iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Today in awful ideas--the best quotation: "The question is whether students and teachers actually want this"!

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Fellow skeeters: I finally finished reading _Robert Elsmere_! Let there be much rejoicing.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Orville Peck at the Hollywood Bowl! Amazing night.

Orville sings in a tank top, his arms in the air. He is covering Dolly Parton.

The Hollywood Bowl’s arch is deep blue. Orville’s name is visible in the distance

Orville plays his acoustic guitar in a tank top

Atmospheric light blue picture of the Hollywood Bowl’s arch and audience

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

When it's 102 degrees out, nothing is more tempting than a PSL and a warm flannel overshirt! The fall ad blitz has been really effective in Southern California.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Just got out of my evening class, and campus looks beautiful.

A green and brown lawn below a construction site. The sky is light orange due to the sunset. There is a blue pyramid at the center of the photo and mountains, purple, appear faintly in the distance.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

It was a little over a week ago now, but I keep forgetting to post my convocation speech (part of my Academic Senate Chair duties). It's a short intro to the Senate and issues that I've been thinking about on our campus and beyond. www.youtube.com/live/K2RXngn...

youtube.com

2026 CSULB Convocation

YouTube video by Beach TV CSULB

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Reposted by Neil Hultgren

Jill Galvan @jillgal.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Hey! Just sent off the final version of my book coming out next year-ish, so excited!

title page for "The Quiet Fight: Marriage, Time, and the Fiction of Love Trouble," together with a table of contents

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Glad to see that Balzac (via Rodin, cast in the 1960s) has a place at the LA County Museum of Art.

A dark gray colored statue of a man stands in front of massive concrete building, the LA county museum of art. The sky is blue and there are palm trees.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Not the list I expected: Shortbus Swann in Love Last Year at Marienbad Twilight of the Ice Nymphs Return to Oz Who’s Harry Crumb? Farewell, My Queen The Piano Teacher Vertigo The Eternals Paris is Burning La Cérémonie Jacques Tati (the complete films) Dark Habits Uncle Boonmee Who Can…

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Will Woolf studies ever be able to recover from Nancy Mace getting a _Mrs Dalloway_ tattoo? Something to pray about…

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Elie Mystal on the Supreme Court and the desire for progressive change in the US: “you reform the court, or YOU GET NOTHING!”

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I’m tempted to propose a special issue of _Volupté_ on decadent chocolate and write an article where I just describe, in ornate detail, the brownies I made this weekend.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

A typo in my chapter today created a new, amazing alternate universe. Members of Bluesky, I give you Edwin Abbott’s _Flanland_ (1884).

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I don’t even drink soju but this frog is always cute, especially when it adopts the odalisque pose.

A man in his 40s, wearing a loud pink, blue, yellow, and black Hawaiian shirt, squats down next to a bright green frog statue arrayed on a bench. Shelves and bottles are visible in back.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I strongly recommend the strawberry spoon cake recipe on the NYT cooking site. So good with vanilla ice cream.

Situated on a stovetop is a clear glass 8x8 Pyrex dish. In the dish is an unfrosted cake with strawberries baked in.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

This arrived in the mail today. I’m excited. @colsonwhitehead.com really knows how to write an opening paragraph!

Cover of Colson Whitehead’s novel, Cool Machine. It sits on a beige background.

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Jason Haslam @jasonhaslam.ca · 24/07/2026

The table of contents for the Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Weird is now available on the Cambridge site:

cambridge.org

The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Weird | Cambridge University Press & Assessment

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I’m glad that the @strictscrutiny.bsky.social podcast covered the the fact that the Judiciary Committee democrats were not tough enough in their questioning of Todd Blanche about Epstein.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

So cool to watch Network (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1976) for the first time and to discover that the @criterion.bsky.social essay was written by @jamellebouie.net! Amazing movie, and this scene, which Bouie connects to the neoliberal order, was mesmerizing.

A tv against a wall. It shows Ned Beatty at the end of a conference table lined with banker’s lights.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Just spent a couple minutes debating whether I should add an aside to my chapter intro about Haggard and Trollope almost accidentally sharing a bedroom in Pretoria in 1879.

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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Another historical inaccuracy from Nolan—IMAX had not yet been invented in the Mycenaean period, so this is not the aspect ratio that people saw in! Smh

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Excellent analysis from @adamserwer.bsky.social. The Neo-Korematsu Doctrine is the perfect term for how the court ignores racial animus.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Haircut / summer writing proof of life

White guy in his forties has a goatee and wears a purple tank top. He is expressionless. Selfie in front of a white background.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

The unconscious is structured like a language

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Despite the headline, I read this article and will also continue to teach literature.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

She didn’t have much that was positive to say about her 20-minute conversation with Mitch McConnell.

Photo of Angela Lansbury in her role as clairvoyant Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s comedy, Blithe Spirit.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I’m sharing with you the bonkers story I read while eating lunch. The source of the demonic activity—a bookstore run by a lesbian.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Who would have imagined that the famous priestess of Isis, Ayesha, returned in a new incarnation to open a salon on the Big Island? Truly she who has lived so long now doth do the hair. Can she do highlights by blasting?

Storefront on a sunny day with minor clouds. The store’s sign says “Kor Salon.”

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Now that pride month has ended and we returned from Hawaii, this is who I am.

Man in yellow Godzilla hat, aviator-style sunglasses, and a bright red Hawaiian parka. Behind him, blue skies and observatories are visible.

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will @willduh.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

end of pride month

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Farewell, Pride Month! This was me at the start of June, with a sunburnt nose.

Guy in glasses, smiling, wearing a csulb “Beach Pride” t-shirt.

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Phil Nobile Jr. @philnobilejr.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

On this date 173 years ago, Tim Burton’s BATMAN was released

The bat symbol in gold and black, with the date June 23 listed underneath

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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 23/06/2026

The silly little ritual of Supreme Court opinion days is a perfect illustration of the justices’ self-absorption. “We’re gonna decide cases but it’s a SURPRISE which ones, so just keep refreshing this browser tab to find out who still has civil rights!” Profoundly stupid institution. I loathe it.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Vandalizing the Capitol: “get these people a payout!” “Vandalizing” the reflecting pool: “arrest these traitors!”

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

In honor of pride month, I tried a new setting on my coffee grinder and made ultra-smooth cold brew. For about five minutes in the early afternoon, I felt infinite.

A Starbucks Paris mug with ice and coffee in it sits on a black desk. Colorful bookmarks, hand salve, and some different tsums and funko pops are visible in the background.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I didn’t know Bari Weiss held salons. I kind of wonder if all salons are awful just because they designate themselves as such? Still, I’d attend the Verdurins’ salon before I’d go to a Free Press one.

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Jordan S. Carroll 🌹 @jordanscarroll.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

everyone, I have produced a report on how to remedy the decline of scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. here it is: Executive Summary: Fund the Humanities and Social Sciences. Body: Fund the Humanities and Social Sciences a hell of a lot more. Please cite this as the Carroll report.

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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

In a sane world, this would mean the loss of accreditation for Auburn, because real universities don't have their curricula decided by politicians.

insidehighered.com

Auburn Board Takes Curricular Control, Dissolves Senate

The policies mirror the directives laid out in HB 580, which doesn’t take effect until October and doesn’t apply to the institution.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Awful news about Auburn. The Board’s notion that faculty merely “deliver” the curriculum and that the board’s actions don’t conflict with accreditation are laughable.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Widow’s Bay screening and Q&A with showrunner Katie Dippold, star Matthew Rhys, and director/producer Hiro Murai. Lots of fun.

Theater screen with picture of Widow’s Bay illustration.

Three individuals mentioned in skeet sit on director’s chairs in front of screen that reads, “Widow’s Bay.”

Matthew Rhys sits in a director’s chair. He holds a microphone in his right hand and gestures with his left.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

I just sent out an email to my fall graduate seminar about textbooks...first telling them to "opt out" of our terrible campus textbook system and then letting them know about _Middlemarch_ and _Dorian Gray_. REALISM and its DISCONTENTS is happening, folks.

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Neil Hultgren @profneilh.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

I appreciate the work of @heavyredaction.bsky.social, who is mentioned in the article! There is no justification for this level of spending on AI at a time of austerity and department closures. A University System Went All In on A.I. Now It’s Tearing Itself Apart. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/m...