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Susanna Sacks

@susannala.bsky.social
133 followers 38 following 56 posts

just an ordinary bin, out for a walk.

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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
"The Howard hustle does not reveal itself all at once. It emerges bit by bit, through moments that seem isolated at first but soon form a pattern of bureaucratic fear, caution, and contradiction." Grateful to Prof. Zeleza for this brilliant piece. paulddf.substack.com/p/the-ordeal...
paulddf.substack.com
The Ordeals of the Howard Hustle: Why I left Howard University
I began my journey at Howard University with a sense of long‑awaited anticipation for an institution whose physical presence seemed to embody its storied past.
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
how do other people keep track of their notes from archives? my strategy of daily word docs is ... not actually helpful
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
in case anyone's wondering whether the natl guard is treating their country's capital like enemy territory... they are
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Michelle Chappell she/her @michellechap76.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
People of #FreeDC! The primary is fast approaching, and we have the opportunity to elect Councilmember Robert White as Delegate. It won't happen without our 💪people power💪. Please follow his campaign at @robertwhite-dc.bsky.social and sign up to canvass! www.mobilize.us/mobilize/eve...
mobilize.us
Knock Doors. Build the Future. (Team White Canvass) · Mobilize
Join Team White to knock doors in the community! Everyone is invited to take part in this friendly community canvass — and if you live in D.C., we especially want you to join us for an afternoon of ta...
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Rep. Melanie Stansbury (NM-01) @repstansbury.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Speaker Johnson, we are calling on you to bring the House back to DC IMMEDIATELY! The Cabinet needs to invoke the 25th Amendment. But Congress can’t just sit on its hands and wait for that to happen when the President is threatening to commit war crimes TONIGHT.
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Hugest shoutout to the student who, last Friday, asked if she could join class remotely, because her teammates had the flu; again on Monday, since she wasn't feeling well; and, last night, because she tested positive for COVID. Public health hero.
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Josh Shepperd @joshshepperd.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
It’s going to sound quaint, but the best way to resist an AI takeover of the humanities is to assign physical books, sit around, read them, and argue about ideas. Academic has become such a competitive arena, that we ourselves are trained to look for the winning angle, instead of the best education.
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Fantastic to see DC local gov standing up for our laws. The people of DC deserve laws that reflect our needs, and we deserve representatives who honor & uphold just laws (at ALL levels of government). THANK YOU @chmnmendelson.bsky.social for this clarity
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Free DC @freedcproject.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
The bill in the Senate this week that will attempt to interfere in DC's tax code is chaotic, bad, and should get voted down — but don't take our word for it. Here's a running thread of the people and organizations who want Senators to VOTE NO on S.J. Res102: 🧵
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Brad Johnson @climatebrad.hillheat.com · 23/01/2026
It's no coincidence that the bloc of 7 Ds who cast the needed votes for ICE are also the reliable votes against climate action and DC home rule and also the heroes of the overpaid Democratic consultant class.
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
What I mean when I remind students that AI only reproduces dominant knowledge systems & further reinforces marginalization 🤢🤢🤢
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
i was today years old when i found out the mamdanis are related 🙃
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Back at it this semester, and ... a plurality of my undergrads are saying they would prefer print materials and only read digital materials because that's what their professors assign. Are others hearing similar things? Because I, for one, would LOVE to go back to requiring print editions...
media.tenor.com
a book called 6 language visual dictionary sits on a shelf with other books
ALT: a book called 6 language visual dictionary sits on a shelf with other books
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
I am beyond shocked & delighted--and deeply honored--by this recognition. So many people gave so much support & time to this book, whose work & words I hope it honors. forms.mla.org/proxy/file.p...
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Text reading, "Modern Language Association Publication Awards: MLA's Scaglione Prize for African Studies Awarded to Susanna L. Sacks for Networked Poetics: the Digital Turn in Southern African Poetry."
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
I'm not sure what it says about me that Connections is my favorite NYT game, but it can't be good
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Jonathan @jsench.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
ACLS, AHA, and MLA sue over the dismantling of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Read it: www.mla.org/content/down...
mla.org
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
ooooh this looks so goooooood
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
Back at writing after a semester filled by administrative slog, and it feels so good. 🦋 Just wish I could write a 1500 word conference paper without writing 5000 words of background first.
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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
if you thought archives were problematic, wait till you see no archives
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Updating my slides for today's class on rhythm & meter
A slide asking students to compare the meter in two lines: "No one elected Elon Musk" & "Elon Musk was not elected"
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
on days when I feel like my job is just TOO HARD and TOO MUCH, I remind myself that the **urgent** things I "have" to do today are (1) comment on a range of exciting ideas about poems I love, and (2) reread Things Fall Apart. (The job IS too much sometimes, but ... the gifts are real, too)
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
Is this "cold snap" just an LL Bean conspiracy theory?
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
a good day to teach "the master's tools," the importance of words, and how we tell stories about the past
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
Some day, I would like to write a 1500 word conference paper without writing an extra 8000 words first
A tabby cat sits on a counter next to a laptop with a word document open
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 14/10/2024
Last day to submit to ACLA! We've received some amazing proposals, with exciting connections. We're hoping for as expansive a discussion as possible... so get yours in, too! How does development shape literature? Is it all a spiral? What happens when literary scholars dip a toe in economic waters?
A black-and-white cat sleeping on a green chair, folded into himself like a spiral.
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 09/10/2024
Hi all! Lauren Horst & I are putting together an ACLA seminar on Literature & International Development. If you're interested in submitting an abstract (or know someone who might be), we'd love to have you! Please circulate & feel free to reach out with qs www.acla.org/literature-a...
acla.org
Literature and International Development | American Comparative Literature Association
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 30/08/2024
My current project is shaping up to be increasingly about how international loans become individual debt. And while many brilliant humanists are tackling this dynamic, the prevailing orthodoxy in economics seems to be that loans=aid. Is that accurate? Whose scholarship might I be overlooking?
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Jason Rhody @jasonrhody.bsky.social · 04/04/2024
The NSF Grad Research Fellowship funds at least 2,500 STEM *grad students* at approx $159k (to be used over 3 years). The NEH Fellowships for *faculty* funds an avg of 71 awards up to $60k for one year. There is 0 funding available for hum grad students. The imbalance is astonishing and harmful.
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 29/03/2024
Finally overcame my deep-seated fears of typos and ... opened the book. I would never have predicted how extraordinary it feels to peer into the physical object--to feel, immediately, the many hands that shaped it, from editor and indexer to typesetter and papermaker. It's truly awesome.
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 13/03/2024
Sigh. Bet on 2; start doing 3.
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 13/03/2024
Classes this week are ... - Intro to Marxist literary analysis - Impromptu pivot to time management & productivity hacks - Archives & information systems in literary analysis The week after spring break is, at last, my time to SHINE
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 13/03/2024
Is Word's new default font actually ... good? Or am I imagining things?
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 13/03/2024
Teaching in DC means that, when you're looking at Bill Maxwell's F. B. Eyes Digital Archive,* and a student asks a question about how FOIA works ... another student will know the answer because she manages FOIA requests for work *amazing teaching resource! omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/exhibi...
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 29/02/2024
happy publication day to me, and a huge thanks to all the people whose time & thoughts brought this book to life
The book, "Networked Poetics," is pictured with a glass of wine, a plate of cookies, and some flowers
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
nothing better in the world than sharing my favorite poems with students ... except discovering new favorites with them
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 17/01/2024
Sufficiently obsessed with my desk treadmill that I want to get a cat exercise wheel (because my cats are an extension of myself). 🤔
Two cats in front of an exercise wheel made of a bicycle tire
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 02/01/2024
😱
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 02/01/2024
Who's going to MLA? Would love to grab coffee or meal etc etc!
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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 09/12/2023
Thete's a pretty finite set of words for killing civilians where they stand after they have been corralled by force.
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 08/12/2023
I haven't been able to stop thinking about the amazing contributions @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social & I had the privilege to work with in this cluster ... and now they're 🥳 HERE! 🥳 A huge thank you to @atpost45.bsky.social & esp @franciscondine.bsky.social for their heroic work seeing it through
post45.org
Reading with Algorithms - Post45
Edited by Susanna Sacks and Sarah Brouillette
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 08/12/2023
I think spaghetti squash might be my ideal food? It takes on any flavor, absorbs olive oil beautifully, has a fun silly texture, and is ~~interactive~~
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 08/12/2023
Proofs of Networked Poetics are in! Work on this book has introduced me to extraordinary thinkers & artists, whose visions of the world transformed mine. Can't believe it will actually be coming out - in a beautifully antiquated physical form, no less! - in just a few months.
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Steven Rich @datab.ae · 05/12/2023
a note to Washington Post readers: On Dec. 7, we ask you to respect our walkout by not crossing the picket line: For 24 hours, please do not engage with any Post content. That includes our print + online news stories, podcasts, videos, games and recipes.
docs.google.com
A letter to our readers
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 06/12/2023
EXTRAORDINARILY rude of Duke UP to hold its annual sale the week I move & am therefore confronted with the consequences of my bibliomania 😠 Everyone else buy books on my behalf, plz
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Zach Griffen @runzach.bsky.social · 13/11/2023
Has anyone written a history of the SSRC?
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 31/10/2023
African lit folks, has there been much (anything) written on trans identities & dysphoria in /A Question of Power/? Student comments got me thinking about how that would intersect with the book's broader social/structural critiques...
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 30/10/2023
Sociology of literature is still a theory, right? So a class on "literary theory" that's just sociology ... that, uh, counts? asking for a friend.
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 04/10/2023
#1 goal for book #2: develop good Zotero habits
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Susanna Sacks @susannala.bsky.social · 21/09/2023
today is my parents' 42nd anniversary. Asked if she'd imagined this day, my mom* responded in the sweetest possible way *the woman who thinks my father is responsible for my interest in poetry & symbolism 🙄
"No. The future was not clearly defined. It was there but was not filled in as it isn’t when you are younger.  It’s been lovely to have our anniversary fall between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur this year, times of beginning, transition, and reflection. So too to remember that transition 42 years ago, that beginning, and to reflect on these 42 years!"
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