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liz polcha

@lpolcha.bsky.social
358 followers 601 following 182 posts

she/they | literary studies professor writing a book on gender & natural history | editor and co-founder @insurrecthistory.bsky.social | I mainly post about labor and cats | Tulsa & Philadelphia

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Reposted by liz polcha
Futurology @futurologypod.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
"The future of digital technologies is analog." N. Katherine Hayles, posthumanist scholar, on what biology has over machines. Full episode here: youtu.be/rryjPdKMxO4
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
"The Free Library of Philadelphia said it had its biggest summer in years after a huge participation boost in its reading program and other engagement activities." Philly needs to adequately fund its libraries and pay library workers much better. www.phillyvoice.com/free-library...
phillyvoice.com
Why the Free Library says it just had its busiest summer in a decade
New weekend hours and special programming helped attendance for lectures, clubs and activities jump 57% in a year, officials say.
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Drexel is closing the Academy of Natural Sciences museum, which is the oldest natural history museum in the country. It is unclear what exactly will happen to the collections or how they will be accessible to the public, if at all. It also is unclear who will lose their jobs in this process.
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Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Exactly this. You need more people. And you need to teach writing (and by extension reading) through your research topics. But this is precisely the labour fight we're losing (or maybe have lost already).
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 15/08/2026
Absolutely vile framing from the @nytimes.com. Why doesn’t this leave behind hard questions for the media that hounded him? Or the global right-wing that gleefully turned a local matter into an international incident?
“Professor’s Death Leaves Behind Hard Questions for Cambridge on Race and Hiring”
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
This fall I'm teaching Literature and Science & our central novel is Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation. We are going to spend some time at the Academy of Natural Sciences looking at field journals and talking about colonialism and botany - somehow I have the most success teaching this class via horror
poster with bright colors for ENGL 300 Literature and Science at Drexel University
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the moon report 🌖 @seachanger.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
the relentlessness of the AI headlines and data center fights starts to feel chaotic and difficult to hold cohesively in my mind UNTIL i listen to another interview with Karen Hao, and then I feel clear and get my talking points back in order www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/...
cbc.ca
Why we should 'fight like hell' against Big AI | CBC Radio
Tech journalist Karen Hao, who once worked in Silicon Valley as an engineer, is sounding the alarm on holding AI giants accountable. She argues people need to push back against massive companies that ...
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Molly Crabapple @mollycrabapple.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
99% of the time, when someone accuses you of selective outrage, it’s a way of politically demobilizing you and shutting you up “Why are you angry about data centers instead of fast fashion” isn’t about making you care about fast fashion. It’s about shutting you up about data centers And visa versa
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I find it even more delightful that Wilson’s review is making people so angry. I want more brutal reviews of big budget Hollywood misogynist movies. there’s something very Philadelphia about her review that has no platitudes or polite wording, like fuck your movie. A Boston area prof would never
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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
*whispers* you know we can do this cultural debate about art thing all the time, right? Websites and news organizations used to have culture critics on staff whose entire job was writing about books, movies, and TV. People read them and then discussed them. We have the technology to do this again.
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Heather Froehlich @heatherfro.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Since I hear it is almost time to start thinking about the fall semester (I know! whisper it!) I wrote you an article to help you think about what you are actually hoping to do with your in-class digital assignments and what their futures will be www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Against cultural heritage wastelands
The twin scholarly booms of the 2010s, digital humanities and public humanities, introduced a relatively accessbile suite of platforms for managing digital and digitised content. Sudden interest in...
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
LRB should give Emily Wilson a movie review column. This was the most satisfying review I've read in a long time, as a fellow hater of Hollywood uncomplicated man movies.
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Élika Ortega @elikaortega.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Delighted to share that Binding Media has won the 2026 N. Katherine Hayles Award for Criticism of Electronic Literature! So honored to received this particular award because Hayles' work taught me to think about the weird literary works I've always been interested in. @stanfordpress.bsky.social
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
The Trump-supported National Parks Service workers put up their racist, anti-black placards in the middle of the night, when they knew the city would be distracted by a prominent baseball game. Did they also wear white robes and hoods while they did it?
share.inquirer.com
Slavery exhibits at the President’s House have been swapped for the Trump administration’s version
The change at the President's House happened overnight, allowing the government to switch out the displays and shut down the television screens while avoiding public scrutiny during the takedown.
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Elise A. Mitchell @bydreamphd.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
I’m delighted to join @lpolcha.bsky.social at @freelibrary.bsky.social to discuss @insurrecthistory.bsky.social on July 9! Join us if you’re in Philly! libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/eve...
libwww.freelibrary.org
Events: Decolonizing Early America with Insurrect!
Insurrect! is an online publication devoted to anti-colonial frameworks and critiques of racial capitalism in Early American Studies. Editors Polcha and Mitchell join us in the Education, Philosophy, ...
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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
i know ppl can feel overwhelmed or unsure about the veracity of GFMs; not sure what to say there bc i don't recognize a reality in which people who are trying to stay alive are fake/scammers, but included the testimonial from my friend to affirm that this is, sadly, real & this family needs our help
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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
from my friend: "I got to meet his dad over a video call last week. They are really kind people. They've made it this far, but it's getting harder given the War on Iran made all costs skyrocket"
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alina pleskova @alinapleskova.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
a dear friend here in Philly is organizing support for Waseem, a 24 y/o in 🇵🇸 who is trying to keep his multigenerational household of 12 family members alive. please boost widely & donate if you're able!! www.gofundme.com/f/hope-and-h...
gofundme.com
Donate to Hope and Help for Waseem’s Family, organized by Egina Manachova
My name is Waseem, and I am a student trying with all my strength to keep my family … Egina Manachova needs your support for Hope and Help for Waseem’s Family
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
I’ve said it before and will say it a few more times. When Trump 2.0 came for accreditation I knew we had crossed into a different era of white reclamation. Precise, focused, stealth. Anyway, you probably don’t want these reforms.
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NEH Union - AFGE L3403 @nehafge3403.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
A reminder that two-thirds of National Endowment for the Humanities staff were laid off last year from their *career* positions, and most divisions and programs were eliminated. None of which had to happen except by the inconceivable choices of a few in control. #NEH
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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 11/05/2026
Anyone who claims to know, in the present, what this moment will have meant to history is selling something Silicon Valley may think they’re speedrunning the next Industrial Revolution when in fact they’re speedrunning right through to the next labor movement
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Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Atlanta-based job seekers! My department, Data & Decision Sciences, is hiring an undergrad program coordinator. This would be a great job for someone who wants to work directly with students and is interested in data science pedagogy. LMK if you plan to apply! staff-emory.icims.com/jobs/165242/...
staff-emory.icims.com
Careers | Emory University | Atlanta GA
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James Vincent @jjvincent.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
brilliant lecture from Lorraine Daston on the development of rules/paradigms — from ancient measures, to medieval rulebooks, to logarithmic tables and Babbage's algorithms youtu.be/pqoSMWnWTwA?... (it's a precursor to her 2022 book which I must read)
youtu.be
Lorraine Daston: "Algorithms Before Computers: Patterns, Recipes, and Rules"
YouTube video by Simpson Center
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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Breaking NEWS!! Federal judge rules DOGE illegally terminated NEH grants last year in a summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs AHA, ACLA, and MLA, and orders the restoration of 1400 terminated grants
Federal Judge Rules to
Restore
National Endowment for the Humanities
Funding In Historic Case
This afternoon, May 7, 2026, US District Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that the mass termination by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) of more than 1,400 grants to support scholars, research institutions, and humanities organizations was "unlawful,
unconstitutional, ultra vires, and without legal effect."
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Hannah Alpert-Abrams @halperta.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Grateful to reporter Matt Hartman for telling this story about changes in leadership at NEH. The firing of 22 out of 26 board members, including all members appointed by past presidents, is nothing short of a coup at an agency where the board reviews and votes on every single grant application.
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Thiago Krause @thiagokrause.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
It's awesome when you finally read a book that you knew it was going to be great, and it is just as good as you expected it to be. Isadora Mota's "Freedom Horizon" is definitely one of those. Extraordinary archival research to recover Black resistance from 1848 to 1870 and many wonderful stories!
Cover of Isadora Mota's book - Freedom's Horizon - Black Abolitionism in Nineteenth-Century Brazil
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
I learned yesterday that my book is officially “in press” with a publication date of April 2027 🥳📚
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 27/04/2026
If you're willing and able to help out Hampshire workers who are suddenly facing job loss, there's a fundraiser: www.helphampshireworkers.com
helphampshireworkers.com
Help Hampshire Workers | Support Hampshire Workers Today
Support Hampshire College staff and faculty facing job loss with emergency relief funds for essential needs. Contributions and support help provide immediate assistance during this critical time.
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Insurrect! Radical Thinking in Early American Studies @insurrecthistory.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
🔥HOT OFF THE PRESS🔥 “'Grammar of Resistance': Carnival as Political Counter-Narration in Grenada" by Sasha C. Wells Please Share! www.insurrecthistory.com/archives/gra...
insurrecthistory.com
“Grammar of Resistance”: Carnival as Political Counter-Narration in Grenada — INSURRECT!
“While characters like Jab-Jab are used as marketing devices, carnival in Grenada illustrates how Black cultural performance can function as a response to colonial and post-colonial oppression. Althou...
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
I'm co-teaching a gendered monsters class this term with Jakeya Caruthers, and for our "Witches" unit we had a pretty epic pairing of Richard Godbeer's edition of the Salem witch trial transcripts, Robert Egger's 2016 The VVitch, Maryse Condé's I, Tituba, and Kasi Lemmon's 1997 Eve's Bayou 🧹🧹🧹🧹
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Ignacio Gallup-Diaz @igallupd.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
We will be discussing @lpolcha.bsky.social’s boffo article “Voyeur in the Torrid Zone” in Maroon Communities this morning 🤓
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
there's still so much fecundity and enduring beauty in the nonhuman world. let's preserve and treasure it.
a mass of green anemones mostly closed and red sea stars
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Looking forward to ASECS in Philly next week, where I will be talking about the beloved Philadelphia abolitionist Benjamin Lay, his use of botanical dye to splatter fake blood on enslavers, and abolition ecologies 🩸🩸🩸🩸
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Shannan Clark @shannanclark.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Contract faculty at NYU are currently on strike for a fair first contract after 16 months of management's bad-faith stonewalling in negotiations. Please consider contributing to their strike fund if you can.
gofund.me
Donate to Support NYU Contract Faculty on Strike!, organized by John Simeonidis Jr
Please donate to support NYU Contract Faculty on strike! After a year a… John Simeonidis Jr needs your support for Support NYU Contract Faculty on Strike!
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Ashley D. Farmer @drashleydfarmer.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
The Cokie Roberts Fellowship jump-started my research for my next book. It supports women's history archival research, the kind of scholarship we really need right now. They are accepting applications for the next cycle by April 15. archivesfoundation.org/cokie-robert...
archivesfoundation.org
Cokie Roberts Fellowship for Women’s History - National Archives Foundation
In November 2019, the National Archives Foundation launched a new research fund to honor Cokie Roberts, who shed light on […]
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Elizabeth Maddock Dillon @emdillon.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
New post up on sugar cane burning in Florida and the fertilizer to bomb pipeline. It's a little scary. Ok, very scary.
open.substack.com
My Brief Career as a Spring Break Bomber
Florida, Fertilizer, and Fires Everywhere
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Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
An important thing to know about these civics/ western civ centers. They have faculty lines and are hiring historians - regularly without any input from or even knowledge of their history departments.
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Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
The rise of online vibrant events in early Covid offered a lot of hope for disabled/chronically ill people who have access issues attending IRL events (including going into a flare later). Anti-Zoom reactive sentiment pushed a lot of people into being more isolated again.
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Roger Schonfeld @rschon.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Job opening here at ITHAKA's JSTOR: Digital Collections Curator, Reveal Digital, focusing on important cultural, social, and political histories, especially those that have been dispersed, under-described, or difficult to access at scale. Full job description: www.ithaka.org/job/46724530...
ithaka.org
Digital Collections Curator - ITHAKA
ITHAKA’s mission is to expand access to knowledge and education around the world. Our services — JSTOR, Portico, and Ithaka S+R — enable people everywhere to learn, to grow, and to overcome barriers t...
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
I'm wrapping up a very teaching-heavy winter quarter, and I have to say that the most successful thing I did this term in the classroom was requiring students to submit weekly handwritten notes on our readings and class discussion (with an accommodations option for students who can't write by hand)
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Lori Emerson @loriemerson.net · 12/03/2026
slightly updated list of concerns CU system-wide students, faculty, and staff have with the CU-Chat GPT that's slated to roll out this summer. please share, please support in any way you can. docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com
Talking Points on CU-ChatGPT
Talking Points on CU-ChatGPT On December 15, 2025 the CU System signed a one year contract with Open AI for $2.1 million, with plans to launch a system-wide ChatGPT Edu access for faculty, staff, and ...
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Jessica Valenti @jessicavalenti.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
404 Media is doing some of the most important journalism in the country right now bsky.app/profile/404m...
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
this is a crucial part of the NEH doge story that the NYT leaves out
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NEH Union - AFGE L3403 @nehafge3403.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
🧵 up and down if you want to understand what happened to the civil servants at the National Endowment for the Humanities who worked every day to uphold the Constitution (hint: it's the same thing that happened to your grants). #NEH
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
There are more important things to post about right now, but: if anyone has a real version of that device from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that erases bad memories, I could use it to erase the horrific new Wuthering Heights film adaptation from my brain. It’s like Temu released a movie
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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
These asshole twerps with no brains or education from DOGE really did use ChatGPT to find NEH grants to terminate ILLEGALLY - ruining hundreds lives and destroying hundreds of the greatest humanities projects and partnerships of our time. I’m overwhelmed with rage and anger all over again.
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Karin Fischer @karinfischer.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
NEW: The bad news about international-student enrollments at American colleges just got worse. An exclusive @chronicle.com analysis of just-released State Department data shows new visa issuances in the summer of 2025 dropped by more than a third. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...
chronicle.com
The Drop in International Students Last Year Was Worse Than We Thought
Visa issuances nosedived 36 percent, possibly reflecting weakening global interest in studying in the United States.
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liz polcha @lpolcha.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Drexel sent out an email last week to all NTT faculty announcing an expedited review of NTT contracts, which proposes to cut all contracts down to 1 year or 3 years max for senior lecturers. This is a unilateral topdown scrapping of policy faculty fought to implement & that was only approved in 2023
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Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
One vision of the university sees no faculty at all, just revolving door of the seamless provision of managed services and tuition fees. Another, shares this vision by having all faculty permanently on strike.
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