Uma Kumar
@umakumar.bsky.social
Germanist / Big Vienna fan / love dogs / she/her
Pinned
Uma Kumar
@umakumar.bsky.social
· Sep 25
UBC
cenes.ubc.ca
Please join us today, 12:30 pm for our first online Ziegler Lecture 2025-26, focusing on the theme of ‘networks’. Dr. Jeremy Bryant will talk on “From fin de siècle Vienna to the ends of the earth: the legacy of secular Jewish social networks (a case study)”.
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
Reposted by Uma Kumar
"In other words, they argue that Holocaust memory, which was designed to prevent the worst, is being used to motivate and justify the worst. And they feel outraged — and betrayed." Dirk Moses thediasporist.de/is-holocaust...
Is Holocaust Memory Over? – the Diasporist
How the German political and media classes have hollowed out the lessons of history
thediasporist.de
December 24, 2025 at 4:04 PM
"In other words, they argue that Holocaust memory, which was designed to prevent the worst, is being used to motivate and justify the worst. And they feel outraged — and betrayed." Dirk Moses thediasporist.de/is-holocaust...
Reposted by Uma Kumar
This Christmas Eve, let us remember that it wasn’t the CEOs and billionaires who saved us during COVID-19. It was the janitors, nurses, cleaning crews, grocery and food workers with their hard, often invisible labor.
December 24, 2025 at 9:16 PM
This Christmas Eve, let us remember that it wasn’t the CEOs and billionaires who saved us during COVID-19. It was the janitors, nurses, cleaning crews, grocery and food workers with their hard, often invisible labor.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Big AI firms have built their models by hoovering up copyrighted material from the internet as training data. They say this is legal, but copyright holders disagree - and this year they hit back in a major way
AI firms began to feel the legal wrath of copyright holders in 2025
Big AI firms have built their models by hoovering up copyrighted material from the internet as training data. They say this is legal, but copyright holders disagree - and this year they hit back in a major way
www.newscientist.com
December 25, 2025 at 5:29 AM
Big AI firms have built their models by hoovering up copyrighted material from the internet as training data. They say this is legal, but copyright holders disagree - and this year they hit back in a major way
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Wir sind erst seit Kurzem hier bei Bluesky und bräuchten bitte eure Unterstützung: Insta legt unseren Hauptaccount immer wieder lahm und wir würden hier gerne die verlässliche demokratische Alternative aufbauen. Könntet ihr unseren Account vielleicht weiterempfehlen? Das wäre eine Riesenhilfe 💝🌟
December 23, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Wir sind erst seit Kurzem hier bei Bluesky und bräuchten bitte eure Unterstützung: Insta legt unseren Hauptaccount immer wieder lahm und wir würden hier gerne die verlässliche demokratische Alternative aufbauen. Könntet ihr unseren Account vielleicht weiterempfehlen? Das wäre eine Riesenhilfe 💝🌟
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Walter Benjamin wrote that the work of translation is “to liberate the language imprisoned in a work" to find the “pure language” of “the unfathomable, the mysterious, the ‘poetic’”. This is all, of course, utterly anathema to AI
As a multiple language speaker it's also frustrating to see people using AI for translation because the English speaking world tends to treat translators like workers for hire instead of co authors of text and this feels like more of it. Translation at the literary level is creative work.
(2/?)
(2/?)
December 22, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Walter Benjamin wrote that the work of translation is “to liberate the language imprisoned in a work" to find the “pure language” of “the unfathomable, the mysterious, the ‘poetic’”. This is all, of course, utterly anathema to AI
Reposted by Uma Kumar
A big part of being a historian is being a detective! Who did this? Why? Where? Why does it matter in the grand scheme of things? You have to learn how to probe, how to uncover, how to read against the grain, how to find unusual sources, how to interpret those sources. How to piece together a puzzle
It also robs students of learning *how* to research.
December 21, 2025 at 2:01 PM
A big part of being a historian is being a detective! Who did this? Why? Where? Why does it matter in the grand scheme of things? You have to learn how to probe, how to uncover, how to read against the grain, how to find unusual sources, how to interpret those sources. How to piece together a puzzle
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Still waiting for AI to cure diseases, eliminate climate change and give every animal a home. AI is basically crypto at this point. A propped up Ponzi scheme that will eventually collapse under its own weight.
December 20, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Still waiting for AI to cure diseases, eliminate climate change and give every animal a home. AI is basically crypto at this point. A propped up Ponzi scheme that will eventually collapse under its own weight.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
I think one of the best things my university could do for my mental health is allow me to unsubscribe from end of year emails that tell what a great and wonderful 12 months that was and how jolly things are looking for the future. It's like getting newsletters from a parallel universe.
December 21, 2025 at 12:34 PM
I think one of the best things my university could do for my mental health is allow me to unsubscribe from end of year emails that tell what a great and wonderful 12 months that was and how jolly things are looking for the future. It's like getting newsletters from a parallel universe.
Sounds like an amazing trip.
It's a wrap on our intensive 3-week Jewish-German Berlin program "Migration & Memory," which this year attempted to frame Jewish migration & memory in the context of other groups' within Germany, past & present. Some highlights & speaker recs if others are interested 1/
December 21, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Sounds like an amazing trip.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
How I wish I could have been on this trip!
December 21, 2025 at 4:24 PM
How I wish I could have been on this trip!
Reposted by Uma Kumar
»In Deutschland gilt derjenige, der auf den Schmutz hinweist, als viel gefährlicher als derjenige, der den Schmutz macht.«
Guten Morgen mit Kurt Tucholsky
9. Januar 1890 - 21. Dezember 1935

Guten Morgen mit Kurt Tucholsky
9. Januar 1890 - 21. Dezember 1935

December 21, 2025 at 7:34 AM
»In Deutschland gilt derjenige, der auf den Schmutz hinweist, als viel gefährlicher als derjenige, der den Schmutz macht.«
Guten Morgen mit Kurt Tucholsky
9. Januar 1890 - 21. Dezember 1935

Guten Morgen mit Kurt Tucholsky
9. Januar 1890 - 21. Dezember 1935

Thanks for making it Open Access!
It's out!🍾
I am delighted to announce the publication of our "Germany's History Wars. Contesting Memory and Identity Today"
It is Open Access!
👇 You can download it here for free.
www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
I am delighted to announce the publication of our "Germany's History Wars. Contesting Memory and Identity Today"
It is Open Access!
👇 You can download it here for free.
www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
December 19, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Thanks for making it Open Access!
Please join us on Jan 22 for a talk by Dr. Matache on Anti-Roma Racism in European and Global Studies
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
UBC
cenes.ubc.ca
December 16, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Please join us on Jan 22 for a talk by Dr. Matache on Anti-Roma Racism in European and Global Studies
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
Reposted by Uma Kumar
we can kill them all if we just work together and ✨believe💫
December 15, 2025 at 5:11 PM
we can kill them all if we just work together and ✨believe💫
Such an amazing idea!
Philosophizing and essay-writing with the UBC Ballpoint Society via @ubyssey.ca ubyssey.ca/culture/phil...
Philosophizing and essay-writing with the UBC Ballpoint Society
What might seem to a post-class loiterer to be the nervous energy of an evening midterm was, in fact, the first student-run essay competition hosted by the UBC Ballpoint Society.
ubyssey.ca
November 30, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Such an amazing idea!
Reposted by Uma Kumar
To “my students and to anyone who might listen, I say: Don’t surrender to AI your ability to read, write and think when others once risked their lives and died for the freedom to do so.”
www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
I Set A Trap To Catch My Students Cheating With AI. The Results Were Shocking.
"Students are not just undermining their ability to learn, but to someday lead."
www.huffpost.com
November 21, 2025 at 12:22 AM
To “my students and to anyone who might listen, I say: Don’t surrender to AI your ability to read, write and think when others once risked their lives and died for the freedom to do so.”
www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
Please join us today, 12:30 pm for our first online Ziegler Lecture 2025-26, focusing on the theme of ‘networks’. Dr. Jeremy Bryant will talk on “From fin de siècle Vienna to the ends of the earth: the legacy of secular Jewish social networks (a case study)”.
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
UBC
cenes.ubc.ca
September 25, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Please join us today, 12:30 pm for our first online Ziegler Lecture 2025-26, focusing on the theme of ‘networks’. Dr. Jeremy Bryant will talk on “From fin de siècle Vienna to the ends of the earth: the legacy of secular Jewish social networks (a case study)”.
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
Reposted by Uma Kumar
An amazing story.
“I knew nothing about my family history until then...Nobody ever spoke about it.” But that day, she explains, she knew she wanted to find the truth, no matter how dark and shameful.
📰Our latest exhibition was featured in this weekend's @telegraphnews.bsky.social www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/8752340...
📰Our latest exhibition was featured in this weekend's @telegraphnews.bsky.social www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/8752340...
‘I tracked down the family of the estate my Nazi great grandparents looted. Here’s what I told them’
After discovering a hidden family history – and some stolen furniture – one woman was determined to make amends
www.telegraph.co.uk
August 18, 2025 at 9:09 AM
An amazing story.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Reminder this event for #pridemonth is in five days, online, in English. You need to register via email to Nora Hogrefe.
On 29 July at 6m CEST I participate in an online English language event on Gad Beck. Hani Portner will speak about their work in getting Beck an honorary grave, I will speak about my new research into Beck's queerness, sexual barter, and testimony. You can register via an email to Nora Hogrefe.
July 25, 2025 at 6:16 AM
Reminder this event for #pridemonth is in five days, online, in English. You need to register via email to Nora Hogrefe.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
how different would academia be if we valued community impact more than perceived global impact. What if the distinguished professors were distinguished first by making their region / state / students' lives directly better rather than the acceptance quality of an Elsevier journal article.
July 24, 2025 at 12:31 PM
how different would academia be if we valued community impact more than perceived global impact. What if the distinguished professors were distinguished first by making their region / state / students' lives directly better rather than the acceptance quality of an Elsevier journal article.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
The thing about this article: there are *plenty* of migrants who want to move to these areas (eg in places like Brandenburg and Saxony in Germany) but too many of the locals have fascist sympathies and hound them out. That is a major problem, unaddressed in this piece.
The fight to revive Europe’s shrinking rural areas
The fight to revive Europe’s shrinking rural areas
Across the continent, remote villages are fading amid declining births and residents departing for greater opportunity in urban centres
www.ft.com
July 17, 2025 at 7:48 AM
The thing about this article: there are *plenty* of migrants who want to move to these areas (eg in places like Brandenburg and Saxony in Germany) but too many of the locals have fascist sympathies and hound them out. That is a major problem, unaddressed in this piece.
... policy matters. Through long-term commitment to social housing and limited privatisation, housing can be made better and more affordable. Takeaway for cities like #Vancouver
Vienna has been declared a renters’ utopia – and it’s easy to see why | Justin Kadi
Vienna has been declared a renters’ utopia – and it’s easy to see why | Justin Kadi
Social housing makes up almost half of the city’s 1m homes. The system isn’t perfect, but it gets a lot of things right, says housing expert Justin Kadi
www.theguardian.com
July 10, 2025 at 8:25 AM
... policy matters. Through long-term commitment to social housing and limited privatisation, housing can be made better and more affordable. Takeaway for cities like #Vancouver
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Vienna has been declared a renters’ utopia – and it’s easy to see why | Justin Kadi
Vienna has been declared a renters’ utopia – and it’s easy to see why | Justin Kadi
Social housing makes up almost half of the city’s 1m homes. The system isn’t perfect, but it gets a lot of things right, says housing expert Justin Kadi
www.theguardian.com
July 10, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Vienna has been declared a renters’ utopia – and it’s easy to see why | Justin Kadi