Call for Submissions - Succession IV: Queering the Environment – “Queer Joy” We wish to build off of scholarship and lived knowledge that envisions queer joy as an affective or emotional way of knowing, specifically a way of knowing and being in relation with the environment a...

Heyo! - @tinaadcock.bsky.social, Sarah, and I decided to extend the deadline for Succession IV: Queering the Environment – “Queer Joy” to APRIL 13th!!

It's hard to focus on joy right now. That's why we chose the theme.

niche-canada.org/2026/02/28/c...

#envhist #envhum #queerecology

Kémy Adé was shocked by the immigration refusal letter she received. In rejecting her permanent residence application, the Immigration Department cited her current job duties, which included wiring and assembling control circuits, building control and robot panels, programming and troubleshooting. The department said these duties didn’t match the Canadian work experience she claimed. Well, no, they didn’t. Adé is a post-doctoral research fellow and guest teacher at McMaster University — and those skills are not part of her repertoire. Nor are they what she submitted in her immigration application a year ago. “I saw this language about this job description that has nothing to do with me,” said the health scientist from France, who has a PhD from Sorbonne University in the immunology of aging. “I was disoriented how this could happen.” But a disclaimer at the bottom of the refusal letter might provide a hint. It’s believed to be the first time that the department explicitly referred to the use of generative AI to support application processing in immigration refusals. The disclaimer also noted that all generated content was verified by an officer and that generative AI was not used to make or recommend a decision.

Today in AI:

Canada rejected the PR application of a McMaster postdoc from the Sorbonne who works in the immunology of aging because the generative AI being used to process applications (😱) entirely hallucinated her credentials.

Everyone involved should be fired.

archive.is/ELrCI#select...

Awww I love the long fur!

A small, sleepy dilute torbico cat (with a white fluffy belly and white mittens) half smiles, half grimaces while receiving neck scratches

In these troubled times, my mental fortitude depends so much on one angry little nugget

So, um... this is bad. Really bad. I looked at the letters that were translated by the AI, and the very first one I found was almost entirely hallucination. Thread:

Years ago our admin did a red and black report. It took salaries & how much $ each instructor made in tuition $ for classes we taught-you were in the red or black. They released numbers once & shut it down bc humanities were producing huge $ for uni & engineers, business and scientists were losing $

extremely relatable

Rats and Communism: Protecting Alberta from Invasion in the Early Cold War Alberta’s rat-free status resulted from a Cold War–inflected surveillance campaign, framing rats as communist infiltrators threatening agriculture, society, and security.

"Alberta’s right-wing Social Credit government fed anti-communist sentiment; the rat, like communism, had the potential to dismantle the province’s economic structure and way of life." - @fvreilly.bsky.social

niche-canada.org/2016/09/01/r...

#envhist #alberta #cdnhist #animalhistory #coldwar

A picture of an adorable calico cat with the words "4 years ago I lived in a bush and hunted my own meals. Now I have 2 passive incomes, my own house, and a personal chef. Follow me for more financial advice.

Delayed open access is strange because trans studies moves so quickly (by the standards of medieval studies). I see flaws in my own article now… but I think those flaws are a positive sign, an indication of my and our collective intellectual growth.

scholarworks.wmich.edu/med_ecocriti...

EXCITING UPDATE: The "Trans Natures" collection is now fully open access! Read it here: scholarworks.wmich.edu/med_ecocriti...

#MedievalSky #EnvHum

The Trans Natures special issue (ed by @malentendre.bsky.social and Nat Rivkin) of Medieval Ecocriticisms that I contributed to is available open access ! Enjoy ! scholarworks.wmich.edu/med_ecocriti...

While what is happening at TAMU with academic freedom is egregious, it is worth noting this started a while ago. In 2022, they vacated the tenure of their librarians and gutted the library. The library system was one of the best in the country.

www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2...

Made up?? In MY Moby Dick? (I don't remember that part though – an excuse to read it again!)

YES. I can't imagine finding whale taxonomy boring! Or not getting excited at THE FOLIO WHALE

Texas A&M decided to publicly cancel my Ethics class, and share a false statement that I declined to provide information, which made it impossible for [them ] to request an exemption. See for yourself, if this statement is true.

They are getting creative!

I think about this chapter at least once a week. It's the best

Of course, the question of whether anyone should go to grad school in 2026 is a different matter. I’m always happy to discuss this if you're weighing the options.

I've been really impressed by how committed my colleagues are to mentorship. We try to give everyone some funding, including MAs. Sharing a dept with Theatre is ideal for those working on drama. International students are welcome.

Applications are open for MA and PhD positions in my department. Quite honestly, I think it’s a great place to do grad school in English. Tell your friends!

MA: www.uoguelph.ca/arts/sotec/g...
PhD: www.uoguelph.ca/arts/sotec/g...

#AcademicSky

Bird sex fascinated medieval thinkers as much as people today

Modern researchers know about the cuckoo’s cross-species brood parasitism – but one Roman emperor observed this more than 700 years ago.

Drawing from many items in the U of G archives, Michael Dawson explores Jell-O in Canadian and American history.

Curious to learn more? Explore our Archival and Special Collections: www.lib.uoguelph.ca/archives/our....

#UofG

‘I’m on Fire’: Testosterone Is Giving Women Back Their Sex Drive — and Then Some

It's weird how nobody describes this as "the craze seducing our daughters" www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/m...

Genuinely I'm delighted; I love starting a new skill tree

Taking some jazz lessons is a great way to find out how bad you've been at guitar for 20 years

Creatures buried in soil for over a century burst back to life in Toronto waterfront A project to restore coastal wetland leads to astonishing discoveries of a host of life: seeds and plant scraps, as well as water fleas, worms, larvae and plankton

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

@laurelfynes.bsky.social

Excerpt from an article that reads: Lehane met with AI Minister Evan Solomon on Monday. Solomon told The Logic in June that his mission is to “create sovereign AI.” But “sovereignty is not solitude,” Solomon said, noting that Canada still needs technology and capital from other countries. OpenAI is participating in similar initiatives in other advanced economies. In May, the firm launched OpenAI for Countries, a new program that localizes ChatGPT and its underlying models for a nation’s particular customs and the requirements of its public sector. It is also offering to build data centres for countries that help pay for the infrastructure. Countries are turning to OpenAI because of its “cutting-edge technology,” which can be used to build homegrown tools and applications, and because the firm can help stimulate their domestic AI ecosystems by building or buying compute capacity, Lehane said.

Looks like Canada's approach to "sovereign AI" will involve creating structural dependencies on large US tech companies

Living this in reverse right now with importing my American partner to Canada. After thousands of dollars and six months of work on the file, we've managed to *apply*…now a year or two to wait if all goes well. And of course we're lucky, as this is still the easiest way to immigrate

I was back at 26 Federal Plaza today, where an ICE agent violently threw this bereft woman to the ground in front of her kids. She had not touched him. She did not pose any threat. She had to be taken to the hospital. (🎥: Elias Eliahu)

I saw this story earlier and made a mental note to check what you had to say about it! That line about "AI" analysis being "objective" as opposed to scholars' "subjective opinions" is total rage bait