Min Hyoung Song

I'm preparing a talk about a racist novel, and the novel is so offensive (not the first time I've written about racist literary works) I find myself having to come up with rules about how to talk about it so that I don't traumatize my audience.

This feels like a new challenge in close-reading.

I was born in an Iranian prison. My parents were held in their jails. My uncles lie in their mass graves. Nothing you can tell me about the crimes of the Iranian regime that I haven't lived in blood and bone. That doesn't mean I want my people bombed, maimed, killed, their homes in ruins. If your vision of liberation comes only through the destruction of innocent lives, then it's not freedom you're after. Sahar Delijani, Iranian author

I am pro Iranian people. I stand with them against their own government’s repression AND against the imperial violence in the form of bombs dropped from the sky from Israel & the US who have already killed hundreds.

I support neither imperialism or dictatorship.

Sahar Delijani said it best:

I’m trying to understand how literature can help us better understand the relationship between the worsening effects of climate change and the rise of authoritarianism, and it’s leading me to books I really really don’t want to read.

The start of a Dark Austen era of adaptation?

A lesson about networks that I’m kind of proud of: at the beginning of the year, I gave my 200 students a dumb survey: fav books, foods, etc. I told them they could use pseudonyms and that I’d share their responses with the class. We’ve been using that data in various ways: to make points about +

rice is life, and I got a thread to share about rice: Park Chung-hee's obsession to make South Korea rice self-sufficient in the 1970s changed everything about the country, including your favorite Korean foods and the urban environment 🧵

Opinion | What Exactly Is a ‘Concentration Camp’?

This really feels like an important question to be talking about right now! Gift link.

Why does my job involve so much math!?

It is at the base of icebergs where the magic happens. The deep blues of a small iceberg reflect in wondrous pastel tones off the gently undulating waters of Greenland's magnificent Scoresby Sund.

#photography #naturephotography #landscapephotography #landscape #bluesky #nature #art

“The history professor is bewildered by the frenzied pace of all this faculty hiring and construction. To him, it resembles a VC-funded startup jumping on a tech fad, or maybe just surplus capital looking for outlets.”

Alysa Liu, daughter of a Chinese refugee and pro-democracy activist, brings glory to the USA. 🇺🇸 🥇

Reminds me how journals were encouraging authors to cut back on long notes. Feel like we’re should really be encouraging the opposite now!

Occasionally reminded that Georgia added a “post tenure review” process bc they were so certain that professors became deadweight once they had job security, and all the outcomes have proven JUST THE OPPOSITE! People work harder and in more complex ways when they feel secure in their employment.

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.

In the draft I'm finishing up (won't see print for a long time because, you know, journal publishing), I deliberately made the first part as factual as possible, maintaining as dry an academic voice as possible, and I hope this allows me to take more risks at the end.

Cite, cite, cite. Long bibliographies. Show where our expertise comes from, and what gives us the vantage point to argue what we do about a culture that needs intense scrutiny more than ever.

Maybe this is a time to take this form as seriously as possible, writing high quality scholarship that makes bold claims and grounded in as much secondary sources as possible. We should be loading our articles with discursive footnotes.

It's been a long time since I've written a full-length scholarly article, and I forgot how satisfying it can be to follow an idea for a good long time, revising and revising until I figure out what I want to say, and citing a lot of sources to support my individual claims.

the amount of time it is taking for these relatively podunk snow banks to melt is really throwing into relief for me how fucked up it is that we are managing to melt the glaciers

Opinion | This Is the Real Reason to Make Bus Rides Free

So damn sane! Thank you! Pass it on!

@galvinalmanza.bsky.social
@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social

This Is the Real Reason to Make Bus Rides Free www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/o...

Inside ICE’s Only Contract with a Blue State - Bolts As part of a 287(g) contract between state officials and ICE, Massachusetts continues to release prisoners into deportation—even as state lawmakers look to ban other forms of ICE collaboration.

NEW: Of all the states that voted for Harris over Trump in 2024, there's only one where a Dem governor is overseeing an ICE's 287(g) program:

Massachusetts.

Other blue states have quit, or even outright banned it. My colleague on what's happening: boltsmag.org/massachusett...

In many of the first generation of modern concentration camp systems (near the turn of the twentieth century), the vast majority of deaths were caused by disease and malnutrition. Most of the victims were women and children.

Absolutely brutal.

““Triumph of the Will” is very controversial, but you can’t deny that as a piece of filmmaking it is a very impressive achievement. You can like something without agreeing with its politics.

Yes, probably so.”

C’mon

That was when I realized. That love is a terrible agony.

- Han Kang, We Do Not Part

Stranger on the train: Next storm is coming. Nor’easter. On Sunday.

Me: oh.

Stranger: Few people realize climate change is real but geo-engineered by the governments of the world. They’re killing the planet.

Reading Red Sword by Bora Chung because everything Bora Chung writes is weird and disturbing and good escapism for our crazy times.

Statement from Michael and Susan Pretti Parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti “We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti.

"Please get the truth out about our son."

Alex Pretti from his early days working at the VA

Alex from our time working together, while he was in nursing school. Later, he moved to ICU, working as a nurse to support critically ill Veterans. He had such a great attitude. We’d chat between patients about trying to get in a mountain bike ride together. Will never happen now

“Fairy tale of human progress” is a phrase that’s going to haunt me through the day.