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Lauren Klein

@laurenfklein.bsky.social

9.7K followers 1.8K following 380 posts

Digital humanities, data science, AI, eating, professor of Data & Decision Science and English. Coauthor #DataFeminism w/ @kanarinka. PI #AIAInetwork. Views my own.

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Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · May 21

I am beyond thrilled to share that DATA BY DESIGN: AN INTERACTIVE HISTORY OF DATA VISUALIZATION, 1789-1900 is now open for community review at 💚 📊 dataxdesign.io 📊 💙. It's the work of 15+ people across 5 institutions, 2 continents, 2 babies, and a global pandemic. A 🧵 but first:

A screenshot of the front page of the Data by Design website, featuring a bunch of charts in a jumble and one, of a mountain and measurements by Francisco José de Caldas, featured at the top right.

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Reposted by Lauren Klein

Maura Smale 😷💉 @maurasmale.bsky.social · 16h

Academic librarians, come join us in the CUNYverse! We have a few jobs open in CUNY libraries:

cuny.jobs/queens-ny/in...

cuny.jobs/new-york-ny/...

cuny.jobs/new-york-ny/...

I’m not at these campuses but happy to answer questions!

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Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 23h

Congrats!!!

Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 3d

Theory as "a tool to open up the world." Love this!

Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 4d

"What’s teacherly abt me... is that I love giving people a concept they can use as a tool to open up the world. That’s what theory is to me: a can opener. Or a key to a vast kingdom. Using things as 🔑s, instead of as 🔨s, is to me one of the most beautiful thing abt being an academic + a theorist."

Tina Campt

in conversation with Emmanuel Olunkwa, "My approach to language is that theory doesn’t need to be a weapon."

www.novembermag.com

Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 3d

So proud to see my friend @kanarinka.bsky.social quoted in The Boston Globe about how this egregious new college "compact" goes against everyone and every thing that higher education stands for: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/04/b...

Trump makes MIT an offer, one many on campus hope the school can refuse - The Boston Globe

President Trump issued terms to MIT and other schools; many on campus urge them to push back.

www.bostonglobe.com

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 4d

My friend @rorshock.bsky.social — CS undergrad, humanities PhD — has built a brilliant prgm @ The New School: “Code as a Liberal Art” nurtures “code + computational thinking as tools for critical + creative inquiry,” and as forces for 👍+👎 social change. His spring Software Engineering class looks 🌟

Software Engineering Applications

Software Engineering Applications Spring 2026 Code as a Liberal Art, Eugene Lang College, The New School This course gives students the opportunity to experience and critically examine the software e...

docs.google.com

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 4d

🚨🚨 My dear friend and fellow academic, the Palestinian American sociologist @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social has been taken by the Cook County Sheriff near Chicago. They have not mirandized her. Please signal boost. All eyes on Broadview for Eman and the community she was defending 🚨🚨

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Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 4d

Cannot wait to share this entire project with all of you!

tanvi @chronictanvi.bsky.social · 5d

prettiest data viz i’ve ever made for data by design by @laurenfklein.bsky.social 🌸

Reposted by Lauren Klein

Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 10d

public goods

"47% have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher ed institutions, w a net positive rating of 33—up 13 points since 2023. more confidence in higher ed than in the police (44%), the medical system (38%)+large tech companies (25%)"

www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

Poll: Public Confidence in Higher Ed Growing

Despite the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on colleges and universities, American confidence in higher education is growing.

www.insidehighered.com

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Elizabeth Wrigley-Field @wrigleyfield.bsky.social · 10d

What if NIH had been 40% smaller?

"We analyze 27 years of NIH extramural awards & their review scores to identify the bottom 40% of grants that would have been eliminated from 1980 to 2007... We then identify new molecular entity drugs, approved in the 21st century, that are linked to these grants"

What if NIH had been 40% smaller?

Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research

www.science.org

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Reposted by Lauren Klein

Louis Barclay @louisbarclay.bsky.social · 27d

Q. Who aligns the aligners?
A. alignmentalignment.ai

Today I’m humbled to announce an epoch-defining event: the launch of the 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀.

Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers

We align the aligners

alignmentalignment.ai

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Reposted by Lauren Klein

Rebecca Colesworthy @rcolesworthy.bsky.social · 12d

Cuts to and closures of university presses are 100% part of the separation (or as @mattseybold.bsky.social has called it "unbundling") of research and teaching in the humanities and the devaluation of both quite frankly--in this case at the expense of the career training admin claims to care about.

Rebecca Colesworthy @rcolesworthy.bsky.social · 12d

"Bucknell has decided to close its highly respected, decades-old UP in June 2026. The stated reason? The press serves scholars, not Bucknell undergrads. Bucknell undergrads—& some grad students as well—disagree." FANTASTIC piece on BUP's student internship program. networks.h-net.org/group/discus...

Bucknell UP Closure Would Also Mark End of Vital Student Internship Program | H-Net

A post from Feeding the

networks.h-net.org

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Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 11d

Incl. @kanarinka.bsky.social and yrs truly!

Alberto Cairo @albertocairo.com · 12d

BIG NEWS! We've updated the website of the Open Visualization Academy, where you can see all its contributors: openvisualizationacademy.org

This is the announcement in our newsletter: openvisualizationacademy.beehiiv.com/p/we-re-back...

#dataViz #infographics #dataJournalism #dataVis 📊

1/x

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 15d

"higher ed is an economic engine, health-care engine, technological-innovation engine.

it should be a common public good for everyone. the vast majority of Americans of any political stripe need education for their kids, their families, in order to move forward."
www.chronicle.com/article/is-t...

Is the AAUP Too Partisan? Its President Doesn’t Think So.

Todd Wolfson has taken heat for some of the organization’s political stances during his tenure. Here’s what he makes of the criticism.

www.chronicle.com

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Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 14d

@aiainetwork.bsky.social is hosting Vauhini Vara at Emory on Thursday Oct 16 for the talk, “If Computers Can Write, Why Should We?” Vara was a Pulitzer finalist for fiction in 2023. Her latest, Searches, investigates what is at stake for writing with the rise of AI www.eventbrite.com/e/vauhini-va...

Vauhini Vara: If Computers Can Write, Why Should We?

The AIAI Network is hosting journalist and novelist Vauhini Vara on Thursday, October 16.

www.eventbrite.com

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Maria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · 20d

“Keep your head down, follow without questioning, adjust field of study”

It’s alarming how many academics are already lining up to join this camp and publicly recruiting others to do the same, including US citizens and profs with tenure.

Vera Kempe @vkempe.bsky.social · Feb 25

I wrote this for my US friends and colleagues, but also for all of us. Lessons from the past. open.substack.com/pub/verakemp...

Scholarship Under Autocracy

We Have Been Here Before

open.substack.com

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Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 22d

Thanks, Bryan! You were there then!

Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 22d

Thank you!!!

Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 23d

A few days ago, amidst everything else, I pressed send on the book I've been working on (and off) for over a decade. It's still a long way from finished, but the final phase has begun. Watch for DATA BY DESIGN: FROM THE HISTORY OF VISUALIZATION TO THE FUTURE WE NEED in print and online in Fall 2026!

A screenshot of the table of contents, reading:

Preface

Introduction: A History of Visualization and Power

Chapter 1
Data: The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and Responsible Visualization Design
Before there are data, there are people. How can the lives behind the data guide our visualization work?

Chapter 2
Image: William Playfair and the Politics of the “Simple View”
Visualization has never been neutral or objective. How can we learn to recognize the human decisions that shape each design?

Chapter 3
People: Shanawdithit and our Place in the Colonial Frame
Maps, like all visualizations, tell stories. How can we learn to see the lines of power that they draw?

Chapter 4
Knowledge: Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and the Idea of Epistemology
Visualization can produce knowledge in many ways. What ideas do we gain when we expand our view of the past?

Chapter 5
Change: Lula Iola Mack, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Path to Liberatory Data Visualization
Visualization can bear powerful witness to oppression. How can we use charts to make change in the world?

Chapter 6
Labor: Data by Design and What We Learn from Visualization Work
By Margy Adams and Tanvi Sharma, with Shiyao Li, Jay Varner, and Lauren Klein
Any visualization project is the work of many hands. How can we surface the significance of this labor?

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Notes

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 28d

Guess how many articles about this topic have been written in 2025, since Trump started demanding political retribution against universities who taught the wrong thing or allowed students to protest the wrong thing

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Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 27d

Today in small victories, this pairing of Chris Wiggins and Matt Jones's chapter on the "average man" from HOW DATA HAPPENED with @seyiolojo.bsky.social's essay on counterdata from @datasociety.bsky.social's DATAFIED STATE is the first time I've felt happy with the framing for my "what is data" day

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David Bering-Porter @atg-dbp.bsky.social · Aug 2

Let that sink in. What DOGE burned through in six months, through sheer stupidity, carelessness, and cruelty, could have funded the NEH for more than a century. This was never an attempt to save money, it was a mugging.

Alt National Endowment for the Humanities @altnehgov.altgov.info · Aug 2

21B = NEH funded for more than a century.

But cool. They blew through it in six months. The only efficiency DOGE showed was its cruelty and spendthriftiness.

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · Jul 29

Just to reiterate: What this administration is doing right now is orders of magnitude more dangerous for academic freedom and free speech than anything the right has spent the last 30 years complaining about.

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · Jul 29

Faculty who wrote to defend their president and object to a DOJ investigation of their university...are now being investigated by the DOJ.
The most banal defense of free speech and academic freedom will trigger the full wrath of the US government now.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...

Faculty Support of George Mason’s President Draws Federal Investigation

www.nytimes.com

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Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · Jul 24

I got braces in the first few weeks of the current administration, and it's never not been a metaphor in my mouth. But this morning I got my wires tightened, and if you've ever had braces and you've also read the news today, well, you know

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Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · Jul 22

Proud to have @aiainetwork.bsky.social sign on to the much-needed People's AI Action Plan, launched today. More at: peoplesaiaction.com

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AI Now Institute @ainowinstitute.bsky.social · Jul 22

The 90+ organizations supporting a People's AI Action Plan all have concrete, actionable ideas for an AI agenda that furthers the interests of everyday people and challenges the tech billionaire agenda we’ll see from the White House. Learn more about them: peoplesaiaction.com

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