Paul Fyfe

Today is publication day for my book DIGITAL VICTORIANS, part of @stanfordpress.bsky.social 's excellent series in Text Technologies www.sup.org/books/litera... (use code FYFE20 for a discount!)

Purdue Univ's English department accepting their next PhD cohort in (and only in) "Cultural, Literary and Rhetorical AI Studies" www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/eng...

Amazing read about "microdramas" and the culture industry, tl;dr short-form phone serial content is the market-driven "technological devaluation of all human striving" www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/m...

Goodness. It's really nice when smart people like your book. And astonishing when they teach you new things about it in their review. Thank you @mmvty.bsky.social

Please spread the word to graduate students about this professional development workshop on Friday. We (the program organizers for this past year's RSVP conference) will share advice on "How to Conference Effectively." rs4vp.org/how-to-confe...

Public comment period is open for the disastrous proposed changes to OMB rules on federal grants — essentially allowing political scrutiny, review, cancellation of funded academic research. The feds must reply to every substantial comment. www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

A well-meaning person recently asked me “Do you think AI will take your job?” An answer came this morning in an email from someone I taught 15 years ago.

Love this video featuring @themorbidzoo.bsky.social that @ncstate.bsky.social created. Mariana graduated with an MA in English with a film studies concentration and she's been rocking her #YouTube #videoessay channel ever since it started as her thesis project! ❤️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA15...

Want to go back entirely to print for fall Brit lit class. But anthologies have gotten so expensive since the last time I required one. Anyone else dealing with this?

Our AI & Society group is hosting a symposium on "Ethics and Agentic AI" at NC State Univ on May 26, keynoted by David Danks of UVa. Please share and consider submitting: sites.google.com/view/ai-soci...

Occasionally a bsky thread flares in splendor through the dark like the first firework you ever saw

Our AI & Society group is hosting a symposium on "Ethics and Agentic AI" at NC State Univ on May 26, keynoted by David Danks of UVa. Please share and consider submitting: sites.google.com/view/ai-soci...

"Reading Digital Victorians is fun" -- favorite feedback ever. Thanks @helenagoodwyn.bsky.social for the thoughtful review doi.org/10.1353/vpr....

It's officially OUT! Please ask your library to order #VictorianGaslighting. In honor of Women's History Month, you can purchase the hardcover at a 30% discount using the code SWHM26. Happy (belated) Book Birthday, @noragilbert.bsky.social and @tara-macdonald.bsky.social! @sunypress.bsky.social

You can’t spell imposter without “poster”

I have a new essay out today with the North American Conference on British Studies about the oligarchical urge to say that AI is going to become God www.nacbs.org/post/deus-in...

Sign the petition to have Jae Edwards reinstated! actionnetwork.org/petitions/re...

Shame on NC State for firing an employee who, under the slimiest and most cowardly of circumstances, was filmed expressing commitment to students’ well-being.

Digital Victorians for just $18! Stuff your stocking, feed your head! www.sup.org/books/litera...

Hello thought police. Logically they should also deploy surveillance on all student-submitted work to prevent any unsanctioned learning.

"Abandoned and failed projects, ca. 1998-2025: an incomplete, chronological list" -- worth your time, from Adam Smyth, who lists all the stuff he dropped or which didn't work adamsmyth.substack.com/p/abandoned-...

I did a talk on just how deep the overlaps are between Frankenstein and AI last year! m.youtube.com/watch?v=fmF1...

Gave students an assignment to rewrite a snippet of Hard Times as, instead, a "condition of America" novel circa 2025. The winner: a scene from a school board meeting in "Woketown."

*Action without Hope: Victorian Literature after Climate Collapse* is out today! The official release got pushed back due to an issue w the art, & despite being mostly about literature it's very visual. So to celebrate its full entry into the world, a thread of some of my favorite images from it:

Privacy is not about something to hide. And invasions of privacy are about power, not uncovering hidden things. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Donated. Contribute a little if you can.

A scene straight out of Calvin Kasulke's *Several People Are Typing* -- the best novel written on Slack

"How Are Students Using AI?" @anetv.bsky.social bringing the data to the ongoing convo aiandhowweteach.substack.com/p/how-are-st...

Supposed to give a pedagogy talk next week about AI and I might just scroll Bluesky with the audience

"Victorian Studies: Who Cares?" Come to the Victorians Institute 2025 conference at Furman University in Greenville, SC this Sept 14-15. CFP deadline now May 31. Please submit and share! vi2025.wordpress.com

Oregon State U is accepting proposals, aimed at developing public-facing writing, for four public humanities fellowships on "Trust in the Age of Generative AI" (apply by 4/25) prax.oregonstate.edu/residencies/...

"Democracy demands wisdom & vision in its citizens. It must therefore foster & support a form of education, & access to the arts & the humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds & wherever located masters of their technology & not its unthinking servants." www.neh.gov/about/histor...

Grateful to Bluesky and these folks for rapidly sharing info. Our NEH AI center grant was affected, and Jason's bsky thread has now made it all the way to our dean, vice chancellor, and provost, now starting to fight back.

It’s not just the Ivies. They cancelled visas for two international students at NC State. No consult with the university, no explanation, no process. internationalservices.ncsu.edu/announcements/

🚀 Join the #RSVPDigiEvent team April 11 celebrate the publication of /Digital Victorians/ with @pfyfe.bsky.social! We'll convene at our usual time (as we will have all caught up to spring by then) at 8am PT/ 11am ET /4pm UK / 5pm. rs4vp.org/launching-di...

(4/4)... Support the ALA's campaign to save the IMLS: www.ala.org/advocacy/sho... Support to AAM's campaign to save the IMLS: www.aam-us.org/2025/03/17/u... Take action here: action.everylibrary.org/eoimls2025?f... #ncph #PublicHistory #PublicHistorians

Unexpected outcome and actually good news: NC State appoints its next chancellor news.ncsu.edu/2025/03/18/k... an alum of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences!

Super pissed that Word's new "Editor" feature gave my draft a B+. Emailing Microsoft to ask if they can bump it up to a 90.

Binding Media is out! In this book, @elikaortega.bsky.social proposes the notion of "binding media" — a practice where authors & publishers "fasten together" a codex and electronic or digital media to create literary works in the form of hybrid print-digital objects www.sup.org/books/bindin...

The National Humanities Center - not yet on bksy - just opened an online store for merch. This is the first item for sale. 💪💪 energy like: Get a fellowship and find out.

Eomer: You have no authority here! Your orders mean nothing! Wormtongue: Oh, but this order does not come from me. It comes from the King. He signed it this morning.

Crucial read about the growth of big tech in defense contracting, the "efficiency" and errors of AI target identification, and the "sovereign cloud"

OH following FL in opening higher ed to political surveillance and distributed online harassment. Disgusting. Feel awful for colleagues who’ve worked so hard against this. Worse for those affected.

Re: NIH: the UNC System Office was so eager to comply with EO on DEI, noting in its memo that the work of “doctors, scientists, professors, and researchers … in the fields of science, chemistry, research, and medicine …will continue unabated in an emerging regulatory landscape.” Welp. Your move.

What's wrong with this picture? The first search result for "Frankenstein" is a 1922 copy scanned from Princeton library, to which Google Books/Play has helpfully added this cover image: books.google.com/books/about/...