For more on the circumstances of Prof. Dixon’s situation: www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

To all fellow academics concerned about censorship and the violation of faculty members’ first amendment rights, please consider signing this petition to reinstate Prof. Dixon at UNC:
www.change.org/p/reinstate-...

The first thing they said about the article was “It was weird” 😂 but they ended by saying “He had some good points” …in freshman speak that is a slam dunk.

The discussions about narrator v. author and about imagination (it’s “about” the urn but he’s more interested in imaginative scenes beyond the urn) were the portions they lingered on the most.

But even that proved fruitful for discussion: can sexual desire be compatible with admiration? Why do we assume that the speaker is intrinsically noble or good? Can we say that the speaker is rapey without saying that Keats is? Perhaps Keats’ desires are not transparent to Keats himself…

It was a really interesting conversation. Consistent with other classes I’ve taught (maybe because of geography? Age? Covid generation?), they are ~so~ scandalized by reading sexuality in the poem—they seemed to view this as cheapening the beauty and admiration that the speaker expresses

Excited to introduce Vibes from Meta. Eat your slop, piggies!

Assigned this fabulous essay by @drbeard79.bsky.social to my freshman students for class today and the discussion felt like a sociological experiment into Gen Z’s conservative sexual politics.

The Onion’s Exclusive Interview With Gavin Newsom
https://theonion.com/the-onions-exclusive-interview-with-gavin-newsom/

Reading about Noel Billing’s attacks on Maude Allen after her 1906 performance of Salomé. His hit piece was titled, “The Cult of the Clitoris”… I just want to know why a lesbian punk rock band hasn’t stolen this title because it’s truly inspired.

I am having a hard time reconciling "Charlie Kirk was a fierce advocate of open dialogue and free expression" with "we must identify and persecute everyone who is insufficiently mournful"

Thrilled to be included among fabulous contributors to the latest edition of Dilettante Army, “Ekphrasis.”

Read on for speculations about AI boyfriends, avant-garde burlesque shows, killer machines, and the Freudian death drive.

dilettantearmy.com/articles/ekp...

So excited to read this! I was truly delighted perusing others’ essays for the issue!

Thrilled to be included among fabulous contributors to the latest edition of Dilettante Army, “Ekphrasis.”

Read on for speculations about AI boyfriends, avant-garde burlesque shows, killer machines, and the Freudian death drive.

dilettantearmy.com/articles/ekp...

“It is central to human nature to hate someone you have harmed.”

proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris #Tacitus

they invented the oracle of delphAI

Me, a comparatist, when Reviewer 2 tells me my work isn’t art historical enough to be art history, classical enough to be classics, or literary enough to be lit crit:

Mind you, this also comes back to my central contention that the best job market advice in the hellscape is that there is absolutely no way you can meet the eternally moving goalposts, so you should do what you want to do and be happy with it instead.

YES. I absolutely love that!

Given the hellacious job market, I’ve been conditioned to scrutinize every piece of my writing as though it needs to fit neatly into a coherent, unitary approach that I’m bringing to the field.

Instead, let’s all strive for the confidence of a white male intellectual in the early 20th century.

One of the things I find genuinely inspiring about reading Freud is his unabashed willingness to speculate wildly. The man would unapologetically publish diametrically opposed ideas in two papers within a mere three year span without giving a single fuck.

“I am not some sleek, futuristic glyph. I am the battered, coffee-stained backbone of writerly panic—the gasping pause where a thought should have ended but simply could not.”
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...

What am I writing about right now? According to my stream of consciousness marginal comments…

hi