholics familiar with Charlie Kirk's full record, endorsements of his message by Catholic leaders can be devastating.

www.americamagazine.org

2

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 5d

“The question becomes how to protect our ability to respond, even if it means protecting a physical and psychological symptom like restlessness. Perhaps, even, how to attend to the symptom in ways that shape our political action” www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/on-...

On Restlessness — Parapraxis

Diaspora’s Nervous Energies Yasmin el-rifae

www.parapraxismagazine.com

1 1

Reposted by Dougal McNeill

Min Hyoung Song @minsong.bsky.social · Aug 13

Some things I've been working on as chair of my department - sharing in case anyone finds its useful.

1. A GenAI Framework for English Courses

BC English GenAI Framework

Min Hyoung Song, Chair Department of English Boston College, August 2025 GenAI FRAMEWORK FOR BC ENGLISH COURSES While Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) programs have become ubiquitous as ...

docs.google.com

8 16 58

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 5d

Claiming that the “substantive content” is unchanged makes this worse. It suggests the references followed the conclusions, rather than the conclusions following the evidence. Another example of why those pushing this rubbish in universities are so irresponsible. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Deloitte to pay money back to Albanese government after using AI in $440,000 report

Partial refund to be issued after several errors were found in a report into a department’s compliance framework

www.theguardian.com

1 2

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 6d

Today’s mail!

1 6

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 8d

When these started going up over the summer I was struck by how the message was both formally totally uncontroversial and honourably liberal and also of course, at the same time, totally marginal.

1 2

Dougal McNeill @dougalmcneill.bsky.social · 8d

I did enjoy the vote airing live on TV though. I wouldn’t have the facial discipline to be an MP! Interesting to see in real time some almost split-second smoothing out of certain reactions.

1 1