James Graham

James Graham (@jmzgraham.bsky.social) catches his breath in West Oakland.

nyra.nyc/air-apparent

What the Columbia Settlement Really Means

The Columbia settlement is an “astonishing transfer of autonomy and authority to . . . an administration whose disdain for the values of the academy is demonstrated anew every day.” New @knightcolumbia.org analysis of the Columbia settlement, just published. knightcolumbia.org/blog/what-th...

Screenshot of beginning of an email just sent out by Columbia, reading as follows: Dear members of the Columbia community, Columbia University has finalized an agreement with the federal government, ending a period of considerable institutional uncertainty. This agreement resolves multiple federal agency investigations and protects Columbia’s academic mission, research enterprise, and independence. The resolution will allow the University to move forward with clarity and focus—returning our full attention to the work of teaching, discovery, and public service. It will also enable all of us to turn our attention to mending and rebuilding our community.

Acting President of @columbiauniversity.bsky.social Claire Shipman why are you lying to yourself and us like this

Your capitulation doesn't protect independence at all--it imperils it

"Fair use empowers libraries, the web, news reporting and more... In the current turmoil surrounding the Copyright Office, we must not lose sight of the importance of fair use. Recent writings about generative AI could substantially undermine fair use across a much broader spectrum..."

(remembered with affection, for the record, nothing but love for the hatchback beyond the general car thing)

“I wish I had a brand new car / so far, I got this hatchback / and everywhere I go, yo, I gets laughed at.” — Skee-Lo (1995)

Today @zachmortice.bsky.social has an update on the ACSA's decision to nuke its own flagship journal while exercising the last acceptable form of racism in America (anti-Palestinianism). As he notes, they even hired a GOP/RJC law firm to justify their decision.
www.archpaper.com/2025/04/jour...

TODAY @ NOON ET in NYC:

COLUMBIA PROFESSORS TO HOLD EMERGENCY VIGIL AGAINST ADMIN CONCESSIONS TO TRUMP ADMINISTRATION.

Columbia gates at 116th & Amsterdam Ave (Not Broadway)

• Hands Off Our Students, Faculty, & Research

• Defend Science

• Defend Academic Freedom

• Defend Freedom of Speech

Letter from Columbia student Ranjani Srinivasan after fleeing the United States to Canada Visit the post for more.

GSAPP tends to self-identify as powerless small fry within the larger Columbia picture but it seems to me that we, specifically, have some serious reckoning to do. www.normanfinkelstein.com/letter-from-...

REFLECTIONS ON AI IN THE CLASSROOM: How We are Not Using Al in the Classroom By Sonja Drimmer & Christopher J. Nygren Premise Prompt engineering is a term that has become commonplace since the widespread availability of generative Al applications like ChatGPT. The idea is that the outputs of the large language models (LLMs) on which these applications are based are only as good as the prompts that are input: vague prompts result in equally vague outputs. And thus was born the race to train for careers in prompt engineering. Unfortunately, the bubble seems to have burst before even the first generation of students was trained for this career outcome. We were given a prompt as an invitation to participate in this newsletter: "How are you using Al in the classroom?" While we have accepted this invitation, we are engaging in the most humanistic act we can imagine—refusing the prompt.”

Love to refuse a prompt. static1.squarespace.com/static/53a4b...

Hard, but necessary. It’s been a privilege to work with this board; among the most principled, generous, kind, brilliant, just, + fiercely tender people I’ve met. Looking forward to building platforms, institutions, languages, potentials + possibilities that have these values and voices. Stay tuned.

ACSA cancels Fall 2025 Journal of Architectural Education issue about Palestine and fires its interim executive editor ACSA announced this afternoon it has cancelled a forthcoming JAE edition about Palestine. The Fall 2025 issue was planned to be edited by Cruz Garcia, Nora Akawi, Omar Jabary Salamanca, Zoé Samudzi, a...

Spent parts of my career thinking ACSA/JAE wasn't for me, but for the past four years (thx to Nora Wendl / McLain Clutter / great editors + board), JAE has been one of the best journals going. ACSA hasn't "protected" anything—they've unmade it with their own hands.

www.archpaper.com/2025/02/acsa...

Another hour, another call for another conference about teaching with AI. I am so supremely annoyed and bored and 💔 by this reactionary obsession: what a waste of opportunity to think about infinitely more constructive, convivial, empowering, life-affirming and existentially consequential things

"The injured veteran or industrial worker, then, was a subject of biomechanical study but also occupied a central place within the philosophy of perception and emerging neurosciences."

From our new issue, read James Graham's "Rehabilitory Modernism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

I am beyond excited to be in the current issue of @criticalinquiry.bsky.social with my research on László Moholy-Nagy's occupational therapy work with veterans ... ping me if you need a gift link! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

If anyone out there feels bad about being a slow writer ... I did this research in summer 2013, presented it at a conference in 2016, finished the chapter in 2018, submitted it to Critical Inquiry a year later, and then ... sat on my revisions for three years. They were so very patient.

We read this in my essays class and the students were so moved by it!

I re-read the “Research” chapter from time to time, just one of the great statements of the modernist knowledge project. Also love the gramophone shenanigans

Hologram professors assign AI generated “podcasts” to students who use AI transcription to feed them into ChatGPT, which completes the assignments thereafter submitted to a plagiarism checker, after which they are auto-scored according to a curve indexed to the US News rankings algorithm.

Shaft of light coming down from the skylight at the top of the vertiginous lobby at John Portman’s Hyatt in downtown San Francisco

Had to do it!

Columbia University is colluding with the far-right in its attack on students | Moira Donegan In her willingness to unleash state violence against student protestors, Minouche Shafik proved herself to be a willing ally to extremists

It is worth stating plainly what happened at Columbia: the raid was l the product of collusion between a university administration and rightwing politicians to suppress politically disfavored speech.

I wrote about the mass arrests at Columbia: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...