I'd do it, but I'm unqualified, uninterested, and would be bad at it.

Train an LLM on his emails and collected works?

Is our old Dean leaving?!

Hmmm. I recommend Richard Scheines for the job, in that case.

This opportunity is related to the Doing AI Differently white paper, where I'm also honored to have been one of the co-authors.

Pre-announcement of a funding opportunity for "artificial intelligence humanities sandpits," supported by AHRC, EPSRC, and SSHRC. Expressions of interest by 31 Oct; up to four grants will be funded.

CFP: Historical Network Research conference 2026 in Turin, Italy! (deadline Dec. 1 2025) historicalnetworkresearch.org/cfp-hnr2026-...
HNR looks forward to meeting colleagues from Italy and beyond who are involved in the analysis of historical networks.

Registration is free, and low-cost university housing available.

I'm excited by the theme, encouraging philosophical reflection. Organizers ask not just how sources influence network thinking, but how network thinking influences how we see sources. It'll be a fun conversation.

The next Historical Network Research conference will be held in Turin, Italy in July 2026, and submissions are now open.

Proposals due December 1. Bursaries available for early career scholars.

This year's theme is "Networks and their Sources." See you there!

hnr2026.sciencesconf.org

Did you buy that, uh, intentionally?

This is upsetting my sense of reality as much as that time in college I learned narwhals weren't fictional.

...until this very minute, I was 100% certain they were some sort of sea plant-animal thing.

Had so much fun meeting folks and hearing about what everyone is working on!!

Join us next month-- November 1 at 11 PT ✨

calendar.app.google/U6pXAJ8LpUPy...

brb asking my publisher for an edition of Because Internet that makes the dialup screech as you open it, like a novelty birthday card, and gradually heats up the longer you read it

Registration is free, and low-cost university housing available.

I'm excited by the theme, encouraging philosophical reflection. Organizers ask not just how sources influence network thinking, but how network thinking influences how we see sources. It'll be a fun conversation.

The next Historical Network Research conference will be held in Turin, Italy in July 2026, and submissions are now open.

Proposals due December 1. Bursaries available for early career scholars.

This year's theme is "Networks and their Sources." See you there!

hnr2026.sciencesconf.org

On reflection, it reminded me of a piece I wrote a decade ago while still in grad school. It's a different world and different set of points, obviously, but you accomplish what I attempted much more deftly.

Introducing Sidra Co-Founder Hannah Alpert-Abrams! Hannah has over 15 years of experience in arts, culture, and the humanities as a practitioner and funder. Hannah can help establish new grant programs, manage funding processes, and understand the impact of your work.

sidracollaborative.com/team/

An old military maxim often attributed to Napoleon is “an army marches on its stomach” and I feel the same way that a university thinks via its library. The slow and steady financial diminution of research libraries and the librarians who staff them is, to me, a slow-rolling higher Ed catastrophe.

For @longreads.com, I wrote a personal essay about AI Holocaust testimony, my grandmother, memory, and memory loss

longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...

Ben, this is such a thoughtful piece. Thank you for sharing it.

A semi-regular reminder that all our photos on Flickr Commons are public domain - you don't need to ask us to use them in any way you can imagine! Though we do love hearing about how you've used them, so you can let us know if you want
https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/

Thirty days hath September
April, June and November;
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except the Month of Absent Sun.
('Tis the month we dare not name;
Be wary, lest it come again.)

Excited that longtime Viral Texts collaborator Avery Blankenship’s *American Literature* article is out—stemming from a chapter of her diss, it outlines her research using infrared spectroscopy to analyze food stains in C19 cookbooks—interesting for DH, book history, bibliography, and foodies alike

Intervening on a central node in a network likely does little given that its connected neighbors will "flip it back" immediately. Happy to see this position supported now.

"Change is most likely [..] if it spreads first among relatively poorly connected nodes."

www.nature.com/articles/s41...