Jessica Roberson

Apparently Guillermo Del Toro has ruined Frankenstein by… being relatively faithful to the source material.

Oh my.

This is a really, really important story, which is why I provided a gift link. Many people, when they think of higher education, think of elite universities. But most higher education is nonselective (i.e., they admit everyone), and a lot of it is community colleges.

Mary Shelley doesn't get enough credit for not only anticipating the silver-spooned narcissist techbro who recklessly creates technology without thinking through the consequences, but also for knowing that said techbro would be an absolutely terrible father.

Welcome to Sugar Daddies* Happy Disability Pride month! Welcome to the first issue of Sugar Daddies*, a newsletter where I hope to look more deeply into the narrative use of Type 1...

I just wrote 'Welcome to Sugar Daddies*'. buttondown.com/sugardaddies... (Chatting #T1diabetes and romance novels)

This.

It makes my heart hurt.

What an absolute betrayal.

Teaching is grounded on trust.

The (Ed) Tech Industry has made citizens believe that the problem with education is reading, thinking, and writing when the problem with education is austerity.

Reading, thinking, and writing are not the problems to be solved. Austerity is.

Friendly reminder that Instructure, parent company of Canvas, is owned by KKR, a private equity firm that purchased it for $4.8 billion last November.

Second date with my now-husband was at the Museum of Jurassic Technology! A weird wonder - please help them if you can.

Sugar Daddies* Sugar Daddies* (gender inclusive) is a newsletter musing on the uses and abuses of Type 1 Diabetes in romance novels from an English professor with T1D. Follow along as I explore how chronic illness a...

For anyone else interested in disability and the modern romance novel surge, I'm starting a little side project this #DisabilityPrideMonth - a newsletter I'm calling Sugar Daddies* exploring the representation of #Type1Diabetes in romance. Folks can subscribe here: buttondown.com/sugardaddies

Universities in England at risk of long-term decline, says British Academy Outgoing president Dame Julia Black calls on ministers to overhaul their ‘confused’ approach to higher education

“You’ve got more languages students setting up successful start-ups than you do maths graduates, and the same number of history students setting up start-ups as engineers, so there’s a bit of myth busting that needs to go on.”

www.ft.com/content/3162...

What It’s Like to Be a Student Who Hates ChatGPT “Everyone is using it”—almost everyone.

you've heard about the college kids who can't do anything without ChatGPT's help—but what about the students who oppose generative A.I. for myriad reasons and refuse to rely on it as a shortcut? well, I found and spoke with a few of them here: slate.com/life/2025/07...

Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door

Some places will have to start rationing water - to enable AI slop.

"A data center like Meta’s, which was completed last year, typically guzzles around 500,000 gallons of water a day. New data centers [will] require millions of gallons of water a day"

Gift link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/t...

Meta’s new superintelligence project called “Prometheus”

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Hunh, someone titling their creation ‘Prometheus’, tip o my tongue, feel like I’ve heard that befor—oh, right, there it is

A Reading List for Disability Pride Month 2025 - Community of Literary Magazines and Presses We asked the many independent literary presses and magazines that make up our membership to share with us some of the literature they recommend reading in honor of Disability Pride Month, observed…

July is #DisabilityPrideMonth! Pick your next reads from our 2025 reading list—and bookmark it for year-round recommendations from indie presses and lit mags: www.clmp.org/news/a-readi...

Frontispiece and title page of Vox Piscis, or The Book-Fish, contayning three treatises which were found in the belly of a cod-fish in Cambridge market, on Midsummer Eve last

In 1626, a Cambridge fishwife sliced open a cod, only to find a gelatinous, half-dissolved manuscript inside. It was published the next year under the name "Vox Piscis or, the Bookfish." At this point, why not get your news from inside a dead fish? #earlymodern #bookfish archive.org/details/bim_...

CalRBS is happy to share our Summer 2025 course listings are published! We are dedicated to providing the knowledge and skills required by collectors and professionals studying for and working in all aspects of GLAM fields. #rarebooks #specialcollections #libraries #bibliograophy

Second snack-sized digital pedagogy event coming up! Mark calendars for Friday, April 4th from 1:00-2:00PM EST for a session "On Making" featuring @amandalicastro.bsky.social and @jajrk.bsky.social. Free and open to the public. Registration and more info here - cal.lib.virginia.edu/event/14229798

This is just the beginning. Cis people, contact your reps. Do not fucking reply to my trans ass right now to tell me why you can't or won't do this one goddamned thing for trans people, just contact your Representative.

When insulin was first patented in 1923, the discoverers declined to put their names on it as they felt that insulin belonged to the public.

101 years later, insulin is inaccessible to thousands of Americans because of price gouging by near-monopoly private insurance corporations and their PBMs.

image shows the accessibility settings menu for bluesky, where one can toggle on or off different settings, including to make it mandatory to add alt text to images.

As a person who can be forgetful but who also wants to uphold disability justice whenever I can, I wanted to share how you can change your settings so that Bluesky won’t allow you to post until all your images have alt text. Alt text doesn’t have to be a big ordeal!

A new open-access journal, Public Humanities, has launched. I'm proud to have a piece in the inaugural "Manifesto" issue, on "The Necessity of Public Writing." I hope academo-friends will read, circulate, propose, and submit. doi.org/10.1017/pub....

Set up an impromptu 'Little Free Zine Library' using my office door's defunct old-school mailbox. If anyone has resources for diverse printable zines to stock it with I would love links!

Hey new users— we’ve been trying to build a strong culture of expecting alt text. Take it from me, because I’ve heard from them: there are blind people on this app and they appreciate being included. You can also turn on a setting that prevents you from posting images without it, if you forget

Call for submissions — Thin Ice Press Call for contributors! We’re looking for craftspeople and academics to be part of an exciting volume on embodied knowledge and making texts.

Call for submissions!
*Embodied Knowledge and Making Texts: A Handbook*

Send your research proposals and creative responses
to Helen Smith and me by 13th Jan

www.thinicepress.org/research/cal...

On the salutary effect of the Kudos Email If you like someone’s work, don’t just cite them, write them!

Welcome all.
Life in academia is particularly hard right now.
Toward a modest improvement, consider sending Kudos Emails.
Reach out to a stranger and say you liked their paper. This small mitzvah can make a world of difference.
I’ve seen it happen.
michaelkaspari.org/2016/05/23/o...

Please share this CFP!

We’re hosting a symposium 20-21 May 2025 @skeuomorph.bsky.social on "Building Book Labs: Hands-On Research & Teaching in Book History"—we’re looking for talks, discussion topics, & hands-on activities—& we especially welcome novel formats or session ideas. More at the link!

go.bsky.app/CtyRqgj

Please share widely & reply below if you'd like to be added📚!

Would love to be added :)

Would love to added if there’s room.

Call for proposals image for Queer Bibliography reads: June 11-13 2025 // Queer Bibliography In the Making // Newcastle, UK and cyberspace // contact:queerbibliography@gmail.com

am delighted to announce the cfp for Queer Bibliography: In the Making is now open. Please see the attached full cfp: bit.ly/QueerBib2025 and the submission form: bit.ly/QB2025Propos.... I look forward to seeing many of you next year!