Julia Kowalski
@juliakowalski.bsky.social
Anthropologist: gender, kinship, violence, institutions, carework/care economy, interaction, with a focus on development, policy, and India
Yep. In terms of modern wonders childhood vaccines are like one million moon landings and parenthood made me appreciate the miracle of experiencing them as a rote task involving a beige drs office and a Bluey branded band-aid.
Since becoming a parent I have not, in fact, understood the parents who say “if you were a parent you’d understand” about vaccine hesitancy. Being in charge of this fragile little miracle has me saying things like “give her all the vaccines. Turn this baby into a pincushion” to doctors
December 5, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Yep. In terms of modern wonders childhood vaccines are like one million moon landings and parenthood made me appreciate the miracle of experiencing them as a rote task involving a beige drs office and a Bluey branded band-aid.
This semester I decided to take a break from institutional working groups, workshops, etc on AI and this thread does a better job than I could have articulating why all these different “opportunities” felt empty and disciplining instead of useful. They are addressing the wrong problem.
So the next time someone tries to draw you into a conversation about that piece they saw on 60 Minutes or read in the NYT about how educators are coping with/ combatting/whatever students using GenAI, don’t accept that framing. Make it about the industry that is impoverishing their education.
December 5, 2025 at 3:00 PM
This semester I decided to take a break from institutional working groups, workshops, etc on AI and this thread does a better job than I could have articulating why all these different “opportunities” felt empty and disciplining instead of useful. They are addressing the wrong problem.
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
Or better yet: make GenAI about an assault on civics. Because if you are selling a product that necessarily attempts to con one person into believing they are engaging with another person when they are not, you’re not just ruining education. You’re dismantling society’s foundations in social trust.
December 4, 2025 at 11:37 PM
Or better yet: make GenAI about an assault on civics. Because if you are selling a product that necessarily attempts to con one person into believing they are engaging with another person when they are not, you’re not just ruining education. You’re dismantling society’s foundations in social trust.
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
So the next time someone tries to draw you into a conversation about that piece they saw on 60 Minutes or read in the NYT about how educators are coping with/ combatting/whatever students using GenAI, don’t accept that framing. Make it about the industry that is impoverishing their education.
December 4, 2025 at 11:33 PM
So the next time someone tries to draw you into a conversation about that piece they saw on 60 Minutes or read in the NYT about how educators are coping with/ combatting/whatever students using GenAI, don’t accept that framing. Make it about the industry that is impoverishing their education.
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
It is a waste of educators’ labor to worry about policing students’ work or jury rigging AI-proof assignments.There are desultory ways of going about responding to such papers. But that doesn’t mean acquiescence. That means working towards and demanding structural changes at our institutions.
December 4, 2025 at 11:23 PM
It is a waste of educators’ labor to worry about policing students’ work or jury rigging AI-proof assignments.There are desultory ways of going about responding to such papers. But that doesn’t mean acquiescence. That means working towards and demanding structural changes at our institutions.
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
The NSF Bio Anthro Program DDRIG, Cultural Anthrpology DDRIG, and Archaeology DDRIG have all been archived (as of yesterday afternoon). Please speak with your grad students and plan accordingly. To say I am angry and depressed about this is an understatement.
November 26, 2025 at 3:25 PM
The NSF Bio Anthro Program DDRIG, Cultural Anthrpology DDRIG, and Archaeology DDRIG have all been archived (as of yesterday afternoon). Please speak with your grad students and plan accordingly. To say I am angry and depressed about this is an understatement.
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
Have you ever asked students to keep a research journal or a research log as a step toward the completion of an essay? I'd love to see what the assignment looked like.
November 21, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Have you ever asked students to keep a research journal or a research log as a step toward the completion of an essay? I'd love to see what the assignment looked like.
I’d go further (waves from anthro of kinship and politics): this isn’t just a matter of muddled terms. It’s a bad faith, deliberate xenophobic effort 1/…
October 29, 2025 at 2:07 PM
I’d go further (waves from anthro of kinship and politics): this isn’t just a matter of muddled terms. It’s a bad faith, deliberate xenophobic effort 1/…
Doing this now—made course packets for my students, most writing is in class, requiring they buy hard copies of the one required book (inexpensive and widely available used online). It feels really good and also has been revealing …/1
Fellow academics, I'm doing it. Going all in. Pulling the plug, literally.
This is on my syllabus for Spring 2026: "This is an analog class. No Canvas; this syllabus is your guide."
All readings are printed books; hand-written exams; no laptops. #academicbluesky #Highered #academia #Rutgers
This is on my syllabus for Spring 2026: "This is an analog class. No Canvas; this syllabus is your guide."
All readings are printed books; hand-written exams; no laptops. #academicbluesky #Highered #academia #Rutgers
October 21, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Doing this now—made course packets for my students, most writing is in class, requiring they buy hard copies of the one required book (inexpensive and widely available used online). It feels really good and also has been revealing …/1
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
Accepting this as an argument means accepting that, as an educator, your primary commitment is not to educating your students, or to propagating knowledge of your subject, but to finding and securing new markets for products in whose success your employers (or their bosses) have some kind of stake.
October 9, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Accepting this as an argument means accepting that, as an educator, your primary commitment is not to educating your students, or to propagating knowledge of your subject, but to finding and securing new markets for products in whose success your employers (or their bosses) have some kind of stake.
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
Generative AI, in both form and content, and whether looked on favourably or critically, seems to embody a collective hopelessness about the prospect of human learning and creativity, if not human knowledge altogether. It’s as if climate change had fans.
October 9, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Generative AI, in both form and content, and whether looked on favourably or critically, seems to embody a collective hopelessness about the prospect of human learning and creativity, if not human knowledge altogether. It’s as if climate change had fans.
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
further thoughts on this: the idea of ‘prompt engineering’ as a ‘skill’ that requires a mix of technical and linguistic ‘skills’ has been around for a while and doesn’t seem to disappear. what i’m interested in is not whether it’s a well-defined skill (probably not) or ‘valuable’ (probably not) but
okay, pals, i have heard one too many prompt engineering is a real and valuable skill’, this is gonna be a research project now
October 9, 2025 at 12:52 PM
further thoughts on this: the idea of ‘prompt engineering’ as a ‘skill’ that requires a mix of technical and linguistic ‘skills’ has been around for a while and doesn’t seem to disappear. what i’m interested in is not whether it’s a well-defined skill (probably not) or ‘valuable’ (probably not) but
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
Harvard redid its whole homepage to push back against the administration’s demands. I mean, this is just a website but I think it’s kind of a great PR move: www.harvard.edu
Harvard University
Harvard University is devoted to excellence in teaching, learning, and research, and to developing leaders who make a difference globally.
www.harvard.edu
April 14, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Harvard redid its whole homepage to push back against the administration’s demands. I mean, this is just a website but I think it’s kind of a great PR move: www.harvard.edu
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
Curtailing people’s ability to read widely and carefully, to locate, assess, and compare different sources for themselves, and to write in their own voice about what they find and what it means, is arguably more effective than censorship. It is also one of the most obvious effects of generative AI.
April 11, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Curtailing people’s ability to read widely and carefully, to locate, assess, and compare different sources for themselves, and to write in their own voice about what they find and what it means, is arguably more effective than censorship. It is also one of the most obvious effects of generative AI.
A point of light this week: students in my course reading the assigned texts closely enough to notice how the playful, joyful, snarky prose of Graeber and Wengrow, and Leguin, support their core argument that humans are adaptive creative snarky weirdos, and thus so many worlds are possible.
January 30, 2025 at 3:50 PM
A point of light this week: students in my course reading the assigned texts closely enough to notice how the playful, joyful, snarky prose of Graeber and Wengrow, and Leguin, support their core argument that humans are adaptive creative snarky weirdos, and thus so many worlds are possible.
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
I can't decide which would be a worse outcome here. That research is cut off permanently. Or that the administration uses the pause to implement new restrictions on science to the point where the only "research" researchers can do and publish is research supporting administration-approved "facts."
I’m an NSF panel reviewer that was scheduled to meet today. Just got notice that all NSF panels were canceled today. I reviewed some innovative proposals in support of students. Devastating if these scholars don’t get to do this work. For the love of science & students I hope this is just a delay.💔
January 27, 2025 at 5:52 PM
I can't decide which would be a worse outcome here. That research is cut off permanently. Or that the administration uses the pause to implement new restrictions on science to the point where the only "research" researchers can do and publish is research supporting administration-approved "facts."
How do you write your annual faculty report, when the primary output of your leave semester was an intensive federal grant application that might now never be reviewed, on a topic now suddenly coded as politically biased/"harmful"?
January 27, 2025 at 6:02 PM
How do you write your annual faculty report, when the primary output of your leave semester was an intensive federal grant application that might now never be reviewed, on a topic now suddenly coded as politically biased/"harmful"?
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
Can't wait for our post-collapse anarcho-primitive society where i will have the role of writing policy briefs about the anarcho-primitive society on the next block over (those bastards)
December 9, 2024 at 4:38 PM
Can't wait for our post-collapse anarcho-primitive society where i will have the role of writing policy briefs about the anarcho-primitive society on the next block over (those bastards)
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
What does it mean to write a book as a contingent scholar? It means to do something that's already hard enough on its own, but also to do it without the (admittedly eroding) supports of full-time tenure-track employment--time, funding, library access, and a steady job.
Recognize this work. 🗃️
Recognize this work. 🗃️
2024 Contingent Book List
When you’re shopping for books this season, consider a contingent scholar.
contingentmagazine.org
December 3, 2024 at 9:03 PM
What does it mean to write a book as a contingent scholar? It means to do something that's already hard enough on its own, but also to do it without the (admittedly eroding) supports of full-time tenure-track employment--time, funding, library access, and a steady job.
Recognize this work. 🗃️
Recognize this work. 🗃️
One of my top 5 favorite books I've read in recent years (Ypi, not Merkel). I keep trying to think of ways to teach it in my global affairs courses.
December 3, 2024 at 7:13 PM
One of my top 5 favorite books I've read in recent years (Ypi, not Merkel). I keep trying to think of ways to teach it in my global affairs courses.
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
It's weird, and tbh, kinda unacceptable, that most info about selecting a qualitative analysis software doesn't address data security. I want to be sure my qual analysis isn't being stored for AI training and participant info is secure.
Plus I have to tell my funders & IRBs about data protection.
Plus I have to tell my funders & IRBs about data protection.
December 2, 2024 at 5:44 PM
It's weird, and tbh, kinda unacceptable, that most info about selecting a qualitative analysis software doesn't address data security. I want to be sure my qual analysis isn't being stored for AI training and participant info is secure.
Plus I have to tell my funders & IRBs about data protection.
Plus I have to tell my funders & IRBs about data protection.
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
this #givingtuesday consider donating to your local DV shelter
people are surprised to learn I, an economist, mostly study these shelters. but these organizations are DEEPLY important to protect vulnerable folks and their kids nationwide
people are surprised to learn I, an economist, mostly study these shelters. but these organizations are DEEPLY important to protect vulnerable folks and their kids nationwide
December 2, 2024 at 5:36 PM
this #givingtuesday consider donating to your local DV shelter
people are surprised to learn I, an economist, mostly study these shelters. but these organizations are DEEPLY important to protect vulnerable folks and their kids nationwide
people are surprised to learn I, an economist, mostly study these shelters. but these organizations are DEEPLY important to protect vulnerable folks and their kids nationwide
What I'd like from the university teaching center: workshops from education scholars on how to understand students' writing and reading skills (which have changed profoundly in the past 5 years); support for analog assessment methods like in class exams. What is actually offered:
December 2, 2024 at 5:06 PM
What I'd like from the university teaching center: workshops from education scholars on how to understand students' writing and reading skills (which have changed profoundly in the past 5 years); support for analog assessment methods like in class exams. What is actually offered:
Reposted by Julia Kowalski
Violent misogyny has been and is going to be an animating force in younger generations of the far right.
And until we actually start acknowledging that and treating it as the extremist hate it is, it will continue to function as a virtually unchallenged avenue of fascist radicalization.
And until we actually start acknowledging that and treating it as the extremist hate it is, it will continue to function as a virtually unchallenged avenue of fascist radicalization.
November 23, 2024 at 4:17 AM
Violent misogyny has been and is going to be an animating force in younger generations of the far right.
And until we actually start acknowledging that and treating it as the extremist hate it is, it will continue to function as a virtually unchallenged avenue of fascist radicalization.
And until we actually start acknowledging that and treating it as the extremist hate it is, it will continue to function as a virtually unchallenged avenue of fascist radicalization.
Have you also noticed that, suddenly, "care" is everywhere? If you are at this year's AAAs in Tampa, you can see me chew on this theme at length in my talk on enacting care as a global policy category on Friday am, part of the panel "Conceiving Care in Reproductive Health," details below.
November 22, 2024 at 2:29 AM
Have you also noticed that, suddenly, "care" is everywhere? If you are at this year's AAAs in Tampa, you can see me chew on this theme at length in my talk on enacting care as a global policy category on Friday am, part of the panel "Conceiving Care in Reproductive Health," details below.