iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Tell me you've never watched 'Requiem for a Dream' without telling me you've never watched 'Requiem for a Dream'

Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

And now I'm on to writing about 'mercy-killings', which have become one of the key frames for the representation of American violence during the Vietnam War as somehow 'moral' - numerous actual instances at My Lai, but also a key motif in, for instance, 'Apocalypse Now' and 'Full Metal Jacket'.

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Not sure if there is a batsignal for @dieworkwear.bsky.social, but this seems to be a case of gross sartorial malfeasance...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Currently writing about the self-pitying narratives told by men with blood on their hands. Whether it's traumatised Vietnam veterans presenting themselves as the true victims of the violence they committed, or later iterations like 'shooting and crying', it really is the most despicable genre...

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Mikhail @va11halla.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

How your email finds me

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This is pretty much me when people ask why I keep writing books about atrocities...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

"Public monuments do more than honor the dead. They tell citizens which deaths matter." A remarkable piece for @michaelgvann.bsky.social to get published in the Jakarta Post - as anyone who has watched Joshua Oppenheimer's documentaries will know... www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2026...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

'genocide is a blood libel'...🤦🏼‍♂️

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Tallies with my own experience. For academics contemplating signing up for audio books directly, however, your work is highly unlikely to be cited (which may of course be a moot point if book publishing is a dying phenomenon...)

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

"It would be nice if the Americans would go and help defend someone else's freedom for a change." South Vietnamese officer quoted in Richard Hammer's 'One Morning on the War' (1970)

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

An excellent example of how poorly understood the My Lai Massacre remains, 60 years on. The only real breakdown of command and control occurred when individual GIs refused to open fire on unarmed civilians. Everybody else did what they had been ordered to do... This is the description in question 👇🏻

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Just watched Michael Mann's 'Manhunter' in the cinema - it's been exactly 40 years since I first saw it on the big screen and it's still stunning...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Having just started teaching new undergraduates at uni, I think we're missing a key issue in the debate about AI: these kids do not know how *not* to use AI, full stop. We assume they are 'digital natives' but they are not and a Google Scholar search is as alien to them as an archival card-index.

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Dr Mary McAuliffe @drmarymcauliffe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

And in today’s feelings - ht to insta!

Sometimes I wantto. skip the lecture but then I remember I'm the Lecturer

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I'm beginning to think that Trump is like the painting in Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' - an unvarnished reflection of the real soul of America. And people don't like what they see...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"That is a war crime. That is barbarism. And it is something the United States must never be associated with." I don't know, man - I think it might be a bit too late for that...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Your daily reminder that 'war' is a euphemism for killing people - at least Trump is being honest about his intentions...😑

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Iva Vukušić @vukusiciva.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This is not the language of war, this is a language of annihilation, and that's genocide and it's a threat of a committing it. There is no war in which you're allowed to annihilate a country.

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Archival find of the day: Indisputable evidence that My Lai (4) was not the primary target of the operation that began on March 16, 1968. This is also why suggestions that the massacre was somehow orchestrated as part of the Phoenix Program is nonsense. Intelligence officer describing the plan:

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is a genuinely incredible post: comparing slavery to the liberation of the Netherlands during WWII effectively reduces Britain's centuries-long involvement in slavery and the slave trade to the act of abolition. The real problem about the legacies of empire is apparently a lack of gratitude 🫪

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

"What is this? A triumphal arch for ants?"

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

PS: genocide is literally the least complex issue on the planet...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Ed Sheeran is in fact the real victim here... 🤦🏼‍♂️

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Off early to talk to sixth form/high school students about the Amritsar Massacre of 1919 and how to think critically about the history of the British Empire in the 21st century - great to revisit some of my older work.

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Michael Vann: Orca 5th Columnist @michaelgvann.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

My interview with the great @kimatiwagner.bsky.social takes a meta-ironic turn with social media censoring the images of colonial violence events us to confront.

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Karl Jacoby @karl-jacoby.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Cornplanter (Seneca) to George Washington, 1790: "When your army entered the Country of the Six Nations, we called you the Town-destroyer and to this day, when that name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling close to the neck of their mothers."

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the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

skipped a pretty key step in the movie review process here

the free press: Hold Your Applause for the New Gaza Documentary
There may yet be hard truths in 'NAZA,, including evidence of Israel's systemic failures. But the reporting around it treats flimsy claims as proof of criminality.

I haven't seen the film. This means I cannot confidently assess its editing, corroboration, or the

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

People often ask what I could possibly have to say that's new about My Lai. So here is the first #MyLaiMythBusting: My Lai (4) was not the main target of the operation - it was My Lai (1), aka Pinkville, and Medina's orders during the March 15 briefing referred to the latter, not the former.

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The level of cognitive dissonance here is truly baffling...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

My 'I'm not complicit' t-shirt is raising lots of questions about my complicity...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Director of 'Naza' dropping some truth-bombs

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

A Danish Tonkin-Incident scandi-noir dramatisation coming right up...

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Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

***URGENT PLEASE SHARE*** University of Brighton management have announced today that they ‘give notice of termination of all collective agreements’. This is a fundamental erasure of workers' rights. Management have announced the termination of all contractual documents, which includes:

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Ed Sheeran can get Boy George as a warm-up act instead...😑

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

What's so remarkable about the letter is that there's zero effort to present a coherent argument or blame Netanyahu or something like that - it's just blanket denialism...

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My Password is Louvre @bmceuen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Incredible roster of folks making it to heaven in this photo

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Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם) @bestonetx.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

We're told we're supposed to help students learn to use LLMs "responsibly," but how is that possible when the companies that released them don't even take minimal precautions with what they've created? What is responsible and ethical use of an irresponsible and unethical product?

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I'm not sure that's how history works...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

How on earth do you get a movie with real actors to look like AI slop?

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Twice a movie about My Lai has been attempted - by Oliver Stone and Alex Gibney - and twice it has failed. Instead we have ended up with 'Tropic Thunder', 'Kong: Skull Island' and 'Primitive War'...😑

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Strong 'summers in Rangoon'-vibes here...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Wait - are we doing critical takes on Hobsbawm's primitive rebels and social bandits? 'Cause I've been training for this very moment since I was a newly-minted PhD...

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Kim A. Wagner @kimatiwagner.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Question for US military historians: where can I find information about where, when and how the My Lai Massacre is taught as part of US military training and instruction (1969-present)? I'm also thinking about it historically - when did the events of March 16, 1968 become an actual subject to study?

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