pam lach

NBC News poll Voters hold negative views of Al. In fact, the only topics less popular in the survey were the Democratic Party and Iran.

Truly a perfect news alert

Beware supremacist frames that tell you there is only one legitimate way of knowing

Yessssss!

I would buy so many copies of this

The #DHmakes rallying cry I needed today.

OMG LOOOOOOOOVE THIS

Not feeling well today, but I did recently do a quick print per @plach.bsky.social & @quinnanya.me's suggestion (see Pam's 🧵 on uni-corporate-admin "ethically" ramming corp brand use into our work)... w/a bit extra against anti-human tech, courtesy of my infinitely reusable beckoning Luddite block:

"AI will help researches produce more papers"

Okay but for what purpose? No, really why? Who actually believes there is a lack of publications out there? 📚

From the correspondence course craze in the early 20C to MOOCs one hundred years later, the commodification of education was but a lucrative side hustle for unis. Now the compulsory technologization of education is fully integrated into extractive capitalism. What a time to be a professor.

The first thing I read and talk to my graduate students about is generous reading as a foundational practice for our class. We're going to assume that I chose each thing on our reading list because we can get something out of it, and we're going to read for that first. Then, we can critique.

1. Are you currently using an AI tool for work-related tasks or projects? * Yes * No, but I would like to (PLEASE SKIP TO QUESTION 7)

My employer asks me to complete a survey on AI usage for which this is the first question (required):

ACH elections are anticipated to open April 1st. All current members of ACH are eligible to vote. Those wanting to vote in the election must join or renew their membership (if expired) by March 20. Preview the slate and learn how to check to see if your membership is up to date at: buff.ly/PpaTbM5

This is exactly what everyone knew would happen. AI is the accountability sink. It gives plausible deniability to defer responsibility for the horrors onto something that can only make the noises of an apology

Embroidered Zs in various shades of blue and teal stitched in a spiral pattern on black fabric. The fabric is patterned with gold stars and dots circled by gold swirls in various sizes. A mix of orange, pink, copper, and mauve beads are stitched into many of the Zs

Losing an hour of sleep to daylight savings made today the perfect day to catch up on my sleep/insomnia visualization. Here’s all of my sleep since the beginning of the year. Each Z is a night. Thread colors represent the amount of sleep & beads represent different types of wakefulness. #DHmakes

Nathan Cavanaugh Deposition (Part 3) in MLA-ACLS-AHA Lawsuit about the NEH YouTube video by ModernLanguageAssoc

I love that @modernlanguage.bsky.social has posted the depositions of the DOGE bros who gutted the National Endowment for the Humanities. All part of the lawsuit the MLA, AHA, and ACLS have filed against the federal government.

A bright pink, daisy like flower with delicate white stripes on its petals and a ring of yellow around the flower’s center

This flower is just as lovely when not in full sun

A bright pink, daisy like flower with delicate white stripes on its petals glows in the morning sun

Spring forward is hard. Spring flowers are easy

It is useful, and prudent, to make a distinction between vaccine hesitancy and vaccine resistance. For example, there are many reasons why certain racialized and minoritized communities might hold onto questions about vaccines because of their histories with the state and colonization.../

I tend to agree 😆

How to “exclude unrelated controversial and contested matters” without even trying! Houston –Because of our reputation for high-quality, research-based advice, The Faux Faculty Senate has been asked by some of our UT brethren to make sense of the most recent statements-- or perhaps non-statements?--by the UT System Board of Regents. In a free yet respectful inquiry, we sought to understand the true meaning of the Board’s admonition for faculty to ‘exclude unrelated controversial and contested matters’ from classroom teaching. Unfortunately, the Board’s statement (like earlier statements we’ve seen) accidentally left out all its definitions of terms like “CONTROVERSIAL,” so naturally we supplied our own. Looking over our previous press releases, however, the FFS endorses an approach as broad and balanced as an administrator could ever desire. And what’s the most important consideration in a public research university serving tens of thousands of students? Compliance, obviously. Nonetheless, we’re confident we’re prepared to attain a brand-new level of compliance in the recommendations that follow.

As literature professors, we often look to the classics to provide some guidance. We therefore recommend the immediate removal of Huck Finn because of its controversial “anti-Christian” bias. To get both sides of this story, however, we contacted Harriet Beecher Stowe’s literary agency to see how she’d react to Huck’s views on Christianity. Sadly, we were not able to get through to her, but we imagine that polling deceased authors might be the best way to reach a “broad balanced approach” to a questionable text that we are only too eager to cross off our list. We also looked back to the foul legacy of that enthusiast for cannibalism, Jonathan Swift, whose printed pamphlets were constantly hunted down (for good reasons!) by the authorities who put a bounty on his guilty head. Clearly, there’s no reason to teach something that might be construed as pro-cannibalism or anti-Christian. We urge everyone, then, not to teach any such dangerous texts in the future, unless they can be proven not to upset anyone, anywhere, at any time. This seems like a reasonable compromise to us. In the meantime, why not attend our next Faux Faculty Senate happy hour on Thursday, March 12 at 5 pm till 7 pm at Eric’s in the Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management on the UH campus. We will bring along our Scrabble game and invite animated discussions over possibly controversial topics like “What the hell are we supposed to avoid now?”

The Faux Faculty Senate are back with another round of helpful advice for our brethren throughout the state. Here we warn faculty not to teach Huck Finn or the Modest Proposal, if they know what's good for them.

I really wish the "report spam" button wasn't next to the "delete" button in my email. I just accidentally reported an email from my Provost as spam. On second thought ... 🤔

I being 100% serious when say I want a massive box set called "Muppets literary classic"

I want Little Woman starting Miss Piggy

Lovecraft Collection hosted by Gonzo

The Count Monte Cristo with Rizzo as lead

Give them the time money they had Treasure Island and Carol, you got gold in your hands.

solidarity with my faculty colleagues in public higher ed in this state, now more than ever, who are being told what they can and cannot say in the classroom by a political party full of people who want to live in Nazi heaven and are happy to say so

These people just want to destroy academic work from research to education while pretending they understood what they want to bulldoze

bsky.app/profile/oliv...

Collaborating with you on ACH stuff is the MOST energizing. It’s one of a few things that brings me pure hope and joy

That means so much to me 😊. I’m hoping that can take a serious break from campus stuff next year, and really hoping that will help me reset and recharge

I used to be such an optimist, but lately all I feel is despair 😩

I’m struggling w a deep sense of disillusionment. I can’t tell how much is a “typical” response to yrs of shared gov work vs a response to the challenges of this particular neolib moment—genAI, threats to academic freedom, erosion of the lib arts, pressure to prove degree ROI via job placement, etc.

My daughter: in the TLC song “No Scrubs,” what do they mean by “scrub”?

Me: Honey this is the one and only pop song in history that opens up with a dictionary and thesaurus entry.

Wow! Incredible!!