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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social

@emmaclairefoley.bsky.social
568 followers 48 following 261 posts
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Flashing back to several trips to DC ago when I heard someone refer to "the Golden Dome community" in at a panel
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Film Forum @filmforumnyc.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Read @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social on our indispensable ANDRZEJ WAJDA 100 series (running thru October 22) for Screen Slate: www.screenslate.com/articles/and...
screenslate.com
Andrzej Wajda
The Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda, subject of an ongoing retrospective at Film Forum organized on the occasion of his centennial, made nearly 50 features over almost seven decades.
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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 18/09/2026
Carlo Ginzburg’s 1979 book “The Cheese and the Worms” compiles the testimony of a sixteenth-century miller and amateur theologian accused of heresy by the Inquisition. As @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social writes, it reconfigured our idea of what gets to be historical.
thebaffler.com
Carlo Ginzburg, 1939–2026 | Emma Claire Foley
Carlo Ginzburg’s work centered and subverted the very idea of insignificance.
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
And a little addendum, up on Substack: emmaclairefoley.substack.com/p/the-cheese...
emmaclairefoley.substack.com
The Cheese and the Worms and the Wolves and the Witches
A note on Carlo Ginzburg and the collective unconscious
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
And a little addendum, up on Substack: emmaclairefoley.substack.com/p/the-cheese...
emmaclairefoley.substack.com
The Cheese and the Worms and the Wolves and the Witches
A note on Carlo Ginzburg and the collective unconscious
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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 15/09/2026
The Italian leftist historian Carlo Ginzburg died this year at the age of eighty-seven. @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social remembers how the champion of lone nonconformists challenged the notion that history is made by great men.
thebaffler.com
Carlo Ginzburg, 1939–2026 | Emma Claire Foley
Carlo Ginzburg’s work centered and subverted the very idea of insignificance.
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Innsmouth Looksmaxxing @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
The Ivy League-educated vice president of the United States talking about the "elites" always reminds me of that Soviet joke where Brezhnev shows his mom his cars and his estate and his summer dacha and she goes "It's beautiful, but if the Communists knew you had this they'd be so angry!"
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Wrote a long thing about the shallow roots of the "Thucydides Trap" concept: emmaclairefoley.substack.com/p/the-thucyd...
emmaclairefoley.substack.com
The Thucydides Trap Is A Cold War Idea
That doesn't have much to do at all with Thucydides.
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
There's an easy, restful dunk available here: Trump almost certainly has no idea who Thucydides is but this ignores the deeper, more necessary dunk on the "Thucydides trap" concept itself, which attempts to universalize Cold War dynamics through thousands of years of history
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Sam Feldman @srfeld.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
It's no mystery why Rudy Giuliani, who's disgraced, bankrupt, & looking for government help with his medical bills, would want the @nytimes.com to print a story about how he once helped a former mayor in need. What I'm curious about is why the Times went along with this PR scheme.
nytimes.com
Giuliani Once Helped a Predecessor Get Health Care
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Some thoughts on how AI as an industry is mostly writing its own history (at least for now): emmaclairefoley.substack.com/p/ais-histor...
emmaclairefoley.substack.com
AI's History of Itself
I was putting together readings on AI for my history of science class last week, and it struck me how many books about it are either by people actively working on developing the technology, or from ge...
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
I'm like a single-issue "less nuclear dust" voter at this point
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
what they took from us
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
The NYT should bring back eldritch illustrations of relatively mundane articles
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Legally Blonde but for a spunky and indefatigable student of the philosophy of history: The Battle of Jenna
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
I'm about to teach a three-hour seminar after which I will perhaps update this or at least fiddle with the color settings
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
I wrote up some very quick, very sketchy thoughts on the possibility of the U.S. using nuclear weapons in Iran: emmaclairefoley.substack.com/p/quick-thou...
emmaclairefoley.substack.com
Quick thoughts on the possibility of U.S. nuclear use in Iran
Based purely on the number of anxious text messages and follows I’ve received already today, I’m writing up my thoughts about whether the U.S.
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Briskly clicking back and forth between my "Iran nuclear" tab and the tab where I type "in solidarity" at the end of emails over and over
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
I'm trying to read more popular opining on AI, and it really does feel like decades of genteel punch-pulling have trained real human writers out of the critical thinking and writing skills that might help them interpret what's going on here www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/o...
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Not my title, but: I tried to draw some connections between the role of Iran's nuclear program in justifying the attacks on Iran and how France and Europe are talking about new French nukes and "forward deterrence" jacobin.com/2026/03/iran...
jacobin.com
The Iran War Will Probably Increase Nuclear Weapons Globally
Donald Trump justified his war on Iran under the pretext of preventing nuclear proliferation. But as the US’s allies consider developing nuclear arsenals, he’s set a dangerous precedent for their enem...
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Someone should invent a technology where I can subscribe to a single, omnibus substack that pays all the authors I read for their work
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Daniel Larison @daniellarison.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Democratic members of Congress need to attack this war as a crime, because that’s what it is. “The president did not plan out his war of aggression as well as he could have” is a foolish and self-defeating position to take.
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Elizabeth Beavers @elizabethrb.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
destroying Iran's what? (they don't have a nuclear weapons program)
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
I'm not going to make this about me
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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Broadly: the danger of nuclear risk and escalation with AI is not concentrated in giving presidents a bad machine advisor urging escalation. Instead, that risk is in automating any Stanislav Petrovs out of the chain of launch, as you need *restrain* to respond to sensor error indicating odd launch.
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
It's 9am somewhere
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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
You're telling me that word association tools trained on internet comments don't know how to deescalate? www.newscientist.com/article/2516...
newscientist.com
AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations
Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases
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Andrew Facini @andrewfacini.com · 19/02/2026
20 years of GWOT has left a sense that uncontested air power is how wars work. But it's not war. These are all launchers. It's bombardment for bombardment's sake. We're getting ready to bomb the hell out of a country, but there's no war plan, no real goals.
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
I do strongly empathize with the experience of being a few hours late on your response to New START expiration www.axios.com/2026/02/05/n...
axios.com
Scoop: U.S. and Russia agree to observe New START nuclear pact after expiration
New START is the last major guardrail constraining the nuclear arsenals of the two countries that together hold some 85% of the world's warheads.
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Sam Ratner @samratner.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
I've said this before, but it's worth repeating: the Biden nuclear policy team bears a huge amount of responsibility for normalizing this nonsense. What was once a fringe right wing position became the settled wisdom of Vipin Narang and Jake Sullivan, and now here we are.
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
We are descending ever faster into a period of violence & epistemic collapse from which we may never emerge, but on the other hand I've got plenty of material for the course on modern misinterpretations of ancient & Classical history I teach in the spring: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/u...
nytimes.com
Texas A&M, Under New Curriculum Limits, Warns Professor Not to Teach Plato
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
Definitely having a ghost of Christmas future-type reaction to 2026 as a number
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
The hype around new nuclear tech, & the well-publicized shift toward a more tech-industry model for military production, along with the crippling effects of haphazard cuts to federal gov't capacity has made me worry the Trump admin might reduce nuclear safety standards w/ long-term consequences
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Looking at polling there seems to be a sort of sighing acceptance: www.pewresearch.org/science/2025...
pewresearch.org
How Americans View AI and Its Impact on People and Society
Americans are worried about using AI more in daily life, seeing harm to human creativity and relationships. But they’re open to AI use in weather forecasting, medicine and other data-heavy tasks.
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Are people actually excited though? I find it almost impossible to tell what's an effect of massive funding/PR and actual reception of AI, + an Iraq War-bred skepticism of the idea that I live in a basically airtight cultural bubble while the rest of the world putters on happily with whatever horror
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Clocking in for my server shift at the restaurant of success
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
My villain origin story is having to wait two months for a high-quality audio copy of Daniel Deronda
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Doing a career pivot to become the guy the public library sends around to make sure you're actually listening to the audiobook you checked out
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
The default logic around AI seems to be built, tragically, on carefully cultivated low expectations: it's not just "we can't have nice things," but "we can't take the obvious action to avoid a totally unnecessary, avoidable bad thing"
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
What are we doing here folks
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
To the extent that it viewed the natsec state politically, rather than as a character--as the products of a set of behaviors and decisions rather than a perfect, if tragically flawed, system--it made a pretty good case for ending presidential sole authority to order a nuclear strike
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Portraying rapid-fire shop talk among people who share a very specific outlook and set of expectations is hard, but a lot of the characters seemed strangely green rather than having spent years or decades in contexts where emergencies like this are extensively discussed as possible and urgent
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
It did seem unrealistic in that a Secretary of Defense would almost definitely not be learning basic facts about missile defense after a nuke was already in the air (unless there's a particular backstory about this administration--which, again, the film didn't seem that interested in!)
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
I finally watched House of Dynamite, and it was okay! I enjoyed it. It didn't do much with its structural conceit--maybe it would have it it were more interested in the human characters who animate the lumbering national security state, the closest thing it has to a main character with a personality
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Ending my Keynes lecture before I refer to him as a noted bisexual
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
I saw somewhere on the Internet someone doing an advent calendar but it was just 24 arduous life-management tasks
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emmaclairefoley.bsky.social @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
For @jacobinmag.bsky.social, I addressed a recent article in @foreignaffairs.com arguing that the U.S. should give nuclear weapons to Germany, Japan, and Canada: jacobin.com/2025/11/nucl...
jacobin.com
The Return of Nuclear Proliferation
A recent article in the establishment security journal Foreign Affairs makes the case for nuclear proliferation among America’s allies. Not only are its arguments unsound, but they also understate the...
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John Carl Baker @johncarlbaker.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Good @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social piece pushing back against a recent Foreign Affairs article: "Below the confidence in America’s power to shape the global status quo seems to lurk a quiet admission that the American empire is fracturing" jacobin.com/2025/11/nucl...
jacobin.com
The Return of Nuclear Proliferation
A recent article in the establishment security journal Foreign Affairs makes the case for nuclear proliferation among America’s allies. Not only are its arguments unsound, but they also understate the...
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