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sarah

@moveablejaw.bsky.social
477 followers 327 following 125 posts

Leo sun, Aquarius rising, Taurus moon, personal account, also my book #OutofSync #FreePalestine

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Reposted by sarah
Duke University Press @dukepress.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Come check out our new October titles, including @moveablejaw.bsky.social's examination of contemporary ventriloquism, "Out of Sync." buff.ly/bWWE29D
Cover of Out of Sync: Ventriloquism in Popular Media from Vinyl to TikTok by Sarah Rebecca Kessler. It is bright red and features oversized layered blue, yellow, green, and orange lettering, technical illustrations of ventriloquist-dummy mechanisms, and black line drawings of a ventriloquist and puppet.
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Reposted by sarah
sarah @moveablejaw.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
New Yorkers be forewarned! Ventriloquism is coming!
canopycanopycanopy.com
Nobody’s Dummy
A conversation about thrown voices and surrogate bodies with a dummy’s point of view....
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sarah @moveablejaw.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
New Yorkers be forewarned! Ventriloquism is coming!
canopycanopycanopy.com
Nobody’s Dummy
A conversation about thrown voices and surrogate bodies with a dummy’s point of view....
001
Reposted by sarah
Anthropology of Work Review @anthropologyofwork.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Confessions of an Art World Ghost The museum’s army of invisible labor
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sarah @moveablejaw.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
TV scholars and TV-heads: Best writing on reality TV you'd recommend for advanced college kids? Old, new, and everything in between. Bonus points for show recs if they aren't too obvious...
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Reposted by sarah
Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
“Obsessing over whether a person of color deserves a spot prevents everyone from noticing that white people get and keep positions without needing to be impressive at all.”
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Reposted by sarah
Karen Tongson @inlandemperor.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Not that anybody needs them, but these are my thoughts on Dr. Jason Arday’s death and the culpability of our “elite” institutions.
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Reposted by sarah
Duke University Press @dukepress.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
In "Out of Sync," Sarah Rebecca Kessler @moveablejaw.bsky.social explores ventriloquism’s surprising popularity in the contemporary moment, arguing for the centrality of the practice to understandings of audiovisual media from vinyl records to TikTok. Read the intro for free: buff.ly/qtkgt75
Cover of Out of Sync: Ventriloquism in Popular Media from Vinyl to TikTok by Sarah Rebecca Kessler. It is bright red and features oversized layered blue, yellow, green, and orange lettering, technical illustrations of ventriloquist-dummy mechanisms, and black line drawings of a ventriloquist and puppet.
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Reposted by sarah
Karen Tongson @inlandemperor.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
My brilliant better half has a new book coming out on ventriloquism, media, performance and politics. Pre-order now!
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sarah @moveablejaw.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
The New York Times has once again rediscovered ventriloquism so let me once again plug my book on the subject coming out October 27 from Duke UP dukeupress.edu/out-of-sync
dukeupress.edu
Out of Sync: Ventriloquism in Popular Media from Vinyl to TikTok
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sarah @moveablejaw.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
If you loved HBO’s Industry, read this amazing piece by Anirbaan Banerjee, focused on the under-analyzed character of Rishi, @publicbooks.bsky.social www.publicbooks.org/diaspora-ind...
publicbooks.org
Diaspora, Indebted: On "Industry" - Public Books
“Gambling with big bets against challenging odds, regarded warily by moneylenders, questioned about your ability to balance your books, needing to take on more debt to pay back older debt. Whom exactl...
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
“Watched today, this flare of an episode from 2024 flashes even more brightly. It burns an afterimage onto the eyes that stays long after Rishi is no longer the camera’s primary subject.” A. Banerjee discusses the episode of “Industry” told from Rishi’s POV:
publicbooks.org
Diaspora, Indebted: On "Industry" - Public Books
“Gambling with big bets against challenging odds, regarded warily by moneylenders, questioned about your ability to balance your books, needing to take on more debt to pay back older debt. Whom…
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
“Perhaps what makes the analogy between Rishi and Britain work despite the snags of racial difference is what Grace Blakeley calls ‘the financialisation of everyday life’ in contemporary Britain.” A. Banerjee on “Industry”:
publicbooks.org
Diaspora, Indebted: On "Industry" - Public Books
“Gambling with big bets against challenging odds, regarded warily by moneylenders, questioned about your ability to balance your books, needing to take on more debt to pay back older debt. Whom…
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
“The irony of a brown man claiming this colonial slogan is worth noting, and the irony doesn’t run out in this racial register.” New at PB: In an episode of “Industry,” the character Rishi bets big on sterling. How deep does his identification with Britain go?
publicbooks.org
Diaspora, Indebted: On "Industry" - Public Books
“Gambling with big bets against challenging odds, regarded warily by moneylenders, questioned about your ability to balance your books, needing to take on more debt to pay back older debt. Whom…
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
“The condition of debt once marked the divide between the diasporic and the host nation. This condition now seems to be what connects them.”
publicbooks.org
Diaspora, Indebted: On "Industry" - Public Books
“Gambling with big bets against challenging odds, regarded warily by moneylenders, questioned about your ability to balance your books, needing to take on more debt to pay back older debt. Whom…
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
“Might the identification implied in Rishi’s statement ‘I am long sterling’ go deeper still?” New at PB: Through an analysis of “Industry,” A. Banerjee looks at diaspora, indebted.
publicbooks.org
Diaspora, Indebted: On "Industry" - Public Books
“Gambling with big bets against challenging odds, regarded warily by moneylenders, questioned about your ability to balance your books, needing to take on more debt to pay back older debt. Whom…
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
“Gambling with big bets against challenging odds, regarded warily by moneylenders, questioned about the ability to balance the books, needing to take on more debt to pay back older debt. Who exactly are we talking about here: Rishi or Britain?”
publicbooks.org
Diaspora, Indebted: On "Industry" - Public Books
“Gambling with big bets against challenging odds, regarded warily by moneylenders, questioned about your ability to balance your books, needing to take on more debt to pay back older debt. Whom…
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
A. Banerjee looks at an episode of HBO's industry, in which the character Rishi takes center stage. That episode sheds a “fascinating light on the changing shapes and shadows of race in contemporary Britain that are worth returning to and lingering upon.”
publicbooks.org
Diaspora, Indebted: On "Industry" - Public Books
“Gambling with big bets against challenging odds, regarded warily by moneylenders, questioned about your ability to balance your books, needing to take on more debt to pay back older debt. Whom…
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
New at PB: @ryancarroll.bsky.social reviews “The Pitt.” Although the show is “chained to the social discourse beyond it,” there is truth in the fact that “we cringe at having to face issues that we must consider but have already considered a million times.”
publicbooks.org
“The Pitt”: How Corny Can Crisis Get? - Public Books
The show is chained to the social discourse beyond it, to online conversations and headlines and talking-head commentary and all the voluminous language through which we engage with social crises.
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
“What might it look like to think of the show’s clumsy corniness as operative in its own right? What might we learn from a series that can be both moving and goofy?” The Season 2 finale of “The Pitt” airs tonight on HBO. Ryan Carroll reviews the show:
publicbooks.org
“The Pitt”: How Corny Can Crisis Get? - Public Books
The show is chained to the social discourse beyond it, to online conversations and headlines and talking-head commentary and all the voluminous language through which we engage with social crises.
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
“What we have, then, is a show that is both powerful and insipid. The Pitt burns with the desire to represent totality, but its corny obviousness often quenches its own flame.”
publicbooks.org
“The Pitt”: How Corny Can Crisis Get? - Public Books
The show is chained to the social discourse beyond it, to online conversations and headlines and talking-head commentary and all the voluminous language through which we engage with social crises.
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
“From lonely young men to measles, from fentanyl to brain worms, from violence against immigrants to painkiller-swiping doctors, the show feels like a news digest come to life.” New at PB: Ryan Carroll reviews “The Pitt.”
publicbooks.org
“The Pitt”: How Corny Can Crisis Get? - Public Books
The show is chained to the social discourse beyond it, to online conversations and headlines and talking-head commentary and all the voluminous language through which we engage with social crises.
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
“It’s powerful, even as it’s corny.” HBO’s “The Pitt” packs scores of social problems into a single shift. Still, Ryan Carroll writes, the show’s aesthetic foibles shed light on the very mediation problems that concern it.
publicbooks.org
“The Pitt”: How Corny Can Crisis Get? - Public Books
The show is chained to the social discourse beyond it, to online conversations and headlines and talking-head commentary and all the voluminous language through which we engage with social crises.
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
“Critics have since hailed his sermonizing as incredibly timely—but in another way, it feels calculated for precision timeliness.”
publicbooks.org
“The Pitt”: How Corny Can Crisis Get? - Public Books
The show is chained to the social discourse beyond it, to online conversations and headlines and talking-head commentary and all the voluminous language through which we engage with social crises.
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
New at PB: Steacy Easton looks at 3 shows starring Joshua Jackson. The way he “plays sex,” Easton argues, “corrects normative desire for closure”—which makes the ending of “Doctor Odyssey” all the more disappointing.
publicbooks.org
The Shape of Ménage à Trois to Come - Public Books
“However much desire there is for the threesome to maintain its stability, the cultural force of homogenous marriage is strong.”
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
“The emergency room in The Pitt is the imaginative material for performing what Fredric Jameson calls cognitive mapping.” New at PB: Ryan Carroll on “The Pitt.”
publicbooks.org
“The Pitt”: How Corny Can Crisis Get? - Public Books
The show is chained to the social discourse beyond it, to online conversations and headlines and talking-head commentary and all the voluminous language through which we engage with social crises.
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
“Who the father is is one of the least interesting questions.” New at PB: Steacy Easton on the collapse of the threesome in “Doctor Odyssey,” starring Joshua Jackson.
publicbooks.org
The Shape of Ménage à Trois to Come - Public Books
“However much desire there is for the threesome to maintain its stability, the cultural force of homogenous marriage is strong.”
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
“The episodes immediately after the threesome do not allow for the potential of pleasure, or even bisexuality.”
publicbooks.org
The Shape of Ménage à Trois to Come - Public Books
“However much desire there is for the threesome to maintain its stability, the cultural force of homogenous marriage is strong.”
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
“There is no real talk about the potential for all three to love her; the splitting must take place in favor of the heterosexual pairing.” New at PB: Steacy Easton on the disappointment of “Doctor Odyssey’s” heteronormative turn.
publicbooks.org
The Shape of Ménage à Trois to Come - Public Books
“However much desire there is for the threesome to maintain its stability, the cultural force of homogenous marriage is strong.”
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
“It is impossible to imagine Jackson working in anything but a domestic context—but his work is to disrupt it.” New at PB: Steacy Easton on Joshua Jackson.
publicbooks.org
The Shape of Ménage à Trois to Come - Public Books
“However much desire there is for the threesome to maintain its stability, the cultural force of homogenous marriage is strong.”
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
“One of the ways that ‘The Affair’ seems like a shadow of ‘Dawson’s Creek’ is that if the first ends at love, a successful relationship after years of will they or won’t they, then the other shows what happens after they say I do.”
publicbooks.org
The Shape of Ménage à Trois to Come - Public Books
“However much desire there is for the threesome to maintain its stability, the cultural force of homogenous marriage is strong.”
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sarah @moveablejaw.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Read the brilliant @storti.bsky.social on S03 of White Lotus @publicbooks.bsky.social immediately www.publicbooks.org/could-i-be-a...
publicbooks.org
“Could I be an Asian girl?”: Racist Fantasy in HBO’s “The White Lotus” - Public Books
Portraying the fall of the mighty is easy money, low-hanging fruit. Eat the rich! What’s riskier and harder to swallow are the moments when the viewer comes into contact with the white elite’s racist ...
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
New at PB: Anna Storti (@storti.bsky.social) revisits “The White Lotus,” and in particular season 3's headline-making scene where Frank, played by Sam Rockwell, delivers a five-minute-long monologue where he asks, "Could I be an Asian girl?"
publicbooks.org
“Could I be an Asian girl?”: Racist Fantasy in HBO’s “The White Lotus” - Public Books
Portraying the fall of the mighty is easy money, low-hanging fruit. Eat the rich! What’s riskier and harder to swallow are the moments when the viewer comes into contact with the white elite’s racist…
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
What is the function of satire, @storti.bsky.social asks, in the representation of racist fantasy?
publicbooks.org
“Could I be an Asian girl?”: Racist Fantasy in HBO’s “The White Lotus” - Public Books
Portraying the fall of the mighty is easy money, low-hanging fruit. Eat the rich! What’s riskier and harder to swallow are the moments when the viewer comes into contact with the white elite’s racist…
023
Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
New at PB: @storti.bsky.social publishes a reflection of racist fantasy in HBO’s “The White Lotus.” Storti’s book, “Torn: Asian/white Life and the Intimacy of Violence”, is out today with @dukepress.bsky.social !
bookshop.org
Torn: Asian/White Life and the Intimacy of Violence
Asian/White Life and the Intimacy of Violence
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
“Portraying the fall of the mighty is easy money, low-hanging fruit. Eat the rich! What’s riskier and harder to swallow are the moments when the viewer comes into contact with the white elite’s racist fantasies.”
publicbooks.org
“Could I be an Asian girl?”: Racist Fantasy in HBO’s “The White Lotus” - Public Books
Portraying the fall of the mighty is easy money, low-hanging fruit. Eat the rich! What’s riskier and harder to swallow are the moments when the viewer comes into contact with the white elite’s racist…
011
Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
“If satire mobilizes critique through emotion, to what extent does the genre fail when the subject is racist fantasy?” New at PB: @storti.bsky.social revisits the reactions to Frank’s (Sam Rockwell) season 3 monologue about sexual desire in “The White Lotus.”
publicbooks.org
“Could I be an Asian girl?”: Racist Fantasy in HBO’s “The White Lotus” - Public Books
Portraying the fall of the mighty is easy money, low-hanging fruit. Eat the rich! What’s riskier and harder to swallow are the moments when the viewer comes into contact with the white elite’s racist…
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sarah @moveablejaw.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Wrote a piece for LIMN about working for certain people at a certain art museum in New York in my 20s - can you guess which one? limn.press/article/conf...
limn.press
Confessions of an Art World Ghost - Limn
The museum’s army of invisible labor
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
The bubble of prestige TV has burst. Netflix serves up good and bad shows, and its algorithm doesn’t editorialize. In recent years, AppleTV+ has emerged as “the new HBO.” But take a closer look, and you see it as a platform for advertising Apple products.
publicbooks.org
Price-Tag TV and the Transformation of Television Prestige - Public Books
Apple’s “Price-Tag TV,” to propose a new entrant to the TV name game, is expensive programming about folks who like expensive things, made for viewers who either can’t see or don’t care about the…
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
“Apple’s ‘Price-Tag TV,’ to propose a new entrant to the TV name game, is expensive programming about folks who like expensive things, made for viewers who either can’t see or don’t care about the difference between good and expensive.”
publicbooks.org
Price-Tag TV and the Transformation of Television Prestige - Public Books
Apple’s “Price-Tag TV,” to propose a new entrant to the TV name game, is expensive programming about folks who like expensive things, made for viewers who either can’t see or don’t care about the…
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
New at PB: Michael Szalay considers how AppleTV+, dubbed the new HBO, actually isn't. Rather, its expensively produced offerings prop up Apple’s prestige play, lazy watches for the affluent and self-satisfied.
publicbooks.org
Price-Tag TV and the Transformation of Television Prestige - Public Books
Apple’s “Price-Tag TV,” to propose a new entrant to the TV name game, is expensive programming about folks who like expensive things, made for viewers who either can’t see or don’t care about the…
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sarah @moveablejaw.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
Check out I Kissed a Girl on BBC and read Tori McCandless’s excellent essay thereon in @publicbooks.bsky.social!
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
New at PB, Tori McCandless reviews BBC’s reality show “I Kissed a Girl,” where the “most heartwarming moments correspond to the girls being vulnerable with one another and sharing difficult life experiences underwritten by homophobia, external or internalized.”
publicbooks.org
Queer Joy Is Earned—and Requires Earnest Care
To view “I Kissed a Girl” as predominantly upbeat is to miss why it’s representation of bad feelings is important.
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Witnessing the happiness of “I Kissed a Girl’s contestants is possible, Tori McCandless writes, because we also witness their successful navigation of a world that is unwelcoming of difference––which includes navigating a lot of big, often bad feelings.
publicbooks.org
Queer Joy Is Earned—and Requires Earnest Care
To view “I Kissed a Girl” as predominantly upbeat is to miss why it’s representation of bad feelings is important.
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Though similar in premise to “Love Island,” BBC’s “I Kissed a Girl” has more wholesome “teachable moments” that aim to present and explore some aspect of queer culture.
publicbooks.org
Queer Joy Is Earned—and Requires Earnest Care
To view “I Kissed a Girl” as predominantly upbeat is to miss why it’s representation of bad feelings is important.
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
To view “I Kissed a Girl” as predominantly upbeat, Tori McCandless argues, is to miss why it’s important how the show represents bad feelings. It misses how such bad feelings necessarily correspond to any joy the show represents.
publicbooks.org
Queer Joy Is Earned—and Requires Earnest Care
To view “I Kissed a Girl” as predominantly upbeat is to miss why it’s representation of bad feelings is important.
032
Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
“What makes ‘I Kissed a Girl’ so great is that it foregrounds queers who openly relay their traumas. And they do so, crucially, without being consumed by such traumas, or erasing the essential differences they reveal.”
publicbooks.org
Queer Joy Is Earned—and Requires Earnest Care
To view “I Kissed a Girl” as predominantly upbeat is to miss why it’s representation of bad feelings is important.
011
Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
“The good feelings are contingent on a history of listening to her body and realizing that her embodied experience of racism and homophobia offers evidence of what is wrong with the world.”
publicbooks.org
Queer Joy Is Earned—and Requires Earnest Care
To view “I Kissed a Girl” as predominantly upbeat is to miss why it’s representation of bad feelings is important.
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Reposted by sarah
Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
“I Kissed a Girl” is full of chaotic gay energy, sex jokes, and campy moments. But it also beautifully honors the ways in which queer joy is earned.
publicbooks.org
Queer Joy Is Earned—and Requires Earnest Care
To view “I Kissed a Girl” as predominantly upbeat is to miss why it’s representation of bad feelings is important.
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sarah @moveablejaw.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
Fantastic piece by Jannat Suleiman out today in @publicbooks.bsky.social www.publicbooks.org/hijabs-on-th...
publicbooks.org
Hijabs On the Small Screen Only, Please! - Public Books
Why is hijabi representation divided between small-screen success and big-screen blunders?
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