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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Aug 26

Teaching with Dickens’s working notes or about his compositional process? Consider submitting materials to the Dickens Notes Project!

NAVSA @navsa.bsky.social · Aug 25

CFP: Teaching Dickens’s Compositional Process & Serial Form (Submission Deadline: 1/31/26) bit.ly/3HLOtmX

CFP: Teaching Dickens’s Compositional Process & Serial Form (Submission Deadline: 1/31/26) | NAVSA

bit.ly

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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Aug 16

This is just the best!

Contribution idea: This lovely reading assignment by @aktange.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/akta...

Andrea Kaston Tange @aktange.bsky.social · Jul 16

Here you go! I'll write some new ones for this semester too. They loved them. The "read without your phone or screens in the room" was a revelation, and many of them decided to keep doing it. They had NO IDEA (& were horrified) how often they interrupt themselves to look at a phone for no reason.

Reading Scenario Experiments. This series of prompts is designed to get you thinking about how the setting for reading affects concentration, comprehension, and even the existential experience of reading. Every week, one of the following prompts will appear on the syllabus. I encourage you to try all of them that you are able. How does a different reading setting affect your mood? Your receptiveness to the prose? Your pleasure or difficulty reading? What are the particular impacts of changing your lighting or surroundings? What do you notice about yourself and about the work you are reading during this experiment?
1. read by candlelight (use a small lamp in dorms where no candles are allowed!)
2. read for one hour without checking any devices, answering texts, etc.
3. walk out into nature (climb a tree, sit on a rock, grab a spot in a hammock) and read
4. host a reading night with friends & food (sit in companionable silence, reading without chatting)
5. read aloud a chapter to someone else
6. climb into bed at night and read by flashlight under the covers for at least 30 minutes, as if you’ve already been told “lights out” as a kid
7. reread a chapter and see what new things you notice the second time through
8. change your ambient-noise level: add music if you normally read in the quiet; or read without music if you are normally a music-listener
9. read with a sketchpad at hand and sketch scenes, characters, or other elements from the story
10. practice focused listening: have someone read to you
11. make yourself a special, fancy snack on a real plate to nibble while eating: pay attention to the cooking or arranging or choosing of ingredients to make it especially appetizing first
12. make tea (even if you’re not usually a tea drinker), and read and sip
13. invent a new reading scenario for yourself, or repeat the one you liked the best from this term

[writing assignment using these prompts follows; text character limit prevents inclusion of it in full]

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Reposted by Anna Gibson

Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · Aug 15

teachers!

excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.

take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com

AGAINST AI

against-a-i.com

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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Jun 20

Thwarted in my evening reading. @nathankhensley.bsky.social, my cat is a fan 😁😻

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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Jun 16

I don’t think we really need EEG to tell us that outsourcing thinking to AI decreases learning in writing tasks, but I suppose we can hope that studies like this *might* check the institutional bandwagoning. arxiv.org/pdf/2506.088...

arxiv.org

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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Jun 13

Maybe we just dispense with the paper now and get them turning in an essay prompt with a rubric. Optional: they feed it to ChatGPT and grade it themselves. Who needs instructors 😆😜😭

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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Jun 4

These kind of ChatGPT performances are like having conversations with a sociopath. It lies so confidently—such a symptom of our current times, except with these odd extended apologies.

Diabolus Ex Machina

This Is Not An Essay

open.substack.com

Reposted by Anna Gibson

Pete Orford @peteorford.bsky.social · Apr 18

Last night I had the pleasure of hearing @annagk.bsky.social talk to our Dickens postgraduates about www.dickensnotes.com - a fantastic open access resource showing Dickens's working notes for his novels. Highly recommended!

Digital Dickens Notes Project

The Digital Dickens Notes Project is an exploration of Charles Dickens's Working Notes

www.dickensnotes.com

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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Apr 18

It was such a pleasure to talk with you all!

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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Apr 3

I spent much of last semester applying for an NEH grant. All that work is wasted now. But this is so much bigger than my own disappointment.

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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Apr 3

Devastating

Cultural groups across U.S. told that federal humanities grants are terminated

Among the thousands of groups affected by the sudden cessation of funds are state arts councils, museums, historic sites, archives, libraries, educators and media outlets in all 50 states.

www.npr.org

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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Apr 2

"Al Gurad did not understand why his visa was terminated and the State Department had not provided a reason for the decision."

Two NC State students leave U.S. after visas terminated

Two NC State graduate students left the U.S. after the State Department revoked their visas. The University was not notified beforehand but offered support.

www.technicianonline.com

Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Apr 2

Devastating. For those of us waiting for the result of grant applications, and for those who have active or awarded grants, this is just awful. But the impact of this move will be pervasive and long-lasting.

National Humanities Alliance @humanitiesall.bsky.social · Apr 1

On Monday, March 31, 2025 we learned that DOGE is targeting the NEH with the aim of substantially reducing its staff, cutting the agency’s grant programs, and rescinding grants that have already been awarded.

Learn what steps you can take here: nhalliance.org/federal-fund...

Save the NEH! – National Humanities Alliance

nhalliance.org

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Reposted by Anna Gibson

ACH @ach.bsky.social · Mar 12

ACH has confirmed reports that DOGE is at the NEH. Chair Shelly C. Lowe has been replaced by Acting Chair Michael McDonald. ACH remains committed to a diverse, inclusive, and supportive DH. To engage in advocacy efforts: [email protected]. Read our statement of support for NEH: buff.ly/bQeRaGw

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Reposted by Anna Gibson

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · Feb 8

Scientists and journalists need to figure out right quick how to explain to the average person how a massive change in research indirects will impact the medical care they and their children get (eg at the local children’s hospital), the education their children will get, the price of tuition, etc.

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Reposted by Anna Gibson

Devin Garofalo @devingarofalo.bsky.social · Feb 8

This is a very helpful thread re: the slashing of overhead rates on NIH grants. It is an atrocity and, as OP states, an attempt to decimate higher ed. This guidance goes into effect immediately, affecting not only future but also current grants, which is to say current university budgets.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Feb 8

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

NOT-OD-25-068: Supplemental Guidance to the 2024 NIH Grants Policy Statement: Indirect Cost Rates

NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Supplemental Guidance to the 2024 NIH Grants Policy Statement: Indirect Cost Rates NOT-OD-25-068. OD

grants.nih.gov

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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · Feb 4

Everything is bleak. But my Brit Lit survey students are writing about why The History of Mary Prince matters in 2025, and they are giving me hope.

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Reposted by Anna Gibson

Nicholas Guyatt @nicholasguyatt.bsky.social · Jan 26

For me the scariest thing about week 1 (and the transition) has been precisely this phenomenon of “anticipatory obedience”; institutions are showing us the thinness of their commitment to values they previously claimed to hold