Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · 2d

bring back a thousand little geocities

Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 3d

apparently it's a place where things are happening but i have zero desire to get on substack

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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · 9d

Of all the individual actions we're told to do that don't actually do anything to solve the climate crisis (relative to the damage done by corporations and private jets), stomping on a lantern fly that has no business being in harlem really does feel like doing something.

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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · 9d

ditto!

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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · 9d

Was extolling the 90s-era magic (and safety) of the Tin Can phone to @rezekjoe.bsky.social & husband (IRL!!!) yesterday, so figure today I might as well proselytize on a broader scale!
tincan.kids?srsltid=AfmB...

Tin Can - The Landline, Reinvented for Kids

The super-magical Wi-Fi landline for kids. No screens, no texting, no strangers — just real conversation with Grandma, besties, and contacts you approve. Plug in, twirl that cord, and time-travel to p...

tincan.kids

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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · 12d

1. Bravo
2. Bravo
3. F***ing Bravo

Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 12d

list 3 things you can talk about for 3 hours with no prep

1. the feces of various species
2. lunch meat
3. sweetbreads

dr joshua phillips @woolfianjosh.bsky.social · 12d

list 3 things you can talk about for 3 hours with no prep

1. Virginia Woolf
2. Leonard Woolf's wife
3. Adeline Virginia Stephen

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Reposted by Erica Fretwell

Tim Watson @timwatson.bsky.social · 12d

CHOTINER: Many say Middlemarch is the greatest 19th-century novel.

GEORGE ELIOT: I sought only to shine a light on unhistoric acts, people destined for unvisited tombs.

CHOTINER: These Chotiner memes—Star Wars, the poem about plums, Moby-Dick. Are you jealous?

GEORGE ELIOT: That f***ing whale.

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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · 13d

long live expertise!

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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · 14d

ding ding ding ding

Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 14d

I think…people’s obsession with “a cause”…is precisely because autism’s genetic randomness is hard to stratify by social class……………..

Audra Mitchell @audralmitchell.bsky.social · 15d

THERE. ARE. NO. 'CAUSES'. OF. AUTISM.

(other than being born as a member of Homo sapiens, which is a huge risk factor for turning out to be Autistic).

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Reposted by Erica Fretwell

Dan Rosen @danrosen.xyz · 14d

Every single Isaac Chotiner interview

A still from the TV show Arrested Development, with Tobias Funke telling his wife Linsday "But it might work for us."

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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · 15d

yep...

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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · 15d

shouldn't be, yet am, surprised to see the general course survey questions shift from they have been for decades about student perception of instructor preparedness and availability to student perception of whether the instructor is 'indoctrinating' students ("divergent viewpoints" etc)

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Reposted by Erica Fretwell

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...

Large Language Muddle | The Editors

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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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · 23d

if anyone's looking for a distraction, i'm happy to discourse on how overrated apple picking is

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Reposted by Erica Fretwell

Thorpe Langton @mspdawg.bsky.social · 25d

We need to bring back the communal living room computer

How the shared family computer protected us from our worst selves

It was vital to our lives, yet remained quiet and unobtrusive

www.theverge.com

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Reposted by Erica Fretwell

🎃scarecrowcialism👻 @swolecialism.bsky.social · 25d

Honestly it seems to me that one of the most important tasks for modern parents is raising their kids to be mostly offline normies

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Reposted by Erica Fretwell

Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 29d

"How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor?"

A Dramatic Reading of The Recent New York Times Dispatch from the Hamptons.

Presented by The Gilded Age's Morgan Spector.

870 7.9K 31K

Reposted by Erica Fretwell

Deborah McDowell @dem8z.bsky.social · Aug 30

Here’s the thing: I too hope the rumors are true, but even if they are, we are still in deep 💩—and for a very long time to come.

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Reposted by Erica Fretwell

Oren Samet @osamet.bsky.social · Aug 28

I know there's a lot happening today, but this is sneaking in under the radar. This proposed new rule would absolutely crush foreign PhD students, potentially making it impossible for them to enroll with any certainty of their ability to finish www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · Aug 28

Sheila!!! WTF!!! I hate this for you & your colleagues

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Reposted by Erica Fretwell

Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · Aug 19

"The disciplining of Ben Robinson is a violation of his academic freedom that sends a chilling message to all faculty members."
jeffreycisaacdesign.wordpress.com/2025/08/19/i...

Indiana University’s Disciplining of Ben Robinson is an Embarrassment and an Outrage

August 19, 2025 Ben Robinson is a tenured Associate Professor of Germanic Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he has taught for over 20 years. Rick Van Kooten is a tenured Professor o…

jeffreycisaacdesign.wordpress.com

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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · Aug 16

admittedly not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but i just got a bee sting and it huuuuuuuuuurts

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Reposted by Erica Fretwell

Nate Wolff @natewolff.bsky.social · Jul 24

It's your boys @rezekjoe.bsky.social and me in The Boston Globe! In print on Sunday! (We are in a big fight about how to interpret the ending of Poe's novel and the illustration poignantly captures the strain in our friendship.)

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/24/a...

A strange Poe novel might be just the right book for today’s weird times - The Boston Globe

Two local academics who contributed to a new edition of “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” say the book’s 19th century ideas around race, exploration, and capitalism speak to our own er...

www.bostonglobe.com

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Erica Fretwell @ericafretwell.bsky.social · Jul 24

having spent most of my life reading literature within an institutional context --either in/for a class (first as student, then as teacher) or on my own for professional research--I really *really* **really** enjoy (re-)reading with my kid.

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Reposted by Erica Fretwell

Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · Jul 24

Many people in power are not offering an honest assessment of where we are politically in this country because that assessment would call on them to do things they simply refuse to do. That's where we are right now.

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Reposted by Erica Fretwell

🇨🇦 CIDK Radio @cidkradio.bsky.social · Jul 21

#That70sChallenge #MusicSky #MusicChallenge

Day 21 - Sound and Vision (1977)
#DavidBowie

A picture-perfect groove with the “blue, blue electric blue” line floating over it. I remember running around with my friends in the warm summer evenings harmonizing that line. 😀

youtu.be/Fzf0JxUW2HM

Sound and Vision (2017 Remaster)

YouTube video by David Bowie - Topic

youtu.be

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