iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Andrew Granola @mourningcake.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Herman Melville: Imagine a whale. Fuck you, it’s way cooler than that.

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Marie Léger-St-Jean @marielsj.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

⚠️ 2027 CONFERENCES UPDATE! ⚠️ #RSVP2027 Ottawa🇨🇦 24–26 June “Structures” ⏰ 1 Nov 2026 #ESPRit2027 Utrecht🇳🇱 30 June–2 July “Periodicals and Personae” ⏰ 18 Dec 2026 #SHARP2027 Pretoria🇿🇦 7–9 July “Opening (up) the Book” ⏰ 30 Jan 2027 @bavs-uk.bsky.social are still looking for a host, it seems?

espr-it.eu

2027 ESPRit Conference: "Periodicals and Personae" - ESPRit

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

how it feels to be canadian

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Sam @mardiroos.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Bro, be straight with me: was it eldritch or merely uncanny?

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Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

RIP Frances Stonor Saunders. Who Paid the Piper? was an incredible book for any historian, let alone one in her early 30s www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

theguardian.com

Frances Stonor Saunders obituary

Author and documentary-maker best known for her 1999 book about CIA-funded cultural espionage Who Paid the Piper?

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This is utterly idiotic. We don't know what skills future workforces will need. We do know that will change & that students perform best if they study something they're actually interested in. And for the pig-ignorant in the back row, fewer than 50% of STEM graduates ever go into STEM employment.

theguardian.com

Can you futureproof your career by choosing an AI-resistant degree?

Humans will have to compete with AI-powered virtual employees in the near future. Here are our tips for the last human holdouts

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The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 06/09/2026

Neal Ascherson wrote honestly and forcefully during the crises of the Cold War. Do careers like his exist anymore? www.newyorker.com/culture/life...

newyorker.com

Reporting the Big World

Neal Ascherson found himself at the center of the great crises of Cold War Europe. Do careers like his exist anymore?

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Alistair King @alistairking.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Struggling to work out why Jenrick would single out these three Commonwealth countries rather than, say, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, whose citizens have exactly the same rights. It’s a head-scratcher.

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John Ganz @lioneltrolling.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

This is your brain on social media.— t.co/jQI4qvJClr

t.co

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/this-is-your-brain-on-x

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Just remember this message is aimed at your children not theirs.

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Scott Edgar @scottedgar.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I wonder if there's a world where the UK press covers university cuts and department closures with the same energy they cover a student unhappy with her grade. www.lbc.co.uk/article/jaso...

lbc.co.uk

Jason Arday ‘accused student of white privilege’ after she questioned her mark | LBC

Former Cambridge professor Jason Arday accused a student of 'white privilege' after she questioned her grades, it has been claimed.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

The student loan system is a real and major problem. But tackling it without locating it in the larger English and English, Welsh, Northern Irish and Scottish university financial crisis (including the cost of undertaking research) would be woefully inadequate. Plasters won't work. Surgery needed.

bbc.co.uk

Student loan repayment rates an 'unsustainable burden', chancellor told

More than 120 MPs and peers have asked John Healey to carry out an "urgent review" of repayments.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

World-class UK anthropology, archaeology, area studies, chemistry, classics, English language and literature, geography, history, history of art, modern languages and philosophy, among other subjects, are also at risk, and have been for quite some time now. You don't need a telescope to see it.

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Tricia Lockwood @tricialockwood.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

if we cede the ability to dream within a text we abolish ourselves to the machines.

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Trevor Aleo @mraleosays.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

This much needed, nuanced piece finally pushed me to sit down & get all my thoughts out about the "literacy crisis." It's my best attempt to combat the moral panic clickbait that circulates in The Discourse™️ and offer a fuller account of #literacies in the plural. substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

Three Theses On the Literacy Crisis

Why The Atlantic and the Moral Panic Machine Are Misdiagnosing the "End of Reading"

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Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

One thing AI can't do: experience the world through my sensorium sinykin.substack.com/p/to-make-th...

sinykin.substack.com

To Make the Stone Stony

I want to see again

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Great to see the Guardian champion the SHAPE (Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) subjects, but this piece gives impression that they are expensive, whereas many are 'cheap to teach' subjects subsidising more expensive subjects, mainly in STEM and medicine. The crisis demands better understanding.

theguardian.com

The Guardian view on humanities cuts in universities: academic departments are more than cost centres | Editorial

Editorial: Literature, the arts and social sciences must not be sacrificed as higher education funding is squeezed

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J.D. Connor @jdconnor.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

So much for the miracle of Barthes's "Writer on Holiday"

The relevant portion:
To endow the writer publicly with a good fleshly body, to reveal that he likes dry white wine and underdone steak, is to make even more miraculous for me, and of a more divine essence, the products of his art. Far from the details of his daily life bringing nearer to me the nature of his inspiration and making it clearer, it is the whole mythical singularity of his condition which the writer emphasizes by such confidences. For I cannot but ascribe to some superhumanity the existence of beings vast enough to wear blue pyjamas at the very moment when they manifest themselves as universal conscience, or else make a profession of liking reblochon with that same voice with which they announce their forthcoming Phenomenology of the Ego. The spectacular alliance of so much nobility and so much futility means that one still believes in the contradiction: since it is totally miraculous, each of its terms is miraculous too; it would obviously lose all interest in a world
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where the writer's work was so desacralized that it appeared as natural as his vestimentary or gustatory functions.

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 18/07/2026

‘Fans will celebrate their winger’s last-minute winner, then discuss the finer points of repatriating him to his mother’s home country in the pub afterwards.’ @judeinlondon.com on conditional Englishness, from the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ju...

lrb.co.uk

Jude Wanga | Limited Leave to Remain English

English identity is a funny business: we can be one thing to ourselves and something else to others, and that changes...

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GAI Debord @dylanschenker.com · 09/07/2026

Oh, this is great. Charles Bernstein, one of the original members of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E school of poetry published a book of AI-generated poems last year and he was asked about the relationship between the avant-garde and AI writing in an interview about it jacket2.org/commentary/A...

Bernstein: Yes. One precedent is the use of procedures or algorithms to generate poems, as in the work of Jackson Mac Low, who was one of the first to use computer programs to generate poems. But these poems broke up conventional syntax and were intended to seem "alien" — word combinations that were previously unseen: the works were not attributable to a lyric voice and in that sense would not seem to express emotion. So, these really were "alien" poems. In contrast my collaboration with Davide Balula created poems that were more conventional than my own poetry and these poems have plenty of emotion. (or perhaps better to say emotion-signalling) My view is that emotion in conventional lyric poetry is as often as not robotic and formulaic. It's amusing to see those who profess conventional lyric "emotive" poems find a lack of emotion in AI poems as this is just the problem, too often anyway, in their own formulaic exercises, In contrast, what I was interested in during those L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E years (and now) was creating poems with affect and feeling that did not come across as dead to me. So, what some might have found disconnected fragments or mangled "word salad" (as the insult went) I found to be intensively expressive and emotional, affect that would come as much in the space between the words and in the words themselves. My motto for this line of thought is: all intelligence is artificial but also: all emotion is artificial.

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Aidan McGlynn @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

"We need an immediate, substantial and comprehensive review of UK higher education and research, and a commitment to act on its recommendations. It is imperative that we are clear about what a healthy and sustainable ecosystem looks like, what we are prepared to safeguard, and what we stand to lose"

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

I'm really sorry to hear this news. The Research Professional team are excellent and have helped the HE and research sector keep up with what is happening. We will be less intelligent without it. Good luck to individual staff members affected, who are excellent writers and journos.

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Tricia Lockwood @tricialockwood.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

*nodding solemnly with full comprehension* yes, I see. there’s a special kind of kid who can’t play sports or go to the bathroom

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Luke O'Neil @lukeoneil47.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

The sword hanging over my head had lowered a bit over night. Still not close enough that I was freaking out but I could sense its movement.

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Simon Kővesi @kovesi.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Not long to get your proposals in for the James Kelman 80th birthday conference, in Spring 2027. Jim was 80 earlier this month. call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/05/...

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Stewart Smith @drstewartsmith.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Join us online @unimainz.bsky.social on Tues 5pm (UK) for a talk on jazz & poetry in 1970s Glasgow centred on Tom McGrath & Third Eye Centre, building on my @thewiremagazine.bsky.social Once Upon a Time piece & @creativescots.bsky.social project. A bounty of rare footage & archival material!

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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

What breaks my mind about this is that there was precisely zero public glamour to reform indefinite leave to remain, outside of a highly online right fringe. The public debate is about small boats, not whatever the hell this is.

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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Chotiner: so, he stopped under the trap but was not crushed Wile E. Coyote: just so Chotiner: but then you stepped under it a moment later and were smashed into a pancake Wile E. Coyote: a pancake. That’s correct. Chotiner: and had similar events occurred previously? Wile E. Coyote: ok, look

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Ansley Erickson @ansleyerickson.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

You probably think you know the dimensions of ascendent fascism, but without reckoning with this you really don't. I didn't. 30+ year sentences for making zines. No one is safe.

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Colm Murphy @colmpm.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

This is a great piece on the problems and insights of Tom Nairn's writings about globalisation later in life, by James Stafford: doi.org/10.1093/tcbh... It includes this wonderful artefact from a bygone era.

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Colm Murphy @colmpm.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

I reviewed @garylove.bsky.social and @richardtoye.bsky.social's new edited volume Writing Politics in Modern Britain for @politicalquarterly.bsky.social. I enjoyed it a lot. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Why Read Books When You Have a Mobile Phone?

Click on the article title to read more.

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JWexTheSpa @jwsidders.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

A shirtless white man, in the street with a knife in his hand, having attacked and wounded five people, allegedly shouting anti-Muslim slogans is the sixth story on the BBC UK news page. There is absolutely no doubt at all this would be the lead story if attacker and intended victims were reversed.

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 19/06/2026

They crashed among the spider-nets spluttering and breathing hoarsely, chasing fish out of the water, calling one another and disappearing… —“Dolphins at Cochin” by poet, playwright & novelist Tom Buchan (1931–1995), born #OTD, 19 June #poem #poetry www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/dolphin...

Dolphins at Cochin
Tom Buchan

They crashed among the spider-nets
spluttering and breathing hoarsely,
chasing fish out of the water,
calling one another and disappearing.

Lime-green bellies and smiling mouths
sliced upwards obliquely;
calm humorous eyes regarded us for a moment
and splashed back.

Sea-marks of dolphins
moved among the dozens of jockeying sails:
a mile out, in the breaking waves,
we could see the flash of more dolphins.

On the bridge of our tanker
the grey paint blistered in the heat; above us
the siren mooed to come in at the jetty:
the water green and translucent.

The smell of crude oil, of ginger
drying in the yards; piles of coloured fish;
the creak of a wooden capstan,
monkeys quarrelling on top of the parked cars.

And suddenly there was a dolphin
inside our slow bow-wave: revolving, amused,
not realising our incomprehension
of his vivid thoughts.

Two dolphins came skidding round the point,
screeched to a standstill
blowing vapour and circling each other;
then they raced on again, leaping.

We watched them helplessly
from our primitive element
able only to think up cold metaphors
or to anthropomorphize.

But they wheeled – dolphins!
their liquid backs, their arched fins
moving steadily out from the shore
towards the hilarious ocean.

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Scott Hames @hinesjumpedup.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

reminder that governments exert a huge amount of influence over every aspect of UK HE and blaming 'neolib' for everything just lets them off the hook!

headline: 24 universities and colleges awarded investment to boost student places and strengthen UK defence industry

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 10/06/2026

2026 marks the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle”. For #GiesAScotsPoemDay @brambrella.bsky.social invited some of the standard-bearers of present-day Scots poetry to compose new work responding to MacDiarmid & his legacy www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/gies-a-scots...

scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk

Gies a Scots Poem Day 2026

This year’s Gies a Scots Poem Day is something special. 2026 marks the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle — a foundational work for contemporary poetry in Scots, and a poe...

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John Merrick @johnmerrick.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

This is a brilliant –– and horribly timely –– interview with Daniel Trilling about the rise of the British far right

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Andrew Liptak @andrewliptak.com · 09/06/2026

Iain M. Banks died on this day in 2013. Years ago, I wrote about his career for Kirkus Reviews, and ended up interviewing @amendlocke.bsky.social about him. I figured it was a good time to resurface the interview: www.andrewliptak.com/iain-m-banks...

andrewliptak.com

Capturing space opera's moral high ground

An interview with Ken MacLeod about Iain M. Banks

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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 02/06/2026

it is dawn and my wife is coming to bed and she has been watching a film about the life of charlie parker… —Tom Leonard, “June the Second” outside the narrative: poems 1965–2009 (Etruscan Books/Word Power Books, 2009 – now at @lighthousebks.bsky.social) #poem lighthousebookshop.com/book/9780956...

June the Second
Tom Leonard

it is dawn and my wife is coming to bed
and she has been watching a film about the life of charlie parker

and the air in the bedroom is silent while she undresses
and the light is there at the side of the curtain beyond her head

and she tells me his body gave up of drink and drugs when he was 34
and I decide I am awake and go to the kitchen for a drink of water

and the sky in the north is translucent like a lake
translucent like a lake though it is only 3 am

and when I go back we lightly hold hands as we sometimes do
until the first to be falling asleep begins to twitch and tonight it’s Sonya

and I withdraw my hand and lie back looking at the ceiling
I am aged 51 years and nine months and nine to ten days

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Chris Brooke @chrisbrooke.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

This is v. funny, on how literary types pride themselves on avoiding using AI, to the extent that they are really bad at spotting when something is written by the chatbot, which is why they end up publishing so much of it.

lrb.co.uk

Malin Hay | Chattiness

Several people I know now refer to ChatGPT as ‘Chat’. They give it human pronouns (Chat is usually a he) and ask it...

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