Micah Carlson 🗃️
@micahcarlson.bsky.social
I write about ghosts as historical method in the U.S. South. Expert at petting cats and responding to bruh. Sometimes funny.
Pinned
About me: Followed #skystorians here in Sept 2023. Lover of the 🗃️. Writing my dissertation on ghost stories as a resistance archive in the U.S. South. Broad study topics include: violence, power, memory, archive. Second year adjunct, so I’m working on balance. ABD. Defense ~Spring 2026.
Don't worry, once I go and figure out the dress code for this conference, I'll forget to write it down for you so you'll get to awkwardly ask someone who doesn't care anymore & says to just wear hawaiian shirts and then you'll go and forget and we can keep this charade going for a long, long time.
November 4, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Don't worry, once I go and figure out the dress code for this conference, I'll forget to write it down for you so you'll get to awkwardly ask someone who doesn't care anymore & says to just wear hawaiian shirts and then you'll go and forget and we can keep this charade going for a long, long time.
Gen Z rejects earnestness because they grew up online where bullies picked on earnest/concerned/caring people and made others laugh at them for their investment. We are seeing this in the classroom, the kids are afraid to be earnest in learning. Safety is a prerequisite to education. 🗃️
October 31, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Gen Z rejects earnestness because they grew up online where bullies picked on earnest/concerned/caring people and made others laugh at them for their investment. We are seeing this in the classroom, the kids are afraid to be earnest in learning. Safety is a prerequisite to education. 🗃️
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
it's good to say aloud that "content" is not a synonym for "literature"
October 24, 2025 at 5:08 PM
it's good to say aloud that "content" is not a synonym for "literature"
Now that I’ve learned how to merge PDFs, I’m dangerous.
October 24, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Now that I’ve learned how to merge PDFs, I’m dangerous.
Battling json errors doesn't sound as riveting as battling a dark wizard from another dimension but it sure is fulfilling. 🗃️
October 11, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Battling json errors doesn't sound as riveting as battling a dark wizard from another dimension but it sure is fulfilling. 🗃️
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
I love unnecessarily sexy statues. My favorite being Thirst Trap Lincoln from the LA County Superior Courthouse.
September 23, 2025 at 10:17 PM
I love unnecessarily sexy statues. My favorite being Thirst Trap Lincoln from the LA County Superior Courthouse.
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
Alas, I'm far too beautiful for this advice to help me in any way
September 15, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Alas, I'm far too beautiful for this advice to help me in any way
Someday we will talk about someone’s keen sense of systemic violence instead of their “obsession with victimhood”
September 17, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Someday we will talk about someone’s keen sense of systemic violence instead of their “obsession with victimhood”
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
Tired: Civil War
Wired: Civility War
Wired: Civility War
September 14, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Tired: Civil War
Wired: Civility War
Wired: Civility War
I'm with you, Jacob, this is my new job market/postdoc market strategy: be the ungovernable horse.
Die eine richtige "direkte, nonverbale Rückmeldung" zu dieser Idee
September 15, 2025 at 1:57 PM
I'm with you, Jacob, this is my new job market/postdoc market strategy: be the ungovernable horse.
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
"the general anxiety surrounding the humanities major points to a broader cultural shift: we no longer treat advanced literacy as essential to education or citizenship." bit.ly/4mYHUg9
The SAT’s STEM Bias Points to a Larger Crisis in Reading and Writing — Minding The Campus
Our society has become obsessed with science, engineering math, and technology (STEM)—not only in the name of progress but also because we have deemed reading and writing almost wholly unimportant. Ac...
bit.ly
September 15, 2025 at 1:01 PM
"the general anxiety surrounding the humanities major points to a broader cultural shift: we no longer treat advanced literacy as essential to education or citizenship." bit.ly/4mYHUg9
It’s true, I’m there in that big stack on your digital desk. 🎵Take a chance on me🎵
Abba's "take a chance on me" is a mood for academic job market season
September 15, 2025 at 1:38 AM
It’s true, I’m there in that big stack on your digital desk. 🎵Take a chance on me🎵
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
Intellectual “work” is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he is at work
-Twain, Conn Yankee
-Twain, Conn Yankee
September 10, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Intellectual “work” is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he is at work
-Twain, Conn Yankee
-Twain, Conn Yankee
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
"We are again confronting a massive attack on the very foundations of democratic education + the stakes feel even higher. In the 50s the targets were individual teachers—communists progressives liberals +their leftwing unions. Now the target is the system itself" www.bostonreview.net/articles/a-g...
A General Air of Anxiety - Boston Review
The Red Scare targeted my father. He taught me the meaning of resistance.
www.bostonreview.net
September 11, 2025 at 2:56 PM
"We are again confronting a massive attack on the very foundations of democratic education + the stakes feel even higher. In the 50s the targets were individual teachers—communists progressives liberals +their leftwing unions. Now the target is the system itself" www.bostonreview.net/articles/a-g...
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
Just for fun, I'm going to give you some clips of the hate mail I got from being placed on Kirk's TPUSA Dangerous Professor list. Buckle up:
September 11, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Just for fun, I'm going to give you some clips of the hate mail I got from being placed on Kirk's TPUSA Dangerous Professor list. Buckle up:
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
Life hack: if you never finish writing your books, AI can’t steal them.
September 6, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Life hack: if you never finish writing your books, AI can’t steal them.
Part of what makes AI appear to do creative tasks (it cannot invent on its own at present) is that it provides regular people access to academic ideas and creation. It has removed the barrier of education to understand our craft but at the expense of naming the people who built the ideas. 🗃️
September 6, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Part of what makes AI appear to do creative tasks (it cannot invent on its own at present) is that it provides regular people access to academic ideas and creation. It has removed the barrier of education to understand our craft but at the expense of naming the people who built the ideas. 🗃️
The grief when I open up outlook to send an email to a historian whose article on trains in 1850s Arkansas is exceptional, edited flawlessly, and inspires me to write better as a result only to find a beautiful but year old obituary instead of an email address. 1/2
July 2, 2025 at 3:19 AM
The grief when I open up outlook to send an email to a historian whose article on trains in 1850s Arkansas is exceptional, edited flawlessly, and inspires me to write better as a result only to find a beautiful but year old obituary instead of an email address. 1/2
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
HACK! Replace 15 minutes of doom scrolling with 15 minutes of reading a book from a university press 📖
May 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM
HACK! Replace 15 minutes of doom scrolling with 15 minutes of reading a book from a university press 📖
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
The “universal rights” of liberal democracy—never implemented & always “contradictory” & “aspirational”—have always functioned as a tool of empire.
Beneath all the propaganda, all the nice words about human rights and equality and international law, this is it. This is the material manifestation of Western values.
May 28, 2025 at 7:31 PM
The “universal rights” of liberal democracy—never implemented & always “contradictory” & “aspirational”—have always functioned as a tool of empire.
I wonder how we'll parse human from non-human histories in 25 years or so, especially since everyone seems hell-bent on arguing with bots on this devil box. 🗃️
April 24, 2025 at 1:31 PM
I wonder how we'll parse human from non-human histories in 25 years or so, especially since everyone seems hell-bent on arguing with bots on this devil box. 🗃️
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
Letter signed by members of the Columbia History Department urging resistance to the Trump Administration's efforts to dictate university policy.
"Should this control be realized, here or elsewhere, it would make any real historical scholarship, teaching, and intellectual community impossible."
"Should this control be realized, here or elsewhere, it would make any real historical scholarship, teaching, and intellectual community impossible."
March 20, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Letter signed by members of the Columbia History Department urging resistance to the Trump Administration's efforts to dictate university policy.
"Should this control be realized, here or elsewhere, it would make any real historical scholarship, teaching, and intellectual community impossible."
"Should this control be realized, here or elsewhere, it would make any real historical scholarship, teaching, and intellectual community impossible."
This is now a Peter Coviello Stan account. Also, I will not be taking questions at this time.
www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
Memos of Blood and Fire | Peter Coviello
So if you ask me about the signature strength of the department where I work, I will tell you. It is world-caliber field-defining research, wedded to a fantastically dynamic practice of instruction, a...
www.nplusonemag.com
March 20, 2025 at 1:52 PM
This is now a Peter Coviello Stan account. Also, I will not be taking questions at this time.
www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
Reposted by Micah Carlson 🗃️
“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”
Virginia Woolf, born on this day in 1882
Virginia Woolf, born on this day in 1882
January 25, 2025 at 2:12 PM
“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”
Virginia Woolf, born on this day in 1882
Virginia Woolf, born on this day in 1882