@mazdam@c18.masto.host
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mazdam

@mazdam@c18.masto.host

Assoc. Professor of #Literature at the University of Houston. Home base in #18thCentury, #LitStudies, #BritishLit, #LitHistory, #cynicism, #NegativePoliticalEmotions. First book: Making of Modern Cynicism (University of Virginia Press, 2007) https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/2793. Current book and DH project, a study of the year 1771, as experienced in 4 British cities (London, Edinburgh, Philadelphia, Kingston, Jamaica). Also tiptoeing into #DH and #Genre.

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mazdam, to random
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experimenting with the Bridgy Fed, but don't know how to follow this account: @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy

mazdam,
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@bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy OK, so that worked. Curious how it affects my feed.

mazdam, to random
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Putting out a call to any linguists or labor historians on here: any recs for vocational literacies for 18c British tradesmen or artisans? Grateful for any leads!

@LingLass, could you boost? Thanks!

djvanness, to math
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Heartbreaking article about #WVU selling out its future. Land grant universities tap into deep reserves of talent that are shut out of elite private schools. They played a critical role in the development of the US into a 20th century superpower. Now, we run universities like money-making enterprises - selling cheap products at inflated prices and wonder why the public questions our value. Shame on Gordon Gee and all like him. #highered #math #STEM @academicchatter https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/an-academic-transformation-takes-on-the-math-department

mazdam,
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@djvanness @academicchatter This is the biggest story in HE for this century & it’s gone mostly unremarked

mazdam,
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@djvanness @academicchatter Instead we get dozens of anti-woke op-eds; press has completely failed on this story

RickiTarr, to random
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As men age they become Santas, Grandpas, Hobos, Cowboys, or John Waters. Which one(s) are you?

mazdam,
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@RickiTarr on the cusp between grandpa and hobo

Private
mazdam,
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@leifhammer @ianrogers @ASECS @histodons Most 18c discussions cited Locke’s Thoughts on Education, & afterwards Rousseau’s Emile

mazdam,
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@leifhammer @ianrogers @ASECS @histodons educational reformers used those figures to argue against the traditional Latinate rhetorical training of children

mazdam,
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@leifhammer @ASECS @histodons this is explicit in Rousseau

ct_bergstrom, to random
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Google Scholar is a flaming piece of shit. Why do we use it for scholarly evaluation?

Here, it misattributes 4873 citations — a decent count for entire research career — from Keeling and Rohani's landmark book, giving them instead to the authors who wrote a book review of the book.

Yet, there's no correction or appeal process.

Book review to which the citations are ascribed.

mazdam,
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@ct_bergstrom sure, but it's still better than any other bibliometric platform I know of for humanities pubs, esp monographs; so there's that too.

mazdam,
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@ct_bergstrom [bitter laughter all around]

mazdam, to random
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2 things that made teaching worthwhile today: first class the presenters recognized a common concept and elaborated it in Q&A; the second, they searched for articles on our databases for their midterm

mazdam, to random
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should I spend more time on social media? or just plunge hot needles in my eyes?

mazdam,
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@jsadow ha ha too late

mazdam, to random
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As WVU hunkers down on massive cuts to programs and faculty and staff jobs, I wonder how many veterans of similar hatchet jobs (I'm thinking U Wisconsin) would be able to provide insights or advice for their counterparts at WVU?

I"m in contact with a person in the English dept going through this. It occurs to me that other faculty and departments might want to help too.

@djvanness? Anyone else?

If you know someone at WVU pls consider doing this. #WVU

mazdam, to random
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I really want everyone in Houston, in Texas, and in this country, who cares about public education to watch this brave woman Lauren Ashley as she destroys Abbott's takeover of HISD.

https://www.tiktok.com/

djvanness, to conservative

A Texas A&M Regent says "McElroy’s hiring would derail the “purpose” outlined for the journalism program: “to get high-quality Aggie journalists with conservative values into the market.”

Tell me again how liberals are controlling university values? /s

A jaw-dropper on #conservative political interference in #Texas #HigherEd. From the Chronicle: https://www.chronicle.com/article/what-really-happened-in-texas-a-ms-two-high-profile-controversies-an-investigative-report-explains?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_7412679_nl_Academe-Today_date_20230804&cid=at

@academicchatter #tenure #AcademicFreedom #racism #journalism

mazdam,
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@djvanness @academicchatter I'm convinced at this point that the entire "free speech" framing is designed to make Koch-friendly arguments shielding dark money/speech from review.

mazdam,
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@djvanness @academicchatter the only people using "free speech" framing are doing it in bad faith, and the only good faith versions are the academics and leftish pundits responding to the idiot attacks;

mazdam,
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@djvanness @academicchatter we should treat these as a distraction and find a new framing that doesn't provide cover for Koch-funded astroturfing operations

mazdam,
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@djvanness @academicchatter I think that arguing for free inquiry without some established frame of public goods is what makes it so difficult. There are economic and civic rationales, but they don't shield the public research university, because they're competing with theological and political rationales for education. Narrow conceptions of public good also limit the scope of "beneficial" activities in education.

mazdam,
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@djvanness @academicchatter I think the rhetorical problem here is that any reasonably descriptive term for our practice has little political purchase in electoral politics. And the partisan terms won't win over academics either.

TX went to war with the AAUP and academic freedom earlier, and the only thing that won over the theocrats and anti-communists was the prospect of scientific/economic advancements and Cold War hegemony. Liberal arts were carried along, but not particularly protected.

mazdam,
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@djvanness @academicchatter for conservatives, lib arts always = canonical, white, western works representing civilization; IOW lib arts before last century of research.

"transmission of values" is a powerful ideological motivator for conservative education; but obvsly wrong frame for academic humanist research. R1 models show the anachronism/misfit of "transmission" models of higher ed.

mazdam, to random
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OK, in the relative privacy of Mastodon, here's the #SeriousThought that's been bugging me all morning.

The Barbenheimer foo fah on social media reminds me that the critiques you find in works like these, and then the critiques of the critiques of the works, and then the backlash to the critiques of the critique, can become its own source of exhaustion and enervation.

Immersion in this noise for too long gives you some kind of moral tinnitus.

mazdam,
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Do you feel that? That's the plummy, fruity aftertaste of dissonance.

But social media gives us the ability to see all of these responses at once, as a kind of objective correlative to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.

I don't think any movie can anticipate or contain all the possible critiques at once, but I do think that a lot of people will watch this as children or tweens or teens then be shocked when they see it again. It will seem smart, and even moving. I think it will hold up.

mazdam,
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@mirijb oh yes, all of this. The anger this set off among the girls should power another generation going into gender studies, English, and media studies students (maybe in defiance of their moms or dads).

IMO, there are some interesting easter eggs in there for the over 30 viewers.

mazdam,
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@jsadow @mirijb for me it was the Matchbox 20 song

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