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Adam Stock

@sztockmann.bsky.social

1.3K followers 557 following 85 posts

Book nerd interested in utopia/dystopia, SF & modernism. Senior Lecturer in English Lit. Currently thinking about deserts (& usually also dessert) ✡️🌈He/him

Posts Replies Media

Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

Has anyone ever *actually seen* a dreidel made of clay?

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Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Nothing speaks more to passive aggressive hostilities in literary studies than this sign in the Lit&Phil library. There’s a whole campus novel waiting to be written (and critically panned) about how this sign came into being.

Notice on a journals bookshelf reading “due to theft/vandalism Literary Review will now be kept permanently behind the desk. Please ask a member of staff if you would like to read it”

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Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

It’s not a real German Xmas market if it doesn’t feature at least one roast insect stall

Food stall in Heidelberg Christmas market selling “Schreck Snack Insekten” (grasshoppers)

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Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

In 2005 Ursula Le Guin & Vonda McIntyre wrote a short satirical story for Nature, imagining the consequences of a piece of software like grammar checkers (which are "preventing the perpetration of any sentence longer than ten words") to correct maths. doi.org/10.1038/458250a #AI #AcademicSky

quote from story: "Doomsayers and elitists have proclaimed that the problem of innumeracy may be even greater than that of illiteracy, but all that is behind us too. Just as the pocket calculator freed us from the horrors of the times-tables and the slide rule, now, with RithChek™ installed in every computer, the whole problem of mathematics vanishes. Nothing is required but moderate keyboard proficiency (thumbs will do), the ability to count, and familiarity with a few elementary symbols, such as +, −, ×, (), √−1.

Any calculation, the simplest addition or the most complex computation, from two times two to the billionth place of π, can be instantly checked for accuracy and corrected. Using RithChek™, powerful but intuitive, millions of people who have been unfairly barred from achievements in theoretical and applied science by a mere lack of interest, ability, or training in mathematics are freed to turn their minds loose on the great problems of physics, astrophysics, cosmology, and engineering."

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Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 25/10/2024

I'm at Freiburg Universität today for the FRIAS conference for ECRs on Popular Culture and Democracy, which has opened with some great speakers. I'll be speaking later on about liberal violence using Stoker, Coetzee, Indra Sinha and Claire Coleman. #AcademicSky

Poster image for Popular Culture and Democracy conference, FRIAS Freiburg, 24-26 October
Keynote lecture details:
Thursday, October 24, 2024, 16:30h
Popular Culture to the Rescue: Advancing Democratic Ideals through
Feminist Media Studies and Critical Pedagogy
Wendy Weinhold, Associate Professor for Communication, Media, and Culture, Coastal Carolina University, U.S.
Friday, October 25, 2024, 16:30h
Forms of Migration: Liberal Violence and Colonialism in Speculative Fictions
Adam Stock, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, York St John University, UK and residential fellow at
CAPAS Heidelberg
Saturday, October 26, 2024, 12:45h
Political Animals: Pets, Politics, and Reality Television
Maria Sulimma, TT. Prof. for North American Literature and Cultural Studies, University of Freiburg
All keynote lectures are held at the FRIAS lecture hall and are open to the public.

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Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 22/09/2024

In 2014 I heard Fredric Jameson lecture at CUNY while visiting a friend, just before American Utopia was published. No one was quite sure how to take it. He wore v. shiny silver sneakers. He was an extraordinary writer& thinker. I learn something new every time I read his work

Fredric Jameson on stage in NYC 2014 wearing very shiny silver trainers

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Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 18/09/2024

As LOTO last season he couldn't possibly be expected to just stand with the rest of the crowd like -checks notes- Jeremy Corbyn did at the Emirates throughout his time as Labour leader.

Jeremy Corbyn in a crowd of Arsenal fans at the Emirates stadium, 2018

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Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 08/09/2024

I did the Great North Run 11 minutes faster than the last time, which was 20 years ago. Sets a high bar for 2044 mind 😂

A wrist with a running watch showing 21.1km, average pace 4”36/km; total time 1:37:17.

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Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 16/07/2024

V. Possible it was writtren 1936 but it depends on Gollancz's turnaround, publication month etc. From memory, I think she wrote novels very quickly once she had the idea. I wondered if the book was commenting on Nazi 1937 show trials of Niemöller + some Catholic priests & monks at a few points.

Highlighted book page: "persecution of Christian opponents continued with questionable success, culminating in two successive trials of the head of the Protestant Confessing Church, Martin Niemöller, in 1937 and 1938. Niemöller was sent to a concentration camp, which elicited widespread sympathy at home and abroad – including in Catholic France (Orlow 2009, 110–11).
In terms of Catholicism meanwhile, the Nazis achieved a major breakthrough in relations with the Vatican when they signed the Reichskonkordat in 1933 regulating the relationship between the German State and German Catholics... As with most of their foreign policy deals, the Nazi leadership viewed this as purely instrumental and they regularly broke its terms. In March 1937 (the year of Swastika Night’s publication), Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (With Burning Concern), detailing Nazi violations of the Reichskonkordat. In response the Nazis put on a series of show trials of monks and clergymen..."

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Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 02/01/2024

Made dough for Pizza Night for 20 odd people at my in-laws. Also made cinnamon rolls which were 👌

Pizza Florentina perfectly cooked with a runny yolk

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Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 16/11/2023

Absolute scandal, astute millenary observers will have picked up, is that Durham robes no longer come with the ridiculous pom-pom hat (pictured from last year)

Last year’s graduation robes with pom-pom hat

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Adam Stock @sztockmann.bsky.social · 16/11/2023

Obligatory YSJ graduation day selfie

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