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Natalie M. Houston

@nmhouston.bsky.social
1.7K followers 1.4K following 45 posts

Reading poetry with computers | Assoc Prof, digital humanities & Victorian literature, U Mass Lowell | personal productivity coach for academics & adults with ADD | vegan, dog companion

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Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
Artjoms Šeļa @artjomshl.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
our new paper with @plechac.bsky.social puts thousands of poems across languages in one shared space of poetic form! we use sequence alignment on rhyme schemes to investigate 'fixed forms' and all things between: not only 'sonnets', but 'sonnet-like' things. doi.org/10.1371/jour...
a clustered umap of the formal space of poetry defined by sequence alignment distances between rhyme schemes in 6 languages. below: the same space, but colored only by poems that bear 'fixed forms' labels in Czech and Russian corpora.
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
And the tradition of conference photos of me waving my arms around while I talk continues! Many thanks to @jbrottrager.bsky.social who not only organized a wonderful event, but also managed to post about it. Looking forward to more tomorrow!
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Looking forward to being part of this!
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Very glad to have an article out this week in JCLS!
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Brandon Walsh @walshbr.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
ICYMI - wrote this week about AI, student motivation, and writing.
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Svenja Guhr @guhrs.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Btw, I created the Bluesky feed "CLS in DH/NLP". It collects posts containing the keywords: #CLS, #CCLS, #JCLS, #CCLS2025, CLS INFRA, Literary Computing, SPP-CLS, Computational Literary Studies, Cultural Analytics, Digital Literary Studies, etc. 👉 Feel free to like and share
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Post45 Data Collective @post45data.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower was published in 1993 and starts in 2024—a 31-year leap. Are creators imagining futures that are closer or further away? Explore a *new* dataset of 2.5k narrative works set in the future, each tagged with its release year and setting. doi.org/10.18737/552...
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Melanie Walsh @mellymeldubs.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
What do Elon Musk, Joyce Carol Oates, Adam Schiff & Ezra Pound have in common? They all remixed T.S. Eliot lines: "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper" Why have these lines become a meme—used across the political spectrum? Find out in our new book chapter!
A screenshot of the book chapter, "Not With a Bang But a Tweet: Democracy, Culture Wars, and the Memeification of T.S. Eliot" by Melanie Walsh and Anna Preus. The first two paragraphs read: "It was still unclear whether Donald Trump would be re-elected President of the United States on the night of the election, November 3, 2020. Even by morning, key swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were too close to call. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots, the outcome of the election would remain unclear for another three and a half days. In the meantime, the world watched, waited, and tweeted.

As early ballots rolled in, Twitter (X) users of all ideological stripes made fluctuating predictions about the election’s outcome. When a few swing states seemed to tip toward Trump, a user named @CausticPop gloomily joked, “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but with a WI/MI/PA,”1 a joke that was retweeted more than 5,000 times.2 Hours later, another user struck an even stronger chord with the same apocalyptic..."

A screenshot of the tweet in question is pictured by @CausticPop is pictured. It reads: "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but with a WI/MI/PA." It was posted at 9:16 PM on November 3, 2020, and received 3,753 retweets, 851 quotes, 20.6K likes, and 219 bookmarks.A screenshot of a tweet by Joyce Carol Oates that read: "this is the way the world ends / this is the way the world ends / not with a bang or a whimper / but with “deeply-offended-by"" It was tweeted at 10:28 AM on October 20, 2017
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Josh Shepperd @joshshepperd.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
Lost David Bowie sessions from 1974 rediscovered!
americansongwriter.com
Scrapped David Bowie Tapes From 1974 Sigma Sessions Have Been Discovered
Scrapped David Bowie recordings from his 1974 Sigma Sessions have been discovered by a record collector in Philadelphia.
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
This is a great intro activity-- I've done something similar, but always a bit more structured-- next time I'll try it this way and see what kinds of variables emerge --
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
So grateful for the people on YT who post videos showing how to fix random things! (Today it was how to remove a drawer from a piece of Ikea furniture I assembled at least 15 years ago and couldn't easily figure out.)
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Looking forward to reading this!
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Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
Josh Gondelman @joshgondelman.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
Reminder: You actually have three more days to get your shit together for the new year because 2025 doesn't really start until Monday.
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
As a Gen Xer, I have always associated "vibes" with hippie boomers. This essay explains their return: "They are precious fairy dust to keep the all-seeing algorithms from sinking their vampire teeth into our culture, and yet they are a modern marketing tool." www.theguardian.com/culture/2024...
theguardian.com
‘It’s game over for facts’: how vibes came to rule everything from pop to politics
From voters picking up ‘bad vibes’ to the Brat girl summer, vague instincts now make the world go round. Does this represent a crisis of seriousness or has it always been feelings that make us human?
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Currently enjoying this take on the "spooky abandoned space ship" genre: Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes. #FridayReads us.macmillan.com/books/978125...
us.macmillan.com
Dead Silence
A Best Book of 2022 by the New York Public Library • One of the Best SFF Books of 2022 (Gizmodo) • One of the Best SF Mysteries of 2022 (CrimeReads) • ...
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
A poem appropriate for the (grading) season, by @josephfasano.bsky.social: poets.org/poem/student...
poets.org
For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper
Now I let it fall back in the grasses. I hear you. I know this life is hard now. I know your days are precious on this earth. But what are you trying to be free of? The living? The miraculous task of ...
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Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
A frustrated letter from the Library of Congress asking Norbert Weiner what section of a library his book is supposed to be in (1949).

DEWEY DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WASHINGTON, D. C.
Dec. 2, 1949
Dr. Norbert Wiener
Mass. Institute of Technology Cambridge, Nass.
My dear Dr. Wiener:
The publication of your book on Cybernetics has caused the editorial staff which is in charge of the revision of the Dewey Decimal Classification considerable difficulty. We are in the position of being asked by sincere inquirers as to how to classify the book and by less sincere people who like to confront supposedly expert classifiers with problems which they are quite certain are beyond our capabilities. Quite frankly, cybernetics is. We have read and reread reviews and explanations of the content of your book and have even tried to understand the book itself, only to become more uncertain as to what field it falls into. I am appealing to you as the one person who should be able to tell us.
Possibly you already know that the Dewey Decimal Classification attempts to assign a number to the subject content of books. Generally speaking, a book can only be assigned one number and consequently we cannot take care of the many aspects that certain works cover. The problem must be simplified and consequently, is your book such as to place it in psychology? Does it belong in the field of electronic computation devices or does it belong in mathematics?
If we were not somewhat desperate about this particular problem, I should hesitate to bother you with it.
Cordially yours,
Esther P. Potter
Director
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Happy to see #fridayreads starting to flourish here! I'm currently enjoying The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard: pirate space opera politics and intrigue, with sentient ships in the mix.
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Wonderful strategies here for non-poets too:
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Maria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
some little bluesky tips 🦋 your blocks, likes, lists, and just about everything except chats are PUBLIC you can pin custom feeds; i like quiet posters, best of follows, mutuals, mentions if your chronological feed is overwhelming, you can make and pin make a personal list of "unmissable" people
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Mark Sample @samplereality.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
University presses putting together starter packs of all their authors on Bluesky is such a good move.
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Chris Louttit @drchrislouttit.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
I'm giving another paper tomorrow on Annie Edwardes, my favourite Victorian sensation novelist you've really never heard of. Cover 👇 from the yellowback edition of Archie Lovell (1866), depicting a dramatic moment between the heroine & the caddish Gerald Durant on a steamer to London.
A young man and woman on a steamer to London, with the man picking up a handkerchief. The scene is from Annie Edwardes's Archie Lovell.
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Next level
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Artjoms Šeļa @artjomshl.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Didn't find one, so made a computational literary studies starter pack, with notable bunch of european folks and early career scholars. My circle here is small, so please reply/dm to be added or removed and suggest people from your networks! go.bsky.app/4et1nxZ
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
+1 (h/t @ncecire.bsky.social )
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
I love to see the paleography bat signal go on -- this is what a social network is good for! (I don't have any answers for this one but maybe you do)
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 10/11/2024
Hard to know if it's just the influx of new joins or the new visibility offered by "starter packs", but I'm encouraged by finding lots of once-familiar names and faces now on here-- as well as new ones!
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Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 08/11/2024
At last, there's a searchable directory of Bluesky starter packs, courtesy of @mubashariqbal.com! Just one more way third-party developers are helping to make this place better. Search starter packs by keyword, and sort by "Uses" to see which ones people are finding the most helpful
blueskydirectory.com
All - Bluesky Directory
A curated collection of all things relating to the Blue Sky social media platform.
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Sarah Bull @sarahebull.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
I've started a starter pack for academics and organizations focused on the #19th century! I'm sure I have missed many, many people (I was trying to get this started quickly) — comment below if you want to be added. go.bsky.app/6ZkJ592
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Maria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · 04/11/2024
A starter pack for #NLP #NLProc researchers! 🎉 go.bsky.app/SngwGeS
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 21/08/2024
Looking forward to this!
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 10/08/2024
Leaving #DH2024 with a full brain and warm heart. Grateful to see friends and colleagues again in person, and inspired by sustained intellectual exchanges throughout the week. Thank you to everyone who made this conference happen!
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 16/04/2024
While teaching network analysis, I became interested in the aesthetic and algorithmic differences among the widely used open-access software tools. This chapter examines the default aesthetics used in Pajek, Cytoscape, and Gephi as part of a critical hermeneutics of dataviz. doi.org/10.1515/9783...
doi.org
Meaningful Aesthetics: A Comparison of Open Source Network Analysis Tools
Meaningful Aesthetics: A Comparison of Open Source Network Analysis Tools was published in Zoomland on page 367.
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 15/03/2024
Happy to have a chapter in this new collection, Technology and Literature, edited by Adam Hammond. My chapter situates methods of distant reading within the technological changes of the past 25 years. Other chapters on a range of topics in book history & technology: www.cambridge.org/core/books/t...
cambridge.org
Technology and Literature
Cambridge Core - Literary Theory - Technology and Literature
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 06/10/2023
Taking a few minutes to say something positive can really make a difference for someone else -- and by extension the larger scholarly community
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 04/10/2023
+1
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Martin Paul Eve @eve.gd · 24/09/2023
How do you solve a problem like a séance? With Python and GPT3, is my answer. Creating a voice-activated AI responder in Python eve.gd/2023/09/24/c...
eve.gd
Creating a voice-activated AI responder in Python
How do you solve a problem like a séance? With Python and GPT3, is my answer.
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Ryan Moulton @moultano.bsky.social · 12/09/2023
My mom's book club is reading a book about AI, and asked me for input on it, so I gave her a reading list of accessible articles that I think best summarize what's going on. Posting below. ↓
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Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · 10/09/2023
New blog post, trying to get beyond a debate that has so far treated students mostly as consumers of AI. In the twenty-first century, critical thinking will require understanding how models work.
tedunderwood.com
Liberally-educated students need to be more than consumers of AI
If I'm buying a thinking process, I really need to understand what I see when I look under the hood.
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 05/09/2023
With powerful, well-developed algorithmic search available in any browser tab, why do people persist in trying to use ChatGPT and its ilk as a search tool? AI models are good for many things, but search is not typically one of them.
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Michael Jay McClure @mjmimages.bsky.social · 31/08/2023
Went back to the haunted manse of today’s Twitter. Saw a grand staircase that no longer connects to the second floor. A desiccated meme in a Ming vase. A sexy, rain & tear stained gif. A shrunken troll in the corner of a guest bedroom whispering to himself, “actually, actually, actually.”
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 25/08/2023
In updating my syllabi, I found it useful to look at this Google doc of examples of AI policies for different courses crowdsourced by Lance Eaton: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com
Classroom Policies for AI Generative Tools
Classroom Policies for AI Generative Tools If you would like to submit your course guidelines/policy to be included here, please submit it in this form. Update: If you would like a more searchab...
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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 24/08/2023
Recirculating this ahead of the Fall semester: it's a critical class on AI images and generative art, using AI images as a lens for visualizing data ethics, representational harms, and popular myths around AI systems. The syllabus and videos are all there, dig in! www.cyberneticforests.com/ai-images
cyberneticforests.com
Critical Topics: AI Images Course — Cybernetic Forests.
An archive of an undergraduate class on the context, history and ethical issues of AI images.
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 19/08/2023
Looking forward to reading this! I always learn a lot from Mark A-H.
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 13/08/2023
Very useful models for how to set the tone for the semester, especially if your students may be accessing your syllabus in a CMS before the first meeting:
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 05/08/2023
A really thoughtful interview with Vauhini Vara about both the beautiful and troubling aspects of AI writing. Saving this one to teach, since it complicates the usual binaries of the current AI discourse. (h/t @jbj.bsky.social) embeddings.substack.com/p/vauhini
embeddings.substack.com
On personalized media, alternative AI writing futures, and reconciling the poetic with the political
In conversation with Vauhini Vara, Author and Pulitzer Prize finalist
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Mark Sample @samplereality.bsky.social · 04/08/2023
Reposting for the evening crowd....Do you want to be included in an expansive, inclusive Digital Humanities Bluesky feed? Add your username here: forms.gle/EKTCqMBp31eaoFdd6
forms.gle
Digital Humanities Bluesky Feed
Making feeds (the Twitter equivalent of lists) on Bluesky is not straightforward. The app/site itself does not include that functionality. I (Mark Sample) am cobbling together (in a roundabout way) a ...
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 30/07/2023
Aha, now this makes more sense
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Natalie M. Houston @nmhouston.bsky.social · 30/07/2023
Thanks to @quinnanya.bsky.social I'm here and feeling cautiously optimistic as I look around for familiar names . . .
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