Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Tucker’s answer is probably “Britain, by inserting itself into Germany’s sphere of influence by opposing the Reich’s legitimate claim on Danzig.” 010
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Goodhart’s Law. Managerialism is ruining the university’s long-term potential for transformative research. 100
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Echoes of this 2015 story which seemed totally incoherent at the time but, in retrospect, completely foretold our current politics: “People around here are saying, ‘After what they did to us, let’s worry about our own instead of somebody’s right to put up art.’ ”nytimes.comIn Brooklyn, a Protest Mural Draws Its Own Protest (Published 2015)A mural painted to protest the jailing of an Iranian illustrator was vandalized after some thought it disrespectful of 9/11 victims. 010
Reposted by Will SmileyRachel Bridgewater @rachelbridgewater.bsky.social · 01/10/2026📖Just published! The first English translation of Samipaşazade Sezai's Ottoman anti-slavery novel, translated by Iclal Vanwesenbeeck and Burcu Karahan. Available in paperback for £14.99/19.95 USD📖 edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-adv... 031
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Good news! www.bostonglobe.com/2026/10/01/m...bostonglobe.comFamilies earning up to $100,000 per year will be eligible for free in-state tuition at public N.H. universities - The Boston GlobeThe new program follows similar moves elsewhere as schools grapple with the sticker shock of postsecondary education. 041
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 01/10/2026The Ottomans and Russians tried this after 1722 and all they got for it was Nadir Shah. 000
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 01/10/2026awww, are Eliot Gaiser and Josh Craddock afraid of anyone checking their homework? 1141
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 01/10/2026The NY Times at least sometimes called him "Papen" www.nytimes.com/search?endDa...nytimes.comThe New York Times - Search 030
Reposted by Will SmileyJustin F Jackson, Ph.D. @justinfdjackson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Should be required reading in every college humanities course. The Id, the Ego and the Superintelligence www.nytimes.com/2026/09/27/o...nytimes.comOpinion | The Id, the Ego and the SuperintelligenceArtificial intelligence isn’t coming for philosophers’ jobs — it needs philosophers, and always will. 131
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 26/09/2026My question is, are you Kara Mustafa or Jan Sobieski in this analogy? 110
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 25/09/2026So the executive is unitary, but HOW DARE YOU say the president’s mouthpieces might not be independent! 0151
Reposted by Will SmileyDominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026A lot of universities will be facing big deficits and looking to cure what ails them. I just want them to be thoughtful about it. 316563
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I still remember the gem from “the tire guy” explaining why one Ukrainian civilian car carrying weapons made all of them legitimate targets. And prominent think-tankers were fawning over him. 111
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Not the main point, but I hate the creep of terms like “lawful citizen” or “legal citizen” from uninformed Facebook posts into the NYT. There’s no such thing as an “unlawful citizen.” A citizen is a citizen. It’s not contingent. 0361
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I have an Excel spreadsheet, and they get back marked assignments. I thought the Canvas scoreboard gamified things too much. But I may need to open up grade access more as the semester goes on. 010
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I don’t think I’m required to, but I want it always accessible to students and it seems asking too much for them to search their email or hold onto the paper copy all semester. 110
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I now just post the syllabus to Canvas, as an attachment. Everything else is analog. 110
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Odd choice by WotR to use the Black Prince as an illustration of raiding when the Ukrainian and Don Cossacks are, like, right there 000
Reposted by Will SmileyBrendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Just got my first AI slop paper to review & am totally ripshit per @novosad.bsky.social - what a waste of time! AI is amazing but can destroy science while revolutionizing it. Editors: We are looking for journal partners to study how to use AI to make scientific publishing better (not worse). LMK! 5281
Reposted by Will SmileyRan Blekhman @blekhman.bsky.social · 23/09/2026We have to stop using "paper count" as a useful scientific metric. More writing output no longer means more knowledge gained www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...washingtonpost.comOne professor’s AI-assisted output: 200 papers and 14 books this yearAn online platform removed 257 papers written or co-written by the University of Chicago’s Nicholas Polson after other academics raised questions. 1011347
Reposted by Will SmileyNabil Al-Tikriti @nabilal-tikriti.bsky.social · 23/09/2026www.markkoyama.com/p/the-new-ag...markkoyama.comThe New Age of Academic FraudOr the Ottoman Election that Never was 043
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Love paying consultants to assess performance by administrators whose main job is to hire other consultants to assess performance by other administrators whose main job… 010
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Well we know Google and Apple have to change their usage, based on the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario precedents… 000
Reposted by Will SmileyAAUP @aaup.org · 22/09/2026"The elimination of entire departments to achieve relatively modest short-term savings risks long-term damage to research capacity, student enrollment, and institutional reputation." – Todd Wolfson, AAUP Presidentjournalstar.comFaculty group urges AAU to deny UNL readmission over budget cutsThe American Association of University Professors called the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's push to gain readmission to the AAU into question following last year's program and position eliminations. 02715
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 22/09/2026they don't seem to have realized that with Pangram, it's about to become fully transparent. Soon there will be browser plugins to run stuff through Pangram. I got ads for a Gmail plugin. I'm reminded of the Warren Buffet line, "Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked" 030
Reposted by Will SmileyJeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 21/09/2026The provost of Dartmouth, at which I teach, has been using AI to write both academic papers & national op-eds, according to brave reporting by @thedartmouth.bsky.social. Many students are already bitter about AI. This leaves us as faculty no ground to stand on. www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026...thedartmouth.comOp-eds, academic articles by Provost Santiago Schnell flagged as ‘AI-written’ by ‘near-zero error’ AI detector PangramSchnell said he used artificial intelligence for “making writing processes more efficient,” but that AI was not a “substitute” for his own “intellectual judgment or authorship.” 701480490
Reposted by Will SmileyDominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 22/09/2026There's a lot in this but I'm mainly confused by what the Provost's area of expertise is. From catholic education to biochemistry! www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026...thedartmouth.comOp-eds, academic articles by Provost Santiago Schnell flagged as ‘AI-written’ by ‘near-zero error’ AI detector PangramSchnell said he used artificial intelligence for “making writing processes more efficient,” but that AI was not a “substitute” for his own “intellectual judgment or authorship.” 3122
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 21/09/2026“To allow for appellate review, the district court should administratively stay its permanent injunction until September 28, 2026, at 5 p.m. Central Daylight Time.” Sounds like they are anticipating SCOTUS may not agree with them. 0151
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 18/09/2026I miss the days when war games were made to push the limits of simulation and modeling, even if they weren’t playable. I’ve never played CNA but NATO Division Commander and MechWar2 were of the same design philosophy. They’re so much fun to learn from. 010
Reposted by Will SmileyAaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Got to say, enjoying that Pangram (acknowledging its flaws) helps expose how much the Trump admin uses LLMs to draft its groyper nonsense social media content. 210423
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 18/09/2026like in Scotland or Catalunya, EU membership can be desirable for some minority nationalities. Spreading sovereignty upward and downward 060
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 18/09/2026And her time at FIU might actually outlast the lettuce 021
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 18/09/2026oh so the account is blocked. But it's being used for expenditures. Including paying a US firm. Sounds great. 030
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 18/09/2026cf Ussama Makdisi, "Ottoman Orientalism," The American Historical Review 107:3 (2002): 768–796. www.scribd.com/document/566...scribd.comClient Challenge 000
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 17/09/2026haha we got this too and now I can't use the automated stapling function on our expensive multifunction printer. Of course I'm not paid by the hour, so why does the university care that I'm stapling by hand instead of doing research or writing lesson plans? 110
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 17/09/2026It sure is weird that Congress passed a law saying the president can't RENAME the Kennedy Center, but somehow they never thought of saying he can't DESTROY it. Almost as if they assumed he didn't have that power to begin with, because why would he? Thanks, unitary executive theory! 020
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 17/09/2026"It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not that we be not judged." -- that is a line for the ages, so many Biblical callouts put together into an absolutely stone-cold putdown 061
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 17/09/2026I'm currently in the middle of reading Tara Zahra's "Against the World: Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics between the World Wars," and man, is it relevant. (This is not accidental: she started writing the book in 2016, seeing the contemporary resonances) 071
Reposted by Will SmileyWill Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Just published: my thoughts on Mustafa Aksakal's new book "The War that Made the Middle East," about WW1 and the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. The book can be seen as a story about disillusionment with law--constitutional and international--and the rise of authoritarianism.legalhist.jotwell.comWar, Empire, and Authoritarianism in the Middle East - Legal HistoryMustafa Aksakal, The War That Made the Middle East: World War I and the End of the Ottoman Empire (2026).William SmileyMustafa Aksakal’s new book, The War that Made the Middle East, offers a pointed a... 146
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Definitely, and this way too early for me to know the difference! 120
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 16/09/2026I can’t say for sure but my sense is those documents were used to inform tapu registers (land surveys) and kanunnames (local law codes) but probably not kept after that. I am sure it varies from place to place! In any case few Ottoman documents survive from before the late 1400a 120
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 16/09/2026The Republic also tried to sell some collections as pulp but were stopped when a page blew off the train at Sirkeci Station in front of Bulgarian Orientalist who was passing through. So those collections are now in Sofia. 170
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 16/09/2026The Brits doing that was not a forgone conclusion—the Italians dumped the Benghazi archives in the sea a few years earlier! And to be fair the Turkish Republic did some pruning, probably mostly around Armenians and WW1. 131
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Classic A/B test here: Nadir Shah burned the Safavid archives in the 18C to liquidate the old bureaucratic class. When Istanbul finally got occupied, in 1918, the Brits then Mustafa Kemal preserved the Ottoman archives. This profoundly affects historiography and memory. 1122
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Right up there with “realists” who say “Russia naturally lashes out when its pride is threatened too much” All solid ideologies melt into air, and man is at last compelled to see them all as what they are, proxies for gender 0558
Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 15/09/2026The first impeachment motion ever over jus in bello? Amazing precedent 040
Reposted by Will SmileyAsheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 15/09/2026Colleges could subsidize books for students rather than paying for premium versions of ChatGPT 6409101
Reposted by Will SmileyAsheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 15/09/2026College students are digital natives who have been deprived exposure to analog media forms like printed books and paper. The challenge for them is to learn to make sense of these media forms, not learn how to use digital technology. They already know. It’s the printed book and paper that‘s strange. 46318