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Jonathan Strassfeld

@jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social
99 followers 147 following 173 posts

Historian, author of Inventing Philosophy's Other: Phenomenology in America, and co-author of Johns Hopkins: The First 150 Years. Science fiction reader, oyster eater, and birder. www.jonathanstrassfeld.com www.instagram.com/strasstrix

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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...
press.jhu.edu
The Cheese and the Worms
The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Except for the one who was both a historian and presidential candidate! us.macmillan.com/books/978142...
us.macmillan.com
Abraham Lincoln
America's greatest president, who rose to power in the country's greatest hour of need and whose vision saw the United States through the Civil WarAbraham Li...
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Relevant bsky.app/profile/thom...
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It was a bit dry
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Mmmm aura
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Absolutely infuriating. My first ever long birding "chase" was for the ABA first bat falcon that showed up there. Been back numerous times since, and it's never failed to awe.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
One of the best novels I've read this decade. It's a true joy when, after decades of reading and writing, a work of literature truly surprises with something I've never seen before.
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 19/09/2026
Every now and then I see myself referred to as an "AI Denier" and I want to be clear I acknowledge "AI" exists, it's just I think it's a massive energy drain, created from theft, implemented poorly for inappropriate tasks by loathsome tech executives who get hard at the idea of the rest of us dying
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LOWρUFO 🇺🇦🇵🇸🌍 @lowrhoufo.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/09/2026
"AI" - chatbots that wake up, "set their own goals," and "spontaneously" start hacking servers - is fake. It doesn't have "a 10% chance of ending the human race." The Hugging Face hack isn't a mysterious, supernatural occurrence.
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Terence Tao @teorth.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...
mathandai.org
Declaration — Math and AI
Read the declaration and add your name.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
It's tasty. That's why the paint chips were so good
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
All my self control went into not Charlie Chaplin-ing that clock
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David Forbes @davidforbes.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Any "compromise" on trans rights is both deeply wrong in itself and lays groundwork for worse. Sports bans? Segregate us from part of public life, establish legal grounds for further discrimination. Healthcare bans for trans kids? More trans kids die and trans healthcare as a whole is endangered.
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
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professor tools for commensality (red scare edition) @inquiline.myatproto.social · 07/09/2026
them: we need you to get with the program, be expert tech-embracers me: i have a literal PhD in something literally called Science & Technology Studies and i actually think this tech is bad them: not like that (it's almost funny to me. *almost*)
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Sander Verhaegh @sanderverhaegh.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
In the 1930s, a group of European philosophers fled fascism and reshaped American philosophy. Why did logical positivism have such an impact on US thought? And why did it play a central role in the culture wars of the 1950s and 1960s? Released today! Logical Positivism: An American History (1/3)
Cover of Logical Positivism: An American History
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Inside Higher Ed (like a parasite)
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LOWρUFO 🇺🇦🇵🇸🌍 @lowrhoufo.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
is a purposeful program to destroy one of the last outposts of resistance to the hegemony of neoliberal market ideology. RIP The New School 1919 - 2026: Born of the progressive imagination, died of its failure.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
If history is useful for anything, let it be useful for this. When administrators and trustees say that these events are unrelated, don't believe them. The creation of crises that 'demand' fundamental reforms to the academy (invariably ones that weaken faculty governance and academic freedom)...
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Now, after two decades in which the university spent hundreds of millions of dollars on fancy new facilities and swelled the ranks (and salaries) of its administrators, it terminates faculty as part of a 'necessary' restructuring. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/n...
nytimes.com
He Had Tenure. The New School Laid Him Off Anyway.
The professor, a longtime critic of the university, was among 19 educators who lost their positions as the institution navigated financial woes.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
While these events played out, the administration insisted that it was merely responding to exigent circumstances. However, in correspondence with the trustees, the New School's president was blunt about his desire to "telescope or abolish" some departments.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Faculty and students both protested vigorously, adopting slogans like "RIP University in Exile 1933-1979: Born of Tyranny. Died of same." They pressured the university's trustees to appoint a study committee, that ultimately recommended the continuation of all programs.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Their argument that these programs were beyond salvaging misrepresented the position of the review committees, which in many cases had praised their value as important heterodox elements of the landscape of American higher education.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
The New School's announcement of its termination of tenured faculty is a tragic echo of 1979. Facing demands from accreditors to increase graduate faculty in certain areas, its administration advocated the closure of departments, described as long running “deficit operation[s]”
Protestor holding a sign that reads RIP UNIVERSITY IN EXILE 1939-1979 BORN OF TYRANNY DIED OF SAME
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Now, after two decades in which the university spent hundreds of millions of dollars on fancy new facilities and swelled the ranks (and salaries) of its administrators, it terminates faculty as part of a 'necessary' restructuring. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/n...
nytimes.com
He Had Tenure. The New School Laid Him Off Anyway.
The professor, a longtime critic of the university, was among 19 educators who lost their positions as the institution navigated financial woes.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
While these events played out, the administration insisted that it was merely responding to exigent circumstances. However, in correspondence with the trustees, the New School's president was blunt about his desire to "telescope or abolish" some departments.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Faculty and students both protested vigorously, adopting the slogans like "RIP University in Exile 1933-1979: Born of Tyranny. Died of same." They pressured the university's trustees to appoint a study committee, that ultimately recommended the continuation of all programs
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Their argument that these programs were beyond salvaging misrepresented the position of the review committees, which in many cases had praised their value as important heterodox elements of the landscape of American higher education.
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Thanh Neville, MD, MSHS @thanh-neville.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I am so triggered by RJK Jr's comment about ICU's being empty during #COVID. I re-read what I wrote after one of the surges. How do others forget. The trauma was--and is--real.
huffpost.com
I'm An ICU Doctor. I’m Haunted By What I’ve Seen During The Recent COVID-19 Surge.
“I can’t stop thinking about the 40-something man who told me, ‘I can’t die like this. I just got engaged and have a 6-month-old baby.’ I encouraged him to be positive, but that didn’t stop him from d...
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
My guy needed a ladder to get above metaphysics. Obviously short.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
This is just horrific cruelty for its own sake - truly the governing philosophy of the Trump administration. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/u...
nytimes.com
Inside the Secretive Boards Deciding Trans Troops’ Fate
The Pentagon is relying on closed-door hearings to kick out transgender service members. An Army Reserve lawyer is one of the few who have seen how they really work.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Another thought: Who is growing the food for their every-night banquets? Every picture of Ithaca is their palace with absolutely nothing around it. It's a film about ruling-class norms of civility (hospitality/Law of Zeus!) as an island unto themselves
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
"Subsumed or a word like that" is a phrase I am going to have to steal
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Again, there's a lot that's good in this film. Most particularly the casting. However, the consensus-y politics are a disappointment.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
I mean, it's Aaron Sorkin Odyssey. The real problem is that we didn't uphold the norms of polite decorum (Law of Zeus!) and that's why they're seeing society collapse instead of having brunch (in an Ithaca that has slaves and beggars and conscripts children for war)
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Again, there's a lot that's good in this film. Most particularly the casting. However, the consensus-y politics are a disappointment.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The Bad (part 5) Having Odysseus sail west in the end (presumably to meet the elves in the undying lands)
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The Bad (part 4) Co-opting and repeatedly invoking the Sea Peoples theory of bronze age collapse is paradigmatic stupid Christopher Nolan faux-intellectualism. And making the returning soldiers the Sea People. For fucks sake.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The Bad (part 3) Someone is going to try to take a shot every time they say "the law of Zeus" and they are going to die Making the message of the films #norms was terrible. Oh no, we broke the law of Zeus and now the bronze age (yes, they actually call it that) is going to come to an end
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The Bad (part 2) Mecha Agamemnon. I actually kind of loved it, but it is objectively bad The Cyclops was utterly hollowed out. Nodding at that by saying "we're past talking" does not redeem it Antinous announcing every weaponas it drops through the ceiling was hilariously bad
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The Bad (part 1) You need to bring wax to plug your ears. Maybe sunglasses too. The intensity of sound/light is physically painful. Most of the fights fail the "who's doing what where" test. It's confusing
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The Good (part 2) The narrative framing was good (the order in which events are revealed is quite effective) The emphasis on the trauma of war was well executed
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The Good (part 1): Save for Matt Damon, the casting was great A lot of the scenes were beautifully shot. Everything with Circe was phenomenal The fighting with the Laestrygonians was very well done (in part because it's supposed to feel confusing)
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
The good and bad of The Odyssey from someone who has, historically, found Christopher Nolan's films to be inane (see substituting a Proudhon quote for Marx and saying he "read it in the original German"
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
The intellectual milieu in which such sentiments were "obvious" was dominated by race science and imperialism. The fact that he sees it as obvious now tells you everything you need to know.
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
2/ It is as true of nations as it is of individuals that they must learn the art of self-government. Democratic institutions may be partial and gradual as well as complete."
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
1/ "The principle that government depends upon the will of the governed is not of universal application. There are constant conditions in which authority must be exercised over those who are incapable of governing themselves...
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Jonathan Strassfeld @jonathanstrassfeld.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Yeah, I'm in the archives, reading the exact same rhetoric around the Spanish American War (from Daniel Coit Gilman).
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