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Dr. Emily Friedman

@friede.bsky.social

16K followers 2.9K following 39K posts

Storyteller about storytellers. 18th century to today & beyond. J.W.Liles Prof of English Words: Polygon (RIP), LARB, etc Next book: HOW STORIES ARE PLAYED (#TTRPG Actual Play & digital storytelling performance) ecfriedman.com (free) patreon.com/ecfriedman

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Dr. Emily Friedman @friede.bsky.social · Nov 14

Howdy, y’all.

I’m a tenured prof who studies storytelling outside the rules of mass media. This has included never-published manuscripts from during the age of print (1750-1900) & of late has made me a leader in the study of #TTRPG Actual Play.

I’ve learned a lot about friendship along the way.

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Dr. Emily Friedman @friede.bsky.social · 1h

Tonight I managed to get my CV down to two pages for a thing.

Normally it’s more like … 30-something?

Reposted by Dr. Emily Friedman

Reverend Jesus "H" Christ @reverendjesus.com · 15h

Blessed are the frogs, for they keep making authoritarians look incredibly stupid

Three persons in inflatable frog costumes. One of them is holding a nicely painted sign with two little cartoon frogs holding hands, below the text "FROGS TOGETHER STRONG"

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Dr. Emily Friedman @friede.bsky.social · 3h

Amen.

Reposted by Dr. Emily Friedman

Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 3h

there’s pretty much no subset of the church I trust more than American nuns over 50

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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 3h

the gospel according to me

Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 3h

there’s pretty much no subset of the church I trust more than American nuns over 50

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Robbie @londonmikmaq.bsky.social · 3h

Getting into the Halloween spirit with medieval books at the Morgan Library.

Image of skeletons attacking men in a medieval book

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Megan L. Cook @meganlcook.bsky.social · 11h

TBH, I went into this profession believing there would be a lot more overlap between "reading books" and "being an English professor" than there actually is. Sending emails, managing spreadsheets, handing tissues to weeping people: yes. Reading books, or substantial portions thereof, not so much.

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Alyssa S. @drsepinwall.bsky.social · 4h

🚨🚨30 years after coming out in English,

Michel-Rolph Trouillot's SILENCING THE PAST

est paru *enfin* en français!!!

Veuillez partager ces bonnes nouvelles avec vos meilleurs amis et collègues francophones! 🗃️🇭🇹

www.amitiefm.ht/post/michel-...

Michel-Rolph Trouillot : « Faire taire le passé », une autre approche de l’Histoire

Trente ans après sa parution en anglais, Silencing the Past de Michel-Rolph Trouillot (1949-2012) paraît enfin en français sous le titre Faire taire le passé – Pouvoir et production historique (Lux Éd...

www.amitiefm.ht

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Mary Grace🕷️🕸️🎃👻 @emgeekay.bsky.social · 15h

This is why archives need funding support. There is knowledge in analogue media that we are racing against time to preserve.

#digipres #archives #library #DigitalPreservation 📚

www.bbc.com/future/artic...

A digital dark age? The people rescuing forgotten knowledge trapped on old floppy disks

From lectures by Stephen Hawking to the letters of British politician Neil Kinnock – it's a race against time to save the historical treasures locked away on old floppy disks.

www.bbc.com

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Dr. Emily Friedman @friede.bsky.social · 4h

Co-signing @ckunzelman.bsky.social saying @chasecarter.bsky.social has been working on this, and Charlie Hall was before the Polygon purge. GAMA for sure has been yelling, as have most publishers. Even TTRPG publishers are worried their books might get reclassified as games.

Tabletop industry in full panic as Trump tariffs are poised to erase decades of growth

‘Devastating consequences’ on the way, says trade group

www.polygon.com

Reposted by Dr. Emily Friedman

Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 4h

If anyone has hot takes on the implications of the just-announced 100% China
tariffs for the board game industry I guess I’m interested.

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Dr. Emily Friedman @friede.bsky.social · 5h

WHAT

Reposted by Dr. Emily Friedman

Quinn Dombrowski @quinnanya.me · 5h

I don't have a printing press, but I do have access to a laser cutter and supplies for pendants and keychains. #DHmakes 🐸

A row of Miles's Frog of Portland images cut in a circle out of plywood on a laser cutter.

A keychain and pendant of the Frog of Portland image.

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 5h

People think the first thing Gutenberg printed was the Bible. This is false. The first things he printed were a political prophecy, propaganda about the Turks’ threat to Christendom, & a popular school text. If you want a parallel to AI, that’s it: making $ from conspiracies, racism, & school slop.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 15h

really nice piece on this btw from @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/...

"The Printing Press Democratized Knowledge": When Slogans Masquerade as History — Sonja Drimmer

The phrase is said so frequently it seems, like the mechanism it celebrates, to mechanically replicate itself.  It's become a favorite catchphrase among tech boosters of any sort (see my post on...

sonjadrimmer.com

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Dr. Amanda Wyatt Visconti @literaturegeek.bsky.social · 5h

'Knit Hello is a typeface for hand knitting, the outcome of a series of Typographic Knitting—or Typeknitting—workshops...based on slipstitches & a simple letterform grid, offers a simple, frustration-free process for beginners, w/o floats or getting entangled'. By Rüdiger Schlömer. #DHmakes

Knit Hello – Typeknitting

Knit Hello is a typeface for typographic knitting.

www.knithello.com

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 8h

@mit.edu has done an incredibly important service to the nation by being willing to be the first school to reject the administration's "compact."

President Kornbluth focuses—and she's right—on the principle that "scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone."

The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.

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Dr. Emily Friedman @friede.bsky.social · 5h

I MADE A CHEESE PLATE

A cheese plate arranged on a book-shaped plate.

Dr. Emily Friedman @friede.bsky.social · 5h

Meanwhile I don’t know if my dept will let me go up for promotion next year because of debate over what counts as an “established international reputation” & whether my next book will count once it’s done/under contract or whether I have to wait until it’s published or whether it won’t count at all.

Sheila Liming @seeshespeak.bsky.social · 6h

He told me the story of his promotion 30 years ago, where he was asked by admin, “What rank do you want?” after teaching at the college for several years.

He replied “senior” and someone wrote it on a form and then he was a full professor and has been ever since (2). 😬

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Chris Loar @chrisloar.bsky.social · 11h

Scholars of eighteenth-century topics: consider submitting your work to *Digital Defoe*. We publish essays on Defoe, but also on his "contemporaries," which we're inclined to interpret broadly. More info here:
call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/10/...

cfp | call for papers

call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu

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Fred Hicks @deadlyfredly.bsky.social · 7h

Contemplating how the most influential award show for Evil Hat was the Indie RPG Awards held in the early 00s, before Evil Hat existed as a company. @rdonoghue.bsky.social and I won one for an earlier incarnation of Fate, “best free game”. It was a narrower population that knew about it, but enough…

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cmrn knzlmn @ckunzelman.bsky.social · 7h

I had a great time on Aftermath talking about how you can use Assassin’s Creed as a method of tracing the pathway to the world we live in.

Aftermath @aftermath.site · 7h

The Assassin’s Creed series was a canary in the coal mine for our modern, engagement-obsessed world. @ckunzelman.bsky.social explains:

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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 7h

I did hear about this and I don’t know that I have TEA but I have THOUGHTS

first of all let us not skip past the symbolic significance of “Leo signed the document on Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi”

Julia L @calenmir.bsky.social · 7h

@clairewillett.bsky.social wanted to make sure you hear this (and hear any tea you might have regarding this): www.ncronline.org/pope-leo-bla...

Pope Leo blasts elitism, indifference toward poor in first major document

"I am convinced that the preferential choice for the poor is a source of extraordinary renewal both for the church and for society," the pope wrote in Dilexi Te.

www.ncronline.org

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Dr. Emily Friedman @friede.bsky.social · 7h

I thunk some thoughts while making breakfast: an experiment.

Morning Thoughts: On Control | Dr. Em Friedman

www.patreon.com

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The Assisi Project @assisiproject.com · 1d

"In a world where the poor are increasingly numerous, we paradoxically see the growth of a wealthy elite, living in a bubble of comfort and luxury, almost in another world compared to ordinary people." #PopeLeoXIV #DilexiTe #RememberThePoor www.ncronline.org/pope-leo-bla...

Pope Leo blasts elitism, indifference toward poor in first major document

"I am convinced that the preferential choice for the poor is a source of extraordinary renewal both for the church and for society," the pope wrote in Dilexi Te.

www.ncronline.org

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Chase Taylor-Carter @chasecarter.bsky.social · 13h

Cut from this excellent interview about the 100 One-Page Jam is my breaking the news to @gshowitt.bsky.social that Imgur is blocked in the UK.

It prompted him to yell "KEIR!" like an '80s action villain.

One hundred one-page RPGs later, Grant Howitt isn’t ready to quit

Don’t you dare call it a legacy.

www.rascal.news

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