ROROTOKO

Rorotoko authors are on Bluesky. Follow them all in one tap: scholars and writers we've interviewed about their books. go.bsky.app/QpD5tv6

In 1970s London, children built cameras from prams and chocolate tins. Annebella Pollen on Snap Happy! at The Photographers' Gallery. rorotoko.com/micro-inter... Photo Credit: Terry Dennett collections, courtesy of MayDay Rooms

One woman saw therapists simply to have somewhere she could talk about race. @kiarawyndham.bsky.social on what a suburb's quiet harmony asks residents to leave unsaid. Out from @ucpress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

From the archive, 2019: Adrienne Mayor on ancient myths of robots and artificial life, the first science fiction, told more than two millennia ago. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

Her team expected one regional episode of cannibalism. Then the radiocarbon dates arrived. Palmira Saladié on what changed. rorotoko.com/micro-inter... Photo Credit: © Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo

"Turn off the light", "clean your plate": Great Depression ghosts haunted every house on his street. Charlie Parr on what they, and years of outreach work, taught him about empathy. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

A perfectly safe AI in an authoritarian setting is not safe at all. Matthew Botvinick starts a new thread on AI safety and democracy. Out from @princetonupress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

From the archive, 2017: Daryn Lehoux on spontaneous generation, a theory that looks obviously wrong, and why it once seemed so right. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

Lightning struck NASA's ER-2 from below. Nobody noticed. Timothy Lang on how they found out. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

Vampire amoebas that turn red draining algae. Amoebas hunting worms in packs. Nicholas P. Money, a mycologist, on his late-career detour into single cells. Out from @princetonupress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

How can fiction bring readers close to cognitive disability without entering a character's mind? @evanchaloupka.bsky.social on repetition in Of Mice and Men. #AcademicSky #Disability rorotoko.com/micro-interv...

From the archive, 2024: Katja Guenther on the mirror self-recognition test, and what it was asked to reveal about human nature. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

"People Don’t Want to Argue with AI, and That Makes Them More Persuaded by It" Geoff Tomaino on experiments where people changed their minds more when told their partner was an AI. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

"In disability fiction, distance lends us not only drama, but intimacy." Evan Chaloupka starts a new thread on cognitive disability in American fiction. Out from @utpress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

From the archive, 2012: Frances Guerin on amateur photographs and films from Nazi Germany, some kept in old soldiers' attics for seventy years. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

A militia seized women and children at sea, in front of her camera. Her film follows one mother through what came next. @sineplambech.bsky.social on Rescue. 📽️ #AcademicSky rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

"What has drained Antonio of his drive, his life-force, his dignity as a worker, father and husband, his happiness?" Robert S. C. Gordon on postwar Rome in Bicycle Thieves. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

Why is the hero of Bicycle Thieves unemployed? Why are his two children eight or nine years apart? Robert S. C. Gordon on the war the film deliberately leaves out. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

"A very powerful woman's story" @sineplambech.bsky.social on Rescue, her film from a year on a Doctors Without Borders ship: a mother kidnapped at sea, and how she rescued herself and her children. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

From the archive, 2017: @jackhamilton.bsky.social on how rock and roll "became white" in the 1960s. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

Projections could not agree if Antarctica would raise or lower the seas. Yucheng Lin on why. rorotoko.com/micro-inter... Photo Credit: © Yucheng Lin

"They were simply young folks out to have fun in ways that were unprecedented, without maps or guardrails." Murray Forman on hip-hop's founders. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

"I didn’t write this about the world, I wrote it about myself." Charlie Parr on Rooming House, his new album, a fantasy of a world where neighbor is a verb. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

In 1979 Murray Forman heard "Rapper's Delight" on the radio and took it for a flash in the pan. "The Message" changed his mind. Out from @ucpress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

From the archive, 2016: Elspeth Probyn on eating the ocean, starting with Sydney rock oysters on a sparkling day on the harbour. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

📽️ A documentary about Frida Kahlo's fame that shows none of her paintings. Trisha Ziff on the lookalikes, the lawsuits and who gets to own an icon. Premieres at DOC NYC, Nov 14–15. #AcademicSky rorotoko.com/micro-interv...

Each chase lasted about sixteen seconds, too fast to follow by eye. So Isla C. Duporge measured it stride by stride. #AcademicSky rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

"What is the psychology of taste?" Richard Schweid on octopus farming in Mexico, Spain and Japan. Out from @uncpress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

A film about Frida that shows none of her paintings. Trisha Ziff's documentary Frida: The Girl Just Doesn't Go Away looks at the fascination: the merchandise, the lawsuits, and who gets to own an icon. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

For fifty years people have tried to farm octopus. Within a decade it may be in your supermarket. Richard Schweid on whether it should be. Out from @uncpress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

From the archive, 2023: Patricia Banks on how corporate gifts to the Smithsonian's African American museum paid off for the donors. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

A chase lasts about sixteen seconds, too fast to follow by eye. Isla C. Duporge on measuring it stride by stride, from a drone 70 metres up. rorotoko.com/micro-inter... Photo Credit: © Alex Frias

"Sending money to the rich to help the poor has never worked." Beryl Satter on reinvestment schemes that enriched outside lenders. Out from @harvardpress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

What goes wrong when you try to solve a problem without understanding its cause? Beryl Satter on decades of "reinvestment" in Black urban neighborhoods. Out from @harvardpress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

From the archive, 2017: Harvey Cox on the market as a faith, with its own hierarchy, doctrine, heretics and marble palaces. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

"At its core, Forgive Us Our Debts is about lending to Black-owned businesses." @proffoohey.bsky.social Out from @uchicagopress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

Every photography guide for children she collected has a section on mistakes. Annebella Pollen on Snap Happy! at The Photographers' Gallery. rorotoko.com/micro-inter... Photo Credit: Collection of Annebella Pollen

Five banks turned a church away. A Christian lender talked faith and vision. By @proffoohey.bsky.social Out from @uchicagopress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

From the archive, 2011: Michael F. O'Riley on cinema, terror and how the victims of colonial history came to be represented. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

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"Soleil Ô functions as a form of film criticism." Noah Tsika on Med Hondo's answer to Pasolini's Notes for an African Oresteia. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

Soleil Ô shows where its hero is, but not where he has been or where he is going. It never even tells us his name. Noah Tsika on Med Hondo's film. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

From the archive, 2020: Edward Ashford Lee, an engineer, on why the software he builds is less his own creation than he once thought. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

"Even at 1.5 °C, Antarctica loses ice this century. How much is our choice." Yucheng Lin on Antarctic ice. rorotoko.com/micro-inter... Photo Credit: © Qiyue Sun

"And in the middle of that polite circle of deferral is a person who got denied something and can't find out why." Chirag Shah on AI agents. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

There was no launch event for the end of the human in the loop. Chirag Shah on AI systems that stopped offering options and started making decisions, one procurement at a time. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

From the archive, 2012: Michael B. Katz on why American cities don't burn, and how marginalization is managed on the streets of North Philadelphia. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

"Cannibalism in Neolithic Iberia occurred at different times and reflected different human behaviours." Palmira Saladié on three Granada caves. rorotoko.com/micro-inter... Photo Credit: © Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo

"Integration may be valuable, but proximity alone cannot dismantle inequality." @kiarawyndham.bsky.social on race in the suburbs. Out from @ucpress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

Growing up in one of the most diverse communities in America taught @kiarawyndham.bsky.social almost nothing about racism. Fort Bend's unwritten rules explain why. Out from @ucpress.bsky.social rorotoko.com/micro-inter...

From the archive, 2017: Stuart Banner on speculation, somewhere between investing and gambling, and the puzzle it has posed to American law. rorotoko.com/micro-inter...