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Laura Tanenbaum

@ltanenbaum.bsky.social
413 followers 613 following 919 posts

poetry, teaching, good trouble. proud member PSC-CUNY and JVP. all my humor is situational. Poetry collection, Dear Mother, out soon: mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/…

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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This is true and I'll say we have such amazing faculty and students we make it work despite the lack of resources and infrastructure. other places where academics are being fired and programs closed won't be so lucky
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Did I remind all of you in NYC to make sure to take yourselves and your children to see "He Built This City" at the Museum of the City of New York yet? The exhibit closes October 12: www.mcny.org/exhibition/h... - I cannot say enough about this exhibit and I think that you will be amazed. GO!
mcny.org
He Built This City
Explore Joe Macken’s monumental model and discover the extraordinary vision behind one of the most ambitious handmade representations of New York City ever created.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"Are the machines as smart as us" is a question you might ask if you decide caring for a baby, nursing the sick, cooking a meal, making ethical choices and building relationships are not features of intelligence.
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Matt Bell @mdbell79.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The very first entry in my commonplace book.
“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.” —Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
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Lazy Susan @tempusflexus.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Ah. One of the greats Annie Dillard
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
One of the greatest who is making our best traditions anew
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
a BS issue doesn't respond to compromise. Transphobia like xenophobia doesn't respond to a real problem so there's no way to neutralize the issue by catering to the fear. Has deporting people *ever* led to, "ok, he fixed immigration, now we can go back to healthcare?" Blood demands more blood.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I'm no expert but from my experience with unions it's often about control more than money.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I learned this from teaching adults. If an adult student is publicly embarrassed, you've lost them for that class and maybe for the whole course.
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Trevon Logan @trevondlogan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I can’t wait for the 18 part series in the Atlantic about “The Crisis at Business Schools” which will detail of every instance of academic fraud at the nation’s top business schools, the coverups, lack of accountability, and their implications for business ethics and academic standards at B schools.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Heaven is not good enough for Bel and hell is not hot enough for the people who murdered him
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Emily Drabinski @edrabinski.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
"The university is pleased to deliver..." Nope. My raise is thanks to @psc-cuny.org and nobody else. We won this.
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I Travel Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 28/08/2026
Anyway that’s how you wind up in this rhetorical game of whack-a-mole where every concept associated with Black people is transformed into a “politically divisive” term to be avoided- DEI, woke, defund, CRT, intersectionality, identity politics, police and prison abolition, affirmative action etc-
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Best labor movie and labor anthem of all time. Best successful work of feminist popular culture of the last century.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
My top 5: 1) In short, Libya is a study in contrasts. 2) In a way, we're all winners. In another, more specific way, he is the winner and you are the loser. 3) Lisa, I would like to buy that rock. 4) D'oh! A dear! A female dear! 5) Mel Brooks was Jewish??
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Breaking: a socialist has a job.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
In 2000 or so, when I was involved in grad student unionization at NYU, where I made 13K a year as a TA teaching (not assisting) two classes/semester, a reporter from the Times wanted to profile some of us. I said no because I lived in Park Slope w/2 roommates in a below-market situation (1/2)
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
lots to choose from but today's heart is taking me here:
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Great conversation. I also find it interesting that the re-issuing of Dahl's books without their most racist images was treated as a "cancellation" or woke amock or whatever but the pillorying of him in Giant has been lionized.
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Rachel Ernst @rachelernst.myatproto.social · 20/08/2026
I cannot begin to count the amount of technology tools I have been told in the last 20 years that I need to teach my students how to use because they were the future. 95% of them are gone. A tool is a tool.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I agree with this *and* also I think AOC's inartful words gave us an opportunity for a necessary conversation. It's interesting that Zohran has more artfully abandoned defund - in a position of power where policing is much more relevant than congress and mostly gotten a pass from the left.
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amulya.bsky.social @amulya.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
My husband Drew wrote this at breakneck speed while moving cross-country and caring for an 8 month old, bc he felt it was necessary, ethically and politically, to correct the record. If you read Tyler Austin Harper's piece, I hope you'll read this.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Summer is not over but it's never a bad time to listen to this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXbE...
youtube.com
John Prine - Summer's End Official Video
YouTube video by John Prine
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Aaron Regunberg @aaronregunberg.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
A few years ago, we couldn't imagine Monsanto-hating moms joining Trump’s coalition. But MAHA happened. @astra.bsky.social and I see something similar happening today with animal rights — which, if the left doesn’t wake up, could be very bad for all of us. newrepublic.com/article/2137...
newrepublic.com
How MAGA Stole Animal Rights from the Left
And how we can steal it back.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
It says a lot about which academic stories get media coverage that multiple non-academics I know asked me about the Jason Arday story, but no one I know outside of the academy had heard about the University of Minnesota paying $250,000 for rescinding a job offer to Raz Segal due to donor pressure.
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Adam Weinstein @adamweinstein.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
This is so, so good
I have to be blunt here: Our critics are really fucking stupid, and we’ve given them way too much leeway to conjure senile fantasies out of their own illiteracy. We need to stop taking their trolling in good faith, and we need to stop apologizing for our work. The truth is that every purportedly obvious problem with humanities writing—every bogeyman of bias, difficulty, obscurity, and irrelevance—dissolves into something else, something much more interesting, as soon as we wade into the spaces where the scholarship exists.
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Molly Crabapple @mollycrabapple.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
If you loved my book, you will LOVE this Nathan and Eyshe's.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
What's Yiddish for so fucking exciting?
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Regarding the ten minute hate of today, if you want a nuanced look at the experiences of working class kids of color in elite institutions I really loved this one by @vinsoncunningham.bsky.social from a while back: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
newyorker.com
Prep for Prep and the Fault Lines in New York’s Schools
Do programs that help low-income students of color get into selective private schools obscure the system’s deeper inequalities?
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Huh I wonder what happened to that mayor since then and if he turned out to be a good role model for statesmen to emulate. Someone should check in on that guy.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
"Literature is rejecting men because they naturally gravitate to a best selling author of 1000 page books who has entire conventions of his fans."
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Me: Ok, so I *finally* finished the Bund book; now I can discuss it with everyone, write up my thoughts and . . the world - first part of @thedigradio.bsky.social interview with @mollycrabapple.bsky.social just dropped and it's over two hours .. RIP my to do list
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
And this is also a the essence of the problem with mainstream Democrats who said Trump is a fascist before the election but that we had to work with him the day after
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Sean T. Collins @seantcollins.com · 05/08/2026
I'm weirdly upset by Stevens's gracious concession, because it makes her lie from just a few days ago that AES harbors personal animus against Jewish ppl all the more transparent. We should discourage lying to inflame tensions against two targeted religious minorities for personal political gain imo
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Heba Gowayed هبة جويد @hebagowayed.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Fellow academics: I know a Haitian PhD student who due to TPS termination needs another institutional affiliation not in the USA. Do you or someone you know have an avenue for them? If so, DM me.
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
All the Fauci stuff is a modern day version of the POW/MIA stuff after Vietnam - a way to try to rewrite the history of a huge failure of conservative ideology to be instead a story about how liberals and foreigners stabbed us in the back.
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Rick Perlstein @rickperlstein.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
A watershed piece. America will have have a very hard time becoming less imperialist as long as combat service is sentimentalized and fetishized, when it actually tends to turn men into broken, hateful people, and helps make things like like Trumpism happen. www.newyorker.com/news/the-pol...
newyorker.com
The Complications of Graham Platner’s Veteran Identity
How much of Graham Platner’s behavior should be read through the lens of what combat did to him, and how much of it is simply who he is, independent of war?
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
I'm still forming my thoughts about this, but I think a lot of what is so powerful about @mollycrabapple.bsky.social's book is putting Jewish and socialist resistance to the tsar, to programs, and to the Nazis in this tradition of armed self-defense.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
static.klipy.com
Strictly Ballroom: Barry Fife - No New Steps
ALT: Strictly Ballroom: Barry Fife - No New Steps
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Lady Froldmagen (she/her) @zinelib.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
I just signed a @psc-cuny.org petition: Save Jobs at Queens College. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/sa... (it's possible I'm going to become insufferable about my union) (I am an adjunct at Queens College. Please sign this petition to protect my personal very own job)
actionnetwork.org
Save Jobs at Queens College
Budgets for Queens College departments were slashed in the spring, leading many College Assistants (CAs) and Non-Teaching Adjuncts (NTAs) to lose their positions and resulting in loss of hours (and be...
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The Rumpus @therumpus.net · 23/07/2026
"There shouldn’t be cops in this poem. / If we can’t be abolitionist in a poem, then where?" From "A Poem with Cops in It," a new poem by @ltanenbaum.bsky.social. ➡️ buff.ly/JLl17eS
The cited quote and information written in black against a white background. The full Rumpus logo is at the top.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Super proud of this one and super grateful to be published in @therumpus.net: therumpus.net/2026/07/21/a...
therumpus.net
A Poem with Cops in It - The Rumpus
There shouldn’t be cops in this poem.If we can’t be abolitionist in a poem, then where?But it’s July and there are cops everywhere & yesterdaythere
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Humans of CUNY. Please sign the @psc-cuny.org petition: Save Jobs at Queens College. Sign here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/sa...
actionnetwork.org
Save Jobs at Queens College
Budgets for Queens College departments were slashed in the spring, leading many College Assistants (CAs) and Non-Teaching Adjuncts (NTAs) to lose their positions and resulting in loss of hours (and be...
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
precious words from comrades @daniarajendra.bsky.social and Andrue Kahn: inthesetimes.com/article/grie...
inthesetimes.com
The Possibilities of Grief as a Rupture
Abolition Judaism and rethinking the holiday of Tisha B’Av
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
have said it before: If the NY Jewish establishment was serious about wanting to stop anti-semitism, they should thank G-d ten times a day that the face of Palestinian solidarity is a handsome young charismatic cosmopolitan who clearly loves and knows Jewish New Yorkers inside and out. Alas.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Was honored to stand with Jewish Elders of @jvp.bsky.social and @docagainstgenocide.bsky.social to call for the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya who is being tortured for the crime of serving his patients: www.democracynow.org/2026/7/16/he...
democracynow.org
Pro-Palestinian Activists Demand Release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya from Israeli Custody
Here in New York City, dozens of pro-Palestine activists gathered for a vigil to demand the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, who has been held in Israeli ...
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mskathleenquinn.bsky.social @mskathleenquinn.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on Israel to release pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya from prison.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
this is true and exciting. this is a great article about how it came to be: inthesetimes.com/article/zohr...
inthesetimes.com
How Zohran Mamdani Achieved Escape Velocity from Politics as Usual
An optimistic, disciplined Left can draw centrists into the coalition—by rejecting their politics.
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
in fact, the term was coined in 1975 and was a major topic in 70s feminism and in the labor efforts of women in the 9to5 and other movements in the 1980s. (and the movie 9to5 was major hit about the problem then!) and then another huge wave after Anita Hill in the early 90s. feminist history matters
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Laura Tanenbaum @ltanenbaum.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Maybe it's the Chicago girl in me, but I think you can unabashedly want to build power and still bristle at "machine." That word historically means things like, parts of the city that vote against you don't get services. Mamdani is much more like Harold Washington, who broke the Chicago machine.
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