Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 16hon-field thermometer at dodger stadium showing 130(?)° in early october, game continues as though all is normal: climate collapse evolving into everyday life 1256
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 03/10/2026“Art can become “a form of cultural and spiritual regeneration,” Pope Leo XIV said on Friday, when it “resists homogenization, slows the gaze, and compels us to pause before that which refuses to be consumed.”” 1365
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyDavid M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 02/10/2026excited to see every catholic university in the US triple down on arts. 430134
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleySarah Osment @smosment.bsky.social · 02/10/2026name a publication more openly committed to its own obsolescence 1373
Reposted by Nathan K. Hensley🎃 Mac O'Lantern 🎃 @jacmacandsneeze.bsky.social · 02/10/2026I think being a librarian right now is really hard, just like it's hard being an instructor. You're fighting over the nature of knowledge and learning and you have to get a grip on it how you can. I really like her and I understand her view but it makes me sad as hell 1102
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyMoira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Thinking of the famous, now-tenured academic woman who told me that she thought anti-rape activism was “inevitably reactionary” and how she’s the Title IX coordinator for her department. 1823229
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyBathsheba Demuth @brdemuth.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Being in this role has already been exciting — keep the proposals coming! 3294
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 02/10/2026formally alert close reading —showing the meanings coded into syntax, exposing the lie that all discourse is mere content—is what we teach students, & what separates the work of literary criticism from sociology, history, & theory—so honestly this is the most meaningful compliment to me 🙏🌿 0171
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 02/10/2026This is very, very sad news about a DC landmark 1101
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 01/10/2026no fan of the bezos engine but have just seen that kindle edition of the book is basically free there if anybody uses kindles and is interested 2206
Reposted by Nathan K. Hensleyprofchander @profchander.bsky.social · 01/10/2026our series keeps growing! global.oup.com/academic/con... 1245
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Our departmental staffing has been cut down to 2/3 or 1/2 its historic level depending on when you measure from and we’ve been told basically never to expect another tenure line, but i can have free chatGPT to go with my free gemini, thank you 4180
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleySheila Liming @seeshespeak.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Congratulations to CMU for taking dirty hedge fund money from a guy who believes neither in education nor in free speech! We always knew you had it in you! 2277
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026A corollary to this important point about AI & invisible labor is that, 100% of the time, the dudes most obsessed with onboarding LLMs into classrooms either suck deeply at teaching or are not teachers at all but instead lifelong administrators who think teaching is “generating feedback” & that’s it 13710
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Weird to live in a time where the ppl with the most power on earth are the ones whose brains have been most fully standardized & transformed into bullet-pointed mush 0130
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyPhilip Leventhal @philipleventhal.bsky.social · 30/09/2026"African storytelling sees the forest as something that cannot be owned and marks the limits of the world as we know it." Ainehi Edoro discusses her new book FOREST IMAGINARIES: HOW AFRICAN NOVELS THINK tinyurl.com/3fvwks5a @brittlepaper.bsky.social @columbiaup.bsky.socialtinyurl.comBooks That Take You Into the WoodsAinehi Edoro-Glines’ latest book explores the ways African writers play with (and in) the forest. 052
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 29/09/2026written in another lifetime (2015-2016), but unfortunately elements of this still feel relevant —thanks to scott for sharing this 050
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyLeigh Claire La Berge @lclaberge.bsky.social · 29/09/2026had him for a philosophy of language seminar many moons ago at Hampshire College! he's a tool. 041
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 29/09/2026except for the many NYT articles abt the ridiculous & spoiled students protesting mass murder in gaza, i can't remember an essay so purpose-built to be whizzed around provostial groupchats and the signal chains of trustees and donors —it's like this was cooked in a lab to feed to adminstratorsnytimes.comOpinion | I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think.If I do not treat writing as essential for achieving thought, it is not clear why I should force my students to. 2172
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyScott Selisker @sselisker.bsky.social · 29/09/2026An illuminating and generous critical review essay. It remains a year of extraordinary richness in academic books… Fun memory, WJT Mitchell was, my freshman year in college, the first visiting speaker I went to see give a talk (or three, a lecture series on What Images Want). 181
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 28/09/2026“The approach is raising questions about whether fast-tracking coursework could come at the expense of learning.” HMMM YES THIS IS A MYSTERY THAT REQUIRES FURTHER STUDY,, I RECOMMEND WE CONTINUE THE PROGRAM UNTIL WE KNOW MORE 🤔 1193
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyMartin Hewitt @vicmanch.bsky.social · 28/09/2026New ECR opportunity, courtesy of JVC and BAVS. Please spread the word as widely as you can! 057
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 27/09/2026mesmerized by the schematic circuit board diagrams for the Onkyo TX-DS676 receiver (1999) 061
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 25/09/2026the postwar university for all its problems worked according to a pretty complex balance of cultural and economic capital with other kinds thrown in, but it looks like we can simplify our Bourdieu for the phase of neoliberal higher ed we’re in now, where the only thing that matters, ever, is money 27223
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyCitizen of Somewhere Else @citizense.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Yes, and part of what’s been happening on the teaching front is that administrators are realizing they can increase the profit margins on humanities gen ed if they close majors outright or just let them dwindle away by never funding replacement lines, just hiring contingent faculty. 152
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyEleanor Courtemanche @ecourtem.bsky.social · 24/09/2026🙂 pressing onward in the great common project 😁 011
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyEleanor Courtemanche @ecourtem.bsky.social · 24/09/2026UIUC talk by @nathankhensley.bsky.social based on his book Action Without Hope — here he’s saying “Perhaps my title is a little intense” 😁 2162
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Yeah! One issue this highlights is the rise of an administrative class, cozy by both trade & disposition w trustees & donors but increasingly remote from actual learning, who’ve been completely captured by the promotional narratives of tech capitalism & the fantasies of airport-book reading CEOs 2151
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 23/09/2026“Machine-readable & hermeneutically mute at the same time,” contemporary images are “nodes in an ever-expanding network designed to provide, & trade, information between systems concerned with the preferences, habits, and behaviors of human actors” for purposes of financial optimization 151
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Astonishing to see it even being discussed. One highly placed person told me they supported AI grading in large classes because “it’s better than nothing.” when I asked why the university couldn’t hire enough people to grade those students’ work he said “well that’s not realistic.” 53815
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 21/09/2026“Schnell's Sept. 18 email statement to The Dartmouth was itself "100% Al-written," according to a Pangram test.” Student journalists just running roughshod over this dude 🤣🤟 0155
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyRobbie Richardson @londonmikmaq.bsky.social · 21/09/2026I'm very excited to be giving the 2026-27 W.J. Alexander Lecture in English Literature on October 15th at University College, University of Toronto! It will be called "Joseph Brant's Unwritten History: Towards an Indigenous Antiquarianism."uc.utoronto.caJoseph Brant’s Unwritten History: Towards an Indigenous Antiquarianism | University College U of T 34613
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyDr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 20/09/2026I was a huge beneficiary of that era, as were many of my own professors who, like me, had come from the working classes. No more. I got my own Gen Z kids through college sans debt. Both are formidable intellectuals but see grad school as out of reach financially. Will never get over this. 0111
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 20/09/2026We’ve lived through the nearly complete systematic unwinding of the postwar public university, which for all its faults, was premised on the idea that not only aristocrats could be intellectuals, & that having non-aristocratic intellectuals was better for knowledge & therefore better for everyone 322870
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyOlúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 20/09/2026as with the fossil fuel industry the reality of the crisis is a load bearing part of the strategy - exploited to lend urgency to plutocrats' preferred political response, which they position as sensible and responsible 325631
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 20/09/2026never forget that our universities fired and expelled people for opposing this 202821976
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyAnna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 19/09/2026“Operations designed to insist that everything is fine inevitably betray the fact that this is not the case. And indeed, everything is not fine.” newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...newleftreview.orgFrédéric Lordon, Warning Signs — SidecarOn the economics of AI. 12613
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyTobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Can’t stop won’t stop 072
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 18/09/2026another fun moment to remember the good old days when we were all getting scolded for using the word fascism to describe this 2213
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 18/09/2026My very sincere prediction is that in future years we will see class action lawsuits by students arguing— correctly— that they were defrauded when they paid tuition dollars in an implicit contract that they would be educated  69328
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyTobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 17/09/2026People are not mechanical templates, ideas are not mass produced widgets, and therefore any educational setting worth its salt will begin from valuing the weird. 1435
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 17/09/2026in the end, the human drive to preserve, sustain, and even expand real knowledge —to try to move toward truth— is inexhaustible. No degree of oppression, and no campaign of barbarism, however sustained, can ever finally expunge it. this is a source of beauty on earth 14912
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 17/09/2026in the specialized language of business, this is called "getting you coming and going" 054
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyErin K. Maher @erinkmaher.bsky.social · 17/09/2026*shrieks in former adjunct* 28623
Reposted by Nathan K. HensleyThomas S. Davis @thomassdavis.bsky.social · 16/09/2026It’s true! I‘ll be at UIUC in November to riff about Environmental Humanities at the Unit for Criticism & Interpretive Theory, which I have admired from afar for so long. My entire talk is about why Nathan is wrong. Just kidding. I am just gonna try to get by on the residual good vibes of his visit. 4112