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Jacob Romanow

@jakeromanow.bsky.social
800 followers 965 following 646 posts

ars longa, vita brevis liberalarts.utexas.edu/english/facu…

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Reposted by Jacob Romanow
Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Things Gavin Newsom has vetoed this week: -A ban on secretly recording people with smart glasses -A ban on ICE agents working for the state government -A ban on websites selling your data -A bill giving native tribes more say over water rights -A bill protecting transgender healthcare providers
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Biology is applied chemistry is applied physics is applied math is applied logic is applied English QED
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
illustration from Edward Gorey's The Doubtful Guest
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Surely one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century. A prolific, important songwriter with a voice that could make you cry and a wit that could make you gasp. The King. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Mighty Sparrow, the Trinidad and Tobago singer known as the ‘calypso king of the world’, dies aged 91
Slinger Francisco, who performed as the Mighty Sparrow, died on Sunday surrounded by family in New York
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
bell hooks:
Often in my lectures when I use the phrase “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy” to describe our nation’s political system, audiences laugh. No one has ever explained why accurately naming this system is funny. The laughter is itself a weapon of patriarchal terrorism. It functions as a disclaimer, discounting the significance of what is being named. It suggests that the words themselves are problematic and not the system they describe. I interpret this laughter as the audience’s way of showing discomfort with being asked to ally themselves with an antipatriarchal disobedient critique. This laughter reminds me that if I dare to challenge patriarchy openly, I risk not being taken seriously.
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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 23/09/2026
Newsom has vetoed a bill that would have prohibited future governors from handing over abortion providers, helpers, and patients to red states for criminal prosecution. The bill also barred extraditions involving transgender care.
motherjones.com
Newsom vetoes bill that would ban extraditions for abortion and gender-affirming care
California’s pro-repro rights governor rejects a key protection that 18 blue states have enshrined into law.
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Ploughshares Literary Journal @pshares.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"I am used to dealing with the dead." Read Sarah Tindal Kareem's essay, "Vita Nova," in the Summer 2026 issue of Ploughshares: pshares.org/issue-article/vita-nova
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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 22/09/2026
my love and respect for Larry David grows all the time pagesix.com/2026/09/22/h...
After the dressing down — which ended up having the crowd in tears, of laughter and joy, the agent writes — Emanuel recalls, “Seating Larry at the same table as Elon Musk: Not my best decision.” 
As soon as the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star sees the Tesla mogul,”he starts cursing, yelling, saying things many people would like to say to Elon” about the SpaceX’s leader’s politics. 
David was “right up in Elon’s face, before the dinner starts,” and, guests had to separate them.
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Nick Field @nickfield.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The State AGs were on pace to kill the Paramount/Warner Bros by litigation and delay until Gavin Newsom stepped in and turned the tide. Now the Trump loyalist Ellisons will control CNN and HBO. Don't ever, ever forget that Newsom stabbed us in the back www.wsj.com/business/med...
wsj.com
Exclusive | Newsom Expresses Concerns About State Antitrust Suit Against Paramount
The California governor has told people involved in the suit that blocking the $81 billion deal could harm Hollywood jobs.
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Give us a Bass Persuades/Come On Fhqwhgads mashup, cowards
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Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 20/09/2026
I think Donald Trump is letting the Eritrean government get away with the Tigray genocide in exchange for them fighting the Houthis for control of the Red Sea www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
washingtonpost.com
US lifts sanctions targeting Eritrea's ruling party and the military
The United States has lifted sanctions against Eritrea’s ruling party and military, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Everyone knows you shouldn't represent yourself in court; humanists defending the humanities is bad for the humanities and bad for the defense of the humanities and that is why they want us to do it (not to say we never should—but we should get real about why we're being asked).
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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Great thread altogether, but this is the point I keep returning to over the last four years. The rest of us are in many ways along for the ride of the tech sector attempting to enforce labor discipline on a highly trained workforce w a tool that potentially is increasing their leverage.
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Jim Cardillo @jimcardillo.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Godspeed Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys. A true pioneer.
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Ezra Levin ❌👑 @ezralevin.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Fun fact: in our polling of battleground states, about 60% of voters said it is a “top” or “high” priority for Congress to investigate and hold Musk accountable. Lean into it Dems. He’s a cartoon villain - treat him like one.
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The hype machine loves asking about how tech alters our understanding of self (and of course it does, as ever) but chronically avoids asking how tech alters our understanding of (human) others—that is instructive
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Da Sparrow @sparrowstrike.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
People don’t want to hear diseases just happen. It scares them to death. They need it to be because of malign actors or because they didn’t take the right thing. The fact that it could happen to anyone, anytime, just because is terrifying because you can’t control it. Whether autism/covid it’s fear.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
It's like a parody, but it's deadly serious; the Commerce Department (which includes Census, NOAA, and others) has outright deleted "don't alter or suppress scientific findings for political reasons" from its scientific integrity rules. Seriously.
Protecting against "inappropriate influence" is no longer a "hallmark" of scientific integrity

The Commerce Department updated its policy for promoting a "culture of scientific integrity" in January 2025, days before Trump's second inauguration.

A new Trump administration order bans the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis from using statistical “noise,” or data for fuzzing survey results, to protect people’s privacy in their statistics.

The 2025 version included bans on attempts to shape or interfere in data collection, statistical analysis and other scientific activities "against well-accepted scientific methods and theories or without scientific justification."

The department's policy, the 2025 version said, involves ensuring scientific findings at its agencies "are not suppressed, delayed, or altered for political purposes and are not subjected to inappropriate influence," as well as making sure there's "independent review of facilities, methodologies, and other scientific activities as appropriate to ensure scientific integrity."

That language is missing, however, in the Trump administration's revision of the policy, according to an NPR analysis of text posted on the Commerce Department's website.

And while the revision adopts a definition for "scientific integrity" that is similar to the previous version, it no longer says that "protection from inappropriate influence" is among the "hallmarks of scientific integrity."
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Daniel Gilmore @gilmored85.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
American Left discard of your consumerist worldview of politics challenge (impossible)
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 27/08/2026
Genuinely abundant, cheap, accessible energy has vastly more liberatory potential than AI, for vastly more people -- especially more poor people. Which, I guess, is your answer.
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Grammarly-mur
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Actually, NO reading "counts." Counts for what? For whom? Are we competing to get a pizza party? Do you count how many times a year you go swimming or drink a cup of coffee? Thinking and feeling are not side hustles
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Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The ag lobby really, really, really, really, really, really, really wants you to think AI is the reason reservoirs are going empty. It's not. It's agriculture.
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Jedermann! Biedermann!
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Elizabeth Greeniaus @elizabethcg.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Obviously the V-word has been the headline here, but I love Jake’s piece for the way it demonstrates the illuminating power of distinctly *literary* expertise.
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dave @gloomfather.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
yeah man "woke 1" sucked ass. I "woke 1" morning from uneasy dreams to find myself transformed into a giant insect
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Between this and the Clinton comments on El-Sayed, I'm starting to think that the Bluesky obsession with misleading headlines (and I'm guilty of that too) is actually a reaction to Bluesky people being incredibly credulous headline readers
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Imagine thinking in 2026 that negativity makes you unable to foster public engagement
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
scyll issue
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Megan L. Cook @meganlcook.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
I wrote about this a few years ago for New Chaucer Studies: Pedagogy and Profession, particularly the paradox of the increasing demand for specialization on the job market vs the generalist reality most of us teach within: escholarship.org/uc/item/7gn2...
escholarship.org
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Emily Steinlight @emilysteinlight.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Jake Romanow offers such a lucid and incisive analysis of the stakes of expanding and contracting the “Victorian” (and of that term’s interpretive vs institutional uses). A must-read that I look forward to teaching in the coming years!
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Duncan Hothersall @dhothersall.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Oh look, JK Rowling's chequebook-waving has emboldened the ADF, a Christofascist hate group that has been pouring millions into the UK to fund court cases and lobbying against abortion rights, equal marriage rights, Pride events etc., to go on the attack as well. Top standing up for women, Joanne!
thecatholicherald.com
Christian charities challenge Amnesty report labelling them ‘anti-rights’
A letter led by ADF International UK urges the Charity Commission to affirm that charities may engage in public debate without being labelled a threat to human rights
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
This article is revelatory and urgent; run don't walk.
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Lauren Eriks Cline @lerikscline.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
The Victorian as a literary tradition: "I propose that this version of Victorian—narrow rather than 'wide,' transnational without a presumption of being global—might itself help us undiscipline; by centering objects over methods, we might loosen the self-regarding perpetuation of discipline itself."
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
My article "Provincializing Victorian Studies" is out in the latest PMLA. It's many years in the making—thanks for reading. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Provincializing Victorian Studies: A. Native’s Marita among Literary Traditions | PMLA | Cambridge Core
Provincializing Victorian Studies: A. Native’s Marita among Literary Traditions - Volume 141 Issue 2
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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
in the big rock candy mountain / the posters are all sane / and the normal even thoughtful comments / pour like summer rain
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Nick Covington @covingtonedu.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
"Without air conditioning, each 1°F increase in school year temperature reduces the amount learned that year by one percent. Our estimates imply that the benefits of school air conditioning likely outweigh the costs in most of the US, particularly given future predicted climate change."
hks.harvard.edu
Heat and Learning
We provide the first evidence that cumulative heat exposure inhibits cognitive skill development and that school air conditioning can mitigate this effect. Student fixed effects models using 10 millio...
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
the best day for the presidents of every R1 to hold a press conference screaming that higher ed is our second largest export and destroying it is economic sabotage and soft power detonation was Jan 21st 2025. the next best day is tomorrow.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
I say this with all love for speculative fiction: let's put our scientific resources towards real problems. (And we should also be putting more resources into literature and literary scholarship, but call it what it is. Also, I doubt the SFF community wants these clowns either.) >>
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Artforum @artforum.com · 08/07/2026
Detroit Institute of Arts director Salvador Salort-Pons has announced the discovery of a previously unattributed Diego Velázquez portrait. Writing in the Prado's ARS Magazine, he used archival research and X-ray imaging to attribute "The Count-Duke of Olivares in Armor" (1626) to the painter.
artforum.com
Detroit Institute of Arts Director Attributes 17th-Century Portrait To Diego Velázquez
Detroit Insitute of Arts director Salvador Salort-Pons has announced the discovery of a new Velázquez, held in a private collection
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Jacob Romanow @jakeromanow.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Why does the Spelling Bee hate these women
The caryatid porch of the Erechtheion in Athens
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Note that Healey oversees the only state agency in a blue state that has a 287g contract with ICE. boltsmag.org/massachusett...
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Academe @academemagazine.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
New on Academe Blog:
academeblog.org
Academic Freedom and the Palestine Exception at Princeton
BY JOAN W. SCOTT Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber has carefully curated his public reputation as a defender of free speech and academic freedom against the wanton attacks by the…
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Trung Le Nguyen @trungles.com · 12/07/2026
Hot take, but I kinda think Mr Bennet sees himself in LYDIA, and that’s why he’s so resigned about his kid’s bad behavior!!! Sure he and Elizabeth love books and being snarky assholes, but Elizabeth is part of his ideal self, and Lydia is his indiscreet and impetuous youth.
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Alina Stefanescu @alinaetc.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Great thread from Matt.
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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
The reason why older generations burnt the shit out of their meat and boiled the shit out of their vegetables, was your kid died if you didn't. Medium rare steaks and roasted Brussels sprouts are a side effect of an intact food safety infrastructure
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