Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mid Theory Collective

@mid-theory.bsky.social

750 followers 100 following 130 posts

the contemporary and its curiosities https://mid-theory.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · Sep 6

MTC is running two reading groups this fall. The first starts later this month. We will be reading HEART LAMP, a collection of short stories in translation and the first meeting is September 18. Get your books now and join us!! Sign up below:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Jay Shelat @jshelat1.bsky.social · 2d

You could be reading Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq for @mid-theory.bsky.social’s book club! We’re meeting THIS THURSDAY to chat about the book. You don’t have to read the whole thing to attend the meeting!

Sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Jay Shelat @jshelat1.bsky.social · 2d

If you’re interested in writing and/or reading public scholarship, check out @mid-theory.bsky.social!

Aimee Loiselle @aimloiselle.bsky.social · 2d

This - priority for anyone who believes in knowledge, higher ed as public good.
Public scholars - and I would argue pop scholars!
The decades of sitting in isolated conference rooms and reading niche articles in journals shared by few hundred experts as the only ways to share knowledge must end.

David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 8d

COVER REVEAL AND PREORDER: The Public Scholar - A Practical Handbook.

"Perry focuses on the practical details of how to approach public scholarship. How do you pitch a piece to an editor? When should you follow or ignore the rules of the genre? And what happens once your piece is out in the world?"

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 5d

Our reading group on NEVADA starts in about two weeks! Get your copy of this brilliant, funny, trailblazing trans novel and join us on October 16th @ 5:30 ET. Sign up here: tinyurl.com/4yj7xj8p

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 6d

Amazing article illustrations by Carolyn Jao for MTC!

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 6d

For MTC, Ruari Paterson-Achenbach revisits this peculiar cultural artifact and what its "recession-fueled dreams of gluttony" can teach us about present day meat-oriented masculinity.

What Was Epic Meal Time?

There is nothing new being made here. Just the lingering dreams of 90s and 2000s free-wheeling optimism now rotting from the inside. As it stands, I have only managed to create one film list on my …

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 7d

You can sing up here: tinyurl.com/4wrd78d5

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 7d

MTC has partnered with Chicago Review for a pitch workshop on October 9 @ 6pm ET. Want to try your hands in public writing, not sure how to approach editors, how to pitch your idea? Join us for a discussion of our respective processes as well as general conversations about best practices.

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 20d

For the first installment of our "Hold Up" feature, Sophia Marie Niang revisits Jean Vigo’s 1933 film ZERO FOR CONDUCT and what teaches us about the rebellious lives of children and the possibilities of forging comradely solidarity with them.
mid-theory.com/2025/09/18/h...

Hold Up: The Queer Revolutionary Children of Zero for Conduct

So much of being disciplined into adulthood is a curtailing of the imagination. In February this year, I watched around thirty kids movies: movies about children, a few movies made for children, an…

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Farah Bakaari @bakaari.bsky.social · 20d

“…children’s liberation from adult domination remains as urgent today as it was in 1933. Children continue to be harmed in all the institutions…meant to ‘protect’ them.” i felt so many unnameable emotions reading this piece for my own boarding school self, for all kids enduring tyranny everywhere!

Hold Up: The Queer Revolutionary Children of ‘Zero for Conduct’

So much of being disciplined into adulthood is a curtailing of the imagination. In February this year, I watched around thirty kids movies: movies about children, a few movies made for children, an…

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Colleen Kennedy-Karpat @cbkenkar.bsky.social · 20d

LOVE this film! High time to discover it or watch anew.

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 20d

For the first installment of our "Hold Up" feature, Sophia Marie Niang revisits Jean Vigo’s 1933 film ZERO FOR CONDUCT and what teaches us about the rebellious lives of children and the possibilities of forging comradely solidarity with them.
mid-theory.com/2025/09/18/h...

Hold Up: The Queer Revolutionary Children of Zero for Conduct

So much of being disciplined into adulthood is a curtailing of the imagination. In February this year, I watched around thirty kids movies: movies about children, a few movies made for children, an…

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 20d

For the first installment of our "Hold Up" feature, Sophia Marie Niang revisits Jean Vigo’s 1933 film ZERO FOR CONDUCT and what teaches us about the rebellious lives of children and the possibilities of forging comradely solidarity with them.
mid-theory.com/2025/09/18/h...

Hold Up: The Queer Revolutionary Children of Zero for Conduct

So much of being disciplined into adulthood is a curtailing of the imagination. In February this year, I watched around thirty kids movies: movies about children, a few movies made for children, an…

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 21d

MTC first reading group on the award-winning translated stories HEART LAMP by Banu Mushtaq will take place tomorrow Sept. 18 at 5pm ET. Sign up here:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 27d

"But what about works that demand more than a 'relaxed distribution of focus,' work that we want to give more of ourselves to?" Nat Hansen (@nathansen.bsky.social) reviews two recent books on art amidst our crisis of attention
mid-theory.com/2025/09/11/d...

Disordered Attention

Two recent books offer practical recommendations for how we should attend to art amidst the crisis of attention. After Y2K, when the world failed to end, the art historian T.J. Clark spent six mont…

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 27d

I wrote about two recent books that offer advice on how to pay attention to art in the midst of *gestures broadly at everything*

Thanks to the awesome editors at the
@mid-theory.bsky.social
for their interest in this piece, they’re great to work with!

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 27d

"But what about works that demand more than a 'relaxed distribution of focus,' work that we want to give more of ourselves to?" Nat Hansen (@nathansen.bsky.social) reviews two recent books on art amidst our crisis of attention
mid-theory.com/2025/09/11/d...

Disordered Attention

Two recent books offer practical recommendations for how we should attend to art amidst the crisis of attention. After Y2K, when the world failed to end, the art historian T.J. Clark spent six mont…

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · 27d

"But what about works that demand more than a 'relaxed distribution of focus,' work that we want to give more of ourselves to?" Nat Hansen (@nathansen.bsky.social) reviews two recent books on art amidst our crisis of attention
mid-theory.com/2025/09/11/d...

Disordered Attention

Two recent books offer practical recommendations for how we should attend to art amidst the crisis of attention. After Y2K, when the world failed to end, the art historian T.J. Clark spent six mont…

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Jay Shelat @jshelat1.bsky.social · 27d

Oh hey! Mid Theory Collective kicks off its Fall reading group on Thursday, Sept 18! We’re reading the first half of HEART LAMP by Banu Mushtaq! Come join—even if you didn’t read!

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · Sep 6

MTC is running two reading groups this fall. The first starts later this month. We will be reading HEART LAMP, a collection of short stories in translation and the first meeting is September 18. Get your books now and join us!! Sign up below:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · Sep 6

MTC is running two reading groups this fall. The first starts later this month. We will be reading HEART LAMP, a collection of short stories in translation and the first meeting is September 18. Get your books now and join us!! Sign up below:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · Sep 4

You know it's there, but you can't play it!

For MTC, Emily Naser-Hall revisits the VHS tape and its haunting resurgence in the present. A perfect, perfectly haunted piece of cultural criticism to start off your spooky season 📼

Conjuring the Unplayable

But why does anyone film anything? To remember it and, in the case of home viewing, to watch it repeatedly, allowing the images to spread across time like a curse. The same week I began writing thi…

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · Sep 4

You know it's there, but you can't play it!

For MTC, Emily Naser-Hall revisits the VHS tape and its haunting resurgence in the present. A perfect, perfectly haunted piece of cultural criticism to start off your spooky season 📼

Conjuring the Unplayable

But why does anyone film anything? To remember it and, in the case of home viewing, to watch it repeatedly, allowing the images to spread across time like a curse. The same week I began writing thi…

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · Sep 4

Congratulations to Omar Khalifa and translator Barbara Romain. You can read Khalifa's interview with our contributing writer Omid Bagherli over at MTC!
mid-theory.com/2025/03/06/o...

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · Aug 28

For MTC, Nikhil Pandhi reviews A. Revathi's recent memoir REVATHI: A LIFE IN TRANS ACTIVISM, translated from Tamil by Nandini Murali. A remarkable book about the power of trans-labor and poetics in the world. Happy Women in Translation Month.
@tiltedaxispress.bsky.social

Tender Excess: A Review of ‘Revathi: A Life in Trans Activism’

From childhood to adulthood Revathi’s radical desires remain anchored in the hard to parse and interwoven vagaries of trans living and dying in the global South. In a fascinating story shared early…

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · Aug 29

August is Women in Translation Month! To celebrate we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their recommendations. We hope you would check out a few of these and celebrate women in translation!

Mixtape #7: Happy Women in Translation Month (2025)

August is Women in Translation Month! So for Mixtape #7, we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their…

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Farah Bakaari @bakaari.bsky.social · Aug 29

this is the kinda rec list i dream of!! instead of reading the same 3 meh books on every mainstream list, why not do yourself a favor and read some interesting, fresh, weird, possibly out of print works in translation…and celebrate women in translation all year round!

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · Aug 29

August is Women in Translation Month! To celebrate we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their recommendations. We hope you would check out a few of these and celebrate women in translation!

Mixtape #7: Happy Women in Translation Month (2025)

August is Women in Translation Month! So for Mixtape #7, we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their…

Reposted by Mid Theory Collective

Kasia @kasiaiskasia.bsky.social · Aug 29

Catch me promoting the @openletterbooks.bsky.social sale and some of my favorite #WiTMonth reads for @mid-theory.bsky.social!

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · Aug 29

August is Women in Translation Month! To celebrate we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their recommendations. We hope you would check out a few of these and celebrate women in translation!

Mixtape #7: Happy Women in Translation Month (2025)

August is Women in Translation Month! So for Mixtape #7, we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their…

Mid Theory Collective @mid-theory.bsky.social · Aug 29

August is Women in Translation Month! To celebrate we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their recommendations. We hope you would check out a few of these and celebrate women in translation!

Mixtape #7: Happy Women in Translation Month (2025)

August is Women in Translation Month! So for Mixtape #7, we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their…