I don't see this said enough: the widespread use of generative AI is not only making our jobs as educators harder logistically, but also emotionally. It is genuinely sad to be suspicious of students when you have spent so much time building a pedagogy based on trust and not being a cop. It sucks.
Replace every how-to-publish panel with one on the material realities of publishing. This is where I’m at.
Good read
The number of Americans studying in China - and thus prepared to give informed future advice on China - is at a critical new low.
Jesus got up one day a little later than usual. He had been dreaming so deep there was nothing left in his head. What was it? A nightmare, dead bodies walking all around him, eyes rolled back, skin falling off. But he wasn't afraid of that. It was a beautiful day. How 'bout some coffee? Don't mind if I do. Take a little ride on my donkey, I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody.
My traditional Easter reading, from James Tate.
what if we got a 100% blockrate on it. what if they designed an AI and we unanimously said "nope"
Girl Scouts and DSA alike
Ithaca showing up, all of downtown is packed!
in simple terms... meritocratic nationalism makes one deeply unhappy. this is also quite related to the Zhang Xuefeng phenomenon.
bsky.app/profile/chen...
Lot of rookie numbers on that leaderboard, power user status seems up for grabs
Been playing with this huge database of Chinese cigarette package art for a solid half hour. Derby New USA Blend: www.ciggies.app/sku/1070; Zhongnanhai 8mg tar: www.ciggies.app/sku/27; and 555s -- I'm pretty sure I've never had a real one of these: www.ciggies.app/sku/2154
the proud boys' lawyer thinks he redacted the email addresses of the over 2000 people who donated to the fundraiser for the lawsuit, but here's the thing: no he did not lol
to Lea and all the panelists and I can't wait to share the experience with my students. I don't want to get all "I regret to inform you that we will win," but the fun of AI (which can be fun!) is hard to compare to the deeply satisfying fun we had sharing poems slowly.
It felt like braiding sweetgrass, the natural and generational practice of the humanities teacher that persists because it actually renews the individual and the community, provokes intellectual growth, and holds challenge and change even though it is a very old. I'm super grateful
what surprised me most was the absolute joy people took in the one-person-one-poem relationship. People nerded out in etymological dictionaries. They got involved. Jen Hoyer read a poem in order to describe her own neurological phenomenology. Ross Etherton wrote Li Bai into a western folk song.
She knew (it was really her idea) that we could intervene in the scale and rhythm of reading, and that there are homologies and echoes at the smallest scale that are as/more powerful and interesting as the patterns of distant reading. And that was true, I learned a ton from poems in other langs. BUT
Just got to see this article and highly recommend it. Weekend before last Lea Pao (who opens the article) and I co-organized "One Poem: Reading Fast and Slow," a conference stream at the ACLA. It went great, some observations in the thread below: www.theguardian.com/technology/n...
When a reading of text has proceeded by laborious stages within the test-rig of detailed study, pause to allow the overall effect to integrate back into a coherent human reading, and ponder whether your life may even have been changed, just a little, or your beliefs about large questions; whether your habits of feeling have been flattered or boastfully challenged, or whether your relation to the text builds up a kind of trust. This aspect is what you will take away with you when all the study is finished, and it should last you through a lifetime.
J. H. Prynne, on reading
Seeking panelists for a guaranteed roundtable at next year's MLA convention in Los Angeles:
"Reducing Technology Dependence in Chinese Language and Culture Pedagogy"
1/3
I can't travel in January but this sounds awesome. Maybe @laoluo.bsky.social will come talk about his writing class with the (haptic) notecard system...?
Not your average “I got a new job” post. A measured and powerful act of courage—read the thread!
Rereading part of the Classic of Mountains and Seas for the Strange class. Here are so good bits:
"There is an animal here which looks like a wild cat, and it has a white tail and a mane. Its name is the bum-bum. If you rear it, you can take it to cure melancholy."
Epstein’s economic power among academics was made possible by a capitalist system that makes higher education dependent on the charity economy rather than a public good supported by taxing the rich
Those must have been the exact same classes. Super weird. We should have a beer sometime! I really imprinted on her as a teacher and even with (gestures to things) what I learned from her feels like it's only getting more useful. Or because of it, I guess.
I did Masterpieces of European Literature 2 with her too! Were we in the same year? I graduated in 2001.
Just got back home--I'm having trouble parsing my notes because she moved from work to work so fluidly. There's a lot of Kierkegaard in here, but I'm not sure we read it together, she might have just been talking about it. Definitely Conrad's "Narcissus" was in there, _maybe_ Yeats.
I found my notebook: here's the page from the first day of class. I knew it was special at the time and I was actually really really paying attention (although I didn't get down #3?), but looking back, wow. I was stupid lucky to have this in my life.
Hey, I took 7 Lamps with Naomi Lebowitz too! Lot of future scholars in there. My clearest memory is of her teaching Karamazov, but I can’t remember which lamp it was. Grace?
