Posts Tagged ‘tenure’
July the 5th Be With You Links
* I have spent the entirety of my academic career so far watching the intensified hollowing-out of my profession. The destruction is not limited to those friends and grad-school colleagues whose “job hunt” turned up nothing—or turned up academic jobs which make the same demands as the tenure track without the same job security. The harm can be counted, too, in the numberless person-hours every academic I know has spent tailoring job application materials, drafting custom syllabuses, and performing all the other rituals of applicant abjection. If you care about the work scholars do, the atmosphere is demoralizing. It is, to be sure, worse in worse jobs: when I was a part-time adjunct, I found the isolation particularly depressing, and I liked my “individualized” health insurance plan even less. But even in a good job with outstanding colleagues and students all around, something eats away at the ordinary routines of my academic life: all the day-to-day work of simply doing the job (teaching the students, carrying on the research, going to the meetings, the meetings, the meetings) takes on more than a tinge of denial, something for the few of us who have good academic jobs to do while we wait for the last curtain to fall on professional scholarship. Nor is it encouraging to witness the parade of more active forms of denial: bad-faith solutions, illusory comforts, and intellectualized excuses for selfishness. But mostly I regret the good work that could have been done by all of us in a better, more just system.
* Mills College Lays Off Five Tenured Professors.
* Prerequisites: “You will need to have seen Star Wars (episode four: A New Hope) and read The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien.” The syllabi of Junot Díaz.
* Space is the Place: A Crash Course in the Sounds of Afrofuturism.
* A call for applications: Foundation is looking for a book review editor.
* * The “mass graves” story I linked yesterday was fake. Thanks to a longtime reader for the tip. I wonder what the point of making this up was; the best I could come up with was that it was for research about how news spreads on the left and on the right.
* 25 at 50. The 25th amendment is a fantasy.
* Not our Independence Day. Toward a Marxist Interpretation of the US Constitution.Capitalism and Slavery.
* This woman’s name appears on the Declaration of Independence. So why don’t we know her story?
* CTRL-F “rape” CTRL-F “slave” CTRL-F “Hemings”
* Speaking of which: Sally Hemings’s slave quarters have been discovered at Monticello. And from the archives: The Monster of Monticello.
* Dear TNI Contributors, Our August issue theme is PATRIOTS.
* Seize the Hamptons. Probably should take a look at seizing the governor’s mansion in New Jersey, too.
* In sum, here’s what they found: If you’re going to die via an asteroid, it will be the wind and shockwave that gets you.
* Why Roman concrete still stands strong while modern version decays.
* Mother charged with child endangerment for leaving her ten-year-old in the LEGO store unattended.
* ‘Beta Males’ Want To Kill Women Because They Can’t Get Laid.
* The Democrats Are Eisenhower Republicans. Even that seems too kind a description for Rahm Emanuel.
* What does opposition do that resistance doesn’t? It offers a positive agenda for a better social contract, embedded in institutional transformations. Like, for example, everything that Dems don’t ever propose: real universal healthcare, public media, public higher education, debt relief, real safety nets, and so on. A social contract — whole and full and true.
* But don’t worry folks; we’ve got this.
It’s called Win the Future, and Pincus is even courting potential WTF candidates like the frontman of ’90s rock band Third Eye Blind.
* This Is Why Antarctic Sea Ice Crashed This Year.
* U.S. judge finds that Aetna deceived the public about its reasons for quitting Obamacare.
* Never forget: America didn’t die, they murdered it.
* New justices usually take years to find their footing at the Supreme Court. For Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who joined the court in April, a couple of months seem to have sufficed. His early opinions were remarkably self-assured. He tangled with his new colleagues, lectured them on the role of the institution he had just joined, and made broad jurisprudential pronouncements in minor cases.
* UK cops routinely raided police databases to satisfy personal interest or make money on the side.
* Greetings, E.T. (Please Don’t Murder Us.) Check your privilege, NYT. You don’t speak for me.
* A stressed, sleep-deprived couple accidentally invented the modern alien abduction phenomenon.
* Always money in the banana stand: Congressional panel puts plans for a US Space Corps in 2018 defense budget.
* Journalism in America in 2017.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
It had been crossing so long it could not remember. As it stopped in the middle to look back, a car sped by, spinning it around. Disoriented, the chicken realized it could no longer tell which way it was going. It stands there still.
* Nice work if you can get it: Controversial U of T professor making nearly $50,000 a month through crowdfunding.
* When basic common sense seems radical: Civilians shouldn’t have to de-escalate police.
* Forget the blood of teens. This pill promises to extend life for a nickel a pop. Forget the blood of teens? Screw you, Wired, you don’t speak for me either!
* And a few Fourth of July links from my Tumblr: Check out Captain Woke. What have you done to keep liberty alive? Untitled (Questions). Don’t Tread on Me. Brain expansion meme. Spang!
#SFRA2017-turday Links!
* Keep watching #SFRA2017! It’s been a great conference. And it contains gems like this. Two other little theoretical highlights from my scattered live-tweeting:
* The audio from last week’s Octavia Butler conference at the Huntington is now up at Soundcloud. I’m track 7!
* Sci-Fi Legend Samuel R. Delany Doesn’t Play Favorites.
* Will losing health insurance mean more US deaths? Experts say yes. Republicans Left Ron Johnson for Dead Last Year, Now He Could Kill Their Health Care Bill. Crowdfunding is the Sad, Dark Future of Healthcare.
* Trump’s Twitter and the judgment of history. Bill to create panel that could remove Trump from office quietly picks up Democratic support.
* The Internet Is Actually Controlled By 14 People Who Hold 7 Secret Keys.
* After the president’s tweet, I must withdraw my support for everything but his agenda.
* Getting closer and closer to the point where Republicans say it was good that Trump colluded with Putin. This is 100% guaranteed and will be the official position of Your Dad in six months.
* More on the voter suppression commission.
* The Trump Administration Is Using Immigrant Children as Bait to Deport Their Parents. Afghanistan’s All-Girl Robotics Team Can’t Get Visas To The US.
* Why isn’t Kirsten Gillibrand running for president? Or is she?
* The moral code of Chinese sex workers.
* Political correctness is destroying this country’s cultural heritage.
* When someone says something mean to me. The kids just call it “Twitter.” And I want your secret.
Trapped Inside of LAX with the MKE Blues Again
* A great Storify from the great @moyabz of the great Octavia Butler conference at the Huntington this weekend. By universal acclamation, one of the best-loved moments. Check out the exhibit of her papers if you’re able to get near there! It’s gorgeous.
* You are living in a death cult.
* Every lie Trump has told as president, a very long list by the New York Times.
* Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault.
* Union-busting for God: Catholic colleges and adjunct organizing.
* Student Evaluations at Center of American University Tenure Fight. Given the research on the implicit bias of student evaluations and the obvious perverse incentives involved it is incredible to me that any college administration in the country feels empowered to use them for anything.
* When the Dean Quashes Your Class: An Interview with Jay Smith.
* Major medical groups call for rejection of Senate health bill. This is the biggest pure giveaway to the rich in the Republican health bill. Can’t wait to hear from the centrist Dems why it’s wrong for Bernie to do this. No single payer in Communist-run California, of course.
* Trump’s election integrity commission needs to redress voter suppression, not fraud. Counterpoint: it’s a voter suppression commission, that is literally the entire point of it.
* Trump says pretending to have Comey tapes “wasn’t very stupid.” The video is stunning even by Trump standards. Still, after this, I’ll probably vote for him.
* Once more with feeling: Never Trump is not a thing.
* Forced into debt. Worked past exhaustion. Left with nothing. Indentured servitude in the transportation industry in California.
* Mountain lions have better politics than just about every human being.
* Science isn’t an exact science with these clowns.
* Surely the best ending of any New York Times column ever.
* From the archives! No one goes dark like children’s literature goes dark.
“Personally I am very pessimistic,” Miyazaki says. “But when, for instance, one of my staff has a baby you can’t help but bless them for a good future. Because I can’t tell that child, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have come into this life.’ And yet I know the world is heading in a bad direction. So with those conflicting thoughts in mind, I think about what kind of films I should be making.”
* Every generation gets the folk-hero bandits it deserves: Canada police investigate theft of mummified human toe served in drinks.
* And a great Tumblr mashup: The Weird Adventures of Tin-Tin, by H.P. Lovecraft.
Thursday Links!
* Two days before she died, Nina Riggs made a request: Don’t be afraid to read my book.
* Hell Is Empty And All the Hedge Fund Managers Are At The Bellagio.
* Indeed, this kind of repression is perhaps more sinister because it ropes you into participating in your own silencing. You become the policeman in your own head. When considering whether to attend a demonstration, the powerful internal suggestion is that, even if you do everything “right”—even if you are being peaceful but just happen to be in the same vicinity as someone who isn’t—you could get caught up in a costly legal battle and face serious fines, even jail time. Your entire life could be turned upside down. You might be left alone. But it’s impossible to know—and the only way to be sure is to stay home. You still have the “freedom” to choose, but fully exercising that freedom amounts to playing Russian roulette with an entity all too eager to take that freedom away if you get caught standing near a smashed window. So, really, how much freedom do you have?
* The government is spying on journalists to find leakers.
* Not exactly happily, I found this AAUP unpacking of procedural issues in the recent John McAdams decision pretty persuasive.
* An oral history of “The Inner Light.” The second-best discussion of “The Inner Light” you’ll see this year!
* Monopoly vs. the Nazis: How British intelligence used board games to thwart the Germans.
* How Jalada Is a “Revolution Uniting African Literature.”
* Five current and former U.S. officials said they are aware of classified intelligence suggesting there was some sort of private encounter between Trump and his aides and the Russian envoy, despite a heated denial from Sessions, who has already come under fire for failing to disclose two separate contacts with Kislyak. Congress investigating another possible Sessions-Kislyak meeting. Here’s why the feds are looking at Jared Kushner. More. Sorry. On Kushner, There’s No Innocent Explanation. They’re also looking into Trump’s personal attorney.
* Trump Exempts Entire Senior Staff From White House Ethics Rules.
* “He now lives within himself, which is a dangerous place for Donald Trump to be,” says someone who speaks with the President. “I see him emotionally withdrawing. He’s gained weight. He doesn’t have anybody whom he trusts.” This is the most relatable Trump has ever been.
* Rise and shine, campers, ’cause it’s coooooold out there today.
* Don’t put ground wasp nest on your vagina to tighten muscles, warns gynecologist.
* California Single Payer Is a No-Brainer.
* If you want a vision of every Thanksgiving for the rest of your life.
* SMBC roundup! We discovered a new form of ethical animal consumption. The older you are, the more people you have to deal with, so the number of lies to tends to go up quadratically. The anti-status-quo society. But a strange thing happened. Quantum hypocrisy. Marine biology. Ontology and the barbecue. Neoliberal magic. No funeral. You too.
* Confidence. Never corner a teacher. Flirting and coquettery. Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to ask if they should. Or, Twitter.
* The visit is intended to focus attention on the estimated more than 230 military veterans deported from the U.S. and on the need for a more rigorous process to ensure legal residents recruited with promises of citizenship are naturalized.
* Man Faces Deportation After Failing to Pay Fare on Minneapolis Light Rail.
* “Fearless Girl” is rapidly becoming an entire syllabus in the theory of art.
* More Than One-Third of Teen Girls Have Experienced Depression, Study Finds. When you have numbers like this you have to conclude that the problem isn’t the girls.
* In The Refrigerator Monologues, Catherynne M. Valente gives comics’ dead women their voices back. Buy it here!
* Suffering Sappho! The Tortured History of Female Superheroes.
* If only there were an appropriate Marx quote for this.
* On taking candy from a baby.
* A vaccine for denialism? I’m skeptical.
* Buffalo launches nation’s first opiate intervention court.
* White supremacists love Vikings. But they’ve got history all wrong.
* 1 in every 4 children robbed of their childhoods.
* “Uncle Julius just thought he was doing what he was supposed to do over there.”
* The patent and copyright systems are clear examples of how the distribution of income is determined by the rules put in place as opposed to the intrinsic structure of the “free market.” There is nothing about the laws of the economy that says the government has to grant these monopolies, and it certainly was not a natural process through which their length and scope came to be extended in the last four decades.
* So you were buddies with a Nazi.
* The law, in its majestic equality.
* And a smart think piece from the archives: Rickrolling is sexist, racist and often transphobic in context. More relevant now than ever…
Weekend Links!
* Star Trek and Lovecraft. Via r/daystrominstitute.
* The worst threat to higher education is its administration.
* Judge Rules Against Marquette Professor Over Public Rebuke of TA.
* Police Officer Who Fatally Shot 15-Year-Old Texas Boy Is Charged With Murder.
* Delta boots family off red-eye flight, threatens kids with “foster care.”
* Thank your parents: GOP Health Bill Jeopardizes Out-of-Pocket Caps in Employer Plans. The New Study That Shows Trumpcare’s Damage. Senate won’t vote on House-passed healthcare bill.That makes it more likely they’ll be able to pass something, unfortunately. Every Republican who voted for this abomination must be held accountable. Mail me to the GOP. It just gets worse every day.
* It just gets worse, every day.
* A Principal Is Accused of Being a Communist, Rattling a Brooklyn School.
* Not even the dead will be safe if our enemy is victorious: You could soon be able to relive Hillary Clinton’s defeat every week on TV.
* Why would you bother doing Inhumans if you can’t do Medusa’s hair?
* HBO is developing 4 different Game Of Thrones spin-offs.
* The executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, Seth Baum, and his colleagues describe what they call a double catastrophe scenario whereby an initial catastrophe, such as a major war between states that causes societal collapse, disrupts the regular injection of aerosols into the stratosphere, thereby causing a second catastrophe involving the climate. The latter event could induce widespread famines, social unrest, and economic meltdowns — or, at the extreme, it could precipitate a runaway greenhouse effect that turns Earth into an uninhabitable hellish cauldron like our planetary neighbor Venus. The result would be human extinction. In a phrase, once a stratospheric geoengineering program has been established by anyone, anywhere, it must not be interrupted for any reason, especially not abruptly. But one or more interruptions cannot be ruled out, hence the existential danger.
* The cold equations: Disney started over on Star Wars: Episode IX after Carrie Fisher’s death.
* It didn’t work. There’s only four types of people, and three of them are bad. True story. Don’t be nervous, they said. The three pillars of Canavanism. Another caption that works for any New Yorker cartoon. There will be no miracles here.
* And teach the controversy: how long ago and far away was it, really?
It’s Week One of Year Zero and I’m Declaring Total Tab Bankruptcy
* CFP: SFRA 2017. CFP: 14th Annual Tolkien at UVM Conference. CFP: Toxic Fans. CFP: Whiteness and the American Superhero. CFP: The Gibson Critics Don’t See. Call for Applications: R.D. Mullen Fellowships. CFP for MLA 2018: Creative Economies of Science Fiction. And also at MLA 18, the science fiction panel I’ll be chairing: Satire and Science Fiction in Dystopian Times.
* This thread on Gene Roddenberry and Grace Lee Whitney makes some flat assertions that are actually just well-supported speculations, but is nonetheless is a shocking and dispiriting revisionist history of Trek that’s well worth considering.
* The part I was born to play.
* Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data.
* The novel in the age of Obama.
* The Life-Changing Magic of Decluttering in a Post-Apocalyptic World.
* Aid in reverse: how poor countries develop rich countries.
* From my colleague Rebecca Nowacek: Don’t Retreat. Teach Citizenship.
* Student evaluations: still bad.
* Keywords for the Age of Austerity: Alternative.
* I’m not normally one to defend college admin, but: Trade school fires president after he let homeless student stay in library during sub-zero weather.
* Without communism, there’s something missing from dystopian stories.
* Junot Diaz remembers Octavia Butler.
* Legislation in two states seeks to end tenure at public colleges and universities. Missouri Lawmaker Who Wants to Eliminate Tenure Says It’s ‘Un-American.’
* The university as asylum. The university and the class system.
* The Changing English Major. The collapse of history as a discipline. A liberal arts college without English majors? Massive cuts at the University of Alberta.
* MLA Rejects Israel Boycott. MLA by the numbers (from the right).
* When a school hires adjuncts, where does the money go?
* UBI already exists for the 1%.
* 26, 171.
* Shockingly enough, legalizing murder means more murders.
* Bill Perry Is Terrified. Why Aren’t You?
* Somali refugee in Milwaukee publishes book.
* When the homeless die, it’s up to forensic investigators to find their families.
* The End of the Rural Hospital.
* Secrets of my success: Cracking a Joke at Work Can Make You Seem More Competent.
* The FBI has been using the Geek Squad as all-purpose informants.
* Trump Promised to Resign From His Companies — But There’s No Record He’s Done So. Congress moves to give away national lands, discounting billions in revenue. Mark Hamill, National Treasure. Searching for Time-Travelers on the Eve of the Trump Inauguration. Donald Trump, David Foster Wallace, and the hobbling of shame. A mere 34. It would be crazy not to impeach him. Keep America Great. Oh, you think? The DeVos Democrats. That’ll solve it. Here’s What You Can Do to Beat Trump. Preventing 2017 America from becoming like 1934 Germany: A watchlist. Philip K. Dick vs the Time of Trump. Here’s what Sci-Fi Can Teach Us About Fascism. Stop making sense, or, writing in the age of Trump. The stories coming out of this White House are bananas. Watch this story. And this one! How jokes won the election. This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. This is fine. UPDATE: This is fine.
* But this one takes the cake.
* Meanwhile, the 2020 Dem frontrunner…
* But Jeet Heer thinks we can do even worse.
* Democrats in the Wilderness. Oh, they’ve got this.
* The Electoral College Is Even Worse Than You Think. But it can always be worse.
* What Would Happen in the Minutes and Hours After North Korea Nuked the United States?
* The Obama speeches. A politics that surrenders every level of government to its opposition cannot win the future. It has already lost the present. But this was good.
* Want to Raise Successful Boys? Science Says Do This (But Their Schools Probably Won’t).
* Teachers who drink and drinkers who teach.
* Bumblebee is first bee in continental US to be listed as endangered.
* The Suburbanization of the US Working Class.
* You Can Write a Best-Seller and Still Go Broke.
* Thousands of Skittles end up on an icy road. But that’s not the surprising part.
* Forced to watch child porn for their job, Microsoft employees developed PTSD, they say. The people behind the AI curtain.
* Ha ha ha, he’s the sheriff of my county, what a character, this is not frightening at all.
* Lessons from Octavia Butler: Surviving Trump.
* I still think every adult who let this get to trial should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
* MST3K is that for me. It saved my life, at least twice. There’s no hyperbole in that declaration.
* Sherlock‘s bizarrely self-aware problem with women.
* About that biometric password you’re born with and will never be able to change.
* Women only said 27% of the words in 2016’s biggest movies.
* Most primate species are now threatened with extinction.
* Neanderthals were people too.
* When a Video-Game World Ends.
* Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich.
* Twilight of the cruelty factory circus.
* “We Will Miss Antibiotics When They’re Gone.”
* “Genderless Nipples account frustrates Instagram.”
* Disability and as-seen-on-TV.
* Wolf-Sized Otters Prowled the World Six Million Years Ago.
* Not all that long ago, as the editor in chief of Gawker.com, Daulerio was among the most influential and feared figures in media. Now the forty-two-year-old is unemployed, his bank has frozen his life savings of $1,500, and a $1,200-per-month one-bedroom is all he can afford. He’s renting here, he says, to be near the counselors and support network he has come to rely on lately.
* I still believe in Arrested Development Season Five.
* Your blast from the past: Prodigy Online’s MadMaze.
* Superheroes and the kids today.
* And RIP, Mark Fisher. A memorial fund for his wife and son. His piece on depression.
Thursday Night Links!
* My brilliant colleague Ainehi Edoro was chosen as one of the most 100 influential Africans.
* The Octavia Project. And elsewhere in the VanderMeers’ vast empire…
* CFP: Octavia E. Butler at ALA 2017.
* More fighting over tenure and post-tenure review at Wisconsin.
* Teaching the controversy: Listening While Feminist: In Defense of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”
* We’re gonna need a better gerrymander: If Democrats want to solve the problem of legislative maps that are biased against them they need to pursue a strategy that is more likely to produce maps that compensate for geography.
* “It is striking to see how committed they are to allowing this train wreck to occur,” he said. “And more surprisingly, how little careful attention has been given (at the top at least) to just how vulnerable—given Bush v. Gore—the current (system for counting votes in the) electoral college is.” But wait! There’s more! Why I Will Not Cast My Electoral Vote for Donald Trump.
* Trump vs. conflicts of interest: Maybe the Answer Is That He Can’t Divest.
* How Many Generals Is Too Many? I think the number is worrying, but agree with Kevin that the central issue is that he has chosen an extremely popular, recently retired general for DoD. Civilian control of the military is an important value, or it used to be.
* This is bad: Trump Launches Tweet Attack on Carrier Steel Union Boss for Fact-Checking Him. (UPDATE: This is what happens when Donald Trump attacks a private citizen on Twitter.) This is bad: Hardee’s, Carl’s Jr. CEO Tapped as Labor Secretary. This is bad: Trump Considers FDA Chief Who Says People Should Use Medicines “At Their Own Risk.” This is bad: Trump to be part-time president, keep lucrative job with Celebrity Apprentice. This is bad: Does Donald Trump Believe Nuclear War Is Inevitable?
* This one though I do approve of: Chris Christie has the lowest approval rating one pollster has ever found for a state governor.
* There are no second acts in American life, they said.
* Point/Counterpoint: How Sci-Fi and Fantasy Can Save the World. What Can Artists Do to Oppose Trump? Nothing.
* That’ll solve it! Or, if you prefer, only the super-rich can save us now.
* Worst Game of Thrones spinoff ever.
* …and the portions are too small!
* The Swing-O-Matic: Change the settings to see how shifts in party preference and turnout by different demographic groups would affect the 2016 presidential election.
* We need to admit that right-wing harrassment and conspiracy theories are baked into the business model of social media at this point. And with right-wing political hegemony for the foreseeable future, it will only get worse, because the range of “acceptable opinion” will shift even further to the right. Asking nicely and filling out all the proper paperwork will not change this underlying material reality.
* The tricky part is that many expect the expert agency’s views to change shortly after January 20th, when Trump’s O.C.R. is installed. (Dear Colleagues: Never mind, we take it back.) Come January, advocates of transgender rights, who have enthusiastically supported judicial deference to O.C.R., will have reason for an extreme pivot, given that the new O.C.R. is unlikely to view “sex” as an “internal sense of gender.” It is awkward now for Grimm’s lawyers to argue zealously for the notion that the agency knows best, when only weeks from now, and in coming years, that doctrine is more likely to harm than to help transgender students.
* Inside President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal antidrug campaign in the Philippines, our photojournalist documented 57 homicide victims over 35 days. And in case you’ve forgotten.
* Located in the city’s Girangaon (Village of the Mills) neighborhood, Trump Tower Mumbai illustrates every pathology of the neoliberal turn away from comprehensive city planning.
* What happens if someone dies on Mars?
* The arc of history is long, but New Jersey Will No Longer Seek to Collect Loans from Families of Dead Students.
* Check ignition, and may God’s love be with you.
* Harvard will not be a sanctuary campus. It’s for your own good, kids!
* Disney ought to pay this former employee for the movie rights to this AMA.
* Today in news from the mysteriiiiiiiious Orient: Japan’s sex problem is so bad that people are quitting dating and marrying their friends.
* Trump propaganda game getting real.
* Chimpanzees See Butts Like We See Faces.
* The ultimate fear isn’t of the second coming of Hitler: history never repeats itself so obviously, and a sense of shame over the Nazi past remains pervasive in all corners of German life. No, the fear is that the present antidemocratic wave may prove too strong even for Germany—the only country in the history of the world that ever learned from its mistakes. From The New Yorker‘s “The Frankfurt School Knew Trump Was Coming.”
* If Black Mirror Had a Showroom.
* This might be the worst science journalism piece I’ve seen in years.
* Scientists Think the Speed of Light Has Slowed, and They’re Trying to Prove It.
* Paradox Girl Is One of the Best Time Travel Series We’ve Read All Year. I bought these tonight on this recommendation and I can confirm it’s super fun.
* And this makes me feel worse about both extinction-level events and car crashes.
