Dr Tom Drayton

Sufjan Stevens' Carrie & Lowell (33 1/3) Sufjan Stevens' Carrie & Lowell (33 1/3) [Mayward, Joel] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Sufjan Stevens' Carrie & Lowell (33 1/3)

Today is the day: my book, "Sufjan Stevens' Carrie & Lowell (33 1/3)," is finally here. amzn.to/4qOYWQ6

Boys’ bedtime tonight. They’re tired, so drift as soon as put down. I quietly leave the room and close the door. Hear four year old whisper: ‘Cowabunga’ 🐢

Been rewatching the IT films, and can understand why Welcome To Derry needs to up the scare-factor - because they’ll never be able to recreate the magic of that first Losers Club. Those films aren’t about Pennywise, but that extraordinary cast portraying that ka-tet. Lightning in a bottle.

Seasonal scented candle companies are missing a trick by not developing a ‘pumpkin being slightly charred by tea lights’ scent. I’d bulk order.

#4 Greg Dember: Metamodernism and the Defence of Interiority YouTube video by The Living Philosophy

This was a fun conversation about metamodernism that somehow was non-linear and rambling while also covering the basics pretty well.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiaS...

Just got up to date with @rangedtouch.bsky.social’s Just King Things podcast on a weeks long binge of the 29 episodes covering 29 of the 41 @stephenking.bsky.social books I’ve read. It’s been a journey, and amazing to feel part of Michael and Cameron’s seemingly never ending journey to the Tower

A popular meme image featuring a man sitting at a table outdoors. The man is casually holding a coffee mug and smiling, inviting debate. The sign has been edited to read: “Fantastic Four: First Steps is a Climate Change movie. CHANGE MY MIND.”

REF changes could leave arts researchers’ careers ‘in limbo’ - Arts Professional Researchers in performing arts subjects could find their careers “in limbo or potentially ended” due to planned changes to how the impact of academic research is evaluated, senior academics have warned....

Researchers in performing arts subjects could find their careers “in limbo or potentially ended” due to planned changes to how the impact of academic research is evaluated, senior academics have warned.

Is culture still bad for you? - Arts Professional In 2020, ‘Culture is bad for you’ was published. As its second edition is about to be released, one of its authors, Dave O’Brien, thinks now is a good moment to reflect on what’s happened to the cultu...

Is culture still bad for you?

In 2020, ‘Culture is bad for you’ was published. To mark the updated second edition, co-author @drdaveobrien.bsky.social, reflects on what’s happened to the cultural sector since then for @artsprofessional.co.uk: www.artsprofessional.co.uk/feature/is-c... #booksky

Why Has Sci-Fi TV Stopped Imagining Our Future? Once, shows like Star Trek predicted new tech and a boldly going future; now, Severance, Silo and even Trek are looking to the past.

I've been talking to @dtmooreeditor.bsky.social and @billwearsties.bsky.social about the current trend in televised sci-fi towards retrofuturism and alt-history over stories set in our actual *future*, and why imagining the future might be harder these days...
www.denofgeek.com/tv/why-has-s...

Universities Watchdog Braces For 'Cold Spots' As Courses Get Cut To Save Money The university watchdog is beginning to look at potential 'cold spots' emerging as institutions make redundancies and close courses in a bid to bal...

The university watchdog is braced for "cold spots" as institutions cut courses and staff in a bid to balance the books

"...individual decisions might stack up to suddenly realising that we've got no modern foreign languages in a particular part of the country"

@matildamartin.bsky.social reports

"Each of the administrative burdens that we are confronted with on a daily basis might seem small on their own but cumulatively they amount to a ‘mountain of small things’ that is killing academia"

Today marks 10 years (!) since I started teaching in HE 🫠

oh wow everything is bad in the US, lucky for us that we're Europeans and things are going better here, now to take a big sip of coffee and

It’s 20 years since Howard Barker published his bracing polemic on theatre and death, and the necessity of tragedy in a culture of relentless death denial. It’s a wonderful read: taut, austere, a vision of the inexhaustible theatrical image.

Amazing! Hope it was interesting/useful/not-too-dull

Spending the afternoon with a hot chocolate and @miserchristmas.bsky.social’s Symposium.

I know we all love a dose of hopium, especially now. But the take, which I see all across here, that the far right was defeated in Germany tonight because 80% of Germans voted for other parties is very misleading and unhelpful. Understanding this really matters. 🧵

The notion that Trump's "I'm king" tweet is "just trolling" or "a joke" presents an opportunity to recreate my just-joking thread (porting it over from the Bad Place):

1. I wrote my PhD dissertation on the social function of humor (in literature & film) and here's the thing about "just joking."

Also, the AfD is NOT the party of the youth.

The (new) Left did significantly better than AfD among 18-24 year olds.

Die Linke is also NOT the left-wing equivalent of AfD. They are more old-school social democratic than communist. Even their "populism" is debatable.

With an 84% turnout, the AfD's 20% of the vote are in fact 16.5% of the registered vote

Add to that all those who can't vote for various reasons, many of whom would be directly harmed by the AfD (and others to be fair) and you see where an alliance can be created instead of moving ever to the right

The far right rising Ahead of a historic German election, the AfD is courting the global right – and threatening to upend European politics.

As Germans head for the polls today, the stakes could not be higher for Germany‘s future and Europe.

My in-depth analysis on Merz‘ huge mistakes, but also some hope that the centre will get its act together in light of what happened since Munich.

the utopian ideals of a participatory web are enmeshed with the entanglements of worldbuilding within capitalism.

My first book, The Populist Style, is finally out! 🎉✨

It is available in open access (direct link to the PDF: tinyurl.com/PopulistStyl...) and there is a 30% discount code (NEW30) for those who want to get a hardback copy (edin.ac/3WIe0Sr).

Here's a summary of the book's key arguments:

1/25

People often mistakenly think metamodernism equals whatever ideology they support. Left can be MM, Right can be MM. Moderate, apolitical, anti-political can all be MM. Multi-perspectival can be MM, but MM is not at all inherently multi-perspectival.

Yes it was a Nazi salute

Already fed up of marking essays vomited up by GenAI. It’s insulting.

The Deluge is one of the best and most frightening things I’ve ever read - yet prescient in a way that’s completely believable. Felt like a map of the next 100 years. Wish it could be set as required reading.