For Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, Iran feels like déjà vu Post-9/11 veterans say the U.S. strikes on Iran feel like the opening chapter of a war they thought was over.

Yes.

Photo of the author. Text underneath the picture: De Gruyter Conversations. Uncopyable? Creativity and Judgement in the Age of AI

Visual reading: “Whether we continue to think for ourselves, or slowly but surely stop noticing when we do not, may be the decisive question of our time.” Marc Spranger

Close up picture of an eye in sunlight

With the seemingly human responses of #AI chatbots, many of us cannot help but think that someone is truly there, thinking about our questions and quandaries. But AI has no body, no lived experiences, and doesn't lose any sleep over difficult decisions.

Cover of the book: Unkopierbar: Warum unsere Kreativität im KI Zeitalter überlebt oder verschwindet, Marc Spranger

Visual reading: “Only humans can determine the underlying purpose and ethical necessity of an action, and therefore must remain the decisive authority.” Marc Spranger

Visual reading: “Cultivating creativity is not merely a personal task, but an institutional one.” Marc Spranger

In our new blog post, consultant Marc Spranger elaborates on why this lack of emotion isn't always an advantage and why human creativity and agency need to be cultivated even more in our age of digital offloading.

blog.degruyter.com/uncopyable-creativity-an...

I’m thrilled to share the news that ELEMENTAL WORLD CINEMA edited by Tiago de Luca and Matilda Mroz has been shortlisted for the Best Edited Collection category at the BAFTSS 2026: www.baftss.org/contenders-p...

Get your copy at brill.com/display/titl...

Series webpage: Brill.com/COCI

Letz go even bigger and better,,, ALL Female US Olympians and Paralympian medalists are invited out to celebrate in Viva Las Vegas for the SHE GOT GAME Weekend ,,,

Hit a guy up and LETZ GOOO

Uncopyable? Creativity and Judgment in the Age of AI - De Gruyter Conversations There’s no such thing as a moral machine – yet. In times of digital offloading, we need to cultivate human creativity once more. After all, real thinking begins where certainty breaks down, not where ...

The publication of Marc Spranger's "Unkopierbar: Warum unsere Kreativität im KI-Zeitalter überlebt oder verschwindet" is unlike anything else we have done in cultural studies at @degruyterbrill.bsky.social, and in my opinion it couldn't be more timely.

blog.degruyter.com/uncopyable-c...

Just some bangers from the COIN Manual that informed so many of our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The level of restraint we expect from our soldiers and Marines, even in a COIN environment, is remarkable.

Such professionalism should be expected of every American we trust to bear arms.

Call it AI if you somehow make an LLM discover actual new physics (and please not just something it scraped off of the internet.)

This will probably not happen for a few more decades at best... we are probably far from AGI, and anyone telling you otherwise is trying to raise their share price.

My family are useful canaries of what news the public actually sees from astro, and only yesterday did my mum ask me about a study (one article of many linked below) who said they "trained an AI" to simulate the Milky Way.

This was NOT AI as how the public sees "AI", and this is disingenuous.

Selling Out Santa Christmas is not just a day or a frame of mind as Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) imparts in Miracle on 34 th Street (1947); Christmas is also a vehicle for national mythmaking as an idealising mirror for...

Already working on your Christmas shopping? @gvaughnjoy.bsky.social's brand new book "Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy" - the first in our "Pop Culture in Context" series - is on sale now!
www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

About this book Christmas is not just a day or a frame of mind as Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) imparts in Miracle on 34th Street (1947); Christmas is also a vehicle for national mythmaking as an idealising mirror for American cultural and political attitudes of a given moment. Via a case study on Hollywood Christmas films released between 1946 and 1961, Selling Out Santa offers an examination of political pressures on Hollywood in the post-war period and the cultural ramifications of federal involvement in the motion picture industry. As the House Committee on Un-American Activities opened hearings in 1947 and the FBI gathered reports on potential communist subversion in Frank Capra’s Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Hollywood executives began to bend to the socially conservative pressures of this post-war moment. Using Christmas films as the core of this investigation to identify and analyse changes within the genre as they relate to and reflect changes in the wider cultural and political moment exposes for film scholars, students, and non-specialists how these federal and external pressures on Hollywood moulded these holiday favourites throughout the 1950s and set the social standard for decades of Christmas releases.

🎄🎄 CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY 🎄🎄

My book **Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy** was surprise published yesterday! Here's the book description and Barnes & Noble link if you're interested in gifting it to history and film lovers!
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/selling-ou...

Excited to announce the virtual launch of our new book, 'The New Holocaust Galleries at the Imperial War Museum London' in one week! Join our editors next Tuesday at 10:00-11:30 a.m. ET; 9:00-10:30 a.m. CT; 4:5-30 p.m. CST! @memstudiesassoc.bsky.social @andypearce.bsky.social

Picture of me ab Lou Peck on a panel at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Can’t argue with this to be honest.

What a privilege to take part in this. Thank you to everyone who attended and my fellow panelists!

The DGB stand at the book fair.

List of panels.

Excited to be with @degruyterbrill.bsky.social at the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time! Looking forward to a great panel and discussion later.

A very bad graph of how many books we had at our conference table.

Last day at #GSA2025 in Arlington! For those following the adventure at home, I drafted a graphical representation of how many @degruyterbrill.bsky.social books we had on our table over time. See you next year!

*No books? No problem!* Our book boxes have mysteriously disappeared but *we* are totally here! #GSA2025 @Arlington, VA

Every year I’m impressed at your efforts to do this! Keep up the fantastic work.

Cover-reveal of the first book in the @degruyterbrill.bsky.social book series 'Pop Culture in Context' I co-edit with @lizwfab.bsky.social & @hermioneclone.bsky.social! Congrats to Vaughn @gvaughnjoy.bsky.social & many thanks to @davideisler.bsky.social,our editorial director,for all your hard work!

The first volume in the new @dgb-langlitcult.bsky.social series “Pop Culture in Context” has a cover!

Leading up to the “Back to the Beginning” show a few weeks ago, I spent a lot of time listening to Ozzy’s music. It was such a pleasure to remember the joy I got learning his songs as a teenage guitar player. I’m glad he got to perform one last time.

How I pack for basically every trip.

I’m thrilled to work with Liz, Emily, and Judith to bring this series to life. More announcements coming soon!

A sprawling, textured field of galaxies scattered across the deep black of space. It is filled with the delicate smudges and glowing cores of galaxies of many shapes, sizes and colors, as well as the bright multi-colored points of stars. The image focuses on a collection of interacting galaxies connected by delicate streams of stars. At top center lies a large elliptical galaxy that is dense and smooth, like a polished stone glowing with golden light. Like delicate spider silk or stretched taffy, these stellar bridges link the large elliptical to the few larger galaxies beneath, evidence of past collisions. All throughout the image, thousands of galaxies gather in clusters or are spread throughout, like glittering gems strewn on a table. Some are sharp-edged and spiral, like coiled ribbons; others round and diffuse, like polished pebbles. Still others are just smudges of various colors against the black of space. The background is peppered with pinpoint stars in reds, yellows, and blues, crisp against the velvet black.

A cosmic tapestry of glowing tan and pink gas clouds with dark dust lanes. In the upper right, the Trifid Nebula resembles a small flower in space. Its soft, pinkish gas petals are surrounded by blue gas, and streaked with dark, finger-like veins of dust that divide it into three parts. It radiates a gentle, misty glow, diffuse and soft like the warmth of breath on a cold hand. To the lower left, the much larger Lagoon Nebula stretches wide like a churning sea of magenta gas, with bright blue, knotted clumps sprinkled throughout where new stars are born. Both nebulae are embedded in a soft tan backdrop of gas that is brighter on the left than on the right, etched with dark tendrils of dust and sprinkled with the pinpricks of millions of stars.

A sprawling, textured field of galaxies scattered across the deep black of space. It is filled with the delicate smudges and glowing cores of galaxies of many shapes, sizes and colors, as well as the bright multi-colored points of stars. To the lower left is a region filled with the hundreds of golden glittering gems of a distant galaxy cluster. In the foreground, below and right of center, two blue spiral galaxies look like eyes beneath the entangled mass of a triple galaxy merger in the upper right. A few bright blue points of foreground stars pierce the glittering tapestry. All throughout the image, thousands of galaxies gather in clusters or are spread throughout, like glittering gems strewn on a table. Some are sharp-edged and spiral, like coiled ribbons; others round and diffuse, like polished pebbles. Still others are just smudges of various colors against the black of space. The background is peppered with pinpoint stars in reds, yellows, and blues, crisp against the velvet black.

Introducing...your sneak peek at the cosmos captured by NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory!

Can you guess these regions of sky?

This is just a small peek...join us at 11am US EDT for your full First Look at how Rubin will #CaptureTheCosmos! 🔭🧪

#RubinFirstLook
ls.st/rubin-first-look-livestream

Damn I was counting on this

Screenshot of a title page, black text against a white background reading: Vaughn Joy Selling Out Santa Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy De Gruyter

I have proofs 🥹 of a book that I wrote 🥹

Huge thanks to @davideisler.bsky.social and @degruyterbrill.bsky.social for making dreams come true!

MY BOOK on media manipulation of the Christmas holiday for social conservative ends in the post-war period will be out in November (in time for Christmas!)🗃️

This is so awesome! I can’t wait for everyone to read it when it comes out.

Have you been able to get this to work? I’ve tried multiple ways and no matter what they find a way to keep me from getting there.

Humanities for Humans in Berlin today! This promises to be a fascinating and timely discussion.

Great news! Congratulations!