iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

If I were in a role as superfluous and insignificant as Vice President, I'd probably cope by fantasizing about how cool it would be to be the Pope too.

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

404 Media @404media.co · 10/03/2026

A DOGE staffer assigned to the National Endowment for the Humanities to flag grants for "DEI" tries to explain what "DEI" is. This deposition is part of a lawsuit by the @acls1919.bsky.social, @historians.org and @modernlanguage.bsky.social.

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality. And trans lives are grounded in reality. We see y'all. No matter what. www.popsci.com/science/tran...

popsci.com

First-of-a-kind study shows encouraging data for trans kids who socially transition

Ninety-four percent of participants in a new study stood firm in their trans identity after five years, and "detransitioning" is rare.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

Help! I'm developing opinions about which Healthy Choice Power Bowls are the best.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

I'm bringing my first edition with me to class. Gotta let the kids know I'm an OG. #feministflex

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

Friends, I am prepping a lecture on federalism and I am genuinely enthralled by and excited about it. I may have received my PhD in political science 10 years ago, but I don't think I truly became a political scientist until today.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

An example irony of which I'm sure Alanis would have have availed herself were she an American: The man Richard Hofstadter once called "the Marx of the master class" doing disparate impact analysis to defend the rights of aggrieved southerners. I love my job.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

It strikes me that Charlie Kirk was precisely what he imagined the professors on his watchlist to be: a rigid and obtuse ideologue who exploited campus cultures of comparative openness and freedom to mobilize young people in the service of an exclusionary and illiberal political agenda.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Democracy is a means to the end of using politics to make the lives of the poor more livable, more stable, and more free. You don't get a better, more flourishing life for ordinary working people without democracy. Somebody in the godforsaken Democratic party please say this!

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Democracy *by definition* is a form of government that empowers the poor, the low born, and the relatively vulnerable to resist the predations of the rich, the noble, and the relatively powerful. That's why things like due process and the rule of law exist in the first place!!!!

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

The whole point of democracy according to the 5th century BCE Athenians who literally invented the freakin' word is rule by the many, the common, the poor.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Anyone who knows anything about democracy knows this is a false choice. If we're talking about democracy in a coherent and historically grounded way, we are talking about BOTH inequality & due process, affordability & the rule of law because all these things are tied at the root.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

I am so tired of Democratic pundits and politicians talking about midterm strategies as if the party needs to choose between messaging about the economy, costs, inequality, affordability, etc. or democracy, due process, rule of law, Trump's authoritarianism etc.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Proud to have contributed a little piece on pedagogy to this fantastic history blog. Little known fact: All my lesson plans involve T-Pain.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

When I caught wind of the consternation surrounding the new logo, I had high hopes it was gonna include a black panther mauling the old guy in the rocking chair or maybe just the old guy in the rocking chair holding hands with a second old guy in a rocking chair. No such luck.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

If our irreparably broken and stupid political culture makes it so all the gays and feminists have a moral obligation to eat at Cracker Barrel now, I am gonna be such a happy camper.

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Honestly, the funniest thing about this is that over the past 50 years, there have been more Republican presidents who were male cheerleaders than those who have been in combat.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Classes start one week from today. Time to start relearning how to talk and wear pants again.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Whenever I use a stud finder, I feel like a medieval peasant desperately trying to make meaning out of inscrutable signs. A short beep, a long beep, a flash of light! Ah, yes. Here it is. Here is where ye shall drill thou pilot hole.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Desantis went for "Deportation Depot" when "Rip Away from Home Depot" was right there. He is such a weak and sad little monster.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

When I read the Nat Con drivel Vance is always cribbing from I'm haunted by the thought that I've stood for the national anthem at baseball games next to these guys and the whole time they were fantasizing about how we were part of some mystical organic unity together. Gross.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

The Airbnb ad urging you to rent your house to ren fest carnies is the most compelling recession indicator I've seen.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

If the person throwing the dildos at the WNBA athletes is doing so in a spirit of misogyny and homophpbia, then they can go $%*# themselves. That said, my first response when I saw this news story was to gaze off wistfully into the middle distance and think, "Noone ever throws dildos at me anymore."

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

Jeff Melnick @melnickjeffrey1.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

"When the first of August came round, the Professor realized he had pleasantly trifled away nearly two months at a task which should have taken little more than a week." --Willa Cather, 1925 and timeless

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

I'm not proud to admit it, but I loved the Presidential Fitness Test as a kid. Flexed arm hang, push ups, pull ups, sit and reach, 1 mile run. I crushed them all. I would have made an excellent child soldier.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Others may have caught this already, so forgive me if I'm late to the party, but JD Vance called Harry Jaffa "Henry" Jaffa in his Statesmanship Award acceptance speech at the Claremont Institute a few weeks ago. So perfect.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

For week 2 of my new Politics in the U.S. course, I'm assigning those famously prophetic excerpts on race from Democracy in America. In an effort to alienate as broad a swath of students as possible, I'm calling that week "A 19th-century conservative French aristocrat invents Critical Race Theory."

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

Erica Chenoweth @chenoweth.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

My team and I at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@djpressman@bsky.social, Soha Hammam, & Chris Shay) have a new piece out: wagingnonviolence.org/2025/06/amer.... In it, we show that through May 2025, the size and scale of anti-Trump protests have dwarfed those in 2017. 🧵

A line chart with a blue line showing a large growth of protest events from Jan 20 - May 31, 2025, and a green line showing the relatively modest growth of protest events during the same period in 2017.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

We still have an Establishment Clause. Hooray!

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

I have a nomination for Most Cursed Artifact of the 20th Century. @ifbookspod.bsky.social, whaddaya say?

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Political theory job alert! The School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies at the University of South Florida is hiring a VAP of Instruction. Details here: fa-ewkd-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

fa-ewkd-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com

Visiting Assistant Professor of Instruction-SIGS

Visiting Assistant Professor of Instruction - School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies (SIGS)

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

Daniel Laurison @daniellaurison.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

PROFESSORS ARE INSISTING THEIR CAMPUSES STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY AND HIGHER EDUCATION. Today, we are releasing letters - most organized in under a week - with over 5000 signatures calling on campus leadership to stand up to Trump & fight for our values & our students. bit.ly/CampusLettersTally

1. Condemn the attacks on higher education, even if your own institution has not yet been singled out.
2. Legally contest and refuse to comply with unlawful demands from the federal government.
3. Work with other universities to mount a coordinated opposition of administrators, faculty, and alumni to combat these anti-democratic attacks.

Harvard University - link to sign - 840 signatures so far
Stanford University - link to sign 1096 signatures so far
Yale University - link to sign - 970 signatures so far
Cornell University - link to sign - 505 signatures so far
Boston University - link to sign - 502 signatures so far
Northwestern University - link to sign - 329 signatures so far
Emory - link to sign - 276 signatures so far
Tufts - link to sign - 179 signatures so far
Brandeis - link to sign - 110 signatures so far
Suffolk University - link to sign - 91 signatures so far
UW Madison - link to sign - 84 signatures so far
University of North Carolina - link to sign - 70 signatures so far
Washington University in Saint Louis - link to sign - 33 signatures so far
SUNY Albany - link to sign - just started collecting

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

I'm reading Adrian Vermeule for the first time. Why did nobody tell me that on the second page of Common Good Constitutionalism, he literally tells so-called legal "originalists" to self-immolate? This book is *wild*!

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

It's nice to see the weird sex/gender politics behind the MAGA tariffs put so bluntly, especially after spending the past 2 weeks teaching the recent work of Patrick Deneen who is either too chicken or too unskilled a thinker & writer to simply say what he means. www.mediamatters.org/five/fox-new...

mediamatters.org

Fox news chyron: "Trump's manly tariffs"

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

The worst thing liberalism did was shift cultural norms such that Deneen had to write a Byzantine booklength justification of his preference for a society in which white Christian men are coddled by a permanent underclass instead of just being like, "Women aren't fully human! Boys kissing is gross!"

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Just got to the Mall and saw this sign, which no one is going to top. #HandsOff2025

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

A surprisingly moving moment from today's Hands Off protest in Jacksonville, FL. Big Richard Rorty "Achieving Our Country" energy.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

In my exasperated margin notes in Why Liberalism Failed from the first time I read it back in 2019/2020, I repeatedly called Deneen "Uncle Patty." We all have our own ways of coping.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

I wonder how many cheers the Kristols are down to these days?

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

Alison @fourbees.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Thanks Rick @chronicle.com for talking with @daniellaurison.bsky.social and I about We Are Higher Ed and the groundswell of faculty resistance to attacks on Higher Ed. Here’s what we talked about—which includes a link to our letter and website.

chronicle.com

Apr. 2: Can Trump’s opponents organize?

Feds freeze Princeton grants. Who loses in a world with federal graduate-loan limits? Michigan dean walks back his DEI proclamation. And more.

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

We Are Higher Ed @wearehighered.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

We came together in response to recent attacks on academic freedom and DEI, and now to the deportations. We are focused on making visible how higher ed is fighting back, and on encouraging others to fight. We started with this letter: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

docs.google.com

Speaking Out for Democracy and US Higher Education

Speaking Out for Democracy and US Higher Education To add your name to this statement, go to https://bit.ly/DemocracyAndHigherEdSign if you are having trouble signing at the above linked form you can ...

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Teaching Deneen next week and must register my absolute awe at the narrowness of the vision and the depths of the misogyny necessary for a political theorist to write a WHOLE DAMN BOOK in 2018 about the conflict between liberalism and democracy and TO NOT CITE EVEN ONCE Wendy Brown's work. Stunning.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

The city council's new immigration bill is unconstitutional and a waste of resources. Let the Feds do their dirty work for themselves. Our city has more pressing problems.

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Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell @lornab.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

@democracynow.org I would love to see you cover this important act of resistance from a broad swath of teachers, scholars, students, and staff to the Trump admin's efforts to turn America's colleges and universities into pacified propaganda mills.

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

Daniel Laurison @daniellaurison.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

One of many reasons people gave for signing on to the statement Speaking Out for Democracy and US Higher Education. See more reasons at bit.ly/DemocracyAndHigherEdWhySign - and read the statement at bit.ly/DemocracyAndHigherEd - go right to bit.ly/DemocracyAndHigherEdSign to sign.

I am contingent faculty. I’ve been teaching in women’s and gender studies for over 20 years. My original field was modern German history. My current field makes my employment vulnerable, especially in light of my contingent status. My disciplinary training makes it imperative that I weigh in, including under my own name. It’s practically a cliché to ask: what would you have done in 1933? We are now answering that question in real time. And so here I am.

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

#TeslaTakedown @teslatakedown.com · 20/03/2025

LFG! #teslatakedown GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION March 29 Every showroom in America 500+ around the world Let's send these techno-fascists, broligarchs and old fashioned Nazis a message loud and clear. NO WAY Plan an action or find one near you: teslatakedown.com

Graphic showing the Tesla stock line tanking and text reading
#TeslaTakedown global day of action March 29
277 tesla locations in the us
500+ around the world
turn out in numbers to fight elon musk's illegal coup
find or start an action at teslatakedown.com

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Reposted by Dr. Lorna N. Bracewell

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

AOC: Fox News and the right-wing would have you believe that these American values are something out of The Communist Manifesto. But let me tell you Fox News, I don’t believe in healthcare, labor, and human rights because I’m a Marxist.. I believe it because I was a waitress.

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