Madeline Bedecarre

Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war.

‘We’re losing accessibility’: America says goodbye to the mass-market paperback The so-called ‘pocket book’ sold in supermarkets is being phased out across the US, the latest sign of an ongoing shift in how people are choosing to read

Nice piece about the death, not of the book, but of the spinning #paperback rack: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/feb/24/america-says-goodbye-paperback?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Othe #bookstodon #BookHistory

first in my line of critical universi-tees

Pour plaire à Hachette, « Livres Hebdo » censure un historien de l’édition La revue professionnelle a supprimé un paragraphe d’un entretien avec l’universitaire Jean-Yves Mollier, qui concernait la fin de l’indépendance des éditeurs au sein d’Hachette depuis sa reprise par V...

www.lemonde.fr/economie/art...

energy this month: boundaries are neutral.

It’s going to sound quaint, but the best way to resist an AI takeover of the humanities is to assign physical books, sit around, read them, and argue about ideas. Academic has become such a competitive arena, that we ourselves are trained to look for the winning angle, instead of the best education.

AfricaMuseum refuses to release Congo geological archive to US mining company, despite pressure from President Trump | VRT NWS: news The AfricaMuseum in Tervuren (Flemish Brabant) is refusing to hand over geological archive material on Congo to an American mining company that wants to use the data to map valuable raw materials. ‘We...

What a colonial full circle moment www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/20...

Yuuup

Reading and writing can lower dementia risk by almost 40%, study finds Cognitive health in later life is ‘strongly influenced’ by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments, say researchers

Reason no. 103857392 to read books and, yes, write your own damn emails, too

www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Which one are you?

Professors Are Being Watched: ‘We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance’

“None of this is happening in good faith and we shouldn’t treat it as such,” Dr. Royles said during the panel. He later added, “Minimum compliance is a good guideline here.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/u...

Il utilise le terme “littéralement” pour littéralement tout et n’importe quoi D’après son entourage, il utilise le terme en moyenne dans une phrase sur cinq depuis quelques mois

www.legorafi.fr/2026/01/14/i...

Fela Kuti: premier artiste africain à recevoir un Grammy Award pour l'ensemble de sa carrière Avant la cérémonie des Grammy Awards qui aura lieu, ce dimanche soir, à Los Angeles, on parle déjà de ce Grammy remis, dans la nuit de samedi à dimanche, à une légende africaine de la musique. Le roi de l'afrobeat, Fela Kuti - couronné, une nouvelle fois, à titre posthume, pour l'ensemble de son œuvre – est le premier artiste africain qui obtient une telle distinction.

Fela Kuti: premier artiste africain à recevoir un Grammy Award pour l'ensemble de sa carrière

"Where did you get all that from?"

Books, dude.

Just books.

College approached and paid student to write op-ed in The Dartmouth The Dartmouth ran the article on Nov. 17 without knowledge that the College had been involved. 

The college at which I'm employed, which has signed a contract with the AI firm that stole books from 131 colleagues & me, paid a student to write an op-ed for the student paper promoting AI, guided the writing of it, and did not disclose this to the paper. www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026...

“C’est rare une telle unanimité” : Jean-Christophe Rufin salue l'élection de Boualem Sansal à l’Académie française L'écrivain franco-algérien Boualem Sansal a été élu à l'Académie française, moins de trois mois après sa libération de prison en Algérie.

www.radiofrance.fr/franceinfo/p...

Also more theoretical but bourdieusian stuff on habitus, distinction, clothing like 'Les habits du social' (2025) or the entry "vêtements" in l'Encyclopédie critique du genre (2016) 🤓

Actualités/Essais/Documents Beurettes, Sarah Diffalah, Salima Tenfiche : Bimbo orientale habituée des bars à chichas ; femme voilée sage et soumise qui rêve de vacances à Dubaï ; ...

www.seuil.com/ouvrage/beur... Haven’t read this but I think it could interest your student

Politiques de la visibilité et de la découvrabilité dans l’édition contemporaine. Volume 16, Number 2, Fall 2025 – Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture Read this issue of the journal Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture on Érudit. Discipline: Literary Studies, History.

I co-edited this bilingual issue of Mémoires du livre /
Studies in Book Culture w/ @julienlf.bsky.social (an excellent collaborator). It's all open access.

Promotional graphic for a new Columbia University Press Off The Page episode dated October 8, 2025. The episode is hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh and features author Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan and the book OVERDETERMINED: How Indian English Literature Becomes Ethnic, Postcolonial, and Anglophone. It includes the book's cover on an image of a play console and a 20% discount with code NBN20 at cup.columbia.edu.

In this Off The Page podcast episode, host Morteza Hajizadeh and author Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan talk about OVERDETERMINED. buff.ly/UkJVoQk #ListenUP @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social

Visiting Assistant Professor French and Francophone Studies job with Davidson College | 2000841 Visiting Assistant Professor French and Francophone Studies Davidson, NC, United States   The Department of French and Francophone Studies (FFS) at...

joblist.mla.org/job/2000841/...

@caribphil.bsky.social

2 year VAP in French & Francophone Studies at Davidson College, deadline Feb 15th, share widely
fa-exci-saasfaprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Application deadline for our fully-funded PhD position has been extended to 1 February 2026 - especially geographer friends, please share!

www.liverpool.ac.uk/courses/envi...

Protect Academic Freedom, Our Faculty, Our Communities Faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members: The UNC System is preparing to cave to political pressure from the Heritage Foundation, the Oversight Project, and the James Martin Center by ...

Please sign
actionnetwork.org/petitions/pr...

paging @saraharens.bsky.social and Fabien Roussel

A 200-year-old book distributor is closing. Here's what that means for public libraries Baker & Taylor is one of very few companies that handle book distribution for libraries — getting books from publishers into borrowers hands. But a few months ago, the company abruptly announced it wa...

www.npr.org/2026/01/07/n...

Hommage à Isabelle Charpentier - CESSP Le CESSP exprime son infinie tristesse face à la disparition d’Isabelle Charpentier, dont elle était membre associée. Son parcours était marqué par l’interdisciplinarité. Après une formation en droit ...

Really sad news, immense loss for sociologists of literature
cessp.cnrs.fr/hommage-a-is...