I almost only listen to leftist baseball podcasts but that’s just me. So many thanks to @alixbeeston.bsky.social and @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social for letting me talk about Downtime. Alix is the best reader and not surprisingly the best here too. Book is available from @columbiaup.bsky.social.

History professor Cate Denial says, “There is nothing that I ask my students to do in my classes that benefits from being done by generative AI.”

Even allowing that GenAI/LLMs might have valid uses, it doesn't matter bc they are inherently unethical bc they're trained on stolen work. Period. Any use of it condones that.

Until they undo that (which would mean rebuilding it from scratch) and fix the environmental impact, it's a no go. Period.

‘Most of the opprobrium aimed at universities is fantastical. I only wish that academic life was as radical and subversive as its detractors believe.’

Ed Kiely on UK university finances: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

If your business model doesn’t work without breaking the law, then you’re not in business.

You’re in organized crime.

Written for writing studies but definitely more broadly applicable across the humanities and other disciplines.

refusinggenai.wordpress.com

this is a letter to the editor from a high school track runner who came in second to a trans girl in a race. her state house rep in maine started talking about it. so she wrote this: www.pressherald.com/2025/05/14/r...

"Women are PIs on 58% of the canceled grants, although they are PIs on only 34% of all active NSF grants.

Similarly, Blacks are PIs on 17% of the terminated grants, although they make only 4% of the total pool. Hispanic PIs and those with disabilities were twice as likely to lose a grant."

Apart from all the other miseries of the Immigration White Paper, it’s depressing to see an actual government uncritically relying on the unbelievably flawed media-driven university rankings.

It's so revealing that this government has spent a year ignoring the crisis in higher ed, and the first time it offers any serious policy proposals they are intended to make the UK a *less* attractive place for international students

Our NEA grant was canceled.

Here’s a letter from our development director about what’s happening.

STATEMENT: 'Not In Our Name: Feminist Academics and Educators Speak Out Against Transphobia'
Read the statement online here: tinyurl.com/mud7va29
Co-sign the statement, fill in this form: forms.gle/oDYgnobrMiSc...

The latest entry in our Visualities forum, ed. @alixbeeston.bsky.social and Pardis Dabashi, is John Lurz on Barthes's 'semiographic' work. Read "A Secret Practice: Roland Barthes and the Writing of the Visual" here: modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...

I'm happy to be co-supervising a funded PhD project on the Valleys archive at Ffotogallery Wales (especially at a moment when the funding landscape is so dire). Please share/consider applying:
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

"As UK academics and universities consider how they can assist their US colleagues, they should be asking the same question about those in other countries whose academic freedom is limited by the actions of their politicians—and ours."

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

If there is one thing, ONE THING, that students want, it is for their human tutors to get to know them as individuals, take their work seriously, & engage in meaningful conversation with them about their ideas. It is extraordinary that, as a sector, we are deliberately moving away from that.

There are great conferences and science in the US, but with the way things are right now, it’s too risky to attend.

British Steel employs 3.6k people. Coventry Uni group, which auditors say may not survive, employs 7.7k. But there is an emergency debate in parliament for British Steel and nothing for the whole HE sector imploding

Sometimes it feels like my whole career has been a chain of gatherings where UK & US academics trade stories of the particular kinds of stress & grief & short-sightedness that shadow our work. I want better for all of us.

Applications for GATES fellowships at the Maison de la Création et de l’Innovation are now open for next calendar year! Being in beautiful Grenoble for a few months, and at a center that actually values the humanities and arts, has been a total dream. maci.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/en/internati...

I'm happy to be co-supervising a funded PhD project on the Valleys archive at Ffotogallery Wales (especially at a moment when the funding landscape is so dire). Please share/consider applying:
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

To celebrate #Incomplete's @scmstudies.bsky.social #SCMS25 award for Best Edited Collection, @stefansolomon.bsky.social and I wrote about 5 projects we see as essential to the expanding horizons of the feminist incomplete! Up now on the @ucpress.bsky.social blog: www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/t...

🎊🎊🎊🎊 Celebrating Incomplete, best edited vol of 2024 AND 2025 at #SCMS25 awards!!!!!! Congrats CONGRATS @alixbeeston.bsky.social & @stefansolomon.bsky.social !!

Such a privilege and joy to be a part of this project!! ❤️❤️