iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

What do you mean, "literature nerd"? You mean you aren't interested in literature as substantive expression of the human condition, instead choosing to organize literary phenomena in a superficial way that flatters your recall capacity while fastidiously eschewing any kind of self-critique?

000

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 2h

Someone self-identifying as a "nerd" is signaling to me that we are not the same and I should ignore their opinions The way I interpret it is that, even if we appear to share the same interests, the way in which we engage is fundamentally different

110

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 3h

$the waif I was trying to survive. Every night was a torment to me during which I prayed God not to let me jump out of the window and kill myself. I would turn on the television, take a pill, and try to sleep. Often in the day I was so tired my head would fall forward at my desk or even on the subway and I would fall asleep sitting up. A book or newspaper would fall out of my hand, but I would wake up quickly enough to catch it before it fell. And in this tiny fraction of a second many thoughts would go through my head, and I would congratulate myself on my reflexes and the quickness of my brain. It had kept up like this for many days when I went to The Bar. I could never quite decide if going to The Bar Excerpt from Ch. 1 of Don Juan in the Village (1990), by Jane Delynn$

000

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 3h

"The parallelism being drawn between the Alis's dream of sex and Fenice's fiction of death is rather provocative, a testament to the way that, when all goes well, good storytelling and psychological insight cannot help but converge."

000

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 4h

not all of them? there's still Jia Rui's "romantic mirror"?

000

Reposted by Kevin

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Another amusing example from Moore's work: "Like the ancient Greek Alexander Romance, also set in India, the [historical] popularity of Barlaam and Josaphat is in inverse proportion to its artistry."

"Like the ancient Greek Alexander Romance, also set in India, the popularity of Barlaam and Josaphat is in inverse proportion to its artistry. It's all fairly predictable, the characters flatter than a prayer mat, and written in complete ignorance of what India was actually like at that time. (The author confuses it with both Ethiopia and Arabia, and all of his examples of heathen gods are taken from Greek and Roman mythology.) All of the Christians are flawless heroes, all the Indians deluded sensualists. But none of this hindered its popularity: not only was it the literary sensation of 11th-century Constantinople, but in its Latin translation it swept through Europe and was adapted into nearly every European language, including Middle English. The Catholic Church, typically failing to distinguish between fact and fiction, canonized Barlaam and Josaphat, and they remain to this day on their calendar of saints (feast day 27 November). When Jesuit missionaries infested Japan in the 16th-century, a Japanese translation of Barlaam and Josaphat intended as a teaching tool was one of the first books published on the imported printing press (1591). But the Japanese Buddhists must have smiled when they read it, because it turns out the tale of Josaphat was based on the life of Gautarna Siddhartha, meaning the Church had canonized the founder of Buddhism. Oops." Stephen Moore, The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600 (2010)

132

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 7h

and I seriously doubt there isn't highly acrimonious debate among specialists in this issue, given that issue involves billions of people and dozens of interacting variables

000

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 7h

'43% of respondents cited “insufficient money” as their primary barrier to having children.' Is this source fake? All this weird discussion of men versus women, tradition versus whatever, completely irrelevant to the problem of families who exist, want to have kids, but can't afford to

socialsciences.byu.edu

2025 American Family Survey: Economic Crisis and Online Protection for Children Define New Challenges for American Families

Seven in 10 Americans say raising children is now unaffordable; many express deep ambivalence about digital innovation

200

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 8h

A huge percentage of US families (I'm seeing figures in the 40-60%) want to have kids but can't afford to do so at the standards they desire, so they aren't This is, in fact, an unambiguously feminist issue, even if there do exist people who wouldn't have children "even w/ a trillion dollars"

narcissistic Blueskyism, exhibit 1201230:

I could have ten trillion dollars and I still wouldn't want kids.
This is such a dude take lol
@ A.R. Moxon® @juliusgoat.bsky.social • 10h
It's because they can't afford to live.
23
§ 10
© 239

000

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 8h

God, it's not that complicated, and it has *nothing* to do with the analysis in that article Raising a child and giving them a solid education and meaningful life opportunities presupposes having a lot of money; that's a problem, actually

100

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 8h

"When the probability is low that men will abandon traditions, some career women will not have children and others will delay, often too long. The fertility histories of the U.S. and those of many European and Asian countries speak to the impact of the mismatch on birth rates." Jessie!!!!!!

200

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 8h

"The reasons for the declines from the 1970s to the early 2000s involve greater female autonomy and a mismatch between the desires of men and women. Men generally benefit more from maintaining traditions; women often benefit more from eschewing them." Jessie!

100

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 8h

100

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 8h

Reread that article abstract — it's kind of deranged, lol

100

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 9h

Thoughts on The Starving Saints? Was considering picking it up, but this specific dynamic is really unappealing, a big part of why I've disengaged from contemporary fiction

000

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 9h

subtweeting Chrétien de Troyes's _Erec and Enide_, as explained here: www.patreon.com/kmichaelwils...

010

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 9h

imagine hordes of freshman students adopting the language of your most annoying academic colleague/ detractor no wonder Harvard profs voted for "fewer As per quarter"; petty retribution for being so easily slighted by Ferrari driving undergrads

000

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 9h

my conspiracy theory is that all the "the kids can't read anymore" propaganda is just professors' freaking out that their students are googling "[professor name] persistent shortcomings of their scholarship," getting fairly cogent responses, and using these responses to troll them

100

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 11h

what richly referential, globally informed scholarship looks like when you don't treat your object of study as your inherited/"merited" intellectual fiefdom

021

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 21h

big boy round 2, let's gooooooo 🔥

STEVEN MOORE
"Novel
an alternative history
1600-1800

010

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 21h

finally finished this big boy 🥳

100

Reposted by Kevin

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

🎶 I don't want no knight Errant on the passenger side Agreeing to a dwarf cart ride Trying to holler at the Queen 🎶

001

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Dungeon Crawdads Carl Where the Crawdads Sing Where the Crawlers Carldad Where the Carldads Craw Dungeon Crawldad Singer Where the Carldads Crawl Where the Crawdads Carl Crawler the Crawdads Sing

131

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

🎶 I don't want no knight Errant on the passenger side Agreeing to a dwarf cart ride Trying to holler at the Queen 🎶

001

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

corrected a typo lol, wrote "Modern Bovary" instead of "Madam Bovary"

100

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

this is a free-walled post, which means that only an email (it doesn't even have to be a "good email") is needed for viewing as usual, trying to keep out the bots, and hoping to convince you to read future posts conveniently via email

100

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

"clouded brows" is more beautiful than "cellar door"

000

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Not only is there slavery in imperial China, arguably the risk of at any moment being enslaved was greater than in many societies. Not just poor people and the indebted, even high officials who ran afoul of court intrigues could suddenly have their whole family sold into slavery

130

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

cooking up some thoughts on comparing (but mostly contrasting, smh) caizi jiaren romance novels with knight-errant romances tired: the pen is mightier than the sword wired: the pen has nothing to do with the sword; what are you, twelve years old?

020

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

that's a good point find the good journals, and cling to them like wreckage from the ship of academia after it's crashed into the iceberg of neoliberalism and invidious distinction

010

Reposted by Kevin

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

based Su Dongpo (derogatory)

101

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

based Su Dongpo (derogatory)

101

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"I'm an historian. I understand history." "Okay, how does the gold standard work? How did money arise?" "Well, that's a specialty concern." No, it isn't, though? It's a basic question about what, if anything, conceptually it is be drawn from the sundry facts you've accumulated

010

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

What does it even mean to be an expert on history? It's curiously presumptuous, involving all kinds of weird, unjustifiable assumptions about what is real and empirically significant. (The hyper-specialization on such-and-such historical event seems to be an anxious response to this conundrum.)

110

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

It's a shame that the sub-disciplines of the humanities that perform professionalism (sociology, history) all do better for hiring and funding than literature departments, because at least there's a real sense in which one can actually become an expert on literature

110

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

That instinctual resistance to academic journal articles is a sense that, citations or not, these works aren't really in conversation with anything, not even with themselves

111

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Was reading Pamela (1741) recently, where there's a lengthy discussion of seating arrangements, and it just dawned on me, "Oh wow, this would definitely be chalked up to Confucianism were this a Chinese text." In this way, a lot of academic explanations "explain away" more than they actually explain

110

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

A common example I've noticed lately of "overspecialization producing errors" is the over-attribution of "Confucianism" as an explanatory principle.

100

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

My next blog post will be a comparison between caizi jiaren novels and some Arthurian knight romance novels. Maybe it will exemplify some of these principles I've only alluded to abstractly.

110

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I think people who've won the academic game, especially during earlier generations, are apt to misrepresent what scholarship is and should be. In particular, because global comparative work is so marginalized, they are apt to cast this work as unserious, which I think is just wrong

100

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

These are all good questions. Of course, if I tweet something out, that's actually indication that I'm struggling with it, that I might come around the next day and say something contradictory. I'm responding to questions of how to proceed ethically during the institutional death of the humanities

110

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

This guy admitted in comments that, basically, he was losing the equivalent of "a good meal in a restaurant":

110

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The materialism of evil, I think, should interrogate the agglomerative effects of all these "bad deals" otherwise good people are inclined to make. It's not simply raw hatred that makes this world so unlivable.

110

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

There are a lot of indy artists on this website who are visibly itching for "consequences" for the lossless distribution of their works. Left-liberals yearning for the surveillance state to take their IP seriously, and then you read between the lines and find out they're losing maybe $50 a year...

130

Kevin @kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

it's not the case that "wow, they worked really hard, and it was a big sacrifice but it was worth it" no, these contrived productions are a waste of breath, a waste of life, that no one will read when they're published, and no one will read afterwards either, for good reason: they mean nothing

010