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Michele Hanks

@michelehanks.bsky.social
107 followers 86 following 18 posts

Cultural anthropologist, writer, and teacher. I’m a Clinical Prof of Writing @ NYU. Proud member of the CFU-UAW. My writing focuses on people’s understanding of the paranormal, tourism, and cultural heritage in England.

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Reposted by Michele Hanks
John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The Dean of Harvard College has been on a PR tour defending the institution's approach to AI and writing, but student testimony from inside the institution suggests that the school is retreating from human exchange as central to the learning experience. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
thecrimson.com
I’m a Writing Tutor at Harvard. The College is Failing Us. | The Harvard Crimson
The Writing Center’s dismantling evokes a broader pattern of institutions treating human learning and connection as costs to cut, not values to protect.
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Michele Hanks @michelehanks.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
My former first-year writing student, Zofia Wójcik, wrote a terrific essay on being falsely accused of using AI, published in my department's journal of student writing. I'm using it in class this week to talk about building trust between students and instructors on GAI. wp.nyu.edu/mercerstreet...
wp.nyu.edu
The Wrong Standard: How AI Detection Tools Fail Non-Native English Speakers | Mercer Street
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Reposted by Michele Hanks
Writers Guild of America East @wgaeast.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Solidarity with @propublicaguild.org members on strike today. Don’t cross the digital picket line! 🚫
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Michele Hanks @michelehanks.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
NYU contract faculty organized with CFU-UAW are preparing to strike on 3/23 over unmet demands on AI protections, governance, academic freedom, protection for international faculty, & compensation. You can support us by emailing Pres. Mills & the Board of Trustees: actionnetwork.org/letters/nyu-...
actionnetwork.org
NYU needs a fair contract, not the disruption of a strike!
It’s been almost two years since contract faculty at NYU voted for their union, Contract Faculty United - UAW, by an overwhelming margin. Yet for more than 16 months of negotiating, the NYU administra...
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Michele Hanks @michelehanks.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
I’m devastated that this (very interesting) article isn’t about chimpanzees getting into New Age spirituality. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/s...
nytimes.com
Chimpanzees Are Really Into Crystals
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Michele Hanks @michelehanks.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
This is such a wonderful reminder of why writing (lit reviews, professional documents) matters in the context of AI. I can’t wait to share it with my students.
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Kristof Smeyers @kristofsmeyers.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Hi everyone, I'm organising a conference in Leuven, 4-5 June, and you're all invited*! It's called 'Performing evil: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres 1700-2000' and here is the call for papers (get in touch if you'd like a pdf!). Please share widely! *to submit an abstract before 21/3
CALL FOR PAPERS: PERFORMING EVIL: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres, 1700-2000'. 4 & 5 June 2026, Leuven. 

This conference explores the tangled histories of supernatural, diabolic evil and all kinds of spectral apparitions in the last three centuries – Walter Scott’s ‘malignant and unhappy beings’. Specifically, it is interested in how and why ghosts, spirits and related apparitional phenomena were framed as diabolic, demonic or malign manifestations from the afterlife.

Diabolic connotations of ghosts and spirits did meaningful cultural work. They were mobilised to discredit ghost beliefs and spiritual practices, to delegitimise competing beliefs, or to invest doctrinal arguments with occult authority. They could also function as tools of scepticism and ridicule as well as triggers of wonder, fear and religiosity. Put differently, the nexus of ghosts and evil is deeply historical. And it was often articulated through performative means: in gestures and expressions of (dis)belief, in visual and textual representations, in séance rooms, on the stage and on the page. Emerging from this nexus are theatrical spirits of evil, staged, embodied, and made legible through mediation and display. In this sense, every ghost is a theatrical ghost. Through the focus on the construction and staging of diabolic spirits, this conference aims to develop a methodological framework for studying historical forms of occultism and demonology more broadly in terms of performance.Exploring how the relationship of spectrality and evil has shifted in shape over time and across different cultures, the conference invites contributions that can consider a wide range of historical actors – clerics, mediums, ghost-hunters, debunkers, necromancers, stage
performers, eyewitnesses.

This conference aims to study cultural intersections and interactions to arrive at a more granular understanding of discursive, practical and material connections between spirits and evil. At the same time this lens zooms out, making visible broader dynamics of knowledge construction in specific historical moments. How, for instance, did hauntings and possessions shape communities and audiences? How did religious or folkloric ideas about the devil inform spectral encounters?

We hope to bring together historians, art historians, theatre and literary scholars, folklorists and anthropologists from every stage in their career around the above questions. We welcome 20-minute papers on topics that include but are by no means limited to:
- making spectral evil visible: performance, arts, media, technologies, popular cultures
- making spectral evil invisible: popular and occult knowledge circulation
- performing (un)belief: practices and rhetoric, summoning and debunking on the stage (from popular stages to the lecture hall and the laboratory)
- materiality of spectres: the function of bodies and objects
- diabolic spirits and (intellectual, vernacular, theological, folkloric) ideas about morality, mortality and temporality
- occult performance and ‘cultural scripts’ of ghost encounters (from necromancy to poltergeists)
- affect and emotions: fear, grief, trauma… and hope

Send abstracts (c.250 words) and bios (c.100 words) to kristof.smeyers@kuleuven.be before 21 March 2026. Please do get in touch if you have any questions.
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Michele Hanks @michelehanks.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
This edited collection looks great! I can’t wait to read it!
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Michele Hanks @michelehanks.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
I really enjoyed talking with the Q & Abe podcast about ghost seeking and tourism at Lincoln's Cottage, where visitors often wonder if the cottage is haunted. I definitely plan to visit when I'm next in Washington D.C. @lincolnscottage podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
podcasts.apple.com
Is the house haunted?
Podcast Episode · Q & Abe · 01/22/2026 · 37m
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Michele Hanks @michelehanks.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
This is such an important reminder at the end of this semester.
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Michele Hanks @michelehanks.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
I had a great time at the AAAs talking about animal ghosts! I was happy to see how many papers were actually about ghosts and spirits rather than just metaphorical ghosts. 2025 has been a great year for ghost conferences. 👻
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Reposted by Michele Hanks
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
In about three years the entire university pivot to AI curricula and schools and programs is going to be so deeply embarrassing. We will all pretend it never happened and I will be standing there, looking at people with a mirror in my eyes. This is all so embarrassing.
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Sharon of the Strange Times @sharonahill.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Please check out the @leasthaunted.bsky.social Episode 142: Scientifical Americans with Sharon A. Hill www.leasthaunted.com/podcast/epis...
Logo, two cartoon ghosts read the book "Scientifical Americans".
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Contingent Magazine @contingent-mag.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
It’s here! The call for pitches for our deluxe December issue, “A Time of Monsters,” supported by a grant from the Kitchings Family Foundation.
contingentmagazine.org
CFP: A Time of Monsters
The monster has been here all along. It is a historical constant that manifests in wildly different ways across time, place, and culture. Whatever form it takes, the monster claws at categories; it un...
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The Authors Guild @authorsguild.org · 05/09/2025
Read our blog to get an overview of the Anthropic settlement. There’s an FAQ for authors, too. We hope you find it helpful. authorsguild.org/news/what-au...
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Charlotte-Rose Millar @charlotte-millar.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
After a mere seven years in the making, The Cultural History of Magic is finally here!!
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Michele Hanks @michelehanks.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
I had the best time at the Ghosts in Britain and Ireland 1500-1950 conference. All of the papers were fascinating. The organizers did an amazing job! www.mic.ul.ie/Ghosts-Confe...
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Least Haunted Podcast @leasthaunted.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
We are looking for fun LGBTQA+ folks to collaborate with to celebrate PRIDE MONTH! If you are a creative or an artist and want to come on our podcast to talk about paranormal stuff (keep in mind we are good natured skeptics)- then please hit us up!! #Pride #LGBTQA+ #LeastHaunted #Podcast
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Michele Hanks @michelehanks.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
My book, Doubting Ghosts, is out today! It's based on research that I started in 2006, so it's been a long time in the making. I'm really happy that it's finally out in the world! www.routledge.com/Doubting-Gho...
routledge.com
Doubting Ghosts: Paranormal Investigation and the Paradoxes of Belief
Based on ethnographic research in England, Doubting Ghosts explores the paradoxes faced by paranormal investigators or
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