@justinsmithphd.bsky.social
-PhD, English and African American Studies -Assistant Prof. of English and Black Studies at Randolph-Macon College -Opions are my own -He/him
I am a “decimate” truther.
12.08.2024 22:37 — 👍 106 🔁 1 💬 13 📌 2I thought it coulda been that moment 17 years ago & it wasn't - and because it wasn't, a lot of avoidable damage, carnage and suffering has happened in the interim. Is now the tipping point? I'm older and wiser and have a better sense of what I don't know. So I don't know. But I certainly hope so.
30.07.2025 15:10 — 👍 13 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
Describe something you learned from lecture this week that you didn’t know just from doing the readings. Connect something you learned in 209 this week to something you are learning in another of your classes this semester. If Monday and Wednesday assigned readings were from two different texts, make connections between the two. Do they share themes? Forms? Tone? Historical context? Do you find them equally interesting? Look at the very first paragraph of one of our texts and discuss how the opening lays the groundwork for the rest of the work. Quote specific lines, phrases, or images. Using quotes from a text, persuade someone (friend or foe, your grandma or your senator) to change their mind about something important. Compose a 5 song playlist to accompany an assigned reading from this week, and write a few sentences for each song, explaining your choices. Describe an idea you had in response to the readings/lecture/discussions for our class this week- any idea, about literature, or the world, or yourself. How might you pursue this idea, in your studies or elsewhere? Choose a passage (no more than 10 lines) from the readings this week and rewrite it, changing at least one of the literary aspects such as: person (change from first to third-person or vice versa), tense (change from past to present etc), focalizing character (i.e. write it from a different character's perspective), style (adjectives, diction, description, tone). Then write 2-3 sentences about the effect of your changes. Compose a yelp review to strangers, or a letter to a specific person, or a booktok style video, recommending a novel/poem/play from this week’s reading. Write a letter to someone who has questioned your choice of majoring or minoring in English, explaining why you value what you’re learning. Include quotes / ideas from this week’s readings.
syllabus time, teaming up for the herculean efforts of reinventing writing assignments. here, some prompts for required weekly low stakes 250-500 word reflections/ process pieces that have proven relatively conducive to real writing in lit class. please share any similar suggestions in thread.
21.07.2025 12:14 — 👍 511 🔁 121 💬 46 📌 16Those who organized Colored Conventions rallied for democracy and citizenship rights as state and national forces sought to deny them protections clearly outlined in the constitution. They were often forcefully dissenting voices.
We will soon make public a new trove of Reconstruction conventions.
This is an increasingly unsettling story, told only in ChatGPT conversation screenshots, that illustrates both the "bullshit, not hallucination" phenomenon as well as the straight up, sociopathic lying that AI tools will do to keep us engaged
03.06.2025 18:55 — 👍 7 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 1
Interesting article, but I think Douglass still has to hold the title of "original selfie king" youtu.be/6_Oagi-WvQE?...
30.05.2025 18:59 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Dr. Hayden has been such a transformative and inspiring Librarian for the past decade. If you haven't had the privilege to spend time with LC staff, you may not realize what a sea change she brought to our national library. One of the all-time greats. A huge loss for millions and millions.
09.05.2025 01:42 — 👍 1024 🔁 400 💬 18 📌 10Congress has the power to restore funding to the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Join me in calling your reps!
03.04.2025 20:49 — 👍 186 🔁 114 💬 1 📌 219th century US history is replete with examples of collective organizing in resistance to tyranny. Slavery could not have been abolished without underground and out in the open organized collective resistance and refusal to comply with unjust law.
05.03.2025 17:37 — 👍 13 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0Unfortunately @zooniverse.bsky.social is still down, and may be that way all of today. status.zooniverse.org
If you're looking for something to #transcribe, may I suggest helping the @douglassday.bsky.social folks get through the rest of their LoC data at crowd.loc.gov/campaigns/af...?
