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Catherine Tan

@catherinetan.bsky.social
5.3K followers 646 following 919 posts

Sociologist. Assistant Professor @vassar.bsky.social. Med Soc, SKAT, Social Movements, Qualitative Methods. Twitter: @Catherineoscopy Instagram: @CatherineDTan www.CatherineDTan.com

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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 23h
Banned laptops in the classroom. Today I caught students passing handwritten notes. Nature is healing.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Check out my article on American shamans in the current issue of @bjsociology.bsky.social ! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Ficto‐Primitive Capital: What Wellness Seekers Gain From Practicing Shamanism and Other Healing Traditions
Behind its worldly and socially conscious aesthetic, the wellness industry serves the health and fitness interests of North American and European consumers by commercializing non-Western and Indigeno...
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Urgent op-ed by @hebagowayed.bsky.social "They are left at the political whim of people who openly hate them, who slander them from the most powerful pulpits in the nation. (...) The attack on TPS comes amid the total decimation of our asylum system." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
The US supreme court just put the lives of 1.3 million immigrants in danger| Heba Gowayed
The court’s TPS decision is devastating for those whose countries of origin are deemed unsafe. Congress must act
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
This reminds me of when I took a janky office job in the summer between high school and college. One day my boss said “we are not a health insurance company anymore. Look up Netflix. We are going to try that now.” The whole place shuttered within a year. www.businessinsider.com/company-form...
businessinsider.com
Allbirds is now Smartbird, and its AI-focused CEO says 'people won't even remember the shoes'
Allbirds said It would no longer sell shoes and instead become an AI infrastructure provider. Business Insider talked to the new CEO.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
✨I just learned how to use mail merge✨ You have been warned.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
The Ring system now incorporates AI to identify people, animals, and objects. Interestingly, it can identify my dog’s specific breed but cannot tell the difference between a raccoon and groundhog.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
As I return to my writing, I have to decode all these vague notes to self that seemed obvious two months ago but make little sense now.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Wohooooo!!! Looking forward to @jananiu.bsky.social ‘s forthcoming book “Somewhere Like Home” with @ucpress.bsky.social 📖✨
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
I have a lot to do today but I feel like what is most important right now is walking 40 minutes to buy a meatball sub that has good reviews.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
The pandemic created many new birdwatchers and now birdwatchers are creating a new infectious disease. Life is so funny and poetic—and gross.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Ugh. I opened an email late and missed the Kangaroo + Cake event on campus. (It’s what it sounds like: you eat cakes with kangaroos.)
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Reposted by Catherine Tan
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Re the Voting Rights Act: I've used this graph a lot to illustrate how the VRA largely ended the historic pattern of blocking and burdening Black voters in the south. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
graph shows a dramatic increase in black registration after the voting right act
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Sometimes capitalism is really fun. Did you know you can just buy a restaurant sushi boat?
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Thora Bjornsdottir @thorabjorns.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
This is really cool work & a fascinating read. This particularly stood out to me: "Despite hours of interviews, I found little self-reflection on how their desires might permanently impact local communities or how their easy adoption of these practices is situated within histories of suppression."
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Making tenure count, for MSNOW I wrote about my employer, The University of Iowa, creating a center for intellectual freedom. It's a reactionary project built on decades of conservative propaganda about higher ed.
ms.now
Opinion | Beware conservatives promoting “intellectual freedom”
Victor Ray: This conservative lie about schools like mine is furthering authoritarianism
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Do we need another form of capital? Probably not. Am I pushing one anyway? Yes, absolutely. I had to do so much chanting for this… so please read the first article to come out of my ethnography on American shamans (those who appropriate Indigenous healing). onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Ficto‐Primitive Capital: What Wellness Seekers Gain From Practicing Shamanism and Other Healing Traditions
Behind its worldly and socially conscious aesthetic, the wellness industry serves the health and fitness interests of North American and European consumers by commercializing non-Western and Indigeno...
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
I don’t understand why “adult” is used as euphemism for sexy things, like “adult films” and “adult bookstore”, when 99.9% of actual adult things are boring at best and existentially terrifying at worst.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
It’s so nice out, I’m going to scroll on my phone along the hiking trail.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Forget the butter lamb this Sunday. Get the mozzarella rabbit.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
This week at @vassar.bsky.social !
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
I know it’s only 9:30am, but I reached into a bag of Haribo gummy bears and pulled out seven reds. No other color. Maybe it means this week will be less shitty. Or maybe it means nothing and everything will remain the same.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Just finished this 🍊 wall lamp. While this was not my intention, I guess I’m in my Georgia O’Keeffe era now.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
You are an old lady who weighs 65lbs and has two bad knees. What makes you think you can fight a Toyota Tacoma? 😐
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
There is no reason why my washing machine and dryer should be connected to the WiFi. Where can I buy fully functioning appliances from the 80s.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
This week at @vassar.bsky.social!
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Dr. Michele Tugade @micheletugade.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
So inspiring to share the stage with Dr. Krystle McLaughlin & Dr. Catherine Tan in the "Scholarship in Public" panel! Thank you Sree Sreenivasan for leading this rich discussion. Video to come! 🎥💫✨ : @vassar.bsky.social @biophyskrys.bsky.social @catherinetan.bsky.social @sreenet.bsky.social
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
When the Trump administration defended the murders carried out by ICE last month, it effectively told agents that they operate above the law. What happened to Ellie Aghayeva this morning is not rogue but the agency working as designed—and we should all be outraged and call for ICE’s abolishment.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
ICE pretended to look for a missing child so that they could abduct a student.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
For half an hour, I dug around, in search of a book I am now realizing I don’t own.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
How will the killing of a cartel leader and shelter-in-place order impact your #SpringBreak2026? New York Times has some travel tips!
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Today in SOCI 330 “Death & Birth” @vassar.bsky.social we are so lucky to have Matilda Garrido, a death doula, come talk about grief and mourning practices.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
If you're rich you get a tax cut, if you're not you have to work longer and harder. Populism! bsky.app/profile/atru...
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Happy Groundhog Day! This is the groundhog lamp I made in 2022.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
💔These babies... www.nytimes.com/video/opinio...
nytimes.com
Video: Opinion | Dear ICE: Letters From Students Living in Fear
ICE took their classmate. They started writing letters.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
NEW: Data released by ICE shows that virtually the entire growth of detention in the last few months has been among people with no criminal record at all - no prior convictions (no matter how minor) and no pending criminal charges.
Chart showing "Detention Population, Among Those Arrested in the interior, by Criminal Record, May 2019 through January 27, 2026. There are three lines on the graph: prior conviction, pending criminal charges, and no criminal record. from 2019 through January 2025, "prior conviction" is by far the highest, followed by pending charges much lower down and "no criminal record" the lowest. During the Biden admin, very few people arrested by ICE in the interior and detained had no criminal record. Beginning in January 2025, all three lines jump, but the highest spike is among those with no criminal records. By September, that has become the single largest. Since that point, there are now thousands more people in detention with no criminal record than people with prior convictions.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
Holiday shopping is not going great. I’m eating steak flavored chips in my car.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
In my parents’ house a quarter of their appliances require an unintuitive “trick” for it to work. I wanted to use the hot water dispenser and my mother said “hold on you need a pencil for that.”
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Do elementary schools still use an economy system for good behavior? I am pretty sure that is the reason why I--an adult--think I deserve a treat after every small task.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Panel 4/4 of the “Piscola hunting squirrels at sunset” lamp is cut and ground. Next week, copper foil and solder.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
“The emails are like a portal back to a lost Manhattan power scene.” What? Wasn’t ~nostalgia~ everyone’s first reaction to the Epstein emails? No? Just the NYTimes?
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Lex McMenamin (they/them) @lexmcmenamin.com · 15/11/2025
bringing this statement over from Alice’s Twitter. it appears the below was Alice’s last post before passing. I am heartbroken
This is Alice's friend Sandy Ho, posting. Per Alice's wishes, this message is being shared at the time of her passing.
Hi everyone, it looks like I ran out of time. I have so many dreams that I wanted to fulfill and plans to create new stories for you. There are a few in progress that might come to fruition in a few years if things work out. I did not ever imagine I would live to this age and end up a writer, editor, activist, and more. As a kid riddled with insecurity and internalized ableism, I could not see a path forward. It was thanks to friendships and some great teachers who believed in me that I was able to fight my way out of miserable situations into a place where I finally felt comfortable in my skin.
We need more stories about us and our culture.
You all, we all, deserve the everything and more in such a hostile, ableist environment. Our wisdom is incisive and unflinching. I'm honored to be your ancestor and believe disabled oracles like us will light the way to the future. Don't let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.
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Reposted by Catherine Tan
ASA Section on Disability in Society @asadisability.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Hi all, We are still looking for people in the following positions: 1) Chairperson elect 2) Secretary/Treasurer elect 3) Program Committee Chair 4) Publicity Committee Chair 5) Membership/Mentorship Committee Chair If you are interested, please reach out to @catherinetan.bsky.social!
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Jessica Leah @jessical-2022.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
We are still seeking nominations for the following positions in our section. Please reach out to our nominations chair, @catherinetan.bsky.social! Serving in our section's committee is a great opportunity to make connections!
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
The problem with working at a coffee shop is... you could be going through a quiet crisis while Funky Town plays in the background.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
People didn’t get paid, families didn’t eat, planes didn’t fly… all so that people can pay more for healthcare in the end. Good job Shaheen, King, Hassan, Kaine, Durbin, Fetterman, Cortez Masto and Rosen you all did it.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
After six weeks of furloughs, discontinued benefits, and travel disruptions; after majority of people recognizing Trump is at fault; after the dem big wins last week… Democrats decided eh better to quit while we have the upper hand and settle for nothing. apnews.com/article/gove...
apnews.com
Senate takes first step toward ending the government shutdown
The Senate has taken the first step to end the government shutdown after a group of moderate Democrats agreed to proceed without a guaranteed extension of health care subsidies.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
I was at a coffee shop. Tapped my card. Forgot to complete the screen. Barista tipped herself 50% while I was in the restroom. 😐
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Watching my friend help her son with his math homework as he slowly melts off the sofa in agony. The tone, the volume, the bargaining are universal and timeless.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Side by side headlines sum it up.
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Catherine Tan @catherinetan.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
This rat was far too casual about plucking a bat in flight. His ease is unsettling. I wonder if his friends and family have any idea that this is what he’s up to at night.
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