I wrote about the response to Tyler Austin Harper’s February Atlantic article on The Mellon Foundation by academics here on Bluesky and Wesleyan president Michael Roth. The tldr: people should stop taking shots at Harper and focus on the issues he raises about our cultural institutions.
“The Democrat Intellectual Complex,” my essay on the Democratic Party and the decline of intellectual life in the US, is now live on Substack.
to @jefflawcdm.bsky.social, Emily Shortslef, Ellen Song, Michael Trask, and JCMS’s anonymous reviewers, for comments on multiple drafts; to Jeff Menne, for stewarding the essay through JCMS’s system; and to Lauren Stachew and her team at University of Michigan, for expert copyediting.
Jeff Lawrence's part 2 for El Roommate, "On Literature, Politics, and Privilege", continuing the essay a coupple of days ago for the "Two paths for the Whitexican novel". tinyurl.com/3un4hwnz @jefflawcdm.bsky.social
Now in El Roommate 'Two Paths for the Whitexican Novel'- This piece by Jeff Lawrence is not just a serious critique of the novels of Valeria Luiselli and Nicolás Medina Mora, but rather a systemic critique of the US literary markets. @jefflawcdm.bsky.social elroommate.com/2025/05/21/j...
Speaking today at the University of Kentucky on anti-Trumpism. Starting with Carlos Manuel Álvarez's line, "To see half of the nation trying to annihilate Trump is like watching a body attempting to get rid of its shadow.” Grateful to my old friend @jordanrbrower.bsky.social for the invitation!
enjoyed the cluster but especially this response—i’m trained in comp lit/eastern european lit & i always get the sense that post45 forgets it’s mostly former english majors having a conversation with little knowledge of what’s going on beyond itself
The third GESEI Colloquium on Independent Publishing, titled “From Latin America to the World: Publishing Today,” will take place at Princeton University next Tuesday, April 8. Congrats to Nora Muñiz and the rest of the Princeton team for organizing!
Yeah, that seems right. Some of this has to do with how we define a social movement imo. I have more thoughts, but probably for a different format!
Tracking Latin American literary responses to MeToo would make more sense, but would have to take into account the regional/national specificities of NiUnaMenos, which precedes the major wave of MeToo even though it’s arguably bolstered/transformed by it.
Yes, for sure, and there is transnational exchange between the movements themselves. But can we agree that the best study of the literary effects of those movements would be “comparative” rather than transnational? Imo, tracking responses to NiUnaMenos in the US literary field wouldn’t get us far.
Yes, I also was looking to scholarship in Latin America and Spain about social movements and culture for the most recent essay. So it would make sense. I would love to think about these issues in a hemispheric/transnational context.
I appreciate that you made reference to my book in your response. It really wasn’t taken up by US or Latin American literary scholars when it came out. Part of my rationale for writing the original essay was my sense of how narrow the methodological possibilities are for post-1945 literary studies.
I hear what you’re saying Nacho and constraint strikes me as the right word. I felt that I couldn’t do justice to the internal dynamics of the US literary field and those transnational elements at the same time. I do hope that people in Post45 go back to “Anxieties of Experience” after this cluster.
What role do social movements play in recent literary history? @franciscondine.bsky.social and I gathered some brilliant scholars to debate Jeffrey Lawrence's essay, "Mobilizing Literature," published last fall for @atpost45.bsky.social
post45.org/2025/03/intr...
My response to the Post45 cluster, "Moving Beyond Institutionalism," discusses the challenges that a social movements-based method for post-1945 US literary study presents to the dominant institutionalist and neo-Jamesonian modes. @atpost45.bsky.social @post45.bsky.social
post45.org/2025/03/movi...
Nine responses to my 2024 ELH essay "Mobilizing Literature: Social Movements and Post-1945 US Literary Studies" just went live on @atpost45.bsky.social. I'm grateful to @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and @franciscondine.bsky.social
for organizing the cluster.
post45.org/2025/03/intr...
Don’t the tech bros realize that if they destroy higher education nobody will read the AI stories?
Esta especie de palabrería necia (para hablar de un saldo de muertos de más de 150.000 personas) define tanto el estilo como el contenido de los reportajes recientes de Jacobin hacia México, y a mi juicio, no hacen ningún servicio a la administración actual.
En su columna "Claudia Sheinbaum, Presidenta", despacha así las críticas sobre la persistencia de la militarización: "While AMLO’s administration ultimately succeeded in modestly reducing stubborn homicide totals, the nation is far from pacified, with rates remaining frustratingly high".
En los primeros años del sexenio de AMLO, se podía criticar a Morena desde una posición de apoyo, y ahora no. El más vergonzoso en ese sentido es Kurt Hackbarth.
Donald Trump is an unrepentant racist, a grotesque caricature of all the worst aspects of our society, and an embarrassment to the office of the Presidency and I look forward to working with him.
I continue to be confused by mainstream Democrats. Why are you surprised that Zuckerberg kissed the ring? At what point did he lead you to believe he shared your principles?
Cover of Jordan new book, Classical Hollywood, American Modernism, with a picture of James Cagney and Marie Wilson from Boy Meets Girl (1938)
I think @jordanrbrower.bsky.social’s book is just terrific. A game-changer for anyone working on Classical Hollywood. Teachable, for sure, with superb readings, but also thinkable in the ways it reshuffles transmedia history and the place of the literary.
To my mind, the absence of an English translation of the book (the Spanish translation, which I read, came out in 2021) speaks volumes about the refusal of the US literary-scholarly establishment to abandon the moralizing tones in which the entire debate has been conducted.