Neil Fraistat
@fraistat.bsky.social
1K followers 480 following 66 posts
Prof. Emeritus of English UMD & Past President, Keats-Shelley Assoc.; Co-Gen Ed. Complete Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Romanticism, Textual Scholarship, DH, Media. "Rise like lions after slumber."
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Reposted by Neil Fraistat
aoc.bsky.social
ICE just arrested Brad Lander, the NYC Comptroller and one of the leading candidates for Mayor, without grounds.

He was conducting routine immigration court work, escorting individuals from hearings.

He asked ICE for their warrant - well within his legal rights.

This is political intimidation.
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
Whoa! NYC mayoral candidate and current city Comptroller Brad Lander seemingly arrested at the NYC immigration court while attending to escort someone attending their hearing.
gwynnefitz.bsky.social
Lander just got detained by federal agents as he tried to escort a man out of the courtroom. Lander was taken in an elevator with masked agents, along with one member of his NYPD security detail.
fraistat.bsky.social
Perfect! #ThanksBrett
halperta.bsky.social
Never forget one of Brett's most visionary contributions #ThanksBrett
A childlike drawing of a T-Rex saying "I like grants!! (Grr!)" in a blue circle. Text below the image reads "Office of Digital Humanities 2021".
fraistat.bsky.social
And they always were!
tjowens.bsky.social
I'll end this with this meme I made of @brettbobley.bsky.social at the 2015 Crowd Consortium forum that IMLS funded. That event built off one of the many amazing groundbreaking NEH Start Up grants that we all can #thanksbrett for :)
Reposted by Neil Fraistat
tjowens.bsky.social
I'll end this with this meme I made of @brettbobley.bsky.social at the 2015 Crowd Consortium forum that IMLS funded. That event built off one of the many amazing groundbreaking NEH Start Up grants that we all can #thanksbrett for :)
fraistat.bsky.social
Thanks @brettbobley.bsky.social! You and ODH provided the infrastructure for DH infrastructures, developed the instruments for instrumenting international collaborations, and envisioned the means for us to envision the future.Here's to your next chapter! I'll always value your last! #ThanksBrett
fraistat.bsky.social
I, for one, wouldn't want to miss this!
ksaacomm.bsky.social
Have you registered for the May Members' Meeting yet? Register today! Sign up to read a stanza, or just sit back and relax while @fraistat.bsky.social and Nora Crook read to you.
www.k-saa.org/events/k-saa...
Reposted by Neil Fraistat
hopkinspress.bsky.social
To accompany our lively discussion, we've assembled a reading list of works from past issues of @PoeStudies & other Hopkins Press journals, including work by Eliza Richards, Elissa Zellinger, Ben Bascom, Christa Holm Vogelius & more!

All free thru 30 May: tinyurl.com/rvu9kkzs
The Poe/tics of Reception
Poe Studies on 20 Years of Eliza Richards' Gender and the Poetics of Reception in Poe's Circle 
The Hopkins Press Podcast 
Illustrated with the Hopkins Press Podcast logo, the cover art from Poe Studies, and photographs of Eliza Richards, Elissa Zellinger, and Kelly Ross
fraistat.bsky.social
Amen!
katinalynn.bsky.social
New grants from NEH have been announced. I'm... trying to make sense of what's here, esp in light of everything that was canceled. www.neh.gov/news/neh-ann...
NEH Announces $9.55 Million for 68 Humanities Projects
www.neh.gov
fraistat.bsky.social
Very interesting project, with 861 entries to date. So far no entries for Shelley, but Coleridge is well represented.
c18ah.bsky.social
The #RomanticPeriodPoetryArchive's database of contextuality contains details about every context, including its type, function, and contributor.

#RPPA visualizes the work performed by each context drawing on a number of built-in tools.

www.romanticperiodpoetry.org

#Romanticism #DigitalHumanities
Sceenshot of a RPPA context page
fraistat.bsky.social
A helpful graphic to grasp things as they are and may be.
weedenkim.bsky.social
On 5/2, the @nytimes.com published a graphic showing the % change for each agency in Trump's proposed budget, compared to the 2025 budget.

For my undergraduate class, I made a variant that gives $ amounts. It uses the NYT data.

Happy to share w/ other instructors. DM or email if you want the ppt.
graphic showing major cuts to the agencies that help people, advance science, prevent fraud, and protect the environment and major budget gains to Defense and Homeland Security). LH side is in percentage terms, as in NYT article, right hand side is in billions of dollars.
Reposted by Neil Fraistat
nehafge3403.bsky.social
Still standing in solidarity with our #IMLS colleagues. 🤞 #NEH
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
BREAKING: Federal judge finds, in multistate lawsuit, that Trump's EO targeting three entities — Institute of Musuem and Library Services, Minority Business Development Agency, and Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service — likely violates the APA, Take Care Clause, and separation of powers.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
JOHN J. MCCONNELL, JR., United States District Court Chief Judge.
Once again, this Court is confronted with a legal challenge by various states,
against an Executive Order that attempts to dismantle congressionally sanctioned agencies and ignores congressionally appropriated funds. Here, the targeted federal agencies support our libraries, museums, minority business enterprises, and the well-respected federal mediation services. This Executive Order violates the Administrative Procedures Act ("APA") in the arbitrary and capricious way it was carried out. It also disregards the fundamental constitutional role of each of the
branches of our federal government; specifically, it ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated. Accordingly, because IMLS, MBDA, and FMCS have not provided a rational connection between the sweeping actions they have taken and the vague, conclusory justifications they have provided, the Court finds that the States have established a strong likelihood of success on their arbitrary and capricious claims. Ohio, 603 U.S. at 292. Further, the Court finds that the States have illustrated a strong likelihood of success on their claims that IMLS, MBDA, and FMCS acted arbitrarily and
capriciously in failing to consider reliance interests. Regents, 591 U.S. at 30; see also Smiley v. Citibank (S. Dakota), N.A., 517 U.S. 735, 742 (1996) (citations omitted)
("Sudden and unexplained change, . . . or change that does not take account of
legitimate reliance... may be 'arbitrary, capricious lor] an abuse of discretion." The Court therefore finds that the States are likely to succeed in establishing
that IMLS, MBDA, and FMCS violated the APA by acting "not in accordance" with
38
Case 1:25-cv-00128-JJM-LDA
Document 57 Filed 05/06/25 Page 39 of 49 PagelD #:
1396
their respective statutory mandates and congressional appropriations acts when
effectively absconding their statutory mandates by terminating core services and
grant programs.
Reposted by Neil Fraistat
drbibliomane.bsky.social
Come on, colleagues--let's support the MLA in their lawsuit over DOGE's illegal, illegitimate dismantling of the NEA and NEH--and help them out with the legal costs.
fraistat.bsky.social
Great to have this terrific journal available open access. Thank you @projectmuse.bsky.social !
studiesinrom.bsky.social
We are excited to announce the publication of our Spring 2025 issue, which includes essays by Shuta Kiba, Alistair Robinson, and J. Mark Smith. The issue is available Open Access on Project Muse @projectmuse.bsky.social: muse.jhu.edu/issue/54703. Details in the thread.
Reposted by Neil Fraistat
rezekjoe.bsky.social
“Our work is a model of federal funding done responsibly and cost-effectively, by returning tax dollars to the people of West Virginia in support of programs they themselves support, create, and execute in their home communities.” - WVa Humanities council on what NEH grant termination is destroying
rosecasey.bsky.social
West Virginia Humanities Council releases statement confirming that DOGE cuts, if they go ahead, will shutter the organization. Full text in image, described there in alt text.
West Virginia Humanities Council, Statement from the Board of Directors

The Board of Directors of the West Virginia Humanities Council [the Council], a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, was recently notified by the federal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), that support to our Council from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) was being terminated.

This abrupt termination of long-established and congressionally appropriated NEH funding support for the Council, which serves as the NEH’s official affiliate in and for the Mountain State, if sustained, will cause the closure of all Council activities within West Virginia.
The financial support received from NEH represents 50% of the Council’s annual budget. That funding is matched dollar-for-dollar by donations from West Virginians which together provide the funds that enable the Council to host events, provide programs, and support projects that preserve our state’s history and cultural heritage, and promote public discussions about issues that matter to West Virginians.

These funds enable the Council to create sustainable partnerships between the public and private sectors which contribute well over a million dollars every year to our state’s cultural economy, in the form of the grants and programs we provide to West Virginia cultural organizations, historical societies, schools, community centers, municipalities, and other entities. [text cont from 1st photo]: As the Council’s Board of Directors, we come from all areas of West Virginia, from communities of every size. We have seen firsthand, in our hometowns and in every county, the profound impact of the Council’s work. Rescinding of congressionally appropriated funding for the NEH means that our capacity to serve West Virginians will disappear, as will our significant contribution to our state’s rapidly growing cultural economy.

The impact will be felt everywhere, nowhere more directly than in the rural areas of our state. Our work is accomplished through the work that West Virginians do themselves. These dollars are locally directed; the projects they support are locally designed and locally delivered. Our work is a model of federal funding done responsibly and cost-effectively, by returning tax dollars to the people of West Virginia in support of programs they themselves support, create, and execute in their home communities.

[text from image]
West Virginians have historically demonstrated a culture of working past our differences to achieve ends that benefit us all. We call on our congressional representatives to defend and ensure the delivery of NEH funding appropriated in support of the West Virginia Humanities Council -funding that has, for 50 years, worked to serve all West Virginians.

Signed by Board President George 'Gib' Brown on April 11, 2025
on behalf and at the request of the West Virginia Humanities Council Board of Directors
Paul Papadopoulos, Vice President, Hurricane
J. Dan McCarthy, Treasurer, Fayetteville
Leslie Baker, Secretary, Beckley
Matt Bond, Charleston
Gregory Coble, Shepherdstown
Cicero Fain Ill, Huntington
Rita Hedrick-Helmick, Glenville
Elliot Hicks, Charleston
Charles Ledbetter, Charleston
Michele Moure-Reeves, Mathias
Amy Pancake, Romney
Katrena Ramsey, Ravenswood
Lisa Rose, Morgantown
Megan Tarbett, Hurricane
Pam Tarr, Charleston
John Unger, Martinsburg
Bryson VanNostrand, Buckhannon
Lydia Warren, Fairmont
fraistat.bsky.social
Interest to see Indivisible paraphrasing Percy Shelley's Mask of Anarchy for their upcoming May Day Rally:
STOP THE BILLIONAIRE TAKEOVER. WE ARE THE MANY. THEY ARE THE FEW. THIS IS MAY DAY.
fraistat.bsky.social
A lovely letter in every way. That font could be called "Elementary"
victorianmasc.bsky.social
Arthur Conan Doyle has one of the most delightfully legible handwriting styles of any 19thC writer. The letter below is to Bram Stoker, congratulating him on the publication of Dracula. Font people! Why has no-one made this into a font yet, like the Jane Austen font? #C19th
Letter from Doyle to Bram Stoker. My dear Bram SToker, I am sure you will not think it an impertinence if I write to tell you how very much I have enjoyed reading Dracula. I think it is the very best story of diablerie which I have read for many years etc.
Reposted by Neil Fraistat
adamneikirk.bsky.social
We’re still looking for more poets and artists! 👨‍🎨
bars.bsky.social
Romantic Poets in the Wild is back with the gothic and Keatsian poems of Clay F. Johnson! @clayfjohnson.bsky.social

We loved these imaginative formal poems and hope you do too as we enter into our cruelest month: www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=5919

Please share widely and support creative writing!
fraistat.bsky.social
Yes!
danielconvissor.bsky.social
Actually, flip the headline. It's really "How the Federal Government Became so Dependent on Universities."

These competitively awarded, peer reviewed research grants produce tremendous returns on investment. New tech, health, science that benefit all people & businesses in the USA & world.
fraistat.bsky.social
Amen.
katinalynn.bsky.social
💥 Another new piece from me. It drives me up the wall that those seeking to tear down humanities programs use arguments that fundamentally contradict each other. I call BS, and argue that the inconsistency reveals a pervasive fear of critical thought and social change. In @insidehighered.com
insidehighered.com
Opinion | A Logical Gap Behind Attacks on the Humanities

Two main arguments are used to attack the humanities. They can’t both be true, Katina L. Rogers writes. #HigherEd #EDUSky #AcademicSky bit.ly/43Sl82R
fraistat.bsky.social
From Shelley's Mask of Anarchy: "Rise like lions after slumber" #NoKings
fraistat.bsky.social
For #NoKings, the opening line of Shelley's "England in 1819": "An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King"
Reposted by Neil Fraistat
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
Wow, this is the first time we've heard this number. Previous reporting suggested it was $6 million. So now it's $15 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars to imprison people in El Salvador without trial.
debpearlstein.bsky.social
Van Hollen says he learned that Trump Admin agreed to pay El Salvador $15million to detain the men they sent there. He is aware that there is a "document that memorialized the payments" but he has not seen the document itself.