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Amanda Watson

@amndw2.bsky.social

1K followers 570 following 1.5K posts

Librarian, literature geek, knitter, opera fan, book history person. Writing a book about commonplace books and poetry readers. Opinions here are my own. She/her/hers. Queer and furious. 🏳️‍🌈

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 11d

All right! I think I've sorted out the feed issues. Here's the link to the new and improved #pleasingterror feed for our October M.R. James ghost story reading club: bsky.app/profile/amnd...

And the reading schedule is below. Join us for some antiquarian horrors next month! 😱📖🐋🛖💐💯🪵🌰🪛🪞🚀

A Pleasing Terror - October 2025

docs.google.com

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Reposted by Amanda Watson

Randi Weingarten 🖇️📚✊🇺🇸 @rweingarten.bsky.social · 17h

Thank you @TimothySnyder.bsky.social for joining @AFT.org & @AAUP.org in calling on university leaders, faculty, staff and students to reject Trump's proposed compact and to defend the principle that no president has the right to buy obedience or sell off freedom. snyder.substack.com/p/save-ameri...

Save American Higher Education (video)

A petition that you can sign, which I read aloud

snyder.substack.com

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 1d

💯💯💯

Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 1d

I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections

After Dinner Conversation® @afterdinnerconversation.com · 1d

Reposted by Amanda Watson

Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 2d

ACLS statement against White House “compact”: THIS IS SOVIET SHIT

Screenshot from statement “Universities and colleges have one mission: to advance knowledge. Faculty carry out the mission by conducting research and teaching students. The knowledge they produce and circulate is independently assessed by professional peers. Interfering with that process by forcing knowledge to pass through a political filter is a tactic adopted by the Soviet Union and other authoritarian states. The White House is dressing up its compact as a reasonable corrective to what it views as problems in campus culture. Let no one be deceived. This proposal imposes government censorship on academia. It is anti-American, and it weakens our democracy by devaluing academic expertise.”

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 2d

Hahaha, wait till we get to "Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad."

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 2d

I'm more than a little startled by the way this post took off. I had no idea there were so many other antiquarian ghost story people on here. Hi!

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 2d

Yes, glad you like it!

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 2d

Count Magnus! I think that's the only tentacle story, but I love that they're in there.

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 3d

Watching this chat right now, and I just learned of the existence of a 1798 gothic novel called More Ghosts! (exclamation point in the original title). Now I must read it!

KJ Charles @kjcharleswriter.com · 5d

This Sunday (October 5) at 12 noon EST/ 5pm UK time, I'm talking with @alexandravasti.bsky.social and @felicityniven.bsky.social about all things Gothic Romance!

Catch us at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfmk...

Flyer for Gothic Romance Extravaganza with KJ Charles, Alexandra Vasti and Felicity Niven running the conversation. With images of Ladies in Hating by Alexandra and All Of Us Murderers by KJ.

Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 3d

I couldn't resist. #pleasingterror

A bingo card for the ghost stories of M.R. James. Boxes read:
"Spiders
Terrible hotel stay
Narrator makes fun of golf
Latin passages
Eerie disembodied voices
Confirmed bachelor main character
Vengeful spirit
Evil magician
Working-class character as comic relief
Bleak East Anglian coast
Visit to an archive
Narrator in guidebook mode
FREE SPACE
Unholy doings in a church
Frogs or toads
Queen Anne style house
Cursed artifact
Don't buy that rare book!
Something hairy and horrible
Someone gets too curious
Tentacles
Story told via old manuscript
Research trip gone horribly wrong
Beds are scary
Tactile horror

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Reposted by Amanda Watson

Josh Michtom @rsgat.bsky.social · 3d

Today, I drove an hour and a half with my wife and a couple friends to pick up a neighbor who was summarily, inexplicably arrested by ICE at a check-in ten days ago and then just as inexplicably released, 100 miles from home today. It was a happy occasion, all things considered, but...

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Reposted by Amanda Watson

David Burbach 🌹 @dburbach.bsky.social · 3d

The sort of people the administration calls 'terrorists' :

"[the 84 year olds] were rushed by federal officers “for no apparent reason.” She said her husband was leaning on his walker and wearing his Vietnam veterans cap as he was pushed to the ground."

The Oregonian @oregonian.com · 3d

An 84-year-old said she sustained a concussion and was hit with a projectile after she and her husband, a Vietnam vet, were knocked down by federal officers.

Federal agents knock down elderly couple during Portland protest

An 84-year-old said she sustained a concussion and was hit with a projectile after she and her husband, a Vietnam vet, were knocked down by federal officers.

www.oregonlive.com

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 3d

Ha, I did think "someone should write something about queer friendship in the English ghost story, especially MRJ, and maybe it should be me if nobody's already done it," but it might not be this year!

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 3d

*checks back*
*drops candle*

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 3d

And this one has Anningley Hall vibes (no creeping figure in the foreground, though):

Category:Court of Noke - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 3d

So many Queen Anne country houses crop up in M.R. James's stories that I started searching for images. This one is how I imagine Aswarby Hall in "Lost Hearts": 😱

Rainham Hall | London

Visitor information for Rainham Hall, a fine example of Queen Anne architecture on the outskirts of London, near Havering.

www.nationaltrust.org.uk

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Reposted by Amanda Watson

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 4d

important for us in the US to note: even a solidly right wing government can't ignore this.

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 4d

Over 2 million people across Italy have rallied in more than 100 cities for a one-day general strike.

2 million rally in Italy for Gaza as general strike halts key services

Over 2 million people across Italy have rallied in more than 100 cities for a one-day general strike.

bit.ly

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Reposted by Amanda Watson

Patrick Jackson @pehjackson.bsky.social · 4d

UVA Faculty Senate passed a resolution strongly opposing the Trump “Compact.” We, at least, remain committed to the historic values and mission of the university.

Resolution Opposing the "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education"
WHEREAS the United States Secretary of Education has requested that the University of Virginia enter into a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”, and
WHEREAS the Compact contains provisions antithetical to the mission and traditions of the University, and
WHEREAS the Compact contains provisions which endanger the independence and integrity of the University, and
WHEREAS the compact likely violates state and federal law, and infringes upon the constitutional rights of members of the University community, and
WHEREAS the University of Virginia exemplifies American academic values of the highest standard, including universal right to free speech and the cultivation of academic freedom; therefore
BE IT RESOLVED that the Faculty Senate of the University of Virginia firmly opposes this Compact as written and calls upon Interim President Mahoney and the Board of Visitors to also reject this Compact outright as well as any similar proposal compromising the mission, values, and independence of the University.

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 4d

update:

Another defaced friend.com subway ad, this one with "BULL SHIT" inscribed in bright red on the ad's photo of the round "friend" device on a chain.

Reposted by Amanda Watson

Zachary Lesser @zacharylesser.bsky.social · 5d

Kofta kebab recipe in England c. 1660. Amazing find!

Danielle Clarke @rhetorician.bsky.social · 5d

Would anyone like to take a guess at the word before “kebob”? Which predates OED - ms is 1660

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 4d

“The Mezzotint”: the first, but by no means the last, of the stories where James makes fun of his fellow academics for their love of golf. 😱

Text from M.R. James’s story “The Mezzotint”: “But those who are familiar with University life can picture for themselves the wide and delightful range of subjects over which the conversation of two Fellows of Canterbury College is likely to extend during a Sunday morning breakfast. Hardly a topic was left unchallenged, from golf to lawn-tennis.”

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 5d

Oh, I loved that collection. I should reread it!

Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 5d

Oh that's such a good comparison! The way he goes after victims who nobody will miss is so chilling.

Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 5d

(I also wasn't expecting the dick-joke chorus, but this opera contains multitudes...)

Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 5d

I haven't read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (though now I want to!), so I wasn't expecting the line "The world will always be broken; repair it anyway" at the end of Act 2, and it punched me directly in the gut. I hadn't realized how badly I needed to hear that in this current moment.

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 5d

I've added you!