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Roger Whitson

@rogerwhitson.bsky.social
1.4K followers 1.9K following 668 posts

lit and media prof @WSU — science fiction, buddhism, william blake, science & tech studies, polyamory.

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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
i went on a Benjamin wormhole early last year after watching that Netflix show Transatlantic and found this quote! I always felt that Benjamin would be one of those friends with whom you'd spontaneously have amazing conversations - then wouldn't see them for months or years.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
she's amazing. total aca-fan here.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Hui also brings up Asimov's laws of robotics and suggests that it parallels slavery: slave has to obey orders and can be killed by owner w/out being able to resist. Commodification of tech & issues of ownership. How do we imagine AI ethics w/out it being resentment against the powerless?
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Reading and enjoying Yuk Hui's Kant Machine. I'm on the morality chapter and he argues that the so-called AI Alignment Problem (will AI goals align w/ humans) begs the question: what are the goals of humans? as individuals? as members of a group? as a species? what are we talking about? +
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
true
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
why do you feel we don't believe it? not questioning, just trying to follow closer.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
never has there been a better [what's the new word for tweet?]
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
i love them. i don't even know them and i love them.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
what's this from?
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
i basically invented my own system of notes in grad school including marginalia. then at the end of the chapter, i had to write down the four most essential points of the chapter in one sentence or less. i just decided to do that and it helped.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
But I also love buying old books w/ notes in them. it's like marginalia acting as this record of where it's been and who's thought about it .
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
i totally do that but by underlining. 😬 Books i read multiple times are underlined two and three times w/ notes and the whole book is underlined.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
a freaking huge novel too!
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
you're amazing.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
OMG, i didn't realize that @ryancordell.org had a commonplace book assignment, but it makes total sense that he would have.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
thank you!
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonp...
en.wikipedia.org
Commonplace book - Wikipedia
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
"Work and life become inseparable. Capital follows you when you dream. Time ceases to be linear, becomes chaotic, broken down into punctiform divisions. As production and distribution are restructured, so are nervous systems." —Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Thanks!
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
I'm still wondering if people are reducible to their transportation patterns. If so, how do we know all of star trek doesn't take place inside a pattern buffer? or a holodeck programmed w/ their patterns? if not, the usual problems are still there. also: wtf are the heisenberg compensators doing?
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
c.f. saree makdisi's work on imperialism and bourgeoisie revolutions...
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
McCoy and Pulaski, such Luddites...
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
lol.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
I forgot this is why The Prestige is the only Nolan film I like!
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
stuff like this is precisely why Derrida talks about "that dangerous supplement." i'm firmly in the camp that transportation tech kills the original (if there ever was one) and creates clones each time someone uses it to beam to a planet. So, this would work, but only if you accept the above.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
trl h/t @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social mail.cyberneticforests.com/the-system-f...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
The System From Nowhere
When Accountability Goes Rogue 💡I recently spoke with Dr. Zena Assaad for her podcast, Responsible Bytes. Video is above, below is an essay adapted from the conversation. "The system from nowhere" i...
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Does anyone in my corner of BlueSky keep a commonplace book? I'm thinking of adding it to my syllabus for the Fall as a way to get back to handwriting/manuscript culture. But I'd like to offer students some particularly good examples. Thanks!
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Reposted by Roger Whitson
Astra Taylor @astra.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Yup. Contrary to their claims, the Third Way class is actually a lot more afraid of the left winning than the left losing. The last thing they want is a successful left that governs well.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
yeah, i saw that. i've been dealing with crazy fires and i think my algorithm is a bit off.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
also @johnpwalter.bsky.social did a ton of work for SLU's Ong archive, which has a bunch of useful texts. digitalcollections.slu.edu/digital/coll...
digitalcollections.slu.edu
CONTENTdm
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
yup yup yup. I read it in the second year of my MA. I'm constantly going back to it (more than McLuhan or Kittler) and it's still relevant despite its shortcomings.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Rock on! Very cool.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I have an article on Lovelace's notes and a pretty concise explanation of her math (if I do say so myself) in Victorian Studies (67.3), just fyi. muse.jhu.edu/article/979077
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
oh yeah. we didn't have to evacuate. the southern-most evac zone was about 10 minutes by car from our house. but that's been downgraded since then.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Hope you're ok Donna!
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
20. What are things you look for in a book? Depends on the book: 1. sci-fi: good worldbuilding and weird ideas. 2. horror: overcoming my psych defense mechanisms. 3. philosophy: weird and wild creation of concepts. ;)
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
19. Most disliked popular books? 1. Any conservative book (Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh) 2. Twilight/50 Shades 3. Ready Player One 4. Lord of the Flies 5. How to Read Like a Professor (b/c it's simplistic BS).
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
18. Do You Like Historical Books? What time period? 19thC 1. The Beetle, Richard Marsh 2. Middlemarch, George Eliot 3. Lady Audley's Secret, Mary Elizabeth Braddon 4. Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens 5. Zofloya, Charlotte Dacre
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
17. top 5 children's books? 1. One Monster After Another, Mercer Mayer 2. Songs of Innocence, William Blake 3. Brother's Book/Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sandak 4. Oh the Places You'll Go, Dr. Seuss 5. Elephant and Piggy, Mo Willams
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
16. how many books have you read this year? I have no idea, but I probably finished around 30.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
recommend and review a book. I have a ton of reviews on my goodreads site. But I'll recommend a few: 1. Kim Stanley Robinson, Ministry for the Future 2. NK Jemisin, The Fifth Season Trilogy 3. Ray Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea 4. RF Kuang, Babel 5. Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
do you ever dogear or mark in your books? I'm really hard on my books. I write in them, sometimes break their spine, dogear, etc.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
do you have a goodreads. Yes I do: www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
goodreads.com
Roger Whitson
Author of William Blake and the Digital Humanities, Digital Humanities Quarterly, and William Blake and the Digital Humanities
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Did you enjoy any compulsory high school readings? Homer, The Odyssey Dante, The Inferno Shakespeare, Hamlet and Macbeth F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby Leo Tolstoy, "How Much Land Does a Man Need?"
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
11. what non-fiction books do you like, if any? Top 5? 1. How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan 2. When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron 3. Rebuilt, Michael Chorost 4. Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, Sydney Padua 5. A Thousand Plateaus, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
10. do you have a guilty fav? not really. i went through years and years of being teased because i brought comics to my school as a kid. but i don't really believe in guilty pleasures. you read what you read.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
9. When do you tend to read the most? In the evenings after dinner. It's been harder to keep that schedule w/ kids, but I try.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
8. what is the first book you remember reading yourself? I'm gonna go with comics for this one: I remember reading Superman #400, Superman: From the 30's to the 70's. Probably the first big book I read was The Stand.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
7. Is there a series/book that got you into reading? I read comics for years before novels. I'd say the DragonLance Chronicles by Hickman and Weiss really got me into reading novels. Also, Stephen King's The Stand and Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar series.
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Roger Whitson @rogerwhitson.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
What books have you read in the last month? *Theory and Practice by Michelle de Krester *The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson *Dreadstar Omnibus vol. 1 by Jim Starlin *Transformers vol. 5: Generation One by Kirkman and Mora *Freud & Beyond by Stephen A. Mitchell
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