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Sean DiLeonardi

@sdileonardi.bsky.social
2.1K followers 1.6K following 202 posts

Writer, literary critic, Pittsburgher, professor, director of the Center for Digital Studies (he/him) www.seandileonardi.com

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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Whalefall by Daniel Kraus was great. Did some things on the page I don’t think I’ve seen. Which every novel should try to do. Like the protagonist, I lost my dad too young. So I wasn’t ready for the absolutely gutting father/son dynamic that is the backbone of the story.
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Tim Groenland @groenbot.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
For International Translation Day, here's a dataset that me and Michaela Králová have put together on the publication of translated literature in Ireland over the past decade or so: zenodo.org/records/2304...
zenodo.org
Translated Literature Published in Ireland, 2016-2025
The Dataset This dataset collects titles of translated literature published by Irish publishers between the year 2016 and 2025. It includes any print edition of a literary title published by a publish...
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Didn’t know I even had a name for this but yes, I see now every project folder has a doc called ‘unused’ Which is not a bad hardcore band name
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J.D. Connor @jdconnor.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Sometimes the semiotic square articulates a relation of concepts that are synthesized in things; sometimes it articulates a relation among things that resolve as concepts. How can it be both? Because the semiotic square is a cootie catcher
Jameson's version of a semiotic square from Nostromo. Abstract terms duplicate character names and general categoriesKrauss's version of a semiotic square to grapple with minimalism
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
True or false: the phrase ‘Easter egg’ describes something ‘new.’ That is, sign systems (literature or otherwise) have always engaged in complex acts of signification (allusion, symbol etc) but the referent that rewards a tiny in group (fans) is distinct and therefore, we need a theory of the egg.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Finally
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
This is cool.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Learned today that Northrop Frye was on the founding editorial board for Science Fiction Studies. And Le Guin was a contributor to issue 1.
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J.D. Connor @jdconnor.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
rn you can't own tv stations that cover more than 39% of the country (by pop). The Trump FCC calls that "outdated" and wants to replace it with a "case-by-case" review (i.e., cronyism and corruption, as is their wont.) It might seem intuitive that with instant global streaming availability,
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Gotta be Chinatown, right? Except for Sunset Blvd, all other contenders seem to live in its shadow somehow, no?
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
In need of a good scare, my teens and I turned off the lights and cranked up the volume and tried out the Backrooms game for the Switch. A+ for scream factor. Just escape rooms plus jump scares
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Finally got to Bolaño’s the Savage Detectives. Wow. Not as superior as 2666, but still ambitious in its stretching of the novel’s form, and has maybe one of my all time favorite endings.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Five living writers that you've read five books by each: -Kazuo Ishiguro -Colson Whitehead -Stephen Graham Jones -Thomas Pynchon -Elena Ferrante
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
I will not make ad hominem attacks I will not make ad hominem attacks I will not make ad hominem attacks I will not even mention the sunglasses
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
My life is a hamster wheel of complaining about universities outsourcing services to private, for profit companies (who make everything worse) instead of allowing the brilliant minds from within to build and maintain things that work for us.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Jessica Pressman’s bookishness meets Baudrillard’s simulacrum.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
A Kalshi ad featuring Chalamet and Nickleback is my hell
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
I’ve been struggling with Schattenfroh by Lentz. Keep petering out around 100 pages in. Should I push through? Will the language start to stick to my brain and make meaning?
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Brendan Cantwell @cantb.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
I contribute a a section on US high education. I argue that the sector should be reformed along for principles. 1. Equitable participation 2. Democratic self-governance 3. Local responsiveness / global openness 4. Cost sustainability Check it out: storage.ghost.io/c/b6/39/b639...
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
As our bargaining committee sits down with uni lawyers to advocate for me and lots of other workers, I’m at the Carnegie (named after a strikebreaker) admiring this representation of the Pinkerton riot of 1892
Pinkerton Riot, Pittsburgh by Raymond Simboli (1948)
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Finished Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova. It you’re unfamiliar, I highly recommend. A wholly original, brilliantly crafted, and devastatingly brutal allegory for grief and loss. Literary horror at its finest.
Cover of Monstrilio.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Here’s the essay I’d like to write: In 2022, Jordan Peale made an alien flick about the difficulty of being a Black creator of blockbusters in the shadow of Spielberg (opening scene is ET, rest of film is Jaws, starting with rodeo=beach, digestion scene=WarWorlds) In 2026, Spielberg responds. /2
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Kreg Abshire @kregabshire.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
If you haven’t read this yet, fix that as soon as possible: it’s a beautifully crafted response to a great album. And if you teach literature, you might want to consider using the second and third paragraphs as an example of how close reading works.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Is the character Babs Bunny from Tiny Tunes an homage to Barbara Streisand’s character in What’s Up, Doc? Has to be right?
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
This is exciting. The Buried Giant is my favorite of his later ‘genre turn’ novels. Klara and the Sun was ok. But I’ll still read anything by Ishiguro.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
The follow up to Tender Is the Flesh, The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica (trans. Sarah Moses) hypnotized me with its first words. Came out a few hours later. Its brevity leaves you wanting more; its harrowing world makes you feverish.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
If you haven’t read it yet, get yourself a copy.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Five years ago today I defended my diss on zoom and later popped a bottle of champagne with my family and a few friends (outside, social distancing)
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Finished Hell House by Richard Matheson. I knew that somewhere in the mass grave of paperback pulps was the missing link bw Shirley Jackson and the Shining. Didn’t know how directly Matheson borrowed from Jackson and King from Matheson.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Finished Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts. A pretty fun, original take on the possession narrative. Also, second book I read recently that has a minor character full out named Stephen Graham Jones, which made me laugh both times. The other is the Bewitching by Moreno Garcia.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Update: Pitt is officially the #1 destination in the world for horror archives
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
This was my first StokerCon panel ever and it was illuminating. The dos and donts of working with influencers in the horror sphere
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Just finished Hurricane Season, the English-language debut of Fernanda Melchor. If 2666 is disturbing in the way it turns mass violence into an unsaid, unseen secret, then Melchor is inversely disturbing, putting extreme depravity on full display. Reminded me too of Mónica Ojeda’s Jawbone.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
StokerCon is in Pittsburgh this week. I’m pumped. Going to see the pulp archives at Pitt, check out some panels on contemporary horror, and try to meet some cool people.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
“What if we awake one day, all of us, and find ourselves utterly unable to read?” -Pale Fire
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Yeah ive been thinking about this. Its pretty bleak bsky.app/profile/sdil...
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
It is “impossible to imagine Pynchon or Cormac McCarthy, in early career, contemplating this with anything but horror” A documentary, a podcast, and a festival appearance … uh yeah, they would have turned down the money too
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Last year, we won a grant to start a campus podcast and we are launching this week. Our goals were to give students paid local journalism and multimedia storytelling experiences while strengthening connections bw the uni and the local community. Share and listen! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r...
podcasts.apple.com
Route 30: Stories from Westmoreland County, a Pitt-Greensburg Production
Society & Culture Podcast · Local histories, mysteries, and anecdotes about the people and places of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania as told by the student researchers of the University of Pittsburg...
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Last year, we won a grant to start a campus podcast and we are launching this week. Our goals were to give students paid local journalism and multimedia storytelling experiences while strengthening connections bw the uni and the local community. Share and listen! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/r...
podcasts.apple.com
Route 30: Stories from Westmoreland County, a Pitt-Greensburg Production
Society & Culture Podcast · Local histories, mysteries, and anecdotes about the people and places of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania as told by the student researchers of the University of Pittsburg...
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
RIP Sam Keith I bought The Maxx #1 while my mom was checking out at the grocery store. I fell in love with the art immediately and still think the series is the greatest
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
Is my wife the only person in the world who, instead of saying “press play” or “let’s start the movie,” shouts out “Roll that beautiful bean footage!” in homage to a Bush Beans 1994 ad campaign, because it would be great for me if there were others
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
I swear I don’t need any cosmic signs to start a new essay or whatever, but the new Pynchon novel and the latest Epstein dump both mention Peoria, IL, my hometown, exactly once and as a punchline for pretty much the same joke, and it sure feels like someone wants me to start writing about this.
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Post45 Data Collective @post45data.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Come “poke around” our data “to find new books and authors [you’ve] never heard of!” @jamesfolta.com makes great use of the Int'l Bestsellers dataset built by @sdileonardi.bsky.social, @beccacohen.bsky.social, & @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social on @literaryhub.bsky.social. lithub.com/find-your-ne...
lithub.com
Find your next read in this dataset of international bestsellers.
In most situations when I say “I need the data,” I’m referring to gossip, and it’s less of a “need” than what some would call a “messy curiosity.” But recently, I came across a Substack post analyz…
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Agreed. It’s also fun to see someone go through some of the same steps (What is the most read novel in the dataset?) that led us to write about The Girl on the Train here: doi.org/10.1353/sdn....
doi.org
Project MUSE -- Verification required!
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 13/02/2026
(3) But the Democrat view is also bad: while it's fine for people at Princeton and Harvard to study Latin and Sanskrit, public higher education is about job training and $ ROI. There is no room for the idea that curiosity-driven inquiry is a good that should be supported by the public.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
When we published international bestseller data with @post45data.bsky.social all I wanted was to make a Sankey diagram but never managed, now someone has. And it looks beautiful. Check it out! Source: substack.com/home/post/p-... public.flourish.studio/visualisatio...
public.flourish.studio
Publishing flows (no domestic)
A Flourish data visualization by cody
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Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Started mucking around with data this morning. Made a couple interesting charts from data about all the writers who ever got an NEA grant, with data from Xander Manshel + team. Decided I’d write it up for my first post. substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
The NEA is a Zombie
What Was the NEA?
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Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
We've got more than just a new website redesign this week: Here we offer a portrait of the university to come: without walls and without borders, online and free for all. Support Public Books: buff.ly/JF5zxCh
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
Wow, this looks fantastic. Gotta love free, open source, expert driven sharing of knowledge.
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Sean DiLeonardi @sdileonardi.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
I had a blast hosting @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social last week for our first ever Digital Studies Symposium, and now the student paper has put out a sweet little write up. It definitely nails the spirit of the event. Check it out! insiderupg.com/2026/01/29/c...
insiderupg.com
Cultural Futures: Pitt-Greensburg Symposium Showcases the Impact of Digital Studies
Pitt-Greensburg hosted its first annual Digital Studies Symposium entitled “Cultural Futures” on Jan. 21, featuring guest speaker Dan Sinykin, assistant professor of English at Emory University. Si…
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