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Liz McCausland

@lizmc2.bsky.social
289 followers 302 following 4K posts

Who even knows anymore?

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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
LOL, somehow my response attached to the wrong post (no doubt user error) and I am now like “why are we talking about Substack?”
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The hardest ones for me are the ones that seem to confirm self-criticism. Fighting my brain on two fronts.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Some of that baggage takes sooooo long to put down. I’m not there yet, but a lot of the heat has gone out of some of it and I can just note when it appears and let go. Sometimes asking myself what this feeling is doing for me helps with that.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
It is Friday? I am flattened BEFORE class and it is not quite 10am here!
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Got buff but still a weenie.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
When my younger kid went to pre-school at 4, and the end of the first day the teachers said to me “They can read. They can read *upside down*!” At same age kid (phonetically and without spaces) typed “My mummy lost her sunglasses” when I said I had to email a friend I left them in her car.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
That is NOT what I expected. I also love this cover.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
My dad tested me on the Wall Street Journal to see if I could read or had just memorized the books they read me a lot. 😂 (Like one of my kids I read early and pretty much just picked it up without a ton of formal teaching).
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I am a good Anglican Church Lady but a kinda half-hearted believer. AI is going to make me a street-corner evangelist at this rate. 😂
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Creation, incarnation, discipleship. My faith tells me that however flawed, humanness is sacred.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I read the first couple years ago but lost track.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Maybe that “AI can read to my kid” post is a joke or a troll but even so it says something about the anti-human orientation of this tech and those embracing it. I find myself doubling down on the human in all its frailty and mess. And recognizing that for me this is partly a religious commitment.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
She coded her own AI agents? 😂
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
LOL (and also sorry for how this hits you personally). When I was a grad student at UC Irvine (where Derrida then came every year to give a seminar) Charlton Heston wrote in to the LA Times about how evil deconstruction was and how we were a disgrace. Gentler times.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
We’ve got fog up here too, though not quite that much.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
When your goal is to be the wire monkey in Harlow’s experiment.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
FB ads about equal parts “US voters abroad, return your ballots!” and “Hey, wanna renounce that pesky US citizenship?” (not from the same groups obviously).
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Yeah I don’t really think about that any more. I have mixed feelings about it but often just let the male students work together because some will hesitate to speak up in a mostly female group (sometimes freeriding but sometimes not comfortable). It is interesting to see the dynamics.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Meanwhile my access-focused college has a student body that is about 65% female. I often have course sections with 5 or 6 male students out of 35. I wonder a lot about how that might affect their learning experience (and should ask about it more).
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Reminds me of going to info nights for specialized high school programs with my kids. One teacher acknowledged that most of them (except STEM-focused) got way more applications from girls and they try to roughly gender balance (if not 50-50) so way easier to get in as a boy.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Yes I have just read some of the stories in Filthy Animals but I want to read more!
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
It’s the narrator who is “empty” while other characters tell her their stories
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I teach “Mass” in my class on gender and embodiment.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
ugh, the feeling when you invest more in a student's work than they do (yes, this happened before AI and I don't think it happens often, but you can feel it)
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I am teaching a Taylor short story and I really need to read more of his criticism too--thanks for pointing me towards some examples. (I miss when these discussions popped up more in the days of blogs and early Twitter--so much rich and fun conversation).
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Now wondering how this relates to things like autofiction and more essayistic fiction, which are certainly trends. Genre (in the broader sense of fiction vs. memoir etc.) boundaries blurring all over.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Cusk is kind of the reverse, right? Like in "Outline" the narrator tells you about other people and her character emerges as a result of that. (I did like that but it's been a while since I read it). That's quite different from her earlier work so something broader than Romance is going on.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Things are always over-determined in Romance. 😂
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Maybe because more readers of these genres also read fan fiction? (if that's true) I also don't mean this in a "literary fiction is better" way but I suspect readers there do expect more variety in points of view/narration and more irony (as features of that genre)
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Yes, the research is very much at the “emerging” stage and I follow it with interest.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
An ethical question I wish we'd discuss more overtly is that "we" are basically running a giant experiment on students with no design or consent. We don't know yet how this will affect learning or even their brains, but that's not stopping us.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I am glad my college is approaching with caution. And if I could retire now I might because I am weary of how our pedagogical discussions and decisions are driven by this tech now, crowding out time for other important conversations.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I also we remind them we can’t actually set the ethical questions aside and tell them my ethical concerns, but I want to support them in deciding their own values and choosing accordingly (with limits).
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Yes it’s a “mostly anti” policy because a) I am a realist and b) I know second language students especially use tools to help with grammar and word choice in a way that helps them show what they know. I think they should not use it to replace increasing their own fluency but…
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Stanford got me with “look, our new laureate makes his kids’ school lunches!” (gender!)
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I put in my updated (mostly) anti-AI policy, “If you are panicking at 3am when the paper is due tomorrow, send me an email and go to bed. We will fix it.” Some use it because they don’t care about or see value in the work. But some out of fear/overwhelm. Most want to learn, I agree.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
For some reason FB decided to show me a bunch of posts from Stanford showing their new Nobel laureate doing stuff like making his kids’ school lunches and announcing the news to them and I know it’s marketing but it’s also cute and wholesome. Guess they got me.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I only knew (and loved) Wesley Dennis as Marguerite Henry’s illustrator. I didn’t realize he’d written books as well.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Have to keep reminding myself I have a cold so I don’t beat myself up for being lazy and unfocused. Stupid Protestant ethic. (Protestantism 100% to blame; I remember my mom telling me that CS Lewis said he always felt better when he made himself do things when sick). 😂
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Thanks! It seems pretty mild compared to your flu. I was super tired already and decided today was for rest.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Thank you! A friend told me to get new bedding when I separated and it was good advice.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I have a cold so I have spent a lot of the day reading and snoozing in bed. Nothing makes a cat happier than someone who takes to her bed. Also my bedroom has lovely afternoon light that I am rarely in it to enjoy.
Tuxedo cat stretched out very very long along the legs of a person over a bright striped comforter.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Double election October = popped out to get bread and library holds, met my provincial NDP candidate and saw people early voting in the municipal election. Reminding me I need to print and mail my US ballot early next week.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Adorable!
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
It’s so hard. I hope she starts eating more as she settles back in!
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I think execs/managers like AI because they already wrote and spoke in buzzword slop. What’s different?
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Maybe a human did write that.
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I thought you meant mine at first. 😂 who knows??
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I don’t think an em dash is always an AI tell, but “we’re not going A — we’re doing B” is aping AI if not written by it. Humans and bots copying each other until it’s all one bland mush of “content.” (The Titanic thing is truly funny. 0 context.)
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Liz McCausland @lizmc2.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I always think of my disappointment in Margaret Atwood complaining about MeToo when it came for HER friend.
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