iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Carantes

Dr Matt Mahmoudi @docmattmoudi.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

So we’ve been cooking up some thoughts on Gen AI at @amnesty.org and I’m ecstatic to finally see it out in the world! Our 🗝️ conclusion: standalone gen AI systems, built on unlawful web scraping, constitute mass invasions of privacy by design & should be prohibited www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Did you 🫵 forget to read our April newsletter? 🤨 If so, fret not! 😮 Here it is, hand delivered to your feed to break up the ceaseless scrolling! Read on for details of our latest recommended reading and upcoming public meeting this Fri 15 May, including how to attend! carantes.org/2026/04/21/a...

carantes.org

April 2026

Dear friends, With the arrival of green spring in the northern hemisphere, we hope you all have found time to enjoy nature’s awakening or, if you’re in the southern hemisphere, the dist…

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Got you added there! See you tomorrow!

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Oh no! I'm sorry Gratia, I don't know why it's doing that. I can just manually add you onto the list if you'd like (if it's your same email address you've sent us before). Or you can email us directly if that works better instead of using the contact form!

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

no MOM i didn't *forget* to post about our jan newsletter, it was a *strategic* choice to remind people of it 6 days later so those on the mailing list and bluesky would get 2 reminders! gosh! Read our latest newsletter here with info on our next public meeting 6 Feb! carantes.org/2026/01/28/j...

carantes.org

January 2026

Dear friends, Happy new year! We hope you all have been able to spend time with loved ones over the holiday, resting in the fallow days that closed out 2025, and are returning energized to your var…

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

We will still be active here and elsewhere, but our next newsletter won't be till January 2026! (*Internally panicking about it being 2026 in a little over a month 😰*). If you can join along this Friday, please do! And please enjoy the newsletter! And– oh no the November wind is blowing me awayyy 🌬️🌬️

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

🌬️ Brrr! The chill of a November wind brings our final newsletter of the year! Click below (1) to learn about an event this Friday (28 Nov) in person and online where two of our members will present about the group and (2) to read the minutes from our Samain talk. carantes.org/2025/11/20/n...

carantes.org

November 2025 Newsletter

Dear friends, We hope this newsletter finds you well wherever you may be, as academic terms begin to wrap up and the weather changes. As usual, following a public meeting, the newsletter consists m…

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Thank you for your fascinating and information-packed talk! We excitedly await the publication of your upcoming piece! 🙂‍↕️🫡

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

We likely don't say this enough, but we are incredibly grateful for those who are a part of our network: whether you are on the discord, read the newsletter, attend our cross-quarter meetings, or pass a half-amused eye over the silly things the steering committee lets me post on here! Thank you all!

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

A million thanks to @menysnoweballes.bsky.social, @siobhanhyland.bsky.social, and all of our wonderful attendees last night for our annual Sam(h)ain lecture! If you missed it (or attended and want a reminder for posterity), the meeting minutes will be in our next newsletter (out hopefully soon!).

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

After the talk + questions we will be holding an open discussion about activism, how to move forward, and how to remain strong in this horrible political climate. Come for the free knowledge, stay for the solidarity! Hope to see you soon! xoxo #antifascism #medieval

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

🚗BEEP BEEP🚗 Reminder that next Tuesday (18 Nov) Dr Rachel Moss @menysnoweballes.bsky.social will be giving the annual Carantes Samain talk online, this time on the extreme right and medievalism! See the link below about how to RSVP. All are welcome! Fáilte roimh chách! carantes.org/2025/10/15/o...

carantes.org

October 2025 Newsletter

Dear friends, We hope this 25th newsletter finds you well as Fall settles over the northern hemisphere, and Spring greets the southern. We continue to watch with heartbreak and anger as viole…

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Also a big shoutout to @invisiblehistories.bsky.social for their 'Dirt in a Cog' zine, which we have also linked in the newsletter. It's a great summary of ways to resist fascism in the world. Share it with others, donate to them if you can! Go raibh míle maith agaibh! carantes.org/2025/10/15/o...

carantes.org

October 2025 Newsletter

Dear friends, We hope this 25th newsletter finds you well as Fall settles over the northern hemisphere, and Spring greets the southern. We continue to watch with heartbreak and anger as viole…

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Need a late-night read? Or maybe late-afternoon… or mid-morning… Ya know what, time zones are annoying! The latest Carantes newsletter is out on our website! We look forward to Dr Rachel Moss's (@menysnoweballes.bsky.social) talk next month, details in the newsletter! carantes.org/2025/10/15/o...

carantes.org

October 2025 Newsletter

Dear friends, We hope this 25th newsletter finds you well as Fall settles over the northern hemisphere, and Spring greets the southern. We continue to watch with heartbreak and anger as viole…

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

In solidarity with the Irish Healthcare Union and Teachers' Union, there is a call for a National Walk Out this Thursday, 16 October, across Ireland in support of Gaza. Your school or work may have something organised! Please participate if you are able! #freepalestine #StandOutforGaza1610 #freegaza

Poster. Stand out for Gaza at Work. End the Apartheid. End the Genocide. End the Complicity. We will stand out for Gaza. #StandoutforGaza1610. Organise a lunchtime solidarity demonstration outside your workplace. Thursday 16 October.

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Whether you come to Ireland in the future or already call it home, know that you are welcome here and there is support for you. Míle buíochas to United Against Racism Ireland and Le Chéile for organising the march, speakers, and performers! unitedagainstracismireland.com lecheilednd.com

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Comrades from across unions and orgs came together this past Saturday for the Feck Fascism Carnival in Dublin. It was great to see so many marching and gathering together to visibly and vocally oppose racism, fascism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, and all systems of oppression!

A crowd is gathered in front of a stage with performers waiting on the sides while a speaker in the centre talks into a microphone. People in the crowd hold flags and banners, such as the Irish tricolour, the Ukrainian flag, a banner that reads 'United Against Racism', and a sign that reads 'Blame the Government, not Migrants'. Clouds dominate the background behind the Dublin skyline.

A crowd is gathered holding signs and flags, including the Palestinian flag, Ukrainian flag, the SIPTU flag, and a sign that reads 'Equality for All, Naturalization for Ukrainians'. A bridge is above the crowd with large rainclouds in the background.

The Palestinian and Progress Pride flags are billowing in the air in front of a grey stone building. All that can be seen of the name of the building is 'R theatre'. A red umbrella is seen below the Progress Pride flag, and a redbrick building in the background.

A small dog, perhaps a terrier-corgi mix, black body with reddish-brown legs and face, throws his head back. He is standing on road asphalt, humans standing in a crowd behind him, their backs to him. His mouth is open, eyes partially closed, clearly mid-bark. One may describe his appearance as angry.

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

🔔☎️ RING RING ☎️🔔 Hello? … Slow down, what's that? … Oh, a new Carantes newsletter has been posted and sent out? … And you can access it on our website linked below? Well now that's a reason to be excited! … Bye, love you too! carantes.org/2025/09/22/s...

carantes.org

September 2025 newsletter

Dear friends, We hope this finds you well. September is always an exciting month for us, not only because it marks the beginning of a new academic term, but because Carantes was founded in Septembe…

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

It's the 3 year anniversary of Carantes! 'But Cassandra', you say, 'you're so smart and so pretty and so funny, but what IS Carantes??' Well, dear reader, firstly, thank you I really needed that, and secondly, allow me to explain: #celtic #antiracist #antifascist #medieval #academia

This anniversary post was meant to be a celebration (which it still is), but it is also a plea, a warning, a cry into the ether. Over the last three years the world has grown increasingly fascistic and hostile toward most of us. Organisations like Turning Point USA (ew) create blacklists of lecturers who they suspect of being left-leaning, harassing institutions and encouraging them to fire staff who oppose fascism. The FCC is strong-arming networks to cancel shows that critique the regime. The UK’s Supreme Court bowed to the pressure of TERFs and further institutionalised transphobia, not to mention the censorship of those protesting human-rights violations. And now, the US President is saying he will designate anti-fascism as a terrorist organisation (ignoring the fact that it is an ideology, not an organisation, but what are facts really worth these days?).

In leading up to this post, we made a thread discussing Umberto Eco’s piece Ur-Fascism (admittedly, the thread is unwieldy, that’s on me). The points he makes in it, about how to spot fascists, couldn’t be more timely. Read that piece again. Reread it. Call out fascism where you see it. It’s hard, trust me I know, but don’t become complacent. This state of affairs is unacceptable. Support people of colour, trans people, immigrants, women, queer people, persons with disabilities, refugees. Reject billionaires’ generative AI, flex your own creativity: make and think critically for yourself. We are in this together. And if you aren’t anti-fascist, then what are you?

Lots of love, your friends at Carantes

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Finale* The similarities between what Eco described and what we see now are far too many to list in this format, but we hope that seeing it all articulated gives you new ways of confronting fascism as it abounds today. Fascism cannot continue to grow unchecked. You are not alone. (24/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Conclusion* Eco describes his feelings after learning how Mussolini had fallen. He warns us that Ur-Fascism is still around us. It may not look and sound exactly how it used to, but: 'Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances'. (23/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 14* 'Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.' Fascists seek to deprive the population of rich vocabularies so that they are less able to critically think and talk about what is going on around them. Knowing how to structure arguments is suppressed by fascists. (22/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 13* 'Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism…' Individuals per se have no rights under fascism: the Leader directs the People, telling them what their Common Will is. Being 'The People' is performative, it is fiction; they do what they're told. (21/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Points 9–12* The necessary result of the imaginary plot invented by fascists is constant war in which everyone needs to be a hero who faces and brings death. This war can't end under fascism, which requires vilification of 'weak' others. Fascism only survives on hate and violence. (20/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 12* '…permanent war and heroism are difficult…, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power sexual matters.' Ideal for fascists is violent heteronormativity; deviations like queerness are condemned. Weapons become phallic substitutes for lack of true control over others' sex. (19/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 11* 'In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero.' Being a hero is expected of everyone in fascism. For them, being a hero is tied to death, creating an impatience to die, which usually results in fascists ending lives of others as well. (18/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 10* 'Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology…[which] cruelly implies contempt for the weak.' There can be no higher class without a lower class, and fascists say lower classes must be ruled. Fascist leaders despise their underlings, reinforcing mass elitism. (17/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 9* 'For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.' Fascists believe in 'permanent warfare' against their 'enemies'. There can be no peace under fascism as peace is contradictory to this martial struggle. (16/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

*4 days later edit that may mess up the thread*: I hadn't realised the link I gave was only free because it automatically used my university login! Here is a link to a truly free version of Eco's piece: theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umbe...

theanarchistlibrary.org

Ur-Fascism

Umberto Eco Ur-Fascism June 22, 1995

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Points 4–8* Note how fascists can't truly tolerate reasoned critiques. They say you must listen to them as they instil fear of the other into you. They invent a plot, necessarily racist, telling you to fear outsiders, and to fear those already in the country who are 'different'. (15/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 8* 'The followers must feel humiliated by the…force of their enemies…However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies.' Fascism says the enemy is too strong AND too weak. Fascists lose because they fundamentally can't accurately assess enemies. (14/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 7* 'To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is…to be born in the same country.' Nationalism makes fascists obsessed with a (fake) plot: being besieged. They say this 'threat' comes from the outside AND the inside. (13/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 6* 'Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.' This usually means an 'appeal to a frustrated middle class'. The middle class experiences class hardships, real and imagined, that fascists pretend to offer solutions to. Solutions which, invariably, are violence. (12/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 5* 'Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.' Fascists seek agreement by preying on people's fear of difference. This is the first step by fascists, to make people afraid of outsiders by equating them to intruders. 'Thus, Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.' (11/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 4* 'No syncretistic faith can withstand analytical criticism.' Syncretism, the combo of different and contradictory forms of belief in point 1, can't tolerate critiques as this requires disagreeing to improve knowledge. 'For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.' (10/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Points 1–3* What is striking, to us at least, is how true these points ring today. Parallels abound and it is helpful, if terrifying, to see it written down 30 years ago about events from over 50 years prior. These may be a lot to take in, so that's all for now, till tomorrow! (9/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 3* 'Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.' 'Thinking is a form of emasculation.' Fascists say critiques of culture by the intellectual world are suspect; action and feeling are more important than reason. To them, universities must be mistrusted. (8/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 2* 'Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.' Fascists see the Age of Reason as the start of the evils in the world and reject all that comes with it. This includes rationalism, making fascism necessarily irrational. They tolerate and celebrate contradictions. (7/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Point 1* 'The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.' Fascists prioritise and fetishise (their understanding of) the past, which is hidden in obscure texts. These interpretations must tolerate contradictions; and, the fascists say, only they can interpret it! (6/)

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Reposted by Carantes

Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

With @carantes.bsky.social I've organised a panel at the @yganolfangeltaidd.bsky.social 40th Anniversary conference, on Celtic Studies and the Contemporary Far-Right. Papers on discourse analysis of far-right Celticism, reading transphobia in medieval Welsh poetry, and Celtic-American fascism.

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Intro* The qualities are messy. They are contradictory, quite by design. There is no strict framework, it is all a bit 'fuzzy'. We have said in Carantes that there is a fascist 'vibe' that is hard to pin down, which Eco confirms. We will start to unwind the qualities tomorrow! (5/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Intro* Crucially, Eco notes that 'they' can look different depending on their context. He compares the types of totalitarianism seen during WWII to illustrate this point. A fascist needn't have every quality Eco will describe, but the qualities can 'coagulate' around another. (4/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

*Ur-Fascism Intro* Eco, as he does, gives us background info on himself and why he is compelled to write this pamphlet. Remembrance. Warning. 'We are here to remember what happened and solemnly say that "They" must not do it again'. The remaining pages, then, are allotted to defining 'they'. (3/)

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

We encourage you to (re)read Eco's piece for yourself: only a few pages long (and free), it is accessible, pithy, and precise. We hope that discussing it here will encourage insights that are best gained in group settings, and give you time to digest it: www.nybooks.com/articles/199... (2/)

nybooks.com

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Our current obsession: Umberto Eco's 'Ur-Fascism'. In 1995, 50 years after the liberation of his native Italy, Eco—medievalist, philosopher, and a fascinating man—published this tract which presents 14 ways to spot a fascist. Now, 30 years later, we will discuss his points in the coming days: (1/)

nybooks.com

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Also! The next Reading Group Meeting will be this next Tuesday 2nd September from 4–6pm Welsh time. Under discussion is @nahir.bsky.social's The Other Faces of Arthur: Chivalric Whiteness in the Global North Atlantic. More details here: carantes.org/2025/08/27/s...

carantes.org

September 2025 reading group

The next session of the Carantes reading group is meeting on Tuesday September 2nd (i.e. next week) at 4 – 6 pm Welsh time (GMT +1). Please RSVP to receive the Zoom link on the day. In recent sess…

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

"Whiteness, multiculturalism and nationalist appropriation of Celtic culture: the case of the League of the South and the Lega Nord" by Ieuan Hague, Benito Giordano and Edward Sebesta examines the use of Celtic culture by 2 groups to oppress peoples perceived as inferior to the category “White".

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

"“Celtic” Crosses and the Myth of Whiteness" by Maggie M. Williams is an accessible piece on the history of the Celtic Cross and its uses by white supremacists as a dog whistle, among other things.

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Carantes @carantes.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

UPCOMING: Lughnasadh public meeting on Sunday, August 3rd from 4:00pm to 6:00pm UTC+1 (British summer time). We will be discussing two articles relative to celticity and constructions of whiteness used for fascist purposes. Email us: caranteswg@proton.me if you'd like to attend.

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