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Reposted by Nick Sturm

The History on Film Podcast @historyonfilm.bsky.social · 8d

Midweek reminder to check out our latest episode on the history of American public media (NPR, PBS) with @joshshepperd.bsky.social. As these institutions continue to be under attack, it is important to look at where they came from and what they mean to our society. shows.acast.com/the-history-...

Shadow of the New Deal with Josh Shepperd | The History on Film Podcast

American Public Broadcasting

shows.acast.com

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

I'm going to be thinking about this forever whenever I rewatch movies now. Reminds me that some of my favorite scenes in X-Files are related to their uses of microfilm, libraries, & projectors.

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

"typewriter film" as an unintended sub-genre is really great

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

When I show my publishing students the Penguin Random House imprints list (www.penguinrandomhouse.com/imprints), they're most surprised by PRH Christian Publishing Group. Align Insight will be their 6th imprint in the Christian book market, described (tellingly?) here as the "religion book market."

Publishers Weekly @publisherswkly.bsky.social · 1d

Align Insight “will be a home for Christian authors and experts writing to a broad, general-market readership” on a range of topics, according to the PRHC announcement, which also named Madison Trammel as the imprint’s editorial director. Its first title is planned for December 2026.

PRH Christian Publishing Group Forms New Imprint

Align Insight “will be a home for Christian authors and experts writing to a broad, general-market readership” on a range of topics, according to the PRHC announcement, which also named Madison…

buff.ly

Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

Bill Berkson's anthology "Best & Co." is laying on the coffee table

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

An absolutely surreal 2-minute clip--with no audio & playing in reverse--of Ted Berrigan being interviewed in a London apartment, either in 1969 or 1973. "Fragment for Jim Brodey" designed by Jim Dine appears in the background, his cigarette smoke moving backwards.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kAq...

1970s Ted Berrigan Poet | Kinolibrary x Anthony Stern

YouTube video by Kinolibrary

www.youtube.com

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

This is so rad. After a painting by Joe Brainard appeared in a scene in The Lowdown, a local museum in Tulsa sought out the owner & is displaying the work for the next month.

www.news9.com/story/68e831...

Tulsa artist featured in FX series ‘The Lowdown’ on display at Philbrook Museum

Ethan Hawke's character in The Lowdown advocates for a Tulsa artist's work in a museum. Philbrook Museum responds by showcasing the painting from the TV series.

www.news9.com

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

How all of this effects poetry is part of the story in one sentence in my recent piece on The Best American Poetry series:

"Downward trends in institutional support for small presses helped to create the conditions for the commercial publishing experiment to thrive."

defector.com/good-riddanc...

Good Riddance To ‘The Best American Poetry’ | Defector

When David Lehman, a poet then working as a book critic for Newsweek, proposed the project for The Best American Poetry anthology, he was searching for a national platform. His first anthology project...

defector.com

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

it's wild to imagine how publishing might be different if funding priorities in the Lit Program c. 1975 had shifted from (in their own terms) a "populist" model--$ to as many as possible--to an "elitist" model that builds capacity in a select set of independent publishers to counter commercial pubs

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

right! & that sad line represents so much growth in small press publishing over those 15 years

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Meg Reid 🦦 @megireid.bsky.social · 1d

⤵️ the scary ripple effects I'm bracing myself for: the dissolution of the partnership grants to state arts orgs and regional arts orgs (RAOs). Like public media, some states get money in a budget line from their legislatures and have their own arts endowments, others don't.
bsky.app/profile/nick...

Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

More layers:

Growth era is also defined by NEA as leader in building arts infrastructure thru establishment & expansion of nonprofit service organizations across disciplines (Theatre Communication Group, CCLM/CLMP), & in empowerment of State Arts Agencies that decentralize federal arts funding.

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

Yes:

Poets & Writers was getting $300k from the NEA by 1980. Well before the decline era, no literary org will ever receive anything near this.

& literature has always been an outlier in the NEA. Funding levels went up in the growth era but are dwarfed by funding levels in disciplines like music

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

In the growth era we see a dramatic increase in arts nonprofits of all kinds & the development of arts administration as a discipline. By the time we get to the decline era, the role that the NEA played as a national arts start-up is distributed to these decentralized & now institutionalized actors.

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

More layers:

Growth era is also defined by NEA as leader in building arts infrastructure thru establishment & expansion of nonprofit service organizations across disciplines (Theatre Communication Group, CCLM/CLMP), & in empowerment of State Arts Agencies that decentralize federal arts funding.

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

For an agency founded in part on Cold War principles of American cultural hegemony, it seems not coincidental that this shift from growth to decline occurs immediately after USSR dissolution. Without those Cold War narratives backed by Dem-majority legislature, federal support for the arts falters.

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

This gives us a two-part frame for looking at the NEA & its roles in American artistic production:

An era of growth from 1966 to 1992 & an era of decline from 1993 to the present.

Growth era is defined by large-scale professionalization of the arts. Decline era is defined by culture war logics.

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

I'll have to talk with you about this at some point!

Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

Absolutely. I'm reading Livingston Biddle's memoir--he wrote the NEA legislation, deputy chairman in 1st NEA admin, chairman under Carter. He's the embodiment of Congressional proximity to the NEA. Though under Nancy Hanks, the NEA leveraged more direct ties to the Executive to serve its priorities.

Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

In other words, from 1995 to 2024, an era when Republicans controlled 8 of 15 Congresses (Democrats control 3 in that span), we see a direct correspondence between the sharp increase in Republican majorities in the Legislative branch & dramatic leveling off of NEA funding.

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 1d

Another way to look at this NEA funding data is through Congressional power. No conclusion here, but it's astounding that Democrats were in the majority in the Senate & House of Representatives CONTINUOUSLY from 1955 to 1981, from Eisenhower's 2nd term through Carter, then again from 1987 to 1995...

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Sarah Dowling @sarahmdowling1.bsky.social · 1d

Congratulations to Andrea Brady, who has just received the Truman Capote Award for her tour de force book, Poetry and Bondage!

writersworkshop.uiowa.edu/about/annual...

Truman Capote Award

writersworkshop.uiowa.edu

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Reposted by Nick Sturm

Post45 Journal @post45.bsky.social · 3d

The 11th annual Post45 Graduate Symposium will be hosted by Duke University's Department of English, February 20-21, 2026! Check out the CFP (post45.org/graduate/202...) and please share with anyone who might be interested.

Abstracts are due November 14.

Abstract submission form QR code for the Post45 graduate symposium at Duke, February 20-21, 2026. The form is also accessible at https://tinyurl.com/2e2dr4wv.

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Reposted by Nick Sturm

Brian Glavey @glavey.bsky.social · 2d

Mod Squad! Come here me in some detail about Sedgwick and the etymology of various words at 1:00 tomorrow at MSA @moderniststudies.bsky.social

Powerpoint slide from a presentation entitled The Well Wrecked Urn: Syllables and Sex in the Long 1993. There is a picture of a book with the title and a peach emoji on it

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 2d

are there any good novels featuring characters (maybe protagonists maybe not) or the milieu of cultural criticism, like magazine/newspaper (or academic) art / film/ music / literature critics?

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Nick Sturm @nicksturm.bsky.social · 2d

Adjusted for inflation, NEA funding was highest--$1.8 billion--over the four years of the first Reagan administration & has remained stagnate--about $750 million per presidential term--for the last 25 years.

Line graph visualizing the NEA budget by presidential administration from 1966 to 2024 adjusted for inflation

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