For a fourth year in a row, Shannon Steen and I are running a working session on “The Performance of Politics” at ASTR.
Previous sessions have been, no exaggeration, some of the best intellectual experiences of my career.
Join us! Apply!
site.pheedloop.com/event/astr20...
Fwiw, Graeber's book is central to this season-ending episode of a podcast about AI and the "minimal viable company." The podcast itself is ... a mixed bag. www.iheart.com/podcast/1119...
That's an awful lot of drama!
Gosh, it sure would be nice to have a section about books and ideas, staffed with people who actually know things about this stuff...
I want you to guess whether this article draws a single substantive connection to "19th-century philosophy."
“I promise” is always my favorite example to teach. People get the contingency and fragility of a promise, whereas they’re prone to exaggerating the absolute strength of other performatives (wedding vows, declarations of war, etc.)
Happy February! Now’s a great time to submit your proposals for ASAP/17!
www.artsofthepresent.org/conference/3...
"Many of the large grants, including those to the Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education, the University of Texas and the University of North Carolina, were noncompetitive, meaning the recipients were selected to apply, according to two people familiar with the applications."
Trump's NEH: "Bring back merit! And by 'merit' we mean, of course, our handpicked allies receiving noncompetitive awards."
Look, I will die on this hill:
Podcasts are audio files distributed for free via RSS.
Videos are not podcasts. Streaming audio on subscription-based platforms is not a podcast.
I’m sure the press’s marketing team will have the same idea. 🤠
Today's the day I finally start writing a part of my book I've been working myself up to for months. It's about non-academic (esp. elite liberal) theories of political performance, and it's called...
"Ezra Klein, Performance Theorist."
I did not have “Free Experimental Theater for All” on my political wishlist, but now … I might be a single-issue voter?
(The tickets being handed out here are for the Under the Radar festival)
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/t...
I promise this is not a scholarly version of that “hatred of AI is low-key racist” take
I just published a thing I’m proud of:
An article called “Botface” about (1) how humans behave when impersonating robots; (2) how it derives from blackface; and (3) how it contributes to the weird racialization of robots and AI.
Please read, please share!
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
A cozy chair and ottoman sit in a light-filled window bay, where various cacti and succulents soak up the sun.
I love my reading nook so much.
The opening paragraph of "The Deep Dark Play of the US Capitol Riots"
Two concluding paragraphs from "The Deep Dark Play of the US Capitol Riots"
Five years ago today, I was slated to teach theories of play in a course called "The Performance of Politics." Instead, we sat and watched rioters storm the Capitol.
A year later, I published "The Deep, Dark Play of the US Capitol Riots." I still stand by its conclusions.
doi.org/10.1080/1352...
Excuse me while I convene a performance studies conference entirely about this quote:
"For Kirk and for much of society today, words are not expressions with referents, but rather, performative speech acts with specific functions — in his case, owning the libs."
www.theverge.com/policy/84960...
This is perfectly accurate as a representation of SLACs a half-century-plus ago, including the movement of star pupils into squishy faculty positions — but not, as you say, a representation of grad education anywhere ever.
But it DOES feature a top-notch cat performance, so … even Stephen?
This is exactly the question being prepped for debate by the characters in Emmanuelle Mattana's fascinating play TROPHY BOYS.
... you know, just in case anyone boycotting CBS wants to read some drama: playlabtheatre.com.au/web/viewer.h...
We are so excited to reveal the ASAP/17 logo for our upcoming conference in Madison, WI, on Oct. 15-17! Stay tuned for the CFP!
Although an interesting exception (?) might be a production like ERS’s Gatz, which I think was toured and revived with identical sets and costumes for many, many years.
Broadway touring companies likely do the same, but without the stuff ever having gone into storage.
Holiday shows (e.g., annual productions of A Christmas Carol) typically reuse sets and costumes — or, at least, costume *designs* when the cast changes from year to year.
Other than that, I’m guessing it doesn’t happen
Credit where credit is due: this a thoughtful, non-doom-hype-y article on higher ed and AI. In the year of our lord 2025!
Bonus points for not mentioning a single Ivy. Colleges mentioned include: Wyoming, UCSD, Western Ontario, Vanderbilt, and Illinois State.
www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
As Raymond Williams observed, “We come to tragedy by many roads.”
Seconding this as a Mariners convert from Cubs fandom -- it was obviously the curse-breaking that cursed the nation, not the Cubs winning. Only the Cubs losing in the WS -- preferably to the Mariners -- could undo it. Curse lifted/restored!
There’s a good poem about this:
www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
(Nods sagely) The Three vs. The Many
