Lauren Eriks Cline
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lerikscline.bsky.social
Lauren Eriks Cline
@lerikscline.bsky.social
2K followers 950 following 670 posts
teaching lit; writing about C19 performance, spectators, narrative; opinions my own; she/they
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lerikscline.bsky.social
Lauren Eriks Cline @lerikscline.bsky.social · Dec 11
For @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social I wrote about how the finale of *Lost* is good, actually - and about how the grief-time signature of the show belongs to the early aughts.
Seriality and Slow Grief | Los Angeles Review of Books
Lauren Eriks Cline looks back at 20 years of the TV series “Lost” and the lessons it holds for us today.
lareviewofbooks.org
lerikscline.bsky.social
I managed 250 words a day for the first two days of December: a near-miraculous feat, thanks entirely to the structure and camaraderie of #acadecawriteathon.

Thank you to all my fellow end-of-semester writers for your company. This chapter is a little further along its way!
December 3, 2025 at 2:06 AM
lerikscline.bsky.social
Screen shot of recent news stories discussing the buyout deals for fired coaches at Kentucky ($38m) and LSU ($54m), along with the new contract for Lane Kiffin at LSU ($91m). Image of edits to the dril "candles" tweet that now reads: Food $200 Data $150 Rent $800 Buy out fired football coaches $36,000,000 Utility $150 someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my College is dying
December 2, 2025 at 4:18 AM
lerikscline.bsky.social
The Missing by Thom Gunn Now as I watch the progress of the plague, The friends surrounding me fall sick, grow thin, And drop away. Bared, is my shape less vague —Sharply exposed and with a sculpted skin? I do not like the statue's chill contour, Not nowadays. The warmth investing me Led outward through mind, limb, feeling, and more In an involved increasing family. Contact of friend led to another friend, Supple entwinement through the living mass Which for all that I knew might have no end, Image of an unlimited embrace. I did not just feel ease, though comfortable: Aggressive as in some ideal of sport, With ceaseless movement thrilling through the whole, Their push kept me as firm as their support. But death—Their deaths have left me less defined: It was their pulsing presence made me clear. I borrowed from it, I was unconfined, Who tonight balance unsupported here, Eyes glaring from raw marble, in a pose Languorously part-buried in the block, Shins perfect and no calves, as if I froze Between potential and a finished work. —Abandoned incomplete, shape of a shape, In which exact detail shows the more strange, Trapped in unwholeness, I find no escape Back to the play of constant give and change.
December 2, 2025 at 2:24 AM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
annakornbluh.bsky.social
starting Dec 1st! ie tomorrow!

for structure to eke out pages at a bonkers time of year (that is also a precious writing-est time):

you can do 250 words a day! books get written that way! if more, amazing! if not when grading or festive-ing, that's ok!

check in daily at #acadecawriteathon
annakornbluh.bsky.social Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 2d
is there a NaNoWriMo but for December and academic/ nonfiction? Should we start it?
December 1, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
profchander.bsky.social
Two weeks ago, my colleague Dr. Badar Khan Suri was ruled deportable by an immigration court. Badar and his family find themselves once again in a terrifying, opaque, and costly legal ordeal.

Please support/share?
Donate to Stand with Dr. Badar Khan Suri Against Unjust Deportation, organized by MAPHEZE SALEH
Dear friends, colleagues, and all who stand for justice, T… MAPHEZE SALEH needs your support for Stand with Dr. Badar Khan Suri Against Unjust Deportation
gofund.me
November 29, 2025 at 11:08 PM
lerikscline.bsky.social
"It makes me so happy. To be at the beginning again, knowing almost nothing....A door like this has cracked open five or six times since we got up on our hind legs. It’s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong."

-- Tom Stoppard, Arcadia
November 29, 2025 at 10:10 PM
lerikscline.bsky.social
"We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it."

- Stoppard, Arcadia
November 29, 2025 at 9:17 PM
lerikscline.bsky.social
I got to hear Tom Stoppard speak once, at the literature festival in Jaipur, and I've never forgotten one of his responses during q&a: that it was the things he couldn't explain that got him out of bed in the morning.

May his memory be a blessing.
November 29, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
catacalypto.bsky.social
A story Stoppard told several times, in several places:
"Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the grounds of the college, and the play began in natural light. But as it developed, and as it became time for Ariel to say his farewell to the world of The Tempest, the evening had started to close in and there was some artificial lighting coming on. And as Ariel uttered his last speech, he turned and he ran across the grass, and he got to the edge of the lake and he just kept running across the top of the water — the producer having thoughtfully provided a kind of walkway an inch beneath the water. And you could see and you could hear the plish, plash as he ran away from you across the top of the lake, until the gloom enveloped him and he disappeared from your view. And as he did so, from the further shore, a firework rocket was ignited, and it went whoosh into the air, and high up there it burst into lots of sparks, and all the sparks went out, and he had gone. "When you look up the stage directions, it says, 'Exit Ariel.”
November 29, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
gravelinfluencer.bsky.social
I feel much safer today knowing that we deported a Babson College student back to a country where she hasn't lived since childhood.

She wasn't even flying internationally. She was flying to Texas.
A Babson College student wanted to surprise her family for Thanksgiving. She was deported instead. - The Boston Globe
Any Lucia Lopez Belloza was at Logan to catch a flight to Texas when immigration authorities detained her as she was about to board the plane.
www.bostonglobe.com
November 27, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
gravelinfluencer.bsky.social
This interview with Any Lucia Belloza is heartbreaking but everyone should read it. These are the lives our country is destroying.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/26/m...
As she sat on a bus near a tarmac in Texas in the early hours on Saturday morning, just about 48 hours after her arrest — with handcuffs around her wrists and shackles around her feet — and saw that most of the people around her were from Honduras, too, Lopez Belloza realized she was likely being deported that very day. “The thing that was hitting me so hard, it was my education,” Lopez Belloza, who is the first in her family to go to college, said. “I was so happy when I got there [to Babson],” Lopez Belloza said. “I was just living the college life — going to events, going everywhere ... everything there was really great. I really loved the school." She and her father also had a special shared aspiration. With her business degree, Lopez Belloza was going to help her father open his own tailor shop, they hoped.
November 27, 2025 at 10:55 AM
lerikscline.bsky.social
Nolan also built it (Inception) around the least interesting character in the cast, and unfortunately that too is indicative of larger Nolan trends.
coachfinstock.bsky.social Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 7d
My hot take is they built a whole movie around one cool special effect and I think the movie stinks
chriswarcraft.bsky.social Chris Kluwe @chriswarcraft.bsky.social · 7d
Just showed the children Inception and as I warned them, it broke their brains
November 26, 2025 at 5:23 AM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
shaxbull.bsky.social
NEW ISSUE KLAXON: Shakespeare Bulletin 43.2 is now published via Project Muse! In this open-access issue, scholars and practitioners engage in conversations across time, media, and geographic distance.

📰: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55948
November 24, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
annakornbluh.bsky.social
fortunate to visit many campuses + easy to say English at Montclair with its many ties to the Honors College, is among the most vibrant undergrad communities

the break things+fail upward admin has got to go

students speaking out are being subject to admin harassment

www.wsj.com/opinion/mont...
Opinion | Montclair State’s Inhumanity to the Humanities
Goodbye, English department. Hello, Institute for Complex Systems and Algorithmic Infused Societies.
www.wsj.com
November 18, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
miriamposner.com
WE JUST KEEP WINNING. (UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program RESTORED!!!!)
On official UC letterhead: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA James B. Milliken President Office of the President 1111 Franklin Street Oakland, CA 94607 universityofcalifornia.edu CAMPUSES Berkeley Davis Irvine UCLA Merced Riverside San Diego San Francisco Santa Barbara Santa Cruz MEDICAL CENTERS Davis Irvine UCLA San Diego San Francisco NATIONAL LABORATORIES Lawrence Berkeley Lawrence Livermore Los Alamos DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES November 18, 2025 Dear Chancellors: I'm writing with regard to the President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PPFP) and the program's associated faculty hiring incentive. As you know, for more than 40 years, PPFP has provided postdoctoral research fellowships, professional development, and faculty mentoring to scholars in all fields whose research, teaching, and service advance the academic and research missions of the University of California. Since 2003, UC campuses that hire current and former PPFP fellows into ladder-rank positions have been eligible for a hiring incentive funded by the University that provides support for newly hired fellows for five years. Since the creation of the incentive, more than $162 million has been invested by the University to support PPFP faculty hires. This commitment has enabled our campuses to successfully recruit and retain outstanding faculty across a range of disciplines. Given the myriad challenges currently facing UC - including disruptions to billions of dollars in annual federal support, as well as uncertainty around the state budget- reasonable questions were raised in recent months about whether the University could maintain the commitment to current levels of incentive funding. After considering a recommendation to sunset the incentive program due to these significant fiscal constraints, I consulted with all of you as well as faculty and campus academic administrators and systemwide Academic Senate leadership. [continued on next image] After learning more about the history and success of the program and weighing the thoughtful perspectives that have been shared, I have concluded that barring extraordinary financial setbacks, the PPFP faculty hiring incentive program will continue while the University continues to assess the program's structure as well as its long-term financial sustainability. As a result of our continuing consultation and review, there may be consideration of some changes to elements of the program including the total number of incentives supported, a number that has fluctuated significantly over the years, and how the awards are distributed among campuses. In the meantime, the University will continue to fund the PPFP faculty hiring incentive program and campuses may continue to take advantage of these incentives. We will have an opportunity to discuss any potential changes prior to adoption. As we look to the future, I will continue to engage with faculty leaders, program stakeholders, and UC community members about this important program. I especially appreciate the thoughtful perspectives shared in recent weeks by Academic Council Chair Palazoglu and Vice Chair Scott, the Council of Graduate Deans, UC faculty members, and you as our campus leaders. Sincerely, James B. Milliken President
November 18, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
navsa2025.bsky.social
A reminder to our grad student attendees to apply for the Sally Mitchell Prize! 🏆
November 18, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
triciamatthew.bsky.social
www.wsj.com/opinion/mont...

Another one of my colleagues weighs in on the “restructuring” of our home college. This time in the Wall Street Journal. It’s paywalled, so screenshots to follow.
Opinion | Montclair State’s Inhumanity to the Humanities
Goodbye, English department. Hello, Institute for Complex Systems and Algorithmic Infused Societies.
www.wsj.com
November 17, 2025 at 7:53 PM
lerikscline.bsky.social
My students just discussed two stories I found in Clarkesworld (Michael Swanwick's "The Very Pulse of the Machine" and Wole Talabi's “Comments on Your Provisional Patent Application for an Eternal Spirit Core”).

I've just subscribed, and I highly recommend reading and supporting!
clarkesworldmagazine.com Clarkesworld @clarkesworldmagazine.com · 15d
In light of the astronomical increases for my health insurance next year, I thought it would be a good time to encourage people to subscribe. (A few hundred should cover it. Sigh.)
clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/
Text reads: Fed up with your world? Visit ours. Clarkesworldmagazine.com The Clarkesworld robot (center) looks to the right at the cover of Clarkesworld #230, which is in yellow, orange, and brown and features a futuristic cityscape with a small craft approaching. Cover art is "Neo Mars" by Guy Warley.
November 17, 2025 at 11:00 PM
lerikscline.bsky.social
Ok Montana
Photo of a house with the northern lights in the background (a long, diagonal streak of bright green and a low red/pinkish glow) Photo of a house and trees with the northern lights in the background (low teal-green glow and upper fuchsia glow) Photo taken from the middle of a street with silhouettes of trees and houses and the northern lights above (low green glow and upper fuchsia glow with shimmers) Photo taken from train tracks with silhouettes of trees and the northern lights above (low bright green glow and upper fuchsia glow) and some stars visible at the very top
November 12, 2025 at 3:18 AM
lerikscline.bsky.social
[hitting send on an essay about transfictionality and Craig's Bond] Ahhh yes, time to take a long sip of coffee and check the discourse...
November 11, 2025 at 9:03 PM
lerikscline.bsky.social
Apparently I missed a real low point in the ongoing semantic drift of "performative."
November 11, 2025 at 2:15 AM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
navsa2025.bsky.social
A timely roundtable at #NAVSA2025: "Victorianist Work After the University as We Knew It." A great conversation with Sarah Allison, Gordon Bigelow, Ruth McAdams, Rachel Sagner Buurma, & Kyoko Takanashi.
November 10, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
rcolesworthy.bsky.social
Today in incredibly generous things, my colleagues at SUNY Press decided to highlight me (!!!) for UP Week. Have I mentioned that I have the BEST coworkers in the whole world?? This past yr has been the most difficult of my life & they supported me every step of the way. ❤️ you guys. #TeamUP
sunypress.bsky.social SUNY Press @sunypress.bsky.social · 22d
For University Press Week, we're highlighting the important, collaborative work that Senior Acquisitions Editor @rcolesworthy.bsky.social does to build bridges across the scholarly publishing ecosystem: tinyurl.com/3t7mdnef/
#TeamUP #ReadUP
November 10, 2025 at 2:43 PM
lerikscline.bsky.social
Class solidarity (derogatory)
November 10, 2025 at 3:22 AM
Reposted by Lauren Eriks Cline
nathankhensley.bsky.social
Yes! The thing abt public libraries that is so beautiful & crucial is the idea that *anybody* could do this — you need no credential, there’s no gatekeeping, literally any person can be an intellectual. You can come from absolutely nothing & yet, by means of curiosity + work, create real knowledge
jeffreyinsko.bsky.social Jeffrey Insko @jeffreyinsko.bsky.social · 24d
I wrote a significant chunk of my first book at a Chicago Public Library, an amazing public space where people could read books and newspapers, access the internet, or just keep warm for a while on a cold day. This is appalling.
casella.bsky.social Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 24d
CPL is an absolute palace to the people and these proposed cuts are abominable. Artificial austerity. Chicago folks, read this, check the links to bug the mayor and your alders—this can be fought and won.
November 8, 2025 at 11:40 PM