Reposted by Christopher NygrenMatt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 07/08/2026strong strong agree on this www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care...insidehighered.comStudents as Conscientious Objectors to Gen AI (opinion)We should listen to them—and treat their objections with respect. 14513
Reposted by Christopher Nygrenjamelle @jamellebouie.net · 24/07/2026interesting to me that as the administration treats democratic-voting states like conquered or occupied territories, you don’t have pundits demanding the president respect “half the country” 18190222606
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 23/07/2026The most amazing this about this is the batting cage hanging out in the field of play. 010
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 12/07/2026For those interested in a bit of the back story of the book’s production… the cover and layout means a lot to me because my dad got to help pick them out bsky.app/profile/cnyg... 1154
Reposted by Christopher NygrenMatthew Segal @segalmr.bsky.social · 21/05/2026CLIENT: These federal charges seem serious. What kind of sentence could I get? LAWYER: Depending on the next presidential election, you're looking at somewhere between life imprisonment and becoming a millionaire. 242479518
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 22/05/2026I’m sorry. Saying goodbye to Zenzero (stomach cancer) was terrible. But it is also your last way to be able to care for them and ensure they don’t suffer too much. 111
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 21/05/2026I edit a journal and in our invitation we expressly forbid using AI to evaluate. I don’t think I’ve seen any AI reviews, but I’m also not entirely sure what I’d be looking for other than a mediocre reader report 000
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 21/05/2026So specs grading) or anything similar just becomes completely anathema…? I don’t ever want to hear the dean of Harvard talk about “student agency” 020
Reposted by Christopher NygrenKai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 15/05/2026Holy shit This is vile “With few exceptions, snorkeling and diving are off-limits around the USS Arizona. The battleship, now a military cemetery reachable only by boat, has stood as one of the nation’s most hallowed sites since Japan bombed and sank it in 1941.” apnews.com/article/fbi-...apnews.comEmails show FBI Director Kash Patel's Hawaii trip included 'VIP snorkel' at a Pearl Harbor memorialGovernment emails obtained by The Associated Press show that FBI Director Kash Patel went on a “VIP snorkel” session last summer at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. 53795200
Reposted by Christopher NygrenCatherine Fletcher @catherinefletcher.info · 30/04/2026Delighted to be able to share a first teaching and research resource relating to The Firearm Revolution: a compilation of links to primary sources - visual, objects and translations of texts that I cite in the book #academia #earlymodern #skystorianscatherinefletcher.infoPrimary sources for The Firearm RevolutionAre you teaching with The Firearm Revolution? Or perhaps you’re an independent researcher with an interest in the history of firearms. With the help of my PhD student Guy Reynolds, I’ve … 28443
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 24/04/2026In real art history, 15c would make you a Renaissancer… don’t hate me because I’m right ;-) 110
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 23/04/2026Oh no! The date conflicts with an event at the Newberry! 100
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026Thank you, publication-day buddy! My copy of your book is arriving later today! All who care about early modern topics should order a copy of Catherine’s book! press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...press.princeton.eduThe Firearm RevolutionA groundbreaking account of how firearms changed Europe and the world 040
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026When looked at from the right angle and disposition, a single stone can narrate the entire history of human existence. That is the hope of Sedimentary Aesthetics. James W. Nygren 09/04/46-03/31/2026 My foundation stone 1160
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026objects that conjure new worlds, illustrate miracles, and make dreams of infinite duration. I hope that my book draws attention to the twisted temporalities of stone and humanity’s relationship to it. 180
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026We emerged from earthly sediment, and in due time each of us shall return as sediment to the Earth. In the timeline of the universe, humanity is a mere blip. But in our time on this mineral-rich rock, humanity has learned to transform stones into beautiful objects 1110
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026The book is full of many other stories like this. It is, in the end, my plea to the discipline of art history and early modern studies to consider paintings within structures of time, labor, and creativity that are distintive from the stories we typiccaly tell about the Renaissance. 1132
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026Life is precious. The artworks we look at and love are the product of complicated networks of human and non-human agents that go far beyond the artists and patrons. When you look at a painting on a slate support (my book is full of them) remember that the stone was carried down the mountain by women 1161
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026You can read a bit about his life here: www.gilbertmemorialpark.com/obituaries/j... This thread began as me feeling an obligation to promote the publication of my book. But as with the process of writing the book itself, I’ve come to see with clarity so many things beyond the book’s final contentgilbertmemorialpark.comJames (Jim) William Nygren - Gilbert Memorial 1110
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026Dad passed away on 31 March 2026. He was an amazing man. He was a Vietnam veteran who never wanted to talk about the war; a manager who was beloved by his employees; a father figure to many children in our neighborhood; a lover of good food and wine. And much else. 1160
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026I made lasagna and brought it in with bottles of wine, even though he could no longer eat; we played music; we put photos on the walls. And the entire time, a copy of Sedimentary Aesthetics sat on his hospital tray. 170
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026February and March 2026 were rough. I flew back and forth between Pittsburgh and Phoenix more times than I’d care to remember. But I was able to be there with him. In late March, he moved into hospice care. In hospice, we tried to keep the mood boyant. 170
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026He was very proud to hold the book in his hands, and when he saw the dedication in the volume, he was moved; he never thought he’d have a book dedicated to him (I had to remind hiim that I’d also dedicated my first book to him, mom, and my wife). 1140
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026In February of this year, dad’s condition began to worsen. A tumor on his spine began to paralyze him. About the time that started, an advanced copy of my book arrived from Yale. I was able to show him the physical copy as he did in-patient physical therapy to recover from the impacts of the tumor 2260
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026However, the most valuable thing was the dedication page, which I was able to show my parents at the hospital. It meant the world to be able to share that. Dad being dad, he then rallied. His body adjusted to the medicine and he went on to live another year. 1210
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026The initial results were amazing. They provided 8 options for the cover. It was amazing to get to show them to mom and dad and have them participate in selecting the cover for a book that would be dedicated to them. The title page was also gorgeous. 1130
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026Their response was an act of kindness that I will never forget. “we will do what we can to accelerate the process.” Within 10 days the designer (Jeff Wincapaw, whose work is incredible!) had produced designs for the cover as well as the layout of the title page, TOC, and openings for each “part” 1170
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026In March 2025 he almost died as his body adjusted to the medicine. On 27 March 2025 I wrote to the design/production @yalebooks.bsky.social asking a favor: was there any way they could produce the title page and dedication page of the book so that I could show it to my father before he dies? 1140
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026Winter 2025 was a really rough time. He elected to enroll in a clinical trial. He was only the fourth person on the planet to receive the drug. As I told him, more people had walked on the moon than received this drug. He was an Apollo astronaut of oncology. Well, the treatment was brutal. 170
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026About the time I sent the final manuscript to Yale for copyediting, my father was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. For over a decade he’d kept his cancer at bay through a combination of radiation, immunotherapy, and other threatments. We had a sense that metastasis was coming, but it still sucked. 170
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026I think the scholarship is sound and I look forward to the conversations this book will (hopefully) spark. Beyond that, though, this book is deeply personal. @kboller.bsky.social and the team at Yale were amazing as I went through some very difficult times during the book’s final production. 1130
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026The final version seeks to re-embed paintings on stone in a broad ecology that encompasses geology, nameless laborers, premodern conceptions of time, the colonization of the Americas, and much more. You can read a short description here: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...yalebooks.yale.eduSedimentary AestheticsAn unprecedented investigation of painting on stone in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy that considers the ecological and artistic forces that made t... 1140
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026At a scholarly level, the book is the culmination of a project I’ve been working on for years. It began in a very different form. The final version is something I could not have foreseen in 2017 when I was developing this as an @acls1919.bsky.social fellow. 1120
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 14/04/2026Today is the official publication day for my new book, Sedimentary Aesthetics: Painting on Stone and the Ecology of Early Modern Art. It is out in the world, and I would like to thank @yalepress.bsky.social for all they did. I’d also like to tell you a bit about why this publication means so much. 78919
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 02/04/2026Capitalized. And it is right. Just like the Oxford comma. 110
Reposted by Christopher NygrenSonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 30/03/2026Spread the word! My department at UMass-Amherst is inaugurating a Pre-College Summer Program in the History of Art: Visual Analysis and Exhibition Design. www.umass.edu/art-history/... 26727
Reposted by Christopher NygrenSonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 03/03/2026When Bender shared our piece a couple of months ago, she issued an important quibble w respect to my & @cnygren.bsky.social's specific argument regarding resistance to the AI industry's takeover of education. A story broken by student journalists at GW reveals that quibble to have been prescient. 1/ 35610
Reposted by Christopher NygrenSonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 15/02/2026Art History will continue to be seen as an elitist discipline if the public apparatuses for communicating it refuse to acknowledge the scholarship that has drawn attention to art's role in serving and subverting power. Read the righteous review by Sherry Lindqiust here. hnanews.org/hnar/reviews...hnanews.orgLes Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry - Historians of Netherlandish Art ReviewsThe Château de Chantilly justifiably billed its exhibition as a landmark show, and for early modernists and medievalists, it was the most anticipated 515156
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 09/01/2026If you are attending @historians.org #aha2026 please join us at 330 this afternoon when we discuss our project, “Transforming Humanities Education in a Time of Gun Violence.” We discuss various approaches to tracing the long history of guns, gun control, and legislation. 031
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 09/01/2026Wtaf? This is absurd. The fact that people are looking for this is insane and such a waste of resources. I hate when STEM decides it cares about history 150
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 01/01/2026Really not sure what to make of this as a prediction for 2026… 120
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 31/12/2025For any early modernists who are upset by the Compact piece, this is a great thread. And the point about Celenza’s “Lost Renaissance” is spot on. Some people saw changes to the field coming a mile away. Others got bitter 010
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 30/12/2025This administration understands that regulatory action can be effective. They are just deeply misguided in how they apply in the health sphere, and they refuse that premise with the tech sphere saying regulation is impossible. It is not. Your HHS sec shows what can be done. He’s just evil. 010
Christopher Nygren @cnygren.bsky.social · 30/12/2025What we see in the last paragraph is striking wrt some discourse on here in the last few days re: AI. 10 children _claimed_ to have been killed by COVID vaccine, and now the whole of Gov is moving to pull the hand break. 120
