iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Megan L. Cook @meganlcook.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Ali and I have been working on this essay cluster on antiquarianism and literary history-- with wonderful contributions from @bkadams.bsky.social, David Landreth, @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social, and Jane Raisch-- for a really REALLY long time, and it is finally out! read.dukeupress.edu/modern-langu...

read.dukeupress.edu

Criticism, Antiquarianism, and Literary History

If a literary historian knows one piece of antiquarian writing from early modern England, it is likely Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall, Thomas Browne’s fascinating and fascinated 1658 catalog of ancient fu...

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Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I got tired of waiting for the journalists at @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social to cover this (it IS summer), but this is to say that ALL the staff members in Women & Gender Studies here were laid off last week, on the top of the cutting of 5 lecturer positions in the program last year.+

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Shannon Hale @shannonhale.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

my college kid was heartbroken when on the first day of class the professor said "I used to spend 3 weeks teaching this part, but just have AI create it for you and we'll skip it." Skipping the most creative part of the work. The part my kid most looked forward to.

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Here’s a thing I’ve started to do: leave a little “Survival Kit” for our graduate student instructors in their offices before the first day of classes. It includes…

picture of a white mesh office supply caddy filled with the items listed in the post

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

It was such a joy today to get to fan girl all the way out and introduce our graduate student instructors in English to Catherine Denial, whose work has influenced so much of the work I’ve been doing these last several years with our grad program. 😍

photograph of 8 graduate students standing with Catherine Denial.

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Any other Hopkins authors get the LLM licensing email? Thoughts?

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

“Work a little harder. / Work another way.”

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Tim Carvell @timcarvell.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

There are whole movies that don’t have the twists and turns of this paragraph.

Since the eighties, LuPone has been based in Connecticut. Years ago, she and Johnston got a flock of chickens and named them Marilyn, Rita, Eartha, Foghorn Leghorn, and the Fabulous Miller Sisters (Pia, Alexandra, and Marie-Chantal). All but three were massacred in a raccoon attack. "It was horrific," LuPone said. "There was blood and feathers and guts all over the place when my husband heard me screaming. He came down in this Victoria's Secret underwear, barefoot. We looked in the hen hut, and there was the raccoon, basically looking at us, going, I ain't finished.'"

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

The work of the ACLS matters now more than ever, and I’m floored by the honor of being among this year’s awardees!

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Suzanne Karr Schmidt @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Here's a VERY Rare Book! Dare I say.... a UNICORN? How could I (almost) miss that it's #NationalUnicornDay? #volvelle #interactive #popup #NewberryLibrary i-share-nby.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Data providers like EBSCO, ProQuest, Sage + Cengage are “implementing “local controls” on databases, particularly related to health + race. ‘Under even the smallest of threats, the co’s have provided the tools or have secretly put on the tools… that apply the content blocking on these systems”

publishersweekly.com

Library Futures Investigates Content Bans in Research Databases

The nonprofit’s new report, Neo-Censorship in U.S. Libraries: An Investigation Into Digital Content Suppression, details the targeting of educational databases and the rise of legal challenges against...

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

I guess even the cats are angry hedge fund managers now, and nothing makes sense anymore.

picture of a cat wearing a neck tie and shaking its “fist”

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Michael Yarbrough (he/him) @mwyarbrough.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

This exciting resolution from Rutgers University Senate is exactly the kind of model I think higher ed needs: a mutual defense pact of, in this case, Big 10 schools. They call for member institutions to create a joint defense fund and make resources available to any member institution under attack.

Excerpt from Rutgers University Senate resolution calling for a Mutual Academic Defense Compact. The excerpt reads:

"BE IT RESOLVED THAT, the Rutgers University Senate urges the President of Rutgers University to formally propose and help establish a Mutual Academic Defense Compact (MADC) among all members of the Big Ten Academic Alliance;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT, under this compact, all participating institutions shall commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund. This fund shall be used to provide immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement;"

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Fire up your typing fingers, friends, because I can’t wait to read your essays as a new member of PMLA’s advisory board starting this summer.

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Eighteenth-Century Studies is looking for a new Book Review Editor! Deadline to apply is April 15. Details are at asecs.org/publications...

asecs.org

Eighteenth-Century Studies – ASECS

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Delighted to feature this essay—a must-read for anyone interested in eighteenth-century numismatics—as part of the Vetusta Monumenta project!

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

These are the days, it never rains but it pours…

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

The irony that now we really do need someone in the government to “stop the steal.”

Headline from NYT “House Passes Budget Plan to Slash Spending…”

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Kasia @kasiaiskasia.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

I’ve got a new essay in @thepointmag.bsky.social reviewing books by Michael Chaouli, Jonathan Kramnick, and Lauren Oyler, and talking about what I love about (reading about) literary criticism, and how I do not love The Discourse. thepointmag.com/criticism/a-...

thepointmag.com

A Twist of the Kaleidoscope | The Point Magazine

Has academia ruined literary criticism? Is this the end of literary studies? Has contemporary culture reduced authors to mere influencers building their brand? Or is […]

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Check out @drew-strombeck.bsky.social with work from a new book project in the latest issue of NOVEL! 😍

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Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

New at PB, Eleanor Courtemanche reviews Elizabeth S. Anker’s “On Paradox,” which combines a genuine commitment to the work of abstraction with a critique of the contemporary tendency to political doomerism.

buff.ly

Beyond the Doom Loop of High Theory

If paradox can be toxic, what’s the antidote?

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Heather Christle @heatherchristle.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

You’ll get 25% off my book if you pre-order today-Friday via Barnes & Noble. I’m really proud of IN THE RHODODENDRONS & I want to find its people. AND other beautiful books are coming out soon and you can use the same offer to pre-order them as well, so I wanted to share a couple recommendations.

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Matt Pearce @mattdpearce.com · 04/02/2025

Everything is insane right now but one little ray of sunlight is that I just got a new gig trying to use public policy to create as many local journalism jobs as humanly possible. mattdpearce.substack.com/p/ive-got-a-...

mattdpearce.substack.com

I've got a new job

Waging a new fight for local journalists across the U.S.

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Drew Strombeck @drew-strombeck.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

Season 2 of Severance comes out today (finally!). Here's a piece I wrote for @therambling.bsky.social about how the show reflects how attitudes about corporate work have evolved (and have not) since the 1950s and 1960s. the-rambling.com/2022/10/21/i...

the-rambling.com

Living to Work in Severance - The Rambling

In this essay, Andrew Strombeck considers how Severance reminds its viewers that the Always-Be-Hustling era masks grim truths about work. As long as we view work as a place to find our best selves, we...

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

high school teacher asks: "is there a site w short videos of people describing their professions+their college major, to help guide students, show them all the different things people do?" we made humanitiesworks.org and individual depts have alumni roundtables, but got video testimonials? please RT

humanitiesworks.org

HUMANITIES WORKS – posters, postcards, and handouts to support the humanities

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The Rambling @therambling.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

“The notion of living with actual illness is anathema to our self-directed, time-prizing society.” Julia Kendal on the intersection of illness and beauty trends, historically and now.

the-rambling.com

Sick Girl Winter - The Rambling

Hot girl summer gives way to sick girl winter in the long wake of COVID-19. Julia Kendal, a writer and social justice advocate, explores the phenomenon of “succubus chic” by connecting contemporary we...

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The Rambling @therambling.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

"I’ve spent many years searching for some version of my story, yet what seems a simple premise—'daughter carries on without father'—is not so simple to find in children’s literature." Abigail Spencer on the Amber Brown series

the-rambling.com

Seeing Red, Feeling Blue: Rereading Amber Brown - The Rambling

Abigail Spencer revisits Paula Danziger’s Amber Brown series and finds kinship with a childhood not often depicted in children’s fiction. An only child of divorced parents, Amber manages her father’s ...

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The Rambling @therambling.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

"By then, I knew that what I had always wanted from a story was what I had wanted from life: to make it mean something despite what seemed like utter chaos." Samantha Colicchio on her journey with the hit TV show Lost. the-rambling.com/2024/11/23/i...

the-rambling.com

We Are Lost - The Rambling

On the 20th anniversary of the hit TV show Lost, author Samantha Colicchio examines the series through the lens of her experience at NYU’s acting conservatory. She explores the show’s philosophical qu...

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Pretty sure Walter is also a kind of turkey…

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Turkey trot your way over to @therambling.bsky.social straight away, because our latest issue is out—from Lost to Lord of the Rings, reality TV to “succubus chic,” you will not lack for conversation at the dinner table after reading the essays at the-rambling.com. 🐌🦃

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Kiddo home from college: “Why is there so much prosciutto in the fridge?” Partner: “Your mom’s been buying prosciutto for the cats.”

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

If you aren’t following @therambling.bsky.social yet, you might wanna do that before next week. #teaser

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Feeling homesick for deep snow in the holler.

Winter storm warning calling for up to 10 inches of snow in West Virginia.

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

"The Quilt Index is an open access, digital repository of thousands of images, stories and information about quilts and their makers drawn from hundreds of public and private collections around the world." (via The Syllabus Project) quiltindex.org

Screenshot of the Quilt Index website, featuring a quilt overlain with a text block featuring the site's title

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 10/02/2024

“Jo, Beth, Meg, and Amy constantly chose unexpected paths. Despite being separated from these four women by a century and a half, by continents and culture, I sought refuge in their company.” the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/i...

the-rambling.com

The Reader as a Work-in-Progress - The Rambling

In this (re)reading of Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women, Megha Agarwal unravels the shapeshifting nature of narratives and the self, asking such questions as: How do the stories that transformed...

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 08/02/2024

“Now, as a writer and precocious kid grown old, I reread I Capture the Castle with more awe than I had when I packed it in my suitcase and stole it from dear Nana. I’m better armed for awe now—by education and by experience.” the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/i...

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 06/02/2024

Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw “showed me, as a child, that books didn’t simply happen—they were made by people who cared about the written word, and those people were once children who loved the written word.” Matthew Luter’s essay is so full of tenderness. the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/i...

the-rambling.com

Dear Mrs. Cleary - The Rambling

In this personal essay, Matthew Luter revisits a favorite children’s book of his youth, Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw, discovering anew how Cleary’s book was a gateway to some of his favorit...

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 02/02/2024

"Rereading The Black Stallion alongside Robinson Crusoe today, I can see that, in addition to their carapace of imperial masculinity & all of its attendant violence, these novels create space for the girl I was & the woman I’ve become." Read more by Alison Conway! the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/i...

the-rambling.com

Romancing the Stallion - The Rambling

How does the story of a boy and a horse sustain the romance of a girl stepping out into her own island world? Alison Conway’s personal essay considers how reading a work of children’s literature, ...

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Crystal Lake @crystal-b-lake.bsky.social · 31/01/2024

“[W]atching my students experience reading a serious, grown-up novel for the first time helped me heal my relationship with reading after graduate school.” All the feels in this essay by Katie Nolan. the-rambling.com/2024/01/21/i...

the-rambling.com

On Never Letting the Novel Go - The Rambling

In this personal essay, Katherine Nolan writes about her experience teaching Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go to high school students—and about falling back in love with novels after complet...

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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 30/01/2024

The answer to every story about elite college admissions is to make sure every American has access to a low price high quality public education within a reasonable drive of their hometown. The wild thing is we mostly achieved this. Then destroyed it.

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