This was such a fun and welcoming talk! Thank you so much to everyone who attended and provided us with incredibly supportive comments and questions. Stay tuned for full paper version!!

Looking forward to talking eggs and autism with @amygaeta.bsky.social tomorrow as part of the @ndhumanities.bsky.social symposium tomorrow:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/neurodiver...

You guys aren't ready for The Zone.

Nothing says Valentine's Day like a discussion of sexually pathological corpses...

Delighted to receive my contributor's copy of this fantastic collection.

Congrats to Chris, Bridget, and Matt, and to everyone whose work features.

The cover of Lip Service issue 4, "Sex and Disability", featuring a quasi-collage of a vulva.

The first page of the article "Fucking Autistically (with PJ Harvey)"

Also very excited to see this piece by @amygaeta.bsky.social and I into print in the @vaginamuseum.bsky.social's fantastic zine, Lip Service.

The museum is a fantastic and welcoming space, and the launch was a lot of fun.

Incredibly sad about this but I am unable to attend @sirensconference.org this year. I registered at the early bird price ($299, plus some fees rounded out to $315) and would love to transfer my registration at cost to someone who wants to go. Email me if that's you! (sesmith at realsesmith dot com)

Historic vote paves way for new era of Atlantic Ocean conservation - Oceanographic A landmark vote by the IUCN has set the stage for the creation of one of the ocean’s most ambitious marine protected areas.

Whales & dolphins will see their migration paths protected as nations approve plan for vast Atlantic sanctuary. The move marks over four decades of advocacy and scientific work, and will safeguard key routes from shipping, industrial fishing and deep-sea mining. buff.ly/dl2mh5j
#ShareGoodNewsToo

Cover of Disabling Intelligences over a rainbow glass background

As you begin to build your 2026 reading lists (which is a thing I assume some people do), consider adding my really very short book on AI and Eugenics.

Disabling Intelligences:Legacies of Eugenics and How We are Wrong about AI has a lot in under 50k words.

link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Thank you for all the work you’ve done Eileen. It’s immeasurable. I hope you can get some peace soon. (And happy new year to you too)

Live: ICE agent shoots, kills woman in Minneapolis Video of the shooting shows an agent firing at a vehicle as it drives toward him. The governor and Minneapolis mayor called for calm after the incident. ICE said the agent acted defensively.

Live updates: Around 200 people marched more than two miles from the scene of the shooting to Minneapolis City Hall, shouting “ICE out now!” after police hurried away from the scene Wednesday afternoon.

The crowd of is continuing to snake its way through downtown.

Starting tomorrow, the Trump administration is set to send notices to 1,000 student loan borrowers (first round) noticing them of an intent to garnish their wages for student loan debt.

This is cruel and unnecessary.

Join the meeting below to get educated and fight back.

Wrote about some of the visuals in suffrage newspapers (1910-1914) as surveillance art the aimed at conveying state brutality for Modernism/modernity (@mmodernity.bsky.social). It came out on Print+ over the holiday! 1/

modernismmodernity.org/articles/bro...

The power of analogue | Carissa Veliz | TEDxGeneva In an age dominated by the digital — we must learn to cherish the analogue aspects of our lives. She will challenges us to reflect on the role of technology, data, and privacy in shaping what it…

“Protect the spaces where we are unobserved, unpredictable, and chaotically human.”

Can we rethink our relationship with technology? Carissa (@carissaveliz.bsky.social) will make you want to try.

Want to make a zine in 2026 as a goal? You could start w/a quick+handwritten minizines: only 6 tiny (4.25"x2.25") pages to fill + a cover + back cover (I usually fill w/credit/sharing info). See prompts from thatclowngoddess.bsky.social's Zine Idea Generator or check out @cms.bsky.social's zines!

Dr. Janell Green Smith, a midwife who advocated for Black maternal health, dies of childbirth complications Dr. Janell Green Smith, a South Carolina midwife and advocate for Black maternal health, has died due to complications during childbirth.

Dr. Janell Green Smith, a midwife who advocated for Black maternal health, dies of childbirth complications

Wonderful essay.

Friction represents the fact of being alive, of the differences of and in ourselves not being reduced or smoothed over. With my disabled bodymind, I’ve come to cherish friction (including the those I have with my accessibility tech) as reminders of my capacity to effect

‘A landmark agreement’: Fenway concession workers ratify new contract with Aramark, citing wage and staffing gains - The Boston Globe The new agreement caps off a contentious bargaining process that included a three-day strike during a July homestand against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

After a year of negotiations, more than 1,000 concession workers at Fenway Park and the neighboring MGM Music Hall secured a new union contract that supporters say provides better wages, clearer staffing protocols, and stronger job protections against automation, such as self-checkout machines.

Cop City RICO Cases Dismissed Years After 61 Activists Charged as Criminal Conspiracy - UNICORN RIOT Atlanta, GA – Racketeering charges against 61 people indicted as co-conspirators in the Stop Cop City movement were dismissed yesterday, marking a significant victory for those facing prosecution in t...

ICYMI: Racketeering charges against 61 people charged as co-conspirators in the Stop Cop City movement were dismissed on December 31, marking a significant victory for those facing prosecution nearly two years after they were indicted.

She was on the front lines of whale conservation. Now she's on the front lines of war. Russia's invasion of Ukraine upended Olga Shpak's life—and a generation of science.

For New Year's, talked to my friend Olga, who runs goods to the front lines from Kharkiv. She's moved everything from generators to a mobile hospital and ambulances. As seen in Mother Jones (below), CNN, NYT, and elsewhere. The work is staggeringly challenging. DM me if you would like to donate.

The online project raising awareness around relationship rights for people with disability

📢 More than 60 per cent of people with disability in Australia report having experiences of physical, sexual and intimate partner violence. A project aims to address this, by raising awareness around intimacy rights to reduce sexual violence for those with disability.

Final hours! Get ‘em while they’re hot (and I threaded some recommended upcoming reads below).

About DROP and the Delete Act Learn more about DROP. This includes the California Consumer Privacy Act and the Delete Act.

Today is the first day Californians can use a legislatively mandated platform to request that online platforms delete their data.

privacy.ca.gov/drop/about-d...

'A directive from above': Former NYT editor lays out how the paper pushes anti-trans bigotry In this in-depth interview, former New York Times editor Billie Jean Sweeney details how the paper shifted towards openly promoting anti-trans hatred, how some staff tried to stop it, how it's directe...

In this in-depth interview Billie Jean Sweeney — a former editor at The New York Times — details how the paper shifted towards openly promoting anti-trans hatred, why this was directed from the very top, how some staff pushed back and the immense damage done by the NYT legitimizing bigotry.

U.S. vaccination rates are plunging. Look up where your school stands. Take a look to see what the kindergarten measles vaccination rates are in your area.

EXCLUSIVE: @laurenweberhp.bsky.social & I have spent the last year collecting school+county-level vaccination data from across the US and found that only about 28% of counties now have herd immunity for kindergartners from measles—that leaves about 5.2mn kids unprotected.

Gift link: wapo.st/49zDc43

🧵1/6 After the El Fasher massacre, I identified a large UAE-aligned influence operation on X promoting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Around 19,000 accounts showed strong indicators of automation - bots marcowenjones.substack.com/p/i-found-19... #Sudan #Dysinfluence

Continuing through to the next in the opening contributions to the 'GENERATIVE AI' AND WRITING IN HIGHER EDUCATION, CAI's latest issue features Emily Hall's description of the converge around #surveillancetechnology at campuses like the #UniversityofWisconsin.
read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/...

Of all the dirty tricks: juking USPS rules so that the postmark of mail-in ballots won't reflect the date they were put in the hands of the Postal Service, creating a pretext to throw out the votes.

I’m planning to delete my Instagram but I do enjoy using it to discover bits of queer culture (magazines, clothing lines, campaigns). Does anyone have any ideas on where to digitally discover these things in one place besides another big social platform.

Criticism Is Literature. Why Is It Vanishing?, by Adam Morgan What do the best book reviews do? What is the current state of the critical ecosystem? Chicago Review of Books founder Adam Morgan takes stock of book reviewing in the US.

“there are only 7 full-time book critics left in the US: three at NYT ( Jacobs, Garner, Szalai), 2 at WaPo(Rothfeld, Charles), 1 each at WSJ (Sacks), NY mag (Chu), Slate (Miller)

more people have walked on the moon than write book reviews for a living”

worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/septemb...

Careers Find out about career opportunities at Jewish Currents.

Jewish Currents is looking for a new editor in chief.

I learned so much from Arielle and thankfully, she's not leaving. But whoever takes on the role of editor in chief will be leading the magazine in a very exciting time of expansion.

Apply here:

jewishcurrents.org/careers?toke...

Hi all: reupping my perennial call for indexing and editing clients for Spring / Summer 2026. It might be my last year doing this work, so get it while it's hot! Email at sosment@uchicago.edu for rate and availability. Feel free to share!