Zachary Lesser
@zacharylesser.bsky.social
Book history, Shakespeare etc. Views my own, not my "neutral" employer's. Header is: https://shorturl.at/FtfZQ / Gen Ed., Arden Shakespeare / https://pennmaterialtexts.org / http://shakespearecensus.org / http://deepplaybooks.org
Pinned
This was so interesting and exciting to work on with @heatherwolfe.bsky.social and Jeremy Lopez. Carl Berkhout spent about 40 years, off and on, investigating this book, and we edited this posthumously published text from his annotated drafts.
doi.org/10.1093/sq/q...
doi.org/10.1093/sq/q...
One thing Mamdani gets & you see it even in his snowstorm response: to fight creeping authoritarianism, xenophobia and fascism, you need a coherent moral vision of positive collective prosperity and freedom. Bernie gets it. AOC gets it. The “center-left” needs to figure it out or we’re in trouble.
February 3, 2026 at 3:20 PM
One thing Mamdani gets & you see it even in his snowstorm response: to fight creeping authoritarianism, xenophobia and fascism, you need a coherent moral vision of positive collective prosperity and freedom. Bernie gets it. AOC gets it. The “center-left” needs to figure it out or we’re in trouble.
Reposted by Zachary Lesser
This watermark graffiti by street artist Mathieu Tremblin is, like, the best thing ever.
January 29, 2026 at 8:47 PM
This watermark graffiti by street artist Mathieu Tremblin is, like, the best thing ever.
Reposted by Zachary Lesser
Disguised lovers, exiled brothers, multiple marriage plots, a wrestling bout & the famous Forest of Arden...
Shakespeare's pastoral romance As You Like It, edited by Tom Bishop, comes to The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series in October!
Find out more: https://bit.ly/3NKFEMW
Shakespeare's pastoral romance As You Like It, edited by Tom Bishop, comes to The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series in October!
Find out more: https://bit.ly/3NKFEMW
February 2, 2026 at 3:48 PM
Disguised lovers, exiled brothers, multiple marriage plots, a wrestling bout & the famous Forest of Arden...
Shakespeare's pastoral romance As You Like It, edited by Tom Bishop, comes to The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series in October!
Find out more: https://bit.ly/3NKFEMW
Shakespeare's pastoral romance As You Like It, edited by Tom Bishop, comes to The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series in October!
Find out more: https://bit.ly/3NKFEMW
Not a lawyer but I’m pretty sure judges do not usually write like this. Wow.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
storage.courtlistener.com
January 31, 2026 at 9:14 PM
Not a lawyer but I’m pretty sure judges do not usually write like this. Wow.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Just crazy newspeak: no A&M course may “advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.”
"Texas A&M University said on Friday that it would end its women’s and gender studies program, and that the syllabuses for hundreds of courses had been altered under new policies limiting how race and gender ideology may be discussed in classrooms" (gift article)
Texas A&M Ends Women’s Studies and Overhauls Classes Over Race and Gender
www.nytimes.com
January 30, 2026 at 9:56 PM
Just crazy newspeak: no A&M course may “advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Reposted by Zachary Lesser
Delighted to see Dianne Mitchell's forthcoming book, Paper Intimacies in the Early Modern Lyric, in Penn Press's new catalogue
Dianne was one of our graduate fellows ten years ago
A perk of aging is seeing what wonderful students go on to do
Dianne was one of our graduate fellows ten years ago
A perk of aging is seeing what wonderful students go on to do
Paper Intimacies in the Early Modern Lyric – Penn Press
An exploration of how everyday Renaissance practices of folding, sending, archiving, and arranging manuscript poetry created lyric intimacyPaper Intimacies i...
www.pennpress.org
January 30, 2026 at 5:42 PM
Delighted to see Dianne Mitchell's forthcoming book, Paper Intimacies in the Early Modern Lyric, in Penn Press's new catalogue
Dianne was one of our graduate fellows ten years ago
A perk of aging is seeing what wonderful students go on to do
Dianne was one of our graduate fellows ten years ago
A perk of aging is seeing what wonderful students go on to do
Reposted by Zachary Lesser
Tomorrow! The Workshop in the History of Material Texts welcomes Adrian Johns for a talk on “Looking for Labels: The Science of Safety and the Defenders of Information.”
❄️ Zoom only due to the snow.
🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org
Stay warm, log in from your couch, and let the archives travel to you! ❄️📚
❄️ Zoom only due to the snow.
🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org
Stay warm, log in from your couch, and let the archives travel to you! ❄️📚
January 25, 2026 at 11:35 PM
Tomorrow! The Workshop in the History of Material Texts welcomes Adrian Johns for a talk on “Looking for Labels: The Science of Safety and the Defenders of Information.”
❄️ Zoom only due to the snow.
🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org
Stay warm, log in from your couch, and let the archives travel to you! ❄️📚
❄️ Zoom only due to the snow.
🔗 pennmaterialtexts.org
Stay warm, log in from your couch, and let the archives travel to you! ❄️📚
Huge disgrace for this great city
January 22, 2026 at 11:08 PM
Huge disgrace for this great city
“how could a woman hold the highest seat in the government when she has less rights than half the population?” [Alex Cooper] said. “How would that work? … How would a woman sit above men?”
Was just talking about this yesterday with students but about Queen Elizabeth.
Was just talking about this yesterday with students but about Queen Elizabeth.
January 21, 2026 at 11:33 PM
“how could a woman hold the highest seat in the government when she has less rights than half the population?” [Alex Cooper] said. “How would that work? … How would a woman sit above men?”
Was just talking about this yesterday with students but about Queen Elizabeth.
Was just talking about this yesterday with students but about Queen Elizabeth.
Can you take the money in basketball tickets?
🚨 Applications are open!
UConn Archives & Special Collections is offering $4,000 research fellowships + $1,500 travel grants for onsite archival work.
The application is quick and requires NO letters of reference. library.uconn.edu/location/asc...
UConn Archives & Special Collections is offering $4,000 research fellowships + $1,500 travel grants for onsite archival work.
The application is quick and requires NO letters of reference. library.uconn.edu/location/asc...
Research Grants and Fellowships | UConn Library
Archives & Special Collections offers several competitive research grants to researchers and scholars who plan to use our collections for their scholars ...
library.uconn.edu
January 17, 2026 at 3:03 PM
Can you take the money in basketball tickets?
Good. We've seen repeatedly that only the threat of real monetary penalties will deter schools from violating the Constitutional and academic freedoms of faculty.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/u...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/u...
University to Pay $500,000 to Professor It Fired Over Charlie Kirk Post
www.nytimes.com
January 9, 2026 at 2:17 PM
Good. We've seen repeatedly that only the threat of real monetary penalties will deter schools from violating the Constitutional and academic freedoms of faculty.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/u...
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/u...
Reposted by Zachary Lesser
This was so interesting and exciting to work on with @heatherwolfe.bsky.social and Jeremy Lopez. Carl Berkhout spent about 40 years, off and on, investigating this book, and we edited this posthumously published text from his annotated drafts.
doi.org/10.1093/sq/q...
doi.org/10.1093/sq/q...
January 6, 2026 at 11:55 PM
This was so interesting and exciting to work on with @heatherwolfe.bsky.social and Jeremy Lopez. Carl Berkhout spent about 40 years, off and on, investigating this book, and we edited this posthumously published text from his annotated drafts.
doi.org/10.1093/sq/q...
doi.org/10.1093/sq/q...
When this happens and you are dean or provost or president, don’t you have to wonder if it’s time to close up shop?
"I’m going to pause here just to review: an institution that purports to be a university has told a philosophy professor he is forbidden from teaching Plato."
surreal times
dailynous.com/2026/01/06/t...
surreal times
dailynous.com/2026/01/06/t...
Texas A&M Bans Plato - Daily Nous
Drop the race and gender material from your course and the Plato readings, or teach a different course. You have a day to decide. That's a paraphrase of what Martin Peterson, professor of philosophy a...
dailynous.com
January 8, 2026 at 1:35 AM
When this happens and you are dean or provost or president, don’t you have to wonder if it’s time to close up shop?
This was so interesting and exciting to work on with @heatherwolfe.bsky.social and Jeremy Lopez. Carl Berkhout spent about 40 years, off and on, investigating this book, and we edited this posthumously published text from his annotated drafts.
doi.org/10.1093/sq/q...
doi.org/10.1093/sq/q...
January 6, 2026 at 11:55 PM
This was so interesting and exciting to work on with @heatherwolfe.bsky.social and Jeremy Lopez. Carl Berkhout spent about 40 years, off and on, investigating this book, and we edited this posthumously published text from his annotated drafts.
doi.org/10.1093/sq/q...
doi.org/10.1093/sq/q...
Reposted by Zachary Lesser
‘If there’s a sense of individuality, here, it may be less in Rousseau’s bold words about singularity, and more in the messy surround – the contingent stuff of a particular time and a place.’
@adamwithbooks.bsky.social’s video response to Rousseau’s ‘Confessions’:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...
@adamwithbooks.bsky.social’s video response to Rousseau’s ‘Confessions’:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...
Adam Smyth | Like No One in Existence
One of the early meanings of ‘original’ was something which serves as a model, or something from which copies can...
www.lrb.co.uk
January 5, 2026 at 8:40 PM
‘If there’s a sense of individuality, here, it may be less in Rousseau’s bold words about singularity, and more in the messy surround – the contingent stuff of a particular time and a place.’
@adamwithbooks.bsky.social’s video response to Rousseau’s ‘Confessions’:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...
@adamwithbooks.bsky.social’s video response to Rousseau’s ‘Confessions’:
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...
Reposted by Zachary Lesser
Statement Re: OU Discrimination Investigation
Today, my client, Mel Curth, submitted her appeal of the University's Institutional Equity Office finding that she engaged in arbitrary and capricious grading of a student's assignment in violation of that student's religious liberty.
Today, my client, Mel Curth, submitted her appeal of the University's Institutional Equity Office finding that she engaged in arbitrary and capricious grading of a student's assignment in violation of that student's religious liberty.
December 30, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Statement Re: OU Discrimination Investigation
Today, my client, Mel Curth, submitted her appeal of the University's Institutional Equity Office finding that she engaged in arbitrary and capricious grading of a student's assignment in violation of that student's religious liberty.
Today, my client, Mel Curth, submitted her appeal of the University's Institutional Equity Office finding that she engaged in arbitrary and capricious grading of a student's assignment in violation of that student's religious liberty.
I have measured out my life with two-factor authentications.
December 20, 2025 at 2:44 PM
I have measured out my life with two-factor authentications.
How it's going / How it will go
December 19, 2025 at 10:03 PM
How it's going / How it will go
Reposted by Zachary Lesser
Ich thynke but litel of a Mondaye bleake
Tuesdaye grey and Wednesdaye eke
Thursdaye Ich care nat for thee
Yet Fridaye Ich do love
Mondaye thou kanst fall awaye
Tuesdaye, Wednesdaye, myne herte slaye
No mirthe ys founde upon Thursdaye
Yet Fridaye Ich do love
Tuesdaye grey and Wednesdaye eke
Thursdaye Ich care nat for thee
Yet Fridaye Ich do love
Mondaye thou kanst fall awaye
Tuesdaye, Wednesdaye, myne herte slaye
No mirthe ys founde upon Thursdaye
Yet Fridaye Ich do love
December 13, 2025 at 3:54 AM
Ich thynke but litel of a Mondaye bleake
Tuesdaye grey and Wednesdaye eke
Thursdaye Ich care nat for thee
Yet Fridaye Ich do love
Mondaye thou kanst fall awaye
Tuesdaye, Wednesdaye, myne herte slaye
No mirthe ys founde upon Thursdaye
Yet Fridaye Ich do love
Tuesdaye grey and Wednesdaye eke
Thursdaye Ich care nat for thee
Yet Fridaye Ich do love
Mondaye thou kanst fall awaye
Tuesdaye, Wednesdaye, myne herte slaye
No mirthe ys founde upon Thursdaye
Yet Fridaye Ich do love
Just found out about Anna Barbauld's wonderful "Washing Day" which ends with these great Macbeth-inspired lines :
Earth, air, and sky, and ocean hath its bubbles,
And verse is one of them — this most of all.
Earth, air, and sky, and ocean hath its bubbles,
And verse is one of them — this most of all.
December 7, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Just found out about Anna Barbauld's wonderful "Washing Day" which ends with these great Macbeth-inspired lines :
Earth, air, and sky, and ocean hath its bubbles,
And verse is one of them — this most of all.
Earth, air, and sky, and ocean hath its bubbles,
And verse is one of them — this most of all.
Once again snubbed by the FIFA Peace Prize committee this year.
December 5, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Once again snubbed by the FIFA Peace Prize committee this year.
The central thread here is conspiracy thinking, a diminished form of interpretation that rushes into the vacuum when people lack real interpretive agency. Exercising those muscles of interpreting and navigating complexity is the work that the humanities do from elementary school on up. It matters.
Anti-semitism inside the GOP is skyrocketing under Trump: 37% of Republicans surveyed by the Manhattan Institute believe the Holocaust of Jews in Nazi Germany was either greatly exaggerated or did not happen. This is largely Jonathan Greenblatt's accomplishment.
December 4, 2025 at 4:22 PM
The central thread here is conspiracy thinking, a diminished form of interpretation that rushes into the vacuum when people lack real interpretive agency. Exercising those muscles of interpreting and navigating complexity is the work that the humanities do from elementary school on up. It matters.
Reposted by Zachary Lesser
Ad offers an amazing perspective on higher ed
November 26, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Ad offers an amazing perspective on higher ed