Matthew Kirschenbaum

A search index of expert podcasts, videos and essays. Explore our curated database of essays, podcasts, and videos authored by the world's leading experts and designed for the public.

Extraordinary new public humanities resource that curates in near real-time over 50,0000 items from sources/channels of humanities-related scholars who create pubic-facing essays, podcasts, videos, blogs, etc.: publicscholarship.org

Screenshot of an X post: “Andrew Day & @AKDay89 •1h America has won a MASSIVE strategic victory in Iran that experts are calling the BIGGEST WIN ever which will allow us to NEVER go to war in the Middle East again and to cut ALL MILITARY AID to Israel saving Americans BILLIONS A YEAR. Lo • 57. t 63 • 497. ilit 35K|”

For anyone wondering how it’s going over there.

Killer opening line!

Some version of this is absolutely happening in the WH tonight.

I guess this is accelerationism.

Depositions in MLA-ACLS-AHA Lawsuit Over the NEH - YouTube As part of a lawsuit brought by the Modern Language Association, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Historical Association, two key ...

The government does not want you to watch these depositions. They are trying to make us take them down. You be the judge of why: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Word is the administration is trying to force the takedown of these videos.

Walking past a frat house just now, snatches of conversation on the early spring air. “Dude, it pisses me off, he has no fucking idea what he’s doing.” Shrug, could be anything. Then another fragment, same speaker. “Do you realize what a big ass country Iran is?”

Submitted without comment.

Typo but I’ll take it

Thank god it can ever happen here!

I’d gloss or amend or inflect:

The operational level of war (as opposed to strategy or the grit of tactics) is the domain of algorithms and platforms (and now AI models). It is ruled by data and abstractions, not ground truths or defined policy objectives.

Orphaned Tactics Oops we did it again

“The war with Iran is little more than the joint targeting process unleashed. The Frankenstein’s monster that is the operational level of war, unsatiated after eating strategy, is now feasting on policy”. @bafriedman.bsky.social

What, you’re not having your AI agent do that for you?

Between the uncompromising statement on Ed Tech and agentic AI released recently and most importantly, this hands on legal intervention and public information sharing , I am proud to be supporting this organization.

Video Shows US Tomahawk Missile Strike Next to Girls’ School in Iran - bellingcat New video footage shows a US Tomahawk missile hitting an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) facility in Minab, Iran, on Feb 28, showing for the first time that the US struck the area. The footag...

Read our analysis of the video showing a US Tomahawk missile strike next to Girls’ School in Iran on February 28 here: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

I've groused about this before, but no I will not create an account on your CMS and login and tick boxes to accept or decline your review invitation. Contact me like a human being and you'll get a human response, but not otherwise. (And yes, this sucks for the authors left stranded.)

Block and report

YouTube video by ModernLanguageAssoc Michael McDonald Deposition in MLA-ACLS-AHA Lawsuit About the NEH

Here is #NEH chairman Michael McDonald unable to articulate what he means by “viewpoint discrimination” b/c what he means is “when *my* view is deemed inappropriate or wrong.” Eg. fine to discriminate against immigrants’ speech, just not his. youtu.be/KiDcKST03Zk?...

Good pack for following current events.

Read the motion for summary judgement and view discovery documents and videos at www.mla.org/Resources/Ad...

Sweet. Where is that from?

I’ve always thought two of the biggest culprits were BRAVEHEART (which is featured in the recent White House video on the war) and THE PATRIOT, both of which seem to stream permanently on Netflix and Prime.

MLA, ACLS, and AHA lawsuit reveals use of ChatGPT in illegal termination of grants by DOGE. Motion for summary judgment asserts violations of the First Amendment; violations of the Equal Protection Clause; and violation of the separation of powers. mla.org/NEH-Lawsuit

The MLA, @acls1919.bsky.social, and @historians.org have filed a motion for summary judgment in our lawsuit to restore the NEH. Discovery documents reveal that DOGE rather than the acting chair led grant terminations and targeted grants using ChatGPT. More at mla.org/NEH-Lawsuit

Have you read McEwan’s What We Can Know?

When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities

As someone who watched the careful stewardship of grants over many years, the lack of care and the dismissal of the hard work of scholars and NEH program staff described here is devastating and shameful.

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/a...

Picture of DOGE guy Nate Cavanaugh

Screenshot of my DOGE letter “Dr. Joseph Rezek Dear NEH Grantee, This letter provides notice that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is terminating your federal grant (Grant Application No. FEL29509824) effective April 3, 2025, in accordance with the termination clause in your Grant Agreement. Your grant no longer effectuates the agency's needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant Agreement and is subject to termination due to several reasonable causes, as outlined in 2CFR§200.340. For instance, NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President's agenda. The President's February 19, 2025 executive order mandates that the NEH eliminate all non-statutorily required activities and functions. See Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, E.O. 14217 (Feb. 19, 2025). Your grant's immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities. Any objections or appeals to this termination will be managed in strict accordance with the President's Executive Orders,

Last year, this guy (left) from DOGE used ChatGPT to find NEH grants that were too “DEI” for Trump, and canceled them, including mine, as shown by the letter I received last April (right). Huge new NYT article on the back story link below

We like puzzles. And we like the way some recent letterpress broadside experiments using our "ink pulls has been going. We decided to try making a jigsaw puzzle out of two of them. Here is the results of one of them.

Grammarly describing how it can detect or hide ai written text, whatever you want boss

Grammarly... Detecting AI, hiding AI, all in one snazzy service
https://www.grammarly.com/ai-agents/expert-review

The White House is transforming the Iran strikes into a meme war The White House is using memes that make light of violent combat in Iran, mixing footage of real missile strikes with clips from action films and video games.

New: The White House is transforming the Iran strikes into a meme war. An "aesthetic of bloodlust" that gives Americans the empathy-free, Hollywood, video-game version of deadly combat www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Trump says college sports is more complicated than geopolitics.