NEW: I've been shocked by some of the numbers I've been seeing on behind-the-meter power plants for data centers, so I did a little math.
less than a dozen gas plants being built to power data centers for big tech companies could emit a maximum of nearly 130 million tons of CO2e each year (!)
💀💀💀
"Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated which day the New York Mets suffered their 11th straight loss. It was on Sunday, not Monday. Even the Mets cannot lose on an off day."
Two copy editors high-fiving so hard right now
Loving the incessant invitations to complete surveys on the use of gen AI and to join gen AI “symposia” that are engineered to shut down even so much as a whiff of critique.
FYI @erinspampinato.bsky.social’s gorgeous conclusion for the Barbara Johnson book evokes the gutting, seething sense of abusive waste that is the emotional weather of austerity academia. Solidarity to all enduring this & please god, if do you have job security, find out how you can put it to use
The most daring & imaginative rising scholars are being cast aside systematically, abandoned by the very system that needs their ideas the most: the loss is profound, for everyone. And as in other cases of underinvestment the scale of damage will only become visible after it’s too late to fix.
My book, Probable Exhaustion, posits that literary texts of the long 19th c help us trace how a conception of progress welded to infinite growth and development is unthinkable outside of the threat of exhaustion. Will be out with @cornellupress.bsky.social Jan 15, 2027
There is something perverse & darkly significant in the fact that a widely published scholar whose *forthcoming book* traces a prehistory of the ideologies now disfiguring academia will likely have to leave the profession b/c there are no stable jobs for him. Infinitely sad, at so many levels.
Good teaching is never easy, but has it ever been this hard? Since the COVID-19 pandemic, educators have been asked to pivot and reimagine their pedagogical practices again and again. Six years later, the "new normal" has yet to arrive. Instead of a return to business as usual, culty are facing a barrage of legislative attacks on academic freedom and the dizzyingly rapid adoption of AI by universities and students alike. As teachers, we are being tasked with simultaneously revolutionizing our approach to assignment design and assessment, while ridding our curriculum and lesson plans of material associated with DEI initiatives or deemed "divisive" by politicians. This roundtable series, organized by the Victorian Interdisciplinary Studies Association of the Western United States (VISAWUS), is dedicated to the problem and practice of teaching, Victorian studies in an era marked by retrograde policies and techno-optimistic imperatives. It asks, how do we teach nineteenth-century literature and culture, while remaining present to the challenges of the twenty-first century university? And what might we gain by employing Victorian modes of embodied Icarning-such as object lessons and recitation assignments—in the contemporary classroom? This series will take place over several dates in Fall 2026 and will be geared toward resource sharing and community building. Participants will be invited to share a 6-8 minute presentation, as well as a tangible part of their classroom practice: an assignment, exercise or activity. We invite proposals from contingent faculty, graduate students, early career scholars, and senior faculty alike. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to: • Teaching reading and writing in the age of I.L.Ms and Al • Navigating contemporary politics in the Victorian classroom • Forms of attention and distraction and/or strategies for cultivating focus • Object lessons, especially models for hands-on engagement and approaches to teaching material cult…
CFP for VISAWUS 2026 online series on teaching. Please apply and share!
TIME FOE TEACHING!
A roundtable series to address the crisis in teaching Victorian Studies. Literary scholars, historians, art historians please join us!
#VictorianStudies
#19thCentury
#AcademicSky
if you want to preorder this bad boy & set some of its very, very good essays on your fall syllabi, you can use NUP2026 to get 25% off —and I bet some of us would love to Zoom into your classes to talk?! 💗
@devingarofalo.bsky.social @nupress.bsky.social
And you need to read Lauren's whole essay (link in quoteskeet), but here's a little context on Rize.
(202) 224-3121 is the capitol switchboard for connecting to any senate or house office; even if you've never called; even though the lot of them are useless. no abominable war crimes, no war, no.
“During one conversation, we asked Altman whether running an A.I. company came with ‘an elevated requirement of integrity.’ This was supposed to be an easy question.”
What if we just went back to reading a bunch of books and thinking about them together, and that was the class? With syllabi no longer than three pages.
Time to sit back now, I hope!
Yes, casual, nbd.
Resharing, for the Friday crowd, the news of this crucial special issue, in which I'm honored to appear alongside scholars and humans I deeply admire and to share the article I wrote when I thought it might be my last. Solidarity with all who have wondered the same.
muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
You 100% can and should.
FOMO.
I cannot WAIT for my copy of @johannawinant.bsky.social's first monograph to arrive! I've just ordered LYRIC LOGIC from Columbia UP with the code CUP20.
This review from Oren Izenberg tells you what you need to know. We all need pleasure, thought, & both buoyancy and precision, right now & always:
bsky.app/profile/joha...
JOHANNA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🎉🥳🖤
BRILLIANCE ALERT!
I’m assuming he just hates everyone.
Fantastic job by @devingarofalo.bsky.social and the authors in this issue.
Already scheming about how to make space for this on my undergrad intro to literary studies syllabus (required course for majors). These kinds of issues need to be center stage in our classrooms.
Omg thank you, this made my day. Happy to chat with yr students, FYI, if that’d be at all useful!!!
ICYMI yesterday afternoon, a new, currently ~open access issue of Victorian Poetry—abt VP & so much more—dropped ft a stellar intro by @devingarofalo.bsky.social, essays by @carolinelevine.bsky.social, @lerikscline.bsky.social, Ruth McAdams, & me, and a keywords essay by @ryancarroll.bsky.social.
Thank you so much for reading, Adam!!
Thanks for reading and supporting, Tom!!!
Cannot wait to read this.