Heather Chacon
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wickettred.bsky.social
Heather Chacon
@wickettred.bsky.social
English professor (c19 American), closed adoptee, lover of the arts who studies public health & literature. Also a friendly neighborhood deadhead.
Reposted by Heather Chacon
good news everyone the Mistaken Text From Grandma Thanksgiving buddy drama is still going strong

this story delights me every year
November 28, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
Oh this is depressing
Your universe is a photocopy of a photocopy of a…
on.ft.com/4ahkNKa
November 28, 2025 at 12:35 AM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
I heard a story about a female academic giving a paper at the IHR who, after receiving a long and aggressive question from a senior male professor, simply leaned back with her hands behind her head and replied “Oh, do fuck off.”
One of my colleagues went to a seminar at Berkeley and when someone asked a question Derrida brushed it off saying ‘what you ask may be important but it is not interesting’.
This path leads to chaos.
November 27, 2025 at 6:16 PM
November 27, 2025 at 4:50 PM
November 27, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Playing “Alice’s Restaurant” on the stereo, the main tradition I observe.
November 27, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
I wrote an essay for @bostonreview.bsky.social about what I learned about close reading when I taught at West Virginia University

www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The Claims of Close Reading - Boston Review
Literary studies have been starved by austerity, but their core methodology remains radical.
www.bostonreview.net
November 26, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
AI is a very general term, you have to be more specific. Do you mean the AI that stole my copyright, the chatbot causing teen suicide and psychosis, the deepfake porn of women without their consent, the bots driving political division or the ones polluting communities and driving electric bills up?
November 26, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
It's hard to describe how I feel every time this happens. I'm so overwhelmingly angry. We HAVE the ability to vaccinate virtually everyone who can take the vaccines so that herd immunity works in so many communities. A horrible way of dying was almost gone forever. It's not fair. It's not fair.
A third infant has died in Kentucky, KYDPH adds:

“These are Kentucky’s first pertussis deaths since 2018. None of the infants nor their mothers received the recommended pertussis vaccinations during pregnancy or early infancy.”

s3.amazonaws.com/nursing-netw...
November 25, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Don’t remind faculty of any training due 12/19 over Turkey Break challenge
November 25, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
BREAKING: This is huge news, the EU's equivalent of the 🇺🇸Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.

🇪🇺Court of Justice just ruled all 🇪🇺countries must recognise same-sex marriages granted in other member states.

This effectively legalises gay marriage across 🇪🇺
www.reuters.com
November 25, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Roasted elephant garlic soup from scratch.
November 24, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
Trump voting men rank having children as their highest priority in life, and rank having emotional stability dead last. Those poor children.
November 24, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
Important to remember this when you read news reports of DOGE closing 'without achieving anything'. It achieved plenty. Not only should this not be forgotten, those responsible should be held accountable.
DOGE shuts down having not found trillions of dollars of waste or saved any money.

They compromised the security of government systems, fired federal workers and oversaw the dismantling of USAID which has killed 600,000.

By 2030 approx 14 million people will have died.

That’s their legacy
November 24, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
This could be what finally gets me to go camping.
November 23, 2025 at 1:00 PM
RIP Jimmy Cliff
November 24, 2025 at 12:50 PM
By my house
November 24, 2025 at 4:16 AM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
When a profession that is structurally essential nurses are stripped of status under the rationale of “loan reform”, it raises the question: why this profession now? Especially when healthcare access is already fragile.
November 24, 2025 at 1:24 AM
The way I am in this description is absurd
Twitter accounts are based in Russia. BlueSky accounts are based in homes with, frankly, too many books, plants, obsolete cables, and pieces of rustic pottery, that could do with a bit of a tidying up, to be honest.
November 24, 2025 at 1:50 AM
therumpus.net/2019/04/04/t...

This is a good essay
Teeth: An Oral History - The Rumpus
Few people can tell that my smile is literally fake.
therumpus.net
November 23, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe
"The humanities really are a resource — a confidence for living in our times.” Dean Sara Guyer on the modern utility of humanities degrees
This interview originally appeared on the Division of Arts
bit.ly
November 23, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Noooooooo
November 23, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Reposted by Heather Chacon
As a historian, I have been torturing myself by watching some of the series that the White House in cooperation with Hillsdale College produced about American Independence (tellingly, they avoid the word "revolution").

There are so many errors that it is hard to know where to begin. But I'll try
November 22, 2025 at 11:33 PM