Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 3d

BlueSky: If you've started reading my new book, AESTHETIC IMPROPRIETY: PROPERTY LAW AND POSTCOLONIAL STYLE, and are enjoying it, please consider sending me a sentence or two explaining why.

It's for a thing I'm applying for (and a small monetary award for future research funds). Thanks!

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Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 5d

Spotted on Upworth: an ad for an "editor" to help an AI system to write romance fiction. Hook: "If you're looking for a gateway drug into the future of book writing, this is it." Gross.

Post advertising the following position: "Romance/Thriller Editor Wanted for AI Writing Startup ($40/hr)."

Text begins as follows [note: I didn't read it all and will just type the first few lines]: "If you're looking for a gateway drug into the future of book writing, this is it. We're building FictionPub.ai--an AI platform that generates full-length novels. The software team is handling the engineering, but we need an experienced fiction editor to help shape the stories into something readers can't put down. Here's the role: you'll generate drafts with our AI, edit them, and work directly with the team to translate your feedback into simply rules the system can learn from. It's not just editing--it's teaching the AI how to nail tropes, hooks, pacing, and character arcs that sell."

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J.D. Connor @jdconnor.bsky.social · 6d

oh good lord
www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2025/10/01/u...

USC sold dead bodies to U.S. military to train IDF medical personnel

A review of seven years’ worth of contracts unveiled more than $860,000 to use cadavers in surgical trainings involving the Israeli Defense Forces.

www.uscannenbergmedia.com

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Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 6d

Huh, me too!

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 7d

People think they’re taking down a rich intellectual sinecure but they’re mostly terrorizing committed public servants who make $58,000 a year after 15 years of experience at a school that has to budget creatively so students can access textbooks.

Emily Farris @emayfarris.bsky.social · 7d

This new column by @tressiemcphd.bsky.social makes me think about when I recently had to talk to the police for yet another safety plan, I tried to “lighten” the mood by saying that we all knew this wasn’t my first rodeo. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

For at least the past 15 years, my colleagues in academia have grappled with angry letters to university officials for doing their jobs. They have weathered campaigns for their firing. They have contended with an internet army obsessed with doxxing them, their parents, their kids. I’ve been contacted by the F.B.I. more than once in my career. Not because I hold any important state secrets or know a biker gang but because one of my colleagues has lived with so much sustained harassment from right-wing “activists” that it has become a matter of federal concern. Watch lists (one of which was constructed by Kirk’s organization) do not distinguish between public intellectuals at wealthy enclaves and hoi polloi who teach popular classes at cash-strapped schools. In either case, an army of trained provocateurs stands ready to destroy their lives to prove their bona fides as conservative activists.

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Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 7d

Any creative ideas for a weird college financing situation?

Govt shutdown means that my kid's student loan will be delayed even longer. He's in Canada and has been waiting over a month for his small loan to arrive. (The rest he was supposed to get as a Pell grant--but we didn't know that ...

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Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 7d

I know about private loans and maybe that's the only way left to us. Maybe you know of Canadians who've got loans after the school year late? Maybe you know of people who've gotten their FAFSA loan abroad but at a delay, easing my concerns that it will never arrive? Thanks!

Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 7d

...these don't cross borders. His school (TMU) has not been able to help. My credit card is not quite maxed out but it will be soon (and it's already far more than I can pay off). He's Canadian, too, so could get Can student loans--but I think not until next year (and def not both in one year). Agh!

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Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 7d

Any creative ideas for a weird college financing situation?

Govt shutdown means that my kid's student loan will be delayed even longer. He's in Canada and has been waiting over a month for his small loan to arrive. (The rest he was supposed to get as a Pell grant--but we didn't know that ...

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Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 12d

I truly cannot wait to get my hands on this book by my brilliant friend @johannawinant.bsky.social

Johanna Winant @johannawinant.bsky.social · 12d

[clears throat]...I have another book coming out in the near future

if you'd like to read a bit about LYRIC LOGIC, there are some very generous blurbs over at @columbiaup.bsky.social

(my thanks to Marjorie Levinson, Oren Izenberg, Theo Davis, Nan Z. Da, and also @philipleventhal.bsky.social)

Lyric Logic | Columbia University Press

Between the Civil War and the Cold War, American literary modernism and philosophy both grappled with the challenge of novelty and the chance to make it new.... | CUP

cup.columbia.edu

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Juan Meneses | Postpolitics and the Aesthetic Imagination @dissentum.bsky.social · 12d

Did you see your friend's book at the store? Email them a pic! See them cited? Email them (esp. as aggregators fail to catch many citations)! Did a scholar mention their work! Email them! Did a student use their work in a paper? Email! Did a professor teach their work? Email! Email! All the time!!!

Juan Meneses | Postpolitics and the Aesthetic Imagination @dissentum.bsky.social · 12d

Friends tell other friends when they see their work out in the world. Just got an email about my book and it made my day.

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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 12d

Absolutely outrageous to say that a uni’s academic press doesn’t serve its undergraduates. Non-profit university presses support and sustain a scholarly and intellectual system THAT MAKES TEACHING UNDERGRADUATES POSSIBLE. No presses? no fields of study, no professors, no college.

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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Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 13d

lol!

Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 13d

I'm glad that @chronicle.com covered EG Gee's exorbitant salary in his last year at WVU: he "rak[ed] in 2 million in total compensation in 2024 as the university made sweeping cuts to academic programs and faculty positions to manage a $45-million budget shortfall"
www.chronicle.com/article/afte...

After Sweeping Cuts at West Virginia U., Its President Made $2 Million Last Year

E. Gordon Gee was the second-highest paid public-university president last year, according to The Chronicle’s analysis of executive compensation.

www.chronicle.com

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Amanda Jean Stevenson @amandajean.bsky.social · 16d

Abortion bans making pregnancy more dangerous, shaming women for using tylenol, making the world more dangerous for babies: this is all pronatalist because pronatalism is about recreating mandatory childbearing, not making childbearing easier.

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Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 15d

So many congratulations, Rachael. I can't wait to read!

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Rachael King @rscar.bsky.social · 15d

I'm so happy to finally share this news. This book is about how the past 9 years changed my ideas about family, community, and care, and how those ideas fit into a long history. Huge thanks to my agent @carolineeisenmann.bsky.social, who held my hand through much angst, and to my editor Abby Mohr.

A Publishers Marketplace Deal Report for "How Much, How Little" by Rachael King. "UC Santa Barbara professor Rachael King's HOW MUCH, HOW LITTLE, about how her life was transformed in the wake of her late husband Ady Barkan's ALS diagnosis, and how it galvanized her to search for a new vision of caregiving in America, to Abby Mohr at One Signal, by Caroline Eisenmann at Francis Goldin Literary Agency (world English)"

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Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 15d

Podcast fans! Want to listen to something other than the news?

I talk with the wonderful @arnabdr.bsky.social for @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social about *Aesthetic Impropriety: Property Law and Postcolonial Style* from @fordhampress.bsky.social.

Listen here: newbooksnetwork.com/aesthetic-im...

Rose Casey, "Aesthetic Impropriety: Property Law and Postcolonial Style" (Fordham UP, 2025) - New Books Network

newbooksnetwork.com

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 15d

Bothers me when people discuss Left movements in the U.S. w/out underscoring the GENERATIONS of repression, surveillance, violence directed at movements. The "Left" is so disorganized is used as a joke but I hardly ever see those same people saying 'THE LEFT WAS TARGETED & DISORGANIZED by the STATE'

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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 25d

The USDOE has cut funding for more than a dozen language and culture programs at Indiana University, on the grounds that they "do not advance American interests or values."

IU has long been a leader in these fields, but something tells me--leadership won't push back.

www.ipm.org/news/2025-09...

Funding cut for IU programs that ‘do not advance American interests or values’

The U.S. Department of Education is ending funding for more than a dozen Indiana University programs that “do not advance American interests or values,” according to a Sept. 10 letter. The loss of fun...

www.ipm.org

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Arnab Dutta Roy @arnabdr.bsky.social · 26d

🚨🚨🚨

Back with another fantastic @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social episode! I chat with the brilliant @rosecasey.bsky.social about her book Aesthetic Impropriety: Property Law and Postcolonial Style (Fordham UP, 2025). Please listen in & check out this fantastic book

newbooksnetwork.com/aesthetic-im...

Screenshot of a podcast episode page featuring Rose Casey’s book Aesthetic Impropriety: Property Law and Postcolonial Style with summary text, book cover, audio player, and host details for Arnab Dutta Roy.

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Cate Denial @cjdenial.bsky.social · 27d

A GoFundMe for the instructor who was fired at Texas A&M!

Emily Pitts Donahoe @empittsdonahoe.bsky.social · 27d

I overlapped with the instructor, Melissa, as grad students in Notre Dame's English department. One of her former ND colleagues has started a GoFundMe for her: gofund.me/3f5b12078

Donate to Help Support Our Children's Literature Colleague, organized by Angel Matos

Recently, our colleague Melissa McCoul was fired from her position as a S… Angel Matos needs your support for Help Support Our Children's Literature Colleague

gofund.me

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Anise K. Strong @anisekstrong.bsky.social · 29d

I want to note, because the initial article doesn't make this clear, that the professor being taped in the video is calm, clear, and patient with the student. Furthermore, the professor appears to be teaching absolutely basic medically accepted science & history of gender expression.

Dan Hirschman @asociologist.bsky.social · 29d

Texas A&M’s President just removed a dean and department head from their positions after they supported a professor whose lesson on gender was challenged by a student. www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...

A&M Dean removed following student complaints over curriculum

The Department of Justice has also acknowledged the situation and said it would be investigating.

www.kbtx.com

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Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · 29d

"How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor?"

A Dramatic Reading of The Recent New York Times Dispatch from the Hamptons.

Presented by The Gilded Age's Morgan Spector.

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Rose Casey @rosecasey.bsky.social · 29d

The literary studies job market seems even worse this year than recently--am I imagining it? And RhetComp seems to be catching up with us.

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