Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Aug 24

This book is a godsend for academic workers! Read it, share it with folks who care about the fate of democracy and the planet, teach it, talk it up within organizing, union, and faculty governance spaces. It's gonna be indispensable to the struggle to build a political economy that works for all.

University Keywords

How American universities operate as social and economic engines that shape society beyond their traditional educational roles.University Keywords gathers, contextualizes, and develops original unders...

www.press.jhu.edu

3 9

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Aug 19

So much I wanna say about this episode. For now, just wanna extend my most heartfelt thanks to Matt and the collective of good folks who make AV possible—and are fighting, on the daily, to build a more just, beautiful, and verdant future. Burn, burn—always, Matt—with Pater's "hard, gem-like flame"!

Cruel Futurism

The American Vandal · Episode

open.spotify.com

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Aug 11

Thinking (too much!) about technofeudalism, the seemingly unstoppable genocidal/ecocidal violence/madness directed toward Palestinians, climate apartheid, the death drive, Eisenhower's warnings about the military-industrial complex, Trump's interminable bloviating, then happened upon this title...

The Palestine Laboratory

Winner of the 2023 Walkley non fiction journalism prizeFinalist for the 2023 Moore Prize for Human Rights WritingIsrael's military industrial complex uses the occupied, Palestinian territories as a te...

www.versobooks.com

1

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jul 23

Academic workers at public regional universities MUST have a seat at the table with admin to determine their respective digital strategies; it's also imperative they have a say in their contracts with EdTech, AI startups, and companies like Ziplines. If not, they need to ORGANIZE and DEMAND it!

How Venture Capitalists Built A For-Profit "Micro-University" Inside Our Public Flagships

You can graduate any time, but you can never leave.

open.substack.com

1 1 5

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jul 20

Just formed a faculty-staff-student led Land-Use group at Grand Valley State University to collectively resist technofeudal projects in the Great Lakes region, such as the building of data centers that will drive up the costs of energy and water for working people...

JD Vance Funded AcreTrader. Here’s Why That Matters.

The real estate platform streamlines investing in US farmland. Now farms are fast becoming a portfolio staple for investors worldwide.

share.google

2

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · May 24

Close reading—FUCK YEAH!

Sanjay Sipahimalani @sansip.bsky.social · May 24

Why you should practice close reading.

defector.com/close-readin...

2

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · May 6

As I keep tellin' my students while they're makin' their podcasts together, if we're gonna make a revolution, we gotta become maestros in the ART of LISTENING. If yer feelin' down or downright disgusted with the state of things, then simply pour this tasty episode of AV into your ear!

From Technostructure To Technofeudalism (A Tale of Today, Episode #16)

with James Livingston, Astra Taylor, & Yanis Varoufakis

theamericanvandal.substack.com

1 1

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Apr 14

Paging all critical university studies folks—and anyone interested in understanding university budgets in the context of polycrisis—please join us for our webinar this Wednesday, April 16, 4:30-5:45, EDT. Link to register: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

1

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Apr 13

Gonna start with big picture stuff, theory, history of the financialization of higher education, then we're gonna discuss what we can practically do—budget activism.

1

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Apr 11

Sounds great. Hope you can attend the webinar, as there will be plenty of time for discussion!

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Apr 11

Paging all critical university studies folks—and anyone keen to learn more about university budgets—I'm jazzed to announce this is happenin' next week! Join us👇✊

3 57 99

Reposted by Brian Deyo

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · Jan 31

From @aaup.bsky.social, what to do if ICE is on your campus.

ICE On Your Campus
Questions to Ask Your Administration
1. What is campus policy with regard to working with federal immigration authorities?
2. Who should faculty contact in the event that they are approached by ICE agents?
3. What private/limited-access spaces can you make available where ICE agents cannot enter unless they have a valid warrant?
4. Are you planning to communicate with students, staff, and faculty about their privacy rights? These rights include the right to deny immigration officers entry to their homes (including dorms) unless officers have a judicial warrant, and the right to not respond to the questions or statements of an immigration officer who is seeking to enter their home without a judicial warrant.
5. Are you planning to communicate guidance that, if a federal immigration enforcement officer seeks to enter a limited-access area on campus, students and workers should ask the officer for their name, identification number, agency affiliation, and business card, and inform the officer that they are not obstructing their process but need to contact the campus legal counsel for assistance?
6. What campus authority should students contact if they are contacted by ICE?
What Chapter Leaders Can Do Now
1. Provide to faculty any campus plan or policy and any campus authority contact.
2. Create a list of immigration attorneys who can be contacted in case of emergencies day and night.
3. Distribute a family preparedness plan template to your members. Example: aaup.org/ILRC-plan
4. Conduct Know Your Rights sessions for your members; these do not have to be done by an attorney.
Recommendations for Organizing on Your Campus
Engage members via a petition, open letter, high-participation meeting, in-person demonstration, or other collective action to demand that your campus administrators:
1. Not comply with ICE to detain or deport students, faculty, or staff unless legally required to do so.
2. Ensure that noncitizens understand the difference between an …

6 500 650

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jan 25

"The Iron Dome is a global project [....] a certain kind of fortressed inequality and apartheid that is actually a global project."

‘The Exceptions Have Become the Rule.’ Naomi Klein on Trump, Gaza and the End of the ‘Liberal Order’

Award-winning author and journalist Naomi Klein speaks to Democracy in Exile.

dawnmena.org

1

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jan 24

Anticipatory obedience is suicide.

Against Anticipatory Obedience

The statement that follows, prepared by a joint subcommittee of the Association’s Committee on College and University Governance and Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, was approved for public...

www.aaup.org

1

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jan 16

Methinks the late Fredric Jameson would have deep and penetrating insight into the fact that a US president-elect/greedhead/bullyboy/con-man/real estate mogul just brokered a ceasefire in Gaza:

"I will put a very simple proposition to you: namely that today, all politics is about real estate."

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jan 16

"These developments expose without a shadow of a doubt that the Biden administration’s failure to achieve a ceasefire was always wilful, and that the Democratic Party government positively chose to arm and support the genocide.

There will have to be accountability for that."

Why is Trump pressuring Israel to end its war on Gaza?

Gaza ceasefire is closer than ever thanks to resistance steadfastness and intervention by US president-elect.

electronicintifada.net

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jan 11

Galvanizing to witness hundreds of fellow academic workers protesting the MLA's refusal to allow its members to vote to approve a resolution endorsing the 2005 call of Palestinian civil society organizations to boycott, sanction, and divest from Israel at the Delegate Assembly meeting today✊🇵🇸♾️

2

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jan 11

Matt has answers to the ongoing and accelerating climate catastrophe—build and harness the power of a transnational labor movement. Wanna do something about the wildfires in California? Or the genocide in Gaza? Support and build unions that are excited and ready to FIGHT to defend the planet!

Matt Huber @matthuber.bsky.social · Jan 11

The video of my talk to the Marxist Education Project (@project_marx) on "Reading Capital in an Age of Climate Change." www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PNL...

Reading Capital in an Age of Climate Change with Matt Huber - Jan 8 2025

YouTube video by Marxist Education Project

www.youtube.com

1 5

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jan 11

Lookin' out my hotel window at the MLA in New Orleans and ... cruise ships on the Mississippi—WTF?😱

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jan 9

Warm thanks to colleagues in the MLA for their principled stance on the genocide in Gaza. Anti-BDS legislation is fascistic and continuous with the barbarous logics of coloniality since 1492. To capitulate to the idol of neoliberal economic rationality at this historical moment is MADNESS!

Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · Jan 9

“The Chicago School doctrine of Corporate Social Responsibility is a rhetorical justification for private corporations to do what they prefer to do anyway: act contrary to the interests of rank-&-file employees, harmed communities, & social activists. This is what the MLA is endorsing…”

What The MLA Is...

The organization has chosen an interpretation of fiduciary responsibility beyond the wildest hopes of Chicago School economists.

open.substack.com

1 1

Reposted by Brian Deyo

Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · Jan 9

“In order to shoot off one email per week for a year, ChatGPT would use up 27 liters of water, or about one-and-a-half jugs… that means if one in 10 U.S. residents—16 million people—asked ChatGPT to write an email a week, it’d cost more than 435 million liters of water.”

AI doesn’t just require tons of electric power. It also guzzles enormous sums of water.

It also guzzles enormous sums of water.

fortune.com

120 2.5K 4K

Reposted by Brian Deyo

Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · Jan 8

Events like the California fires demonstrate why it's so dangerous when tech billionaires decide to eschew rigorous fact-checking. Social media remains a vital source of real-time life-saving information during crises and disasters. Having accurate information is often a matter of life or death.

4 99 410

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jan 9

Holy smokin' mother of SIN! "BILLIONS AND BILLIONS SERVED"—indeed ... and legions upon legions of wild-ass chickens comin' home to roost!

So this is 2025—buckle up, folks ... and UNIONIZE, UNIONIZE, UNIONIZE!

Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · Jan 9

The wind gusts are devastating. Truly a hurricane of fire.

Video: @stuartpalley.bsky.social

Reposted by Brian Deyo

Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · Jan 9

Always read Mike Davis:

"You say fire, I say climate change, and we both ignore the financial and real-estate juggernaut that drives the suburbanisation of our increasingly inflammable wildlands."

"Unnecessarily, our children, and theirs, will continue to face the flames."

Mike Davis | El Diablo in Wine Country

In 1942 Alfred Hitchcock recruited the author of Our Town, Thornton Wilder, to write the screenplay for Shadow of a...

www.lrb.co.uk

2 59 170

Brian Deyo @deyob.bsky.social · Jan 3

One last thing. If you're keenly interested in critical university studies, but don't always have time to read the latest, AV is a lively, inspiring, and accessible digest of CUS concepts, themes, and concerns.

9