Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 3d

If you are a supporter and reader of @contingent-mag.bsky.social one of the biggest things you can do to help us at the moment is get this CFP to the NTT folks in your life. The fracturing of social media has made it very difficult to get the word out esp. to adjuncts and VAPs.

The monster has been here all along. It is a historical constant that manifests in wildly different ways across time, place, and culture. Whatever form it takes, the monster claws at categories; it un...

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Alison Laurence @dinostalgia.bsky.social · 2d

That legitimately sent a shiver down my spine. Is this praxis?

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Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 7d

Our new CFP is up and it is monstrous.

The monster has been here all along. It is a historical constant that manifests in wildly different ways across time, place, and culture. Whatever form it takes, the monster claws at categories; it un...

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Alison Laurence @dinostalgia.bsky.social · 3d

You know, I think I was channeling someone... or something... else when I typed up that line.

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Center for Monster Studies @ UC Santa Cruz @ucscmonsters.bsky.social · 7d

Only 2 weeks before the Festival of Monsters! Keynote 10/15 by David Livingstone Smith, conference 10/16-17, and a day of events including a panel with @almakatsu.bsky.social Nat Cassidy, and @gretchenmcneil.bsky.social at @bookshopsantacruz.bsky.social on 10/18. Details monsterstudies.ucsc.edu

A skeletal monster with a skeleton bird on its tongue is the poster image for the 2025 Festival of Monsters, Oct. 15-18 in Santa Cruz, Calif.

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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 7d

Normally our December issue is six mini-essays, but with the support of the Kitchings Family Foundation, we're going to be able to support six shorts--twice the word count, twice the pay!--as well as an amazing feature-length review we've already got lined up.

Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 7d

It’s here! The call for pitches for our deluxe December issue, “A Time of Monsters,” supported by a grant from the Kitchings Family Foundation.

The monster has been here all along. It is a historical constant that manifests in wildly different ways across time, place, and culture. Whatever form it takes, the monster claws at categories; it un...

elmo from sesame street is surrounded by cookies falling around him

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Alison Laurence @dinostalgia.bsky.social · 7d

And here's the "Monsters" CFP in meme form...
Credit for the original painting: comic book artist Johnny Craig

A painting depicts two cars zooming in opposite directions on a roller coaster. In the first human riders are visibly afraid. In the second skeletons are reaching out. The meme overlay reads: "Skeletons who want to be friends with me." And over a frightened blonde woman, "Me, surprised, but excited to be friends with skeletons."

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Alison Laurence @dinostalgia.bsky.social · 7d

Allowing my typo to remain (though it PAINS me to do so) because it cuts right to the heart of it, doesn't it? Fiends are friends too.

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Alison Laurence @dinostalgia.bsky.social · 7d

It's monster time!

Alt: A fluffy blue muppet called Cookie Monster dances ecstatically under a cataract of chocolate chip confections. He's trying (but failing?) to catch the cookies in his mouth.

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Alison Laurence @dinostalgia.bsky.social · 7d

The monster is a friend, or so we @contingent-mag.bsky.social suggest in our CFP... a fiend to historians especially, though not exclusively.

Pitch us an essay about your historical monster, whatever form that monster takes, by October 20!

Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 7d

It’s here! The call for pitches for our deluxe December issue, “A Time of Monsters,” supported by a grant from the Kitchings Family Foundation.

The monster has been here all along. It is a historical constant that manifests in wildly different ways across time, place, and culture. Whatever form it takes, the monster claws at categories; it un...

a man with a pumpkin on his head is standing in a cemetery

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Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 8d

December issue CFP arrives today!

ALT: a man with a pumpkin on his head is standing in a cemetery

a black and white photo of a monster with barbed wire around its neck

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Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 9d

This year, we'll be publishing a ✨deluxe✨ December issue with 6 shorts and a feature-length review, made possible in part by a grant from the Kitchings Family Foundation!

The CFP arrives on Wednesday October 1. Don't miss it.

ALT: a black and white photo of a monster with barbed wire around its neck

a black and white photo of a man with a stethoscope around his neck screaming .

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Marc Reyes @marcus1984.bsky.social · 10d

The mad editors @contingent-mag.bsky.social have been conjuring a new CFP for our December issue. It will debut soon. Keep your eyes open and get ready to pitch. As always, the GIF is a hint.

ALT: a black and white photo of a man with a stethoscope around his neck screaming .

a dark cave with a glowing light coming out of it

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Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 10d

A new CFP emerges this week! Our seventh December issue is going to be bigger and better than ever, so make sure to keep an eye out for the call. As always, the GIF is a hint.

Alt: Mothra emerges from her cocoon in Godzilla KOTM

Large Language Muddle | The Editors

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Alison Laurence @dinostalgia.bsky.social · 13d

New fridge arrives this afternoon! Until then, I get to live in hope that my landlord has splurged on a model with an ice maker. (There will be no ice maker, but one *must* dream.)

Alison Laurence @dinostalgia.bsky.social · 14d

Doing a fridge worth of dishes—because !what joy! my fridge died and the room temp leftovers aren’t worth risking—but at least there’s a jolly view. The forbidden circus beckons.

View out my kitchen window: a half dozen skinny palm trees and other greenery. The red and blue striped fumigation tent across the street looks like such fun. Why are they so inviting?

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Sheila Liming @seeshespeak.bsky.social · 21d

“Not only is the ratio of AI’s resource rapacity to its productive utility indefensibly and irremediably skewed, AI-made material is itself a waste product: flimsy, shoddy, disposable, a single-use plastic of the mind.”

www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

The AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize any number of dread-inducing transformations. The university is becoming more corporate, more politically oppressive, and all but hostile to the ...

www.nplusonemag.com

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Brad Bolman @bolman.bsky.social · 21d

@petervale.bsky.social & I are looking for scholars interested in contributing to an upcoming workshop/special issue on aeromobility and 20th science & tech. How aircraft changed scientific practice, use in experiments, air travel as foundation for academic collaboration, etc. Please share!

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Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 24d

A reminder that we're collecting for our 2025 contingent publication lists!

Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians

Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...

Long before it was fashionable, Bloomer pioneered what would later be dubbed "respectability politics"

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Alison Laurence @dinostalgia.bsky.social · 25d

Scenes from the periphery of Race the Wave, a tsunami evacuation fun run in Santa Cruz. We started on the wharf, the one that partially collapsed last December, and raced to higher ground where an emergency preparedness resource fair greeted folks at the finish line. (I live in the inundation zone.)

Two "Race the Wave" participants standing beneath a Santa Cruz Boardwalk sign. A wooden rollercoaster is behind them.

Tsunami warning sign with the following cautions: if you feel an earthquake, go to high ground - stay there; large sneaker waves are possible, stay back, never turn your back on the ocean; strong outgoing rip currents are possible, avoid swimming/wading in the surf; rising tides can cut off access; know the tides - plan for rising water.

A "Race the Wave" t-shirt showing a map of Santa Cruz. The areas that would be threatened by a tsunami are outlined in bright yellow. (I live within that boundary...)

Under a cloudy sky, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk sky glider carriages circle, empty, except for the one occupied by a model of a caveman. (He's somehow linked to the "Cave Train" ride, which I've never experienced.)

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Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 29d

"The 'feminist killjoy' stereotype is as timely—and misleading—now as it was then."

A review of Sara Catterall's new biography of Amelia Bloomer by @hottycouture.bsky.social

Dressed for Reform