Tommy Lynch
@tommylynch.bsky.social
Reader in Political Theology
Vague yet rigorous
Currently trying to watch every Hollywood end of the world film
https://letterboxd.com/ApocaLynch/
Vague yet rigorous
Currently trying to watch every Hollywood end of the world film
https://letterboxd.com/ApocaLynch/
Reposted by Tommy Lynch
honestly proud of this weird title (argument: table of contents)
www.upress.umn.edu/978151790527...
all eyes on grinding out book 3, but until then, HNtMaH is still my favorite baby
www.upress.umn.edu/978151790527...
all eyes on grinding out book 3, but until then, HNtMaH is still my favorite baby
November 26, 2025 at 10:58 PM
honestly proud of this weird title (argument: table of contents)
www.upress.umn.edu/978151790527...
all eyes on grinding out book 3, but until then, HNtMaH is still my favorite baby
www.upress.umn.edu/978151790527...
all eyes on grinding out book 3, but until then, HNtMaH is still my favorite baby
I'm teaching The Future of an Illusion this morning: 'Not only do the privileged classes, who enjoy the benefits of that culture share in it; the oppressed may share in it, too, in that the right to despise outsiders is their compensation for the restrictions placed on them in their own circle.'
November 27, 2025 at 6:43 AM
I'm teaching The Future of an Illusion this morning: 'Not only do the privileged classes, who enjoy the benefits of that culture share in it; the oppressed may share in it, too, in that the right to despise outsiders is their compensation for the restrictions placed on them in their own circle.'
Reposted by Tommy Lynch
"Imagine you stole all of the intellectual property in the world. And you're using it to help people write middling emails and make revenge porn about women, and also children. And you're powering this plagiarism and non-consensual porn machine by eating up what's left of humanity's carbon budget."
How to explain AI to your family this holiday season | CNN Business
Politics, football and movies are among the many topics that tend to come up around Thanksgiving. In 2025, a new question may arise at the table: Why the heck is everyone talking about AI, and what sh...
www.cnn.com
November 27, 2025 at 4:04 AM
"Imagine you stole all of the intellectual property in the world. And you're using it to help people write middling emails and make revenge porn about women, and also children. And you're powering this plagiarism and non-consensual porn machine by eating up what's left of humanity's carbon budget."
Excited to see this in the flesh at the AAR/SBL. @tristansturm.bsky.social and Andrew Crome have put together an excellent volume. I have a chapter on political theology and apocalypticism which is the first published version of my work on what I'm calling new apocalyptic tones.
November 24, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Excited to see this in the flesh at the AAR/SBL. @tristansturm.bsky.social and Andrew Crome have put together an excellent volume. I have a chapter on political theology and apocalypticism which is the first published version of my work on what I'm calling new apocalyptic tones.
Reposted by Tommy Lynch
My new book FAST AND FURIOUS FRANCHISING: HOW THE SERIALIZED BLOCKBUSTER REMADE HOLLYWOOD is now available for pre-order from @uminnpress.bsky.social!! www.upress.umn.edu/978151792108...
Fast and Furious Franchising
What the popularity of the Fast and Furious film franchise says about Hollywood blockbusters and media productionFast and Furious Franchising charts the tran...
www.upress.umn.edu
October 16, 2025 at 8:00 PM
My new book FAST AND FURIOUS FRANCHISING: HOW THE SERIALIZED BLOCKBUSTER REMADE HOLLYWOOD is now available for pre-order from @uminnpress.bsky.social!! www.upress.umn.edu/978151792108...
I watched The Arrival today. It’s neither subtle nor sophisticated but it did come out in 1996 and centres on a race of aliens who are releasing greenhouse gasses in order to terraform earth. In a climatic scene an alien says. ‘We’re just finishing what you started.’ #cop30
November 22, 2025 at 1:02 AM
I watched The Arrival today. It’s neither subtle nor sophisticated but it did come out in 1996 and centres on a race of aliens who are releasing greenhouse gasses in order to terraform earth. In a climatic scene an alien says. ‘We’re just finishing what you started.’ #cop30
Reposted by Tommy Lynch
Open postdoc position (2 years) in religion and migration in my ERC project ”Faith-Based Refugee Relief in Europe: Connecting the Empirical and the Ethical”. Deadline 15 Jan 2026 - come work in a fabulous team!
Postdoc in Migration Studies (2 years)
We are looking for a candidate who, during two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, wishes to develop their independence as a researcher and contribute
lu.varbi.com
November 19, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Open postdoc position (2 years) in religion and migration in my ERC project ”Faith-Based Refugee Relief in Europe: Connecting the Empirical and the Ethical”. Deadline 15 Jan 2026 - come work in a fabulous team!
Reposted by Tommy Lynch
Special Issue: The Bible after José Esteban Muñoz bibleandcriticaltheory.com/volume-21-no...
VOLUME 21, NO 2 (2025)
bibleandcriticaltheory.com
November 19, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Special Issue: The Bible after José Esteban Muñoz bibleandcriticaltheory.com/volume-21-no...
If anyone's attending the AAR this year, I'll be presenting on 'Cruel Hope: The Dilemmas of Polycrisis Cinema' at 0900 on Tuesday.
November 19, 2025 at 8:33 AM
If anyone's attending the AAR this year, I'll be presenting on 'Cruel Hope: The Dilemmas of Polycrisis Cinema' at 0900 on Tuesday.
I refuse to believe that Greenland isn't a Roland Emmerich film. Impossible.
November 19, 2025 at 6:58 AM
I refuse to believe that Greenland isn't a Roland Emmerich film. Impossible.
Today, the blue spatula I bought at IKEA in 2007 finally snapped. It was one the first things we bought when we finally found someplace to live in Nottingham, a couple of weeks into our new life in the UK.
It's a little disconcerting that I'd had the spatula as long as my students have been alive.
It's a little disconcerting that I'd had the spatula as long as my students have been alive.
November 17, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Today, the blue spatula I bought at IKEA in 2007 finally snapped. It was one the first things we bought when we finally found someplace to live in Nottingham, a couple of weeks into our new life in the UK.
It's a little disconcerting that I'd had the spatula as long as my students have been alive.
It's a little disconcerting that I'd had the spatula as long as my students have been alive.
'It is difficult to say what a political order built on the model of autism and urination would look like in concrete terms.'
The Apolitical Life | Adam Kirsch
The philosopher Giorgio Agamben exalts an ideal of what he calls “inoperativity”—a kind of passivity as an antidote to the West’s politics of power and domination.
www.nybooks.com
November 17, 2025 at 6:20 PM
'It is difficult to say what a political order built on the model of autism and urination would look like in concrete terms.'
Reposted by Tommy Lynch
*Every single AI output*, no matter what it's "about," should be understood in light of this fact. The ultimate meaning of any particular AI output, no matter its content, is destruction of the commons & a nihilistic refusal of possibility in social life. This is its political unconscious.
November 17, 2025 at 4:37 PM
*Every single AI output*, no matter what it's "about," should be understood in light of this fact. The ultimate meaning of any particular AI output, no matter its content, is destruction of the commons & a nihilistic refusal of possibility in social life. This is its political unconscious.
A sure test of the sign design of a film is whether my dogs lose their shit while I'm trying to take my notes.
November 15, 2025 at 8:32 PM
A sure test of the sign design of a film is whether my dogs lose their shit while I'm trying to take my notes.
Reposted by Tommy Lynch
The levy on foreign students is an export tax. Has anyone in government wondered why countries don't usually impose export taxes?
A levy on foreign students is one of the closest things you're going to see to tariffs on services - except the UK will be putting it on its own exports...
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Levy on international students’ tuition fees not in best interest of UK, says leader of top university
Duncan Ivison, president of Manchester University, says government’s 6% surcharge plan will ‘hurt the sector’
www.theguardian.com
November 15, 2025 at 10:45 AM
The levy on foreign students is an export tax. Has anyone in government wondered why countries don't usually impose export taxes?
I can't pinpoint exactly why, but this seems to capture something deeply flawed about our present.
November 15, 2025 at 6:21 AM
I can't pinpoint exactly why, but this seems to capture something deeply flawed about our present.
Tonight's end of the world film is the appropriately named End of the World (1977). I'm not sure which is more jarring: the size of the computers or the size of the cars.
November 14, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Tonight's end of the world film is the appropriately named End of the World (1977). I'm not sure which is more jarring: the size of the computers or the size of the cars.
I'll never forget @stephenshapiro.bsky.social's land acknowledgment in Heidelberg, stating that the University is housed (in part) in buildings stolen from Jews. Obviously not the same thing, but seeing the form deployed in a new context reinforced its original function (at least for me).
my wokest opinion is that land acknowledgements are fine. people knowing a little bit about the land you're on, even if one isn't invested in a land back project, is not particularly worse than the status quo, even if one comes by this info in a way that is somewhat cringe and forced
"my least woke opinion is---"
That's enough. We've had enough people indulging in the "thrill of a little conservatism", as a treat. Of considering reactionary thought to be a salacious and taboo in a world descending into reactionary mania.
Give me your MOST woke opinions. We're bringing it back.
That's enough. We've had enough people indulging in the "thrill of a little conservatism", as a treat. Of considering reactionary thought to be a salacious and taboo in a world descending into reactionary mania.
Give me your MOST woke opinions. We're bringing it back.
November 14, 2025 at 2:47 PM
I'll never forget @stephenshapiro.bsky.social's land acknowledgment in Heidelberg, stating that the University is housed (in part) in buildings stolen from Jews. Obviously not the same thing, but seeing the form deployed in a new context reinforced its original function (at least for me).
Reposted by Tommy Lynch
hemmed and hawed with shobhana xavier about the book newbooksnetwork.com/the-dread-he...
Basit Kareem Iqbal, "The Dread Heights: Tribulation and Refuge after the Syrian Revolution" (Fordham UP, 2025) - New Books Network
newbooksnetwork.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:16 PM
hemmed and hawed with shobhana xavier about the book newbooksnetwork.com/the-dread-he...
It's like that HIMYM plot line where Barney is convinced that Johnny is the good guy. These people watched 90s sci-fi and Black Mirror and thought it was an ideas incubator rather than a warning.
November 14, 2025 at 12:43 PM
It's like that HIMYM plot line where Barney is convinced that Johnny is the good guy. These people watched 90s sci-fi and Black Mirror and thought it was an ideas incubator rather than a warning.
Reposted by Tommy Lynch
"a formalist reconstruction of aspects of this song that seem so generic as to go unnoticed, and at the same time a little pocket general-theory-of-music as an art+activity of making repetition—+ with it, rhythm, period, time itself—possible."
www.boundary2.org/2025/05/seth...
www.boundary2.org/2025/05/seth...
Seth Brodsky–Losing and Finding Death Drive’s Beat
Screenshot of Brittany Howard, “Stay High” music video. This article is part of the b2o: an online journal special issue "(Rhy)pistemologies", edited by Erin Graff Zivin. Losing and Finding Death Dr...
www.boundary2.org
November 14, 2025 at 12:10 AM
"a formalist reconstruction of aspects of this song that seem so generic as to go unnoticed, and at the same time a little pocket general-theory-of-music as an art+activity of making repetition—+ with it, rhythm, period, time itself—possible."
www.boundary2.org/2025/05/seth...
www.boundary2.org/2025/05/seth...
I'm now well past 100 films in my attempt to watch every mainstream, English language apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic film. Today was the first day I came across a film (1974's Planet Earth) and just couldn't remember if I had seen it. I'm glad I took extensive notes...
November 13, 2025 at 2:44 PM
I'm now well past 100 films in my attempt to watch every mainstream, English language apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic film. Today was the first day I came across a film (1974's Planet Earth) and just couldn't remember if I had seen it. I'm glad I took extensive notes...
Reposted by Tommy Lynch
The International Criminal Court is ditching Microsoft Office, saying it’s too dependent on US tech, in favor of Open Desk, a German open source alternative.
The move comes after Microsoft revoked ICC head Karim Khan’s email access when he was sanctioned by the US for the warrant against Netanyahu.
The move comes after Microsoft revoked ICC head Karim Khan’s email access when he was sanctioned by the US for the warrant against Netanyahu.
International Criminal Court to ditch Microsoft Office for European open source alternative | Euractiv
The court will move its internal work environment to Open Desk, a German-developed open source software
www.euractiv.com
November 13, 2025 at 12:36 PM
The International Criminal Court is ditching Microsoft Office, saying it’s too dependent on US tech, in favor of Open Desk, a German open source alternative.
The move comes after Microsoft revoked ICC head Karim Khan’s email access when he was sanctioned by the US for the warrant against Netanyahu.
The move comes after Microsoft revoked ICC head Karim Khan’s email access when he was sanctioned by the US for the warrant against Netanyahu.
Is it infiltration if the government is actively seeking out partnerships?
Our latest issue has just hit newsstands! Here’s a peek at what’s inside... 🧵
For our cover story, Mark Wilding from @libertyhq.bsky.social investigates how the government handed our data to Peter Thiel’s controversial company Palantir: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/dem...
For our cover story, Mark Wilding from @libertyhq.bsky.social investigates how the government handed our data to Peter Thiel’s controversial company Palantir: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/dem...
November 12, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Is it infiltration if the government is actively seeking out partnerships?
I'm teaching Wendy Brown on tolerance this afternoon and its interesting how revisiting the same text allows you to experience arguments in different historical moments. I think Brown's argument is still compelling, but it lands differently in Trump's second term than it did during Obama's.
November 12, 2025 at 6:22 AM
I'm teaching Wendy Brown on tolerance this afternoon and its interesting how revisiting the same text allows you to experience arguments in different historical moments. I think Brown's argument is still compelling, but it lands differently in Trump's second term than it did during Obama's.