The problem for me is that I have yet to read a critique of AI and LLMs that truly interests me. Where is the Benjaminian critique?
@danielmartin
Associate Prof at MacEwan University in Edmonton AB, Canada. Victorian literature, dysfluency studies, literary theory, some trains and accidents. Writing a book about stuttering. Co-director of Stuttering Commons: https://www.stutteringcommons.org
The problem for me is that I have yet to read a critique of AI and LLMs that truly interests me. Where is the Benjaminian critique?
βI like a weird flexβ - Aesop Rock.
Just saying that Iβm not receptive to those of us who are up in arms about AI. Iβm suspicious of the romanticization of human writing. Writing has never been human.
I have commitment issues in friendships, social media, and writing.
In Western Canada, itβs cheaper to fly to LA than Toronto. Millions of Jays fans in the West.
Some of the most important and fulfilling moments of my life have happened while reading novels. Itβs a very strange way to have found value on this earth. And society seems determined to give up on reading entirely.
Anyone else checking out Matthew Rankin's Universal Language (2024) tonight? This nerd is excited, even though it's almost -30 C out of doors here.
I feel the same way!
I find Wuthering Heights so difficult to teach, in contrast to Jane Eyre or even Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Next time I teach our Studies in Screen Culture course, my topic will be "Slow Screens." Look for it in the 2028-29 academic year.
My wife sent me a link to Akerman's trailer for Jeanne Dielman and then called me the world's biggest nerd for liking a film that no one's ever heard of. I think I was set up, but I'm not completely sure.
Julia Miele Rodas is the author I'm thinking of -- in a special issue of Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies edited by Mossman and Stoddard Holmes (2008).
Yes, there's actually been a few pieces about this, but I'm also blanking on the names right now.
My students' heads nodded vigorously and enthusiastically when a classmate suggested that Jane Eyre might be on the autism spectrum.
Reposting--applications due in 2 weeks; open field tenure-track job in English.
We had a similar thing at my university!!! My jaw dropped.
On it!
I'd be happy to! Can I send them to your Winnipeg email?
In my upper English undergrad courses, students write three Demonstrations of Learning in a semester. Each DL includes a range of assignment options they can complete (traditional essays, unessays, presentations, personal responses, etc). They're game-changers for grading and students love them.
If you're interested in scholarly and aesthetic work on stuttering pride and Dysfluency Studies, check out our library of resources from The Stuttering Commons: www.stutteringcommons.org/library
I switched from Gaskell a few years ago too, and replaced with Barrett Browning, βThe Cry of the Childrenβ; Cook, βA Song for the Workersβ; Landon, βThe Factory.β Cook and Landon are especially interesting because of their renovations of the ballad form.
All I want to do right now: talk with my students about awesome literary, theoretical, and cinematic texts; coach my son's soccer team; hang out with my wife and son; read some new books; exercise; eat; sleep; listen to music; watch good film and television; watch crappy film and television.
Trying to decide which novel to read in installments all semester in my 1859 class: *The Woman in White* or *A Tale of Two Cities*. Both are on the syllabus, so it's a matter of which will most benefit from being done in small pieces weekly for 14wks vs in a more traditional 2wk format. Thoughts?
That's tough!! I'll be teaching Woman in White in instalments in a sensation novel seminar next year. I'm currently teaching Gaskell's Cranford in instalments, too. My gut tells me to go with the Collins.
I've always struggled with reading. I'm slow and impatient, but so far I've been loving Ned Beauman's Venomous Lumpsucker. I also loved The Teleportation Accident from 2012, so I'm wondering if Beauman is one of my favourite writers now.
Another book my brain will never be able to write would focus on visual cultures of speech-language therapy (1800-2025).
Illustration from 1898 of a hypnotist working on a patient. The hypnotist encourages the patient to image that their mouth can't speak without stuttering. The illustration includes a caption that says "Can't Speak Without Stuttering."
From Leslie J. Meacham's Lessons in Hypnotism (1898). One of Meacham's plans for inducing hypnotic states focuses on filling the mouth with stutters.
I'm not up to the task of writing it, but I would love to read the book about how knowledge only ever moves toward dysfluency, despite broad systemic efforts to the contrary.
I teach it in My Intro to the Novel Course. It's too early in the 19th century for the Victorians, but students love it!!
This is my tentative reading list for Early Victorian Literature (undergrad) in January. What's missing? What should I add? I'll also include selections from Carlyle, Mill, Marx, and Ruskin.