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Emily Steinlight

@emilysteinlight.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1.1K following 169 posts

assoc prof of English at Penn (c19 British lit, novel theory, mass politics, labor, history of science), author of Populating the Novel

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Emily Steinlight
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 29/09/2026
“What if we released malware represented in the form of a cute avatar” is an actual business plan now.
engadget.com
Dots are OpenAI's new personal agents and soon you'll be able to control several of them - Engadget
Sure, seems safe.
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
AAUP, AFT, and HELU have a plan draft! College For All, in expansion now for 2026 and 2028 www.aaup.org/sites/defaul...
aaup.org
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Will Jones @willpjones.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
@aaup.org is pushing for this.
aaup.org
A Blueprint for Strengthening and Transforming Higher Education
The AAUP and AFT jointly launched a new comprehensive policy platform ahead of the 2026 midterms aimed to counter the Trump administration’s far right extremist attacks on American higher education an...
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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 27/09/2026
"we can't uninvent this" we can't uninvent my car either but it still doesn't go anywhere without gas in the tank
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Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
But, needless to say, that is not a university: that’s a taxpayer-subsidized engine for private capital accumulation that retains the external form of a university —a beloved brand, taken over by private equity, that’s now different & worse, but keeps the old name—which is of course the whole point.
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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This story brought me back to Kara, one of the mothers in my book, There Is No Place for Us. She was homeless with her four kids while driving for DoorDash. They had to pee in bottles so bathroom stops wouldn't make her late. After gas, she earned $6.50 an hour—75 cents less than the minimum wage.
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S.E. Sinkhorn @sesinkhorn.com · 26/09/2026
if you think this is just a trend puff piece, it isn't, I have literally had seven-year-olds running around my house going THAT'S SO AI
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
ART IN THESE TIMES opens one week from today! pro-freedom anti-authoritarian artists, paradoxes of political art, bookbinding workshop, radical poetry, legacy independent media, and CHEESE! this joint has everything #falloffreedom interccect.com/2026/09/10/a...
interccect.com
Art in These Times: an InterCcECT exhibition
ART IN THESE TIMES affirms art’s special obligation to refuse authoritarian assaults on free thinking and creative making. Spotlighting works that circumvent familiar gestures of political ar…
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Reposted by Emily Steinlight
Imani Gandy @angryblacklady.blacksky.app · 19/09/2026
Some of you may know that my grandfather was fired from his job as a school teacher in Philadelphia because he was a communist and wouldn't name names. So he sued the school district, it went to the Supreme Court, he lost ultimately. I just found some of his typewritten briefs. What a find!
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Texas Conference of the AAUP @texasaaup.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
“The ACLU of Texas, ACLU, and pro bono counsel Yetter Coleman LLP have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Texas A&M University  System’s new extreme Censorship Policy that prohibits faculty from discussing certain topics + viewpoints related to race, sexual orientation + gender.”
aclutx.org
American Association of University Professors, et al. vs. Albritton, et al. - ACLU of Texas
The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, American Civil Liberties Union, and pro bono counsel Yetter Coleman LLP have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Texas A&M University  Sys...
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Karla Ortiz @kortizart.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
“An astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions” and the “largest theft of labor in human history” is what a Microsoft executive privately said about GenAi as shown in newly unsealed court filings. And these court filings get worse. These execs knew all along the immense theft they committed.
404media.co
‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft
"Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions."
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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
If I was in charge of an educational institution and learned that a technology fostered “cognitive surrender” in young people, I’d like to think I would do everything in my power to keep it away from the young people who pay my institution to educate them. But I guess I’m just a weirdo.
Students are using artificial intelligence for everything, including cheating, and a recent M.I.T. report said the technology was creating
"cognitive surrender."
Philip Cheung for The New York Times
Many university leaders are embracing A.I. anyway. →
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Anna Girling @annagirling.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
These cuts disproportionately target the arts & humanities: the Business School loses only three courses; the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures loses 48 – many of these are joint degrees, removing the optional breadth of study which has always been one of the appeals of a Scottish degree
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Steph Machado @stephmachado.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
NEW: Rent control is back from the dead in Providence. After Wednesday's primary, the City Council is projected to have majority support in 2027 for capping rent increases, and a mayor who will sign it www.bostonglobe.com/2026/09/11/m...
bostonglobe.com
With Morales’s win, rent control is on the table again in Providence - The Boston Globe
Wednesday’s primary is poised to bring new leadership into City Hall with enough support to limit rent increases next year. Legislation failed to get over the finish line earlier this year.
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
what we do want? CONTRACT when do we want it? NOW if we don't get it? SHUT IT DOWN tick tock on shut it down time after hundreds of days of bargaining and 30 days working without a contract, tick tock
UIC UF WE HEART UIC
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
'Staff at the University of Essex are set to strike next week over cuts to 400 full-time jobs. The union, Unison, said admissions advisors, IT technicians, admin workers and other professional services staff would walk out on Monday over the proposals.'
bbc.co.uk
Essex University staff to strike over plans to cut 400 jobs
Staff will walk out over a plan to cut 400 jobs, which the university says will protect its future
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"stores and tracks faculty CVs and productivity" in the hands of private equity can't go wrong can it
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Benjamin McKean @blmckean.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I cannot wait to defeat the fascist attack on universities so we can go back to fighting the neoliberal corporate takeover of universities
dispatch.com
Ohio State University to partner with Google for new on-campus AI hub
Ohio State will launch what is likely "the largest foundational partnership" between Google and any U.S. university this year.
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Melissa Gira Grant @melissagiragrant.com · 09/09/2026
“In addition to monitoring activists in the vicinity of Anthropic executives and keeping tabs on protests near physical Anthropic assets, the firm is also implementing a ‘pre-crime’ approach… In some cases, that also means reporting suspects to police before a crime occurs.” @drboguslaw.bsky.social:
prospect.org
Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists - The American Prospect
New hires and comments in interviews show that the AI giant is using its capabilities against dissenters.
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
In NYC, Mayor Mamdani has launched the Office of Worker Power, designed to connect workers who want to unionize with education and resources. Former US Labor Sec Julie Su is overseeing the effort & the executive director comes from the UAW. "When workers can organize, everything changes," said Su.
prospect.org
Mamdani Opens Office of Worker Power - The American Prospect
The new city agency intends to connect workers who want to unionize with resources and organizing contacts, and use worker stories of exploitation to inform policy.
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Starbucks Workers United @sbworkersunited.org · 07/09/2026
From Louisville to LA to Philly to Denver, Starbucks workers are turning up across the country for Labor Day! Our message is simple: it is no longer possible to be both a Starbucks customer, and in support of workers. BOYCOTT STARBUCKS.
A group of 5 stand in front of a Starbucks Workers United booth. A banner has a logo that says BOYCOTT STARBUCKS.Two people smile and hold a sign that says BOYCOTT STARBUCKS at a Labor Day eventA large group in a busy city hold a banner that says BOYCOTT STARBUCKSA large group stand in front of a Starbucks holding signs that says "WORKER RIGHTS, "SHAME ON STARBUCKS," and "UNION STRONG UNION PROUD"
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AAUP chapter @UT Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
✴️ Happy Labor Day to all who are working to preserve higher education! This is a great day to join your union! Solidarity forever!
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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Happy Labor Day - and I'm proud to be a member of United University Professions and grateful to the bargaining team for our new contract, which includes protections from those who would use AI technologies against workers.
A screenshot of a summary of the UUP's new contract. The summary reads, "Artificial Intelligence. New Contract Article on Artificial Intelligence. Establishes a groundbreaking new Article 44 on Artificial Intelligence. UUP is among the first bargaining units in the country to establish grievable AI protections in contract language. The article contains the following two provisions: • The ultimate accountability for work completed and actions made by, or in conjunction with, AI systems must rest with human beings. • Courses shall be o^ered under the direction and responsibility of the assigned human instructor of record or other human instructional personnel, consistent with applicable law, accreditation requirements, academic policy, and this Agreement.
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
The conflation of AI-critical with technophobic is tactical & infuriating. While accusing us of just knee-jerk hating tech, they’re enshittifying search engines, degrading digital archives, sundowning or enclosing popular tools, etc. We were all happily using that tech!
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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Pedagogy is not some new, unsolved problem awaiting its Silicon Valley disruptor. If you want good teaching in any given subject, it’s there to be had. If you just don’t want to pay for it, then all we’re really talking about is how much you want something for nothing. That’s nothing new, either.
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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
The idea that classrooms are chiefly spaces for product testing, and that it is irresponsible pedagogy not to enforce this, is both cynical and vile, and “fuck off” is a cogent response from any professional educator to any non-teaching salescreep or tech-but-not-subject-matter expert who voices it.
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Devin Garofalo @devingarofalo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
GREETINGS.
Cover of my forthcoming monograph, Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Cosmologies of the Human, featuring an image by John Ruskin of ferns, moss, florals, and rock in shades of sage green, teal, and lavendar.
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AAUP chapter @UT Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Chaos and authoritarianism at UT Austin. Faculty have just days to show how their courses meet vague requirements of breadth and foundationalism. Proposals will be reviewed by an unspecified entity. No guarantee at all that those who review the proposals have expertise in the field.
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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
"Democratic states have not particularly covered themselves in glory when it comes to higher ed. There’s no counter-movement in blue states that offers a robust counter-vision for higher ed — that it might, first of all, be actually good for society, or provide the kind of education students want."
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Starbucks Workers United @sbworkersunited.org · 29/08/2026
The Chicago Teachers Union voted unanimously to BOYCOTT STARBUCKS. Teachers know how it feels to be unsupported, and when working people stand together, we raise ALL of us up. Thank you to the CTU for listening to union baristas, as well as everyone who is pledging to boycott Starbucks!
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
"That strictly enforced division between those who do and don’t have the right ID has remained in place long enough that the university is now betraying its own identity. The more Columbia asks who you are, the less it knows what it is."
curbed.com
Fortress Columbia, Two Years Later
The university closed its gates in a crisis. But now it’s courting a new one.
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Benjamin McKean @blmckean.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Meanwhile, in Ohio, the Democratic candidate for governor is calling for cooperation with ICE as they commit this ethnic cleansing
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
seems like a good time to remind people that Niemöller (the author of the confession memorialized in the "First they came for the Communists" poem) was a Hitler supporter, and made that confession after spending time in the Dachau concentration camp
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Jill Galvan @jillgal.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Hey! Just sent off the final version of my book coming out next year-ish, so excited!
title page for "The Quiet Fight: Marriage, Time, and the Fiction of Love Trouble," together with a table of contents
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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
More brain drain: “Twenty-one universities in Canada announced on Thursday the hiring of dozens of researchers to join their top academic ranks, poaching the majority of the recruits from the United States. Of the incoming 64 researchers, 48 will leave American campuses…”
nytimes.com
Canada Hires U.S. Scholars From Harvard and Other Top Universities (Gift Article)
A crackdown on American academia by the Trump administration has handed Canadian universities a rare opportunity to lure some top researchers north.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
From their perspective, if A.I. isn't going to get them a good job (and the A.I. narrative is boasting about eliminating good jobs) then college should at least match their idea of what it used to be -- personal, inspiring, chats on the quad, experiences. Then their class is all about tech.
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
At the center of my message to faculty yesterday was: 1.) We may not be adequately prepared for how angry students are about tech. 2.) They are not all angry for the same reasons. 3.) Being angry at it doesn’t mean they aren’t using it. The sense of entrapment fuels the anger.
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I Travel Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 25/08/2026
The largest and oldest Black studies departments in the country have been closed, but a bunch of people decided the eugenics guy was the crucible for academic freedom.
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Emily Steinlight @emilysteinlight.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
9 to 5, yeah, they got you where they want you There′s a better life And you think about it, don′t you? It's a rich man′s game No matter what they call it And you spend your life Putting money in his wallet
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 23/08/2026
these people really want to make "racist" akin to a slur rather than what it is, a straightforward label for a set of beliefs and views. if you don't like the label because you, correctly, associate it with degenerate chuds, then get better beliefs
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if you are signing a letter supporting a disgraced eugenicist famous for hounding a Black scholar to death your main concern is not academic freedom. This goes double if you don’t have the same smoke for the Trump administration’s attacks on academia.
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Jason Read @jasonread.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...
theguardian.com
‘We never apologised for our rage or revenge-seeking’: riot grrrl legends Heavens to Betsy reunite
Alongside Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, Corin Tucker and Tracy Sawyer created a feminist punk vernacular that’s still inspiring the likes of Olivia Rodrigo. They recall the clarity and conviction of the...
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Marilou @mariloupage.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Hear ye, hear ye! I have updated the mediagraphy for critical tech and "AI" sources. I'm not finished, but I'm on vacation with my family so I will pick up the slack next week. Stay tuned, much more is coming! If you have suggestions, don't hesitate to send me a missive.
lecabinetdecuriosites.ca
Mediagraphy of AI and Big Tech critical sources
One of the biggest obstacles I face in my fight against the scourges that are generative AI, Big Tech and other fascist-leaning clankers, is that most people aren’t aware of all the critical literatur...
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
universities are not run by leftist profs they are run by corporate profiteer board members siphoning public $$ to tech partnerships "An Inside Higher Ed analysis of SEC filings turned up dozens of presidents paid handsomely for sitting on corporate boards." www.insidehighered.com/news/governa...
the 10 presidents in Inside Higher Ed’s analysis who earned the most from outside board service in 2025.
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Anna Gibson @annagk.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Are you teaching Dickens this semester? Check out our new teaching resources at Dickens Notes, and consider incorporating the working notes and serial publication into your course!
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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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Johanna Winant @johannawinant.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I'm planning on having students do more in-class writing in both my freshman and upper-level classes. If you are too, let's share prompts? Here are some of mine that I'm tinkering with:
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Emanuel Maiberg @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
We put a tracking device in a shipment of rare books acquired by an anonymous buyer. It ended up at an Amazon facility where the company scans books for training data and destroys them in the process: www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...
404media.co
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
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