Tobias Wilson-Bates

Bluesky isn’t about popularity, it’s about gathering all 17 William Morris lovers together in a single online location!

Is there a single thread gathering all the great DH books coming out this year? I keep on meaning to write them all down in one place and then get lost in the vagaries of life. Has someone centralized the stream of intelligent thoughts?

Siri, I'm living in a shotgun shack; I'm living in another part of the world. [Siri]: Proceed to the route

your moment of calm

Siri, what are three good qualities my child possesses? Siri, is this my beautiful house? Siri, is this my beautiful wife? Siri, how did I get here? Siri, is it the same as it ever was??????

Is there a single thread gathering all the great DH books coming out this year? I keep on meaning to write them all down in one place and then get lost in the vagaries of life. Has someone centralized the stream of intelligent thoughts?

Don't forget to sign up for "The many faces of Sans Souci: Black watchmakers in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Caribbean" if you're keen to join the friendly & welcoming London Group of Historical Geographers in person or online for this Tuesday's Institute of Historical Research seminar.

Siri, what are three good qualities my child possesses? Siri, is this my beautiful house? Siri, is this my beautiful wife? Siri, how did I get here? Siri, is it the same as it ever was??????

Very confusing passing by certain miasmatic clouds of odor why some people willingly douse themselves in these particular cologne brands voluntarily

​Applications for 2027–2028 visiting fellowships at Harvard's Center for European Studies are now open! Join our vibrant intellectual community in Cambridge for the academic year. ​🗓️ Deadline: November 1, 2026 🔗 Apply here: ces.fas.harvard.edu/opportunities/visiting-scholars

*Lord of the Rings Department Meeting* ANGMAR: as the most senior of those bearing a ring, I would like to propose some ideas SAURON: actually there are a few other rings

Brief thread on the most cringe aspect of education, and why I handle it the way that I do. That's right. It's time to discuss the first day ice-breaker.

Every fifteen years or so

An honestly new problem for the study of ideology & culture is the doom loop whereby job-demolishing AI engines also generate the “entertaining” i.e. psychically demolishing content for the permanent underclass created by them in the first place. We need a Raymond Williams for the era of slop?

The self-help hustle influencers trying to find a commodifiable niche on AI is sincerely the bleakest stuff I’ve seen on socials.

"Static" (1985)

feeling seen bc (sorry) there is a chapter in the vibes book that's...kind of about Hegel

Neuromancer (1984)

Every fifteen years or so

As I've said before, it's only once I became a professor that I realized the entmoot, a meeting that goes on for three days and three nights, was a professor's joke about faculty meetings.

Doorbell cameras would be banned in the perfect republic.

We developed the capacity to visually encounter the cosmic background radiation from the creation of the universe and we mostly find it annoying.

Thanks so much to student journalist Brendan Fijol, who allowed what was supposed to be a fluff piece on a new faculty book to instead highlight the catastrophic state of academic labor at GU & beyond, and the coordinated attacks on thought since 2020. + @devingarofalo.bsky.social

MELVILLE: what if I wrote a book that was all intrusive thoughts? EDITOR: what was that? MELVILLE: oh, umm, nothing…

1. The cloud was never a *cloud*, just enormous server warehouses somewhere else 2. Now those warehouses are essentially massive intellectual property theft and training repositories

MELVILLE: what if I wrote a book that was all intrusive thoughts? EDITOR: what was that? MELVILLE: oh, umm, nothing…

made for a great opening line for Neuromancer, though: "The sky above the port was the colour of a television tuned to a dead channel."

We developed the capacity to visually encounter the cosmic background radiation from the creation of the universe and we mostly find it annoying.

Good thread. First, we shouldn't pretend like data centers suddenly appeared a year or two ago. And second, we should decide *as a society* when they are worth the resources they use. It isn't all or nothing. It just doesn't have to be endless resource use.