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Alexander R. Phillips

@arphillips.bsky.social

1.6K followers 640 following 920 posts

Assistant professor of English at Ashoka University, read: rogue Germanist in India. Author: "Ecology and German Realism." Literature, ecocriticism, environmental humanities, C19. I cycle, I make beer, I think about books for money.

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Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · Aug 3

Please read my book, "Ecology and German Realism," out now with @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social. But if you're in a hurry, you can also read this.
#litwiss

boydellandbrewer.com/blog/german/...

Before Environmentalism: Nature and Industry in German Literature

Alexander Philips explores how authors such as Raabe and Stifter grappled with the environmental changes that industrialization bought about.

boydellandbrewer.com

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Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 15h

Please, please call me on my sh*t while there's still time!

Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 15h

Luckily I'll never be famous enough to be anyone's research topic. Because if you went into my archive and saw... Editors save authors from themselves.

violent alien @blipstress.bsky.social · 17h

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips

Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 2d

“where’s the whale? did he get the whale yet?”

lindsey adler @lindseyadler.bsky.social · 2d

...

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Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips

Alexa Ray Corriea @alexaray.bsky.social · 2d

It’s boiling in October because you’re using ChatGPT to write your emails, Janice.

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Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 3d

Highways too are technologies of separation.
#BanCars

David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 3d

Seems bad:

"Urban highways are associated with decreased social connectivity."

"This barrier effect [is] consistent with historical cases of highways that were built to purposefully disrupt or isolate Black neighborhoods."

doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips

OB Cycler @obcycler.bsky.social · 3d

Screaming in San Diego 😱

Urban core of San Diego which is the same area as Manhattan but has 7 freeways dividing it.

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Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 3d

Twin Peaks: The Return is the perfect allegory for American rot. And the Trinity test episode is one of the most astonishing hours of TV I have ever seen.

Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips

Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 4d

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Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 5d

1998 was also the model year of the only reliable inkjet printer I have ever owned.

Anna Holmes @annabookwriter.bsky.social · 5d

The ideal form of the internet was achieved in 1998. Everything else has been downhill.

Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 5d

Nearly 20 years in academia and I have never seen a library website interface redesign that was better than the older version, NEVER

Why is it always like this

Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips

Nosferatu RBMK 🦇 @comraderobot.bsky.social · 10d

This guy is absolutely right we should teach all children AI in the classroom!

bc i need the job security that comes with being permanently smarter than them until im 85

matt94250.bsky.social @matt94250.bsky.social · 11d

If you don’t teach your students how to use AI, you’re doing them a huge disservice because they won’t have jobs in the future.

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Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 11d

If you are at #TheGSA2025, might I suggest stopping by the @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social table and checking out this book by an author who is me. I'm pleased to see it in such fine company!

Book on table, "Ecology and German Realism: Poetics, Politics, and the Conquest of Nature."

Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 14d

Hello America, I'm here for #TheGSA2025. It's my first visit to the US in four years, did I miss anything?

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Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 17d

My supervisor, Bhuta, monitors the bottling of the Scottish Heavy. His face is on the bottle, so he has much at stake in the quality control process.

I was aiming for a lighter red than the reddish brown. Not that this color is anywhere out of style, I just wanted a prettier red.

Foreground: bowl with caps in sanitizing solution on left, bottle in capping machine on right. Center background, grey Persian catloaf.

Glass of uncarbonated reddish brown beer.

Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 17d

If so, then I hope the local Atlas fixie riders are well aware of how hip they are!

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Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 17d

In a rigidly hierarchical society like this one, people on these machines are barely a rung above pedestrians in the eyes of drivers and urban planners. But every time I see a person riding one, I think, they probably have no idea how hip they would be in Brooklyn.

#BanCars

Cool Bike Art @coolbikeart1.bsky.social · 17d

Bicycles on Side of Train, India, 1983
📷Steve McCurry

Photo of a train carriage, off of which two bicycles are hanging. Several passengers are visible through the open windows.

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Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 19d

"AI" made the shitty singularity even shittier.
#ShittyFuture

Roland Meyer @bildoperationen.bsky.social · 19d

Millions now living will never die;
they will continue to produce content in all eternity

Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 19d

We committed the original sin with Napster. And not because of copyright.

erika @yeeeerika.bsky.social · Jan 13

i don't want to hear your most boomer complaint. what's your most millennial complaint?

Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 19d

Admitted to my students that my publication in my school's undergrad research journal could be found in the bowels of the internet, and everyone promptly pulled up Google. 😬

Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 20d

Those of us who care about efficient and just transit systems for a liveable yearn for the 1890s. #BanCars

Cool Bike Art @coolbikeart1.bsky.social · 20d

Map of California, c. 1896, showing roads for "cyclers". Around the perimeter of the map are advertisements for California bicycle shops and riding schools.

Antique map of California showing cycling routes. Around the perimeter of the map are advertisements for bicycle-related things.

Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 23d

John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique! Absolute tour de force.

Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips

Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 24d

This technology is so clearly designed to profit off cheating and struggling students--its insidious. And yet universities keep announcing how they're allowing this company into its midst, to exploit and incapacitate our students even more

A photo from Jamie Keller Davis for the NYT: a color photo of a Chicago skyline showing three buildings photographed from street level. The one in the center has brown brick-like walls, and a very large poster advertising ChatGPT. The poster shows a conversation between a hypothetical student and ChatGPT: "Can you quiz me on the muscles of the leg?" "Can you build me a first time marathon training plan?" The text at the bottom of the poster reads: "ChatGPT Plus is free during finals.

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Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips

Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 25d

Reminder @theguardian.com has a partnership with OpenAI; which explains this thinly sourced excuse of an article that relies on ONE Masters student and OpenAI's International Education Lead countered by measly words of "caution" from ONE university admin.

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 25d

Vacuous, generic and scattershot advice for incoming 1st years on the use of AI at university. Especially liking 'Chin recommends giving it class notes and asking it to generate practice exam questions.' Surely we can't be the only programme that supplies students with past & practice exams?

How to use ChatGPT at university without cheating: ‘Now it’s more like a study partner’

The ubiquitous AI tool has a divisive effect on educators with some seeing it a boon and others a menace. So what should you know about where to draw the line between check and cheat?

www.theguardian.com

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Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 25d

Really the name alone should have gotten us talking about digital sovereignty.

Helena Fitzgerald @hellafitzgerald.bsky.social · 26d

in retrospect, there’s probably never been a name as threatening as “America Online”

Alexander R. Phillips @arphillips.bsky.social · 25d

And every typo, every clunkily-structured paragraph, brings a tear of joy.