Ben O'Dell
@benodell.bsky.social
Associate professor of English in Atlanta, Georgia. Interested in Victorian literature and culture, genre, narrative time, the historical novel, the gothic.
Reposted by Ben O'Dell
I moved off Canvas this fall, and have set up spring using Box folders with some refinements from my students: organizing everything in weekly folders, & adding a shared calendar they can subscribe to in order to give them the deadline alerts they miss from Canvas.
THIS THIS THIS. ALL OF THIS
THIS is why faculty resist technological strategies for teaching. There is no engaging with Edtech without this context
THIS is why faculty resist technological strategies for teaching. There is no engaging with Edtech without this context
December 30, 2025 at 4:13 AM
I moved off Canvas this fall, and have set up spring using Box folders with some refinements from my students: organizing everything in weekly folders, & adding a shared calendar they can subscribe to in order to give them the deadline alerts they miss from Canvas.
Apparently, Gen Z is romanticizing "millenial optimism" on social media. I'm struggling to think of a worse mischaracterization.
December 27, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Apparently, Gen Z is romanticizing "millenial optimism" on social media. I'm struggling to think of a worse mischaracterization.
Me: tying to finally watch One Battle After Another this week.
My kids: refusing to go to bed before 10 pm.
My kids: refusing to go to bed before 10 pm.
December 26, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Me: tying to finally watch One Battle After Another this week.
My kids: refusing to go to bed before 10 pm.
My kids: refusing to go to bed before 10 pm.
Just finished listening to Jordan Castro's Muscle Man on Audible while doing some projects around the house this week. It's an absolutely devastating satire of English Departments, told from the perspective of a neurotic Dostoevsky scholar. Definitely one of the best books I've encountered in 2025.
December 18, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Just finished listening to Jordan Castro's Muscle Man on Audible while doing some projects around the house this week. It's an absolutely devastating satire of English Departments, told from the perspective of a neurotic Dostoevsky scholar. Definitely one of the best books I've encountered in 2025.
It is always a pleasure to listen to Zadie Smith. This interview is a rare glimpse of light in an otherwise dark and bizarre week.
Zadie Smith's heads up to young people: 'You are absolutely going to become old'
Smith was 25 in 2000 when she published her critically acclaimed first novel. Now 50, her latest collection of essays, Dead and Alive, reflects on middle age, climate change and generational gaps.
www.npr.org
December 16, 2025 at 3:32 PM
It is always a pleasure to listen to Zadie Smith. This interview is a rare glimpse of light in an otherwise dark and bizarre week.
Reposted by Ben O'Dell
Did you know?
In the Victorian era, railways employed men whose sole job was to manually apply brakes on moving trains.
Before automatic braking systems, each rail car had its own hand brake, and there was no way for the engineer to stop the entire train at once.
#Victorian #history
In the Victorian era, railways employed men whose sole job was to manually apply brakes on moving trains.
Before automatic braking systems, each rail car had its own hand brake, and there was no way for the engineer to stop the entire train at once.
#Victorian #history
December 12, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Did you know?
In the Victorian era, railways employed men whose sole job was to manually apply brakes on moving trains.
Before automatic braking systems, each rail car had its own hand brake, and there was no way for the engineer to stop the entire train at once.
#Victorian #history
In the Victorian era, railways employed men whose sole job was to manually apply brakes on moving trains.
Before automatic braking systems, each rail car had its own hand brake, and there was no way for the engineer to stop the entire train at once.
#Victorian #history
Reposted by Ben O'Dell
I guess it's fitting that it's a reimagined, worse version of someone else's artwork
December 12, 2025 at 4:00 AM
I guess it's fitting that it's a reimagined, worse version of someone else's artwork
I'm halfway through watching The Lobster for the first time, and I'm wondering if we need to raise our standards for what constitutes a dystopia.
December 12, 2025 at 4:12 PM
I'm halfway through watching The Lobster for the first time, and I'm wondering if we need to raise our standards for what constitutes a dystopia.
The fabricated/hallucinated source issue has really become the worst part of teaching English composition in the era of generative AI. I'm toying with the idea of a hardcopy "research packet" of annotated articles for the spring in an effort to curb bad behavior. Has anyone tried this?
December 9, 2025 at 2:39 PM
The fabricated/hallucinated source issue has really become the worst part of teaching English composition in the era of generative AI. I'm toying with the idea of a hardcopy "research packet" of annotated articles for the spring in an effort to curb bad behavior. Has anyone tried this?
I had no idea that Linklater had put out Nouvelle Vague, a film about the making of Breathless, roughly in the style of Godard and the French New Wave. It's surprisingly good at capturing the moment, but Zoey Deutch is a little rough as Jean Seberg (which, I guess, is intentional).
December 7, 2025 at 11:01 PM
I had no idea that Linklater had put out Nouvelle Vague, a film about the making of Breathless, roughly in the style of Godard and the French New Wave. It's surprisingly good at capturing the moment, but Zoey Deutch is a little rough as Jean Seberg (which, I guess, is intentional).
How long until we find out Mad Men used AI for the 4k restoration?
December 3, 2025 at 9:11 PM
How long until we find out Mad Men used AI for the 4k restoration?
I'm going to start using the phrase "the thin tweed line" to describe professors as the last line of defense between knowledge and AI slop.
November 23, 2025 at 10:43 PM
I'm going to start using the phrase "the thin tweed line" to describe professors as the last line of defense between knowledge and AI slop.
Reposted by Ben O'Dell
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 20, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
I feel like we don't really appreciate AI's erasure of various archives. Search Google with questions about a cover song on an obscure indie record or what's sampled in a rap song. You will likely get radio silence or misinformation, even if that information exists in some corner of the web.
November 20, 2025 at 3:20 PM
I feel like we don't really appreciate AI's erasure of various archives. Search Google with questions about a cover song on an obscure indie record or what's sampled in a rap song. You will likely get radio silence or misinformation, even if that information exists in some corner of the web.
Henry Rollins's transformation from angry punk to cheery public radio host needs to be studied.
November 20, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Henry Rollins's transformation from angry punk to cheery public radio host needs to be studied.
Has anyone leaned into style guides like Strunk and White in an effort to offset students's increasing reliance on Grammarly? It seems like as much as instructors try to deemphasize the importance of style and "correctness," students really care about these things.
November 19, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Has anyone leaned into style guides like Strunk and White in an effort to offset students's increasing reliance on Grammarly? It seems like as much as instructors try to deemphasize the importance of style and "correctness," students really care about these things.
Reposted by Ben O'Dell
remember that there are obvious career incentives to being the guy who publishes articles about how AI is actually quite useful in the classroom.
April 26, 2025 at 2:49 PM
remember that there are obvious career incentives to being the guy who publishes articles about how AI is actually quite useful in the classroom.
This is too real.
Critically Acclaimed Horror Film of the 2010s or Your PhD Program?
1. You encounter a strange, cult-like group that lives in almost total isolation from the outside world. They jealously guard their arcane knowledg...
www.mcsweeneys.net
October 26, 2023 at 9:09 PM
This is too real.
My reoccurring nightmare is that I'm somehow missing an UNDERGRADUATE course from my transcripts. To avoid losing my job as a professor, I have to covertly enroll in something like Intro to Biology before my department finds out.
July 5, 2023 at 10:40 PM
My reoccurring nightmare is that I'm somehow missing an UNDERGRADUATE course from my transcripts. To avoid losing my job as a professor, I have to covertly enroll in something like Intro to Biology before my department finds out.
How powerful is the pull of nostalgia? I just watched 3 episodes of the American Gladiators documentary on Netflix.
July 4, 2023 at 2:03 PM
How powerful is the pull of nostalgia? I just watched 3 episodes of the American Gladiators documentary on Netflix.