Sign from today's No Kings protest in Urbana, Illinois.
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Robert Dale Parker
@RobertDaleParker@mstdn.social
mastodon 4.7.2Here for books, especially US and/or Modern fiction and poetry, lit crit, critical theory, crime fiction, postapocalyptic and speculative fiction. Author of How to Interpret Literature and books on US and Native American fiction and poetry. Latest book: The Literature of Extreme Poverty in the Great Depression. Emerging fiction writer.
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Joined November 05, 2022
From this afternoon's walk. #SilentSunday
From this afternoon's walk by a (reconstructed) prairie.
Found, by the Library of Congress, a long-lost 1897 Méliès film, 45 seconds long, the first film to portray a robot. If you like Méliès''s whacko early films (and why wouldn't you?), you'll want to see this:
https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2026/02/lost-19th-century-film-by-melies-discovered-at-the-library/
The English department was "told they could no longer teach texts written by gay authors."
"We have even been told to censor novels with gay characters."
For Texas, it's goodbye Shakespeare & some half of the history of literature.
#Teaching #Reading #Censorship #Education #Shakespeare #Texas
I mostly use DuckDuckGo for online searches, without AI, but this list of Google search tricks from Hana Lee Goldin works on other search engines too and includes a list of alternatives to Google. You will want to bookmark this:
https://cardcatalogforlife.substack.com/p/google-has-a-secret-reference-desk?
The phony claims that campuses are suppressing intellectual freedom are just a cover for right-wing efforts to shut down the intellectual freedom they pretend to support.
https://www.ms.now/opinion/iowa-intellectual-freedom-christopher-rufo-republicans
US Republicans have proposed a nationwide book ban.
Wouldn't this crazy bill be unconstitutional? And wouldn't it also sweep up—just for starters—the Bible and Shakespeare in its pitiful claws?
'Those who attack academic freedom often misunderstand who academic freedom protects: mistaking it for coddling of entitled professors when in fact it serves the common good.'
Excellent critique of the right-wing push for "viewpoint diversity" in academia. Can apply to teaching as well as to research.
https://stanforddaily.com/2026/02/17/viewpoint-diversity-betrays-common-good/
If you're eligible, I hope you'll vote. I voted in the primary election today.
Disgraceful: the University of Iowa decided to close its African American Studies program (in Black History Month, no less), supposedly (but of course not really) because they don't have enough majors.
That's like shooting yourself in the foot because your foot hurts.
Publisher withdraws novel after writer accused of writing with AI:
Article on children's poetry in the schools, with lots of interesting and fun ideas:
Some of you will know Elizabeth Bishop’s great poem “Visits to St. Elizabeths” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53008/visits-to-st-elizabeths about visiting Ezra Pound where was hospitalized after he faked insanity to dodge charges of treason. Well, Kristi Noem (aka ICE Barbie) is tearing St. E down (bec she thinks it leaves DHS vulnerable to snipers)—& in the process exposing DHS employees to asbestos poisoning. (I wrote abt Bishop’s poem in my book The Unbeliever: The Poetry of Eliz Bishop.)
https://newrepublic.com/post/206698/kristi-noem-homeland-security-employees-asbestos-poisoning
Excerpts from John Roberts' high school English essays—must reading for anyone who's studied English.
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@SmudgeTheInsultCat@mas.to
Well, this is funny and a good retort, but there were people in what's now the US long before the Vikings arrived!