SonaS11

How much does an unwell octopus cost?
Sick squid.

As today is World Octopus Day I’ll again mention that a Spanish equivalent to “like a fish out of water” is como un pulpo en un garaje. It means “like an octopus in a garage.”

Through the mail slot today. Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Magadh by Shrikant Verma, translated from the Hindi by Rahul Soni. Both from @andotherstories.bsky.social.

September 2025 Poetry Feature: Earth Water Fire Poems, a Conversation LISA ASAGI <br> "No one knows why / water becomes rain / only the how / and maybe the where"

"Would this mean we are listening / to the same song / everywhere / all the time?"

Lisa Asagi submerges into dark and resonant waters with her poems and whale sculptures in this month's poetry feature. Explore the depths on our website!

buff.ly/uPRTr1X

that The Far Side comic with two gorillas in a tree, one grooming the other, saying "Well, well—another blonde hair...Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?"

RIP Jane Goodall, you were cool as hell for lots of things, but especially for liking this

Decolonising Plant Knowledge: Voices from Subverted Plant Worlds - CRASSH Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

Registration is now open for the inaugural (hybrid) event of the Decolonising Plant Knowledge: Voices from Subverted Plant Worlds research network @crasshlive.bsky.social (Oct. 15) with talks by Banu Subramaniam and Stephen Hugh-Jones
www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/47794/

THE REMEMBERED SOLDIER on longlist for National Book Award in Translated Literature! A monumental novel of European history and pleasures + pains of profound love in Anjet Daanje's stunning prose + David McKay's crystalline translation.@nationalbook.bsky.social
newvesselpress.com/books/the-re...

Archival Outliers, Invented Ephemerals in Constructing Environmental Histories Archival outliers—flowers, notes, photos, letters—challenge environmental historians, revealing unruly fragments that resist narrative placement yet inspire future histories.

Today @nulybranch.bsky.social introduce a new series in "Archival Outliers, Invented Ephemerals in Constructing Environmental Histories."

niche-canada.org/2025/09/26/a...

#envhist #archives

How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart Contracted AI raters describe grueling deadlines, poor pay and opacity around work to make chatbots intelligent

"“AI isn’t magic; it’s a pyramid scheme of human labor,” said @adiod.bsky.social , a researcher at the Distributed AI Research Institute based in Bremen, Germany. “These raters are the middle rung: invisible, essential and expendable.”

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"Beautiful illustrations bring the animals to life" in NIGHT NIGHT, CHRISTMAS our new #TouchAndFeel storybook www.slj.com/review/night...

Oh this is BAD.

The new TOC from academia dot edu.

You grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness…

Academia.edu is changing its Terms and Conditions, and they're so outrageous (AI training; signing over ownership to them etc) I closed my account today.

A thread with some practical tips if you want to delete your account (5 steps):

Would love to a publish #envhist response to this research on @nichecanada.bsky.social. DM me if interested.

"In the research published in the journal Earth, Richardson also identified the disappearance of natural words from books between 1800 and 2020, which peaked at a 60.6% decline in 1990."

Really happy to have a new paper forthcoming at PPR!

Ever wondered if there’s any point in feeling regret? In this paper, I argue that regret is valuable because it helps us overcome temptation. Check it out: philpapers.org/rec/GOHRLA

Mixtape #7: Happy Women in Translation Month (2025) August is Women in Translation Month! So for Mixtape #7, we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their…

August is Women in Translation Month! To celebrate we asked critics, scholars, and translators: what are some of your favorite works written and/or translated by women? Here are some of their recommendations. We hope you would check out a few of these and celebrate women in translation!

A taxidermy pig with sticky out teeth. It has one head with two bodies. It is stood on two sets of hind legs, and almost seem like it is dancing.

This is a pig with syncephaly, a condition where there is one head but two bodies - and four ears, though here the extra ears have fused together, and can’t be seen from this angle. It was prepared for the collection of anatomist and obstetrician William Hunter in the nineteenth century.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

"It is crucial to note (...) that such utopic imaginings of female friendships may occur when one is not only cognisant of differences but also ready to work with those differences." Vrinda Chopra and Sonakshi Srivastava #139
@vrindac.bsky.social @sonakshis11.bsky.social

Check out our open-access edited volume on the history of science translation: tinyurl.com/ym4ahm6b

Got the brilliant opportunity to read and review Lomasko's latest for Asymptote.

www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/08...

@nplusonemag.com

excited to do this with the best of my colleagues and friends!
join us, virtually, to discuss approaches to academic writing, and what writing centres may and can do!
@rgsibg.bsky.social @vrindac.bsky.social

Illustration (c.1904) by Henry Justice Ford to the story “The Bunyip” from Andrew Lang's Brown Fairy Book. Looking across a wide lake, with mountains in the distance and reeds and bullrushes o the shore. On the right, a group of Australian Aborigine hunters, carrying spears, shields, and nets, are running away; the hindmost is carrying a strange creature, almost as big as he is, resembling a seal pup. It has a spotted hide and its mouth is open in distress as it looks back in anguish. On the left, rising from the waters of the lake, is a huge creature. It has horns, a mouth full of gigantic sharp teeth, a drooping, dripping moustache, and enormous staring eyes. Its mouth is open and it roars in fury at the fleeing hunters. Beneath the illustration are the words "The Bunyip", in flowing, hand-written letters.

“All of a sudden the silence was broken by a low wail, answered by another from the other side of the pool, as the mother rose up from her den and came towards them, rage flashing from her horrible yellow eyes…”

—“The Bunyip”, a story from THE BROWN FAIRY BOOK by Andrew Lang (1904)
#BookWormSat

saw a blue salmon swimming upstream to spawn today

The cover of “Only Smoke” with the text “'A Book with a Fever': Through the Looking Glass in Juan José Millás’s ‘Only Smoke.’ Robert Allen Papinchak Reviews ‘Only Smoke’ by Juan José Millás, translated by Thomas Bunstead and Daniel Hahn”

The cover of “Only Smoke” with the quote “Black holes are a recurring motif in the novel, as are playful temporal shifts. But Millás’s final metaphysical transformation draws the reader into active participation in the novel... what would assign the characters’ lives meaning if there were no reader? This question becomes an existential dilemma when Carlos confronts Ignacio/Carlos Senior.”

On WWB, Robert Allen Papinchak reviews @‌juanjosemillas.bsky.social's ONLY SMOKE (tr. Daniel Hahn and Thomas Bunstead), which turns its looking glass on the fairy tale form. Read the review: buff.ly/dOt3s0f

James Vincent · Where the Power Is: Planet Phosphorus The rarity of phosphorus makes it the single most limiting factor for the growth of biomass on Earth. It is, as Isaac...

‘Biological organisms, including humans, function as phosphorus sinks: we gather it into our bodies, transform it into something more useful and move it across the landscape, releasing it back into the broader ecosystem.’

@jjvincent.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Podcast for the eco-minded (and even the eco-curious)

We Computers: A Conversation with Hamid Ismailov and Shelley Fairweather-Vega - Yale University Press We Computers: A Ghazal Novel is a multilayered exploration of poetry, authorship, and digital intelligence. The book follows French poet and psychologist Jon-Perse who, inspired by what his translation partner... READ MORE

We Computers: A Ghazal Novel is a multilayered exploration of authorship and digital intelligence. Check out this interview Hamid Ismailov and translator Shelley Fairweather-Vega.

The Street Where Santa Lives by Harriet Howe Howe and Christians center community in this likable story about a child’s friendship with a new neighbor who bears a remarkable...

Coming next month! THE STREET WHERE SANTA LIVES "centers community in this likable story about a child’s friendship with a new neighbor" www.publishersweekly.com/9781664300750

One month left to submit to TURKOSLAVIA (Fall 2025)! We welcome prose and poetry translated from Turkic and Slavic languages (loosely defined) into English. Please send doc or docx files—with source text—to turkoslavia@gmail.com. Prose should not exceed 5,000 words. For poems, please send up to 5. 💙