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Tim Elfenbein

@timelfen.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1.3K following 4.3K posts

Principal of Forthcoming LLC, a publishing consultancy; Member of @limnpress.bsky.social editorial collective; Researcher & practitioner of scholarly publishing; Digital explorer–analog sailor; Victim of meaning.

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Reposted by Tim Elfenbein
Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 15h
I don't understand this. 52 years later, why try and replicate the original? It's obviously not going to be the same study. The world has changed; cars, traffic, and people have changed. If one is interested in false memory, why not design the best study you can? What can you conclude meaningfully?
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Julien Porquet @julienporquet.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
💥 New publication, my first in an anthropology journal! It's a re-evaluation of branding as a process not just of linking of qualities to a brand persona, but also de-linking the existing connections between the same qualities and freelance artists. Open source! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
In the Wake of Brands: De-Enregisterment and Re-Enregisterment | Signs and Society | Cambridge Core
In the Wake of Brands: De-Enregisterment and Re-Enregisterment
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Signs and Society @signsandsociety.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
🆕New Article Alert! What do wine tasting and identifying animal scat have in common? 🍷💩 Quite a lot, it turns out! Dr. Xiao Schutte Ke examines how Tibetan community experts and Han-Chinese conservation scientists learn to see and identify wildlife scat together. 🧵1/6
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Robin James @robinjames.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Tbh Catholic phenomenology had a renaissance in the 2000s/2010s so it is kind of no surprise that the Pope has a more robust philosophical account of AI than tech bros do, sounds like he is working from that tradition…
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Holy nuts, I just bought a boat.
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
While I support this new limit, to finally put an end to all these allegations of my use of LLMs, I have decided to limit myself to posting only one thoroughly researched, carefully considered, groundbreaking 8000-word manuscript every 10 days. If that won’t shut up the critics, nothing will.
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Reposted by Tim Elfenbein
Thoth Open Metadata @thoth-metadata.eurosky.social · 01/10/2026
Preprint: Not Plausible, But Verifiable - Scholarly Metadata in the Age of AI. Preprint, by Toby Steiner and Vincent van Gerven Oei. Article forthcoming in Tendencia Editorial UR Nº 41 (U. del Rosario, Bogotá) at FIL Guadalajara 2026. doi.org/10.59350/c1v...
doi.org
Not Plausible, But Verifiable: Scholarly Metadata in the Age of AI
by Toby Steiner & Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei Preprint; to appear in tendencia editorial UR – Nº 41 Especial · Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, 2026
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
One of the best questions we can all ask these days is, “How?” It’s simple and smart and a non-answer tells you as much as an answer. Skynet is going to kill is? How? We are moving to the moon? How? Build a big net around earth? How??
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Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Working on this reported essay, just published, increasingly took over my life for the last two months. PEN America did a terrible disservice with its sloppy reporting about American Jews and Israelis in publishing in July. Josh Lambert and I tried to do better. jewishcurrents.org/what-pen-ame...
jewishcurrents.org
What PEN America Got Wrong About Antisemitism in Publishing
Misleading anecdotes, flawed data, and oversimplified analyses are at the heart of a narrative of Jewish exclusion promoted by the free expression…
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Kevin Sanders @kjsanders.eurosky.social · 01/10/2026
I've been reviewing old OA lore, and it is very frustrating that there has been a through-line of failure with regards to recognising OA as more of question (or series of questions) rather than an answer.
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
<bullhorn>Put the manuscript down and step away from your computer. That’s it . . . slowly.
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Reposted by Tim Elfenbein
Open Book Collective @openbookcollective.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Our annual report for May 25-April 26 is now out! It’s been a year of steady growth, with new library supporters, new publishers, and new faces. Between them our members published 326 OA books in this time, an impressive output that rivals many commercial publishers! obc.copim.pub/six-years-in...
obc.copim.pub
Six years in the making: our 2025–26 Annual Report is here
Our 2025–26 Annual Report: 98 supporting libraries, 326 open access books from our members, new Diamond OA funding, and the OBC's move to independence.
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Cathy Davidson @cathyndavidson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Today, we announced that HASTAC is closing as an interactive social network after 25+ years of innovative, exciting, and equitable learning, scholarship, and community focusing on technology and its impact on society. educational-cultural-institutions.hastac.hcommons.org/2026/09/29/s...
educational-cultural-institutions.hastac.hcommons.org
Sunsetting the HASTAC Network After 25+ Great Years: Farewell and Appreciation From HASTAC Co-Directors Cathy N. Davidson and Shelly Eversley – Educational and Cultural Institutions
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American Ethnological Society // American Ethnologist (journal) @amethno.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
We are delighted to announce the co-winners of this year's AE Senior Book Prize: Rosalind Morris for Unstable Ground: The Lives, Deaths, and Afterlives of Gold in South Africa & Danilyn Rutherford for Beautiful Mystery: Living in a Wordless World.
americanethnologist.org
2026 AES Senior Book Prize Winners Announced! - American Ethnological Society
by Danilyn Rutherford
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Meredith Martin @mmvty.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
german.duke.edu/news/structu... this looks incredible
german.duke.edu
Structure, Sign, and Play in the Age of AI
In October of 1966---60 years ago---Johns Hopkins held a conference that is now widely seen as the hinge point when structuralism gave way to poststructuralism. Jacques Derrida delivered his paper "St...
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 08/09/2026
First class of the semester is completed. Running iteration 9 of my seminar, How to Pay Attention. Doing it fully on paper this year, but the web copy of the syllabus is here: classes.nickseaver.net/HTPA/
classes.nickseaver.net
How to Pay Attention
Undergraduate seminar critically examining attention: how it is measured, valued, and managed in social, cultural, and technical contexts, from driver monitoring to AI.
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Julian Go @juliango.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Latest news: 2 of my sociology colleagues, John Levi Martin & Geoff Wodtke & I each wrote separate reviews of the Vanderbilt-Wash U Report on Sociology by A. Rubin. For my brief opinion and links to all 3 reviews, see this blogpost: scatter.wordpress.com/2026/09/19/g...
scatter.wordpress.com
guest post: scholarly malpractice and the vanderbilt-washington university report on sociology
The following is a guest post by Julian Go. By now readers of scatterplot will be aware of the Sociology portion of the Vanderbilt-Washington University Report (VWUR) by Ashley Rubin. Part of the “…
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Dan Rudmann @danrdmnn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A Poetics of Infrastructural Salvage is now published at FLL: fll.pubpub.org/pub/apois/re...
fll.pubpub.org
A Poetics of Infrastructural Salvage
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Pat Savage @patrickesavage.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I've now read the full key sub-report on anthropology by Joe Henrich on which the Vanderbilt report's most explosive conclusions were based (the sub-report was just published, >3 months late). As I expected, it does not provide evidence of a "deterioration in scholarly standards" in the humanities.
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Lisa Messeri @lmesseri.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I took the time to read this (and the appendices). Didn’t love it! But in the spirit of constructive engagement, a few take aways (and would love other anthropologists' thoughts as well)...
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Samuel Moore @samuelmoore.org · 28/09/2026
"The South African Open Science Policy 2026 [...] is formally committed to the democratisation of knowledge and epistemic equity. Yet a critical reading reveals that the Policy reproduces, through its own discursive architecture, the epistemological hierarchy it claims to dismantle."
nature.com
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Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
i've read from many that "gold standard science" sounds good in principle and that could not be farther from my truth. there is no such thing, there cannot be such a thing, and the sheer thought that it could actually be a good idea betrays a complete ignorance about science and scholarship.
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Catherine D'Ignazio (she/her/ella) @kanarinka.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
MIT spent $3 million on 500 AI-capable surveillance cameras while laying people off, shutting down libraries, and canceling journal subscriptions. In this article, 4 faculty & I discuss our new arts initiative to celebrate surveillance and repression on college campuses: fnl.mit.edu/how-we-learn...
fnl.mit.edu
How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Campus Surveillance – MIT Faculty Newsletter
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
“STET Fight!: Authors and Copyeditors Collectively Spent 120,000 hours Arguing about Commas in Article Manuscripts Last Year, Up 18%.” *Copyediting Insider,* May 28, 2023.
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
“What’s Leather Got to Do With It?: Love and Intimacy During the Decline of Punk Liberalism,” in *Post-Punk Autopoeisis: Queering Systems or Systematizing Queerness?* (Duke University Press: 2017).
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
“The Rhombus of Infinite Subjugation and the Shape of Things to Come: Geometric Affect and Popular Criticism of Tech.” *Journal of Abjection* 5(11): 1104-1167.
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Hear hear Danilyn. “It’s been depressing to waste my time on this. Reading about the research that anthropologists are actually doing will cheer me up.”
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Reposted by Tim Elfenbein
Ajantha Subramanian @ajanthasubramanian.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Check out my co-authored essay with Jeff Maskovsky in response to the Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and the Humanistic Social Sciences: www.anthropology-news.org/articles/a-c...
anthropology-news.org
A Conservative Hit Job in the Age of MAGA - Anthropology News
The Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and the Humanistic Social Sciences is not a neutral audit; it is a tactical hit job on
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Samuel Moore @samuelmoore.org · 25/09/2026
'Matthias and her co-authors note that diamond fractures are not failures of individual journals, but reflect the challenges that journals face in a publishing ecosystem that “rewards commercialization and provides insufficient structural alternatives”.'
nature.com
Hundreds of ‘free’ academic journals have started charging fees
A study tracking diamond open-access journals has found an increase in titles switching to other publishing models — especially over the past few years.
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Open Journals Collective @ojcollective.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Coming soon! @ojcollective.bsky.social's Impact Dashboard, an open source web platform based on open data sources, that we're developing in partnership with @openbookcollective.bsky.social and @dqprogramming.bsky.social www.openjournalscollective.org/news/update-...
openjournalscollective.org
Update on OJC's Impact Dashboard — Open Journals Collective
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I got to TA for Bonnie right before she retired from UC-Irvine’s Informatics department. She’s done amazing work in human-computer interaction.
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Sebastian Gießmann @sebgiessmann.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Bonnie Nardi is truly great! Love her book on "Heteromation", co-authored with the formidable Hamit Ekbia. Should also be a must-read for all those AI-crazy people! And luckily, I just found out that it is now available in open access 👉 direct.mit.edu/books/monogr...
direct.mit.edu
Heteromation, and Other Stories of Computing and Capitalism
An exploration of a new division of labor between machines and humans, in which people provide value to the economy with little or no compensation.The comp
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This conversation got surprisingly Kantian.
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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Publishing alchemy turning diamonds into gold... www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Hundreds of ‘free’ academic journals have started charging fees
A study tracking diamond open-access journals has found an increase in titles switching to other publishing models — especially over the past few years.
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Will Beaman @greenbackbetter.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Paternity testing writing for AI authorship just doesn’t work and frankly runs counter to the citational and social character of all writing. The most sustainable long-term approach to this issue is prioritizing good writing over bad writing, as we have always done. Plus FUNDING THE ARTS.
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Caroline Ball @heroicendeavour.eurosky.social · 21/09/2026
Still looking for librarians to complete our survey on how your library actually makes the decision to support OA initiatives - any country, any initiative. 📚
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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"All corners of academia will soon be flooded with AI-generated research....Maths and CS go first because their entire output is symbol manipulation...Biology comes later not because biologists are cleverer but because the rate-limiting step is physical" giorgio.gilest.ro/the-weimar-o...
giorgio.gilest.ro
The Weimar of knowledge – la bottega
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
We make it to the eastern end of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal at 7:30, & ties up at the town dock in Chesapeake City, 3/4 through the canal, at 9:30. After 30 hours of moving, we’re finally at rest for a few hours. Wash down, coffee, real bathroom, sleep, then breakfast are the order of the day.
The boat at the Chesapeake City docks, near the 537 bridge.
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Up again for the 2-5am watch. We’ve rounded Cape May & are racing up Delaware Bay. The breeze has increased to 18-21, directly astern. James has us going wing-on-wing, with the main on one side & the genoa on the other, but the auto helm is having a hard time steering straight enough in the swell.
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The Cape May light is in sight. We must decide whether to cut the corner, in the dark, or continue on 6 more miles to the reach the channel.
View from the cockpit with the jib lit by the deck light and the cockpit by the chartplotter and instruments. The lights from the New Jersey shoreline are visible on the horizon.
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The two of us are on a 3hr-on-off watch system, & I’ve got the 8-11pm shift. The breeze has continued is very to the SE but has increased again to 15-18, so we’re flying along at up to 9kts. I can’t quite get the genoa trimmed correctly but without a barber hauler, there’s not much I can do.
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Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · 19/09/2026
"A Reader’s Guide To The Rubin Report." John Levi Martin on @ashleytrubin.bsky.social's disciplinary report on sociology: "focused on whether she actually marshaled evidence to support her arguments, and whether she correctly represents her sources." osf.io/preprints/so... @socarxiv.bsky.social
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Very grey day off the coast of New Jersey. We’re making good time, averaging around 7kts. As forecasted, the wind is abating & slowing clocking to the east. I’m at the edge of nausea, from the sea state mostly but also thinking of the weight of this endeavor, of moving my family onto a boat.
View from the cockpit looking at the thin line of the New Jersey coast on the horizon.
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Engines off, full sail, wind just aft of the beam blowing NE 15-19kts. 3-5ft waves right on the beam making it pretty rocky for the time being. Should get better as we turn further off the wind, more directly south. We’re starting to round Sandy Hook. Boat averaging around 7kts.
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Brooklyn being Brooklyn.
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
On the way from Long Island to the Chesapeake on the boat soon to be my home. Nice early morning passage down the East River.
Predawn at the gas dock. He’ll Gate Bridge off Randalls Island. The United Nations building. Brooklyn Bridge.
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Tim Elfenbein @timelfen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
My wife was at the dentist the other day, where at one point he said to her, “Looks like you floss more than you jog,” and we’re still trying to interpret this. Straight compliment? Passive-aggressive compliment? Complimentary insult? Inside joke told to outsider? We’re still not sure.
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Samuel Moore @samuelmoore.org · 17/09/2026
Grateful for the review of my book by Aube Richebourg in the recent issue of Science and Technology Studies sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi/issue/view/1...
sciencetechnologystudies.journal.fi
Making sure you're not a bot!
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Erratum Press @erratumpress.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
ERRATUM welcomes new library supporters [see link for how you can recommend the press to your library too] theoryfictionconsortium.substack.com/p/erratum-we... @openbookcollective.bsky.social
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Samuel Moore @samuelmoore.org · 17/09/2026
"The union said that its members had rejected Elsevier’s pay offer, which “failed to offer a significant real-terms pay increase to staff” despite the company making an adjusted operating profit of more than £1 billion in 2025."
researchprofessionalnews.com
Workers at The Lancet to stage first strike in title’s history - Research Professional News
Union members at 200-year-old medical journal vote overwhelmingly to walk out over stagnating pay
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