Amanda Watson

Reasons to love the world, #2 in an occasional series: views like this.

Parents should have something to say about unqualified people grading their kids.

Students should transfer.

Other uchicago alums, please do get in touch if you're interested in this. My email can be found with a google search. No idea what we're doing yet but let's do something. The trustees are elected for 5 year terms, so there should be pressure points.

What I love abt these threads is how clearly they show that part of the fascist project is learned neglect of all "minor" things. ("Minor" is all of living!) Resolves me for the fundamental work of minute and critical attention to how things are and how they work. that's art AND politics

This article is an excellent guide to what you can and should be doing right now. Many people seem to think that fascism is a switch that gets flipped, but it's really a machine that the government needs to keep feeding quarters into. Your job is to exhaust the state until they quit.

As Trump pushes a federal takeover of D.C. police, these are your rights With federal and local officers on D.C.’s streets, here’s what to know about what law enforcement agencies can legally order you to do — and what they can’t.

Boost and for everyone in DC. Know your rights. (Gift link)

This is on my mind as I prepare to return to piano lessons next month with a new teacher. I'm hoping I can quickly get over the self-consciousness of playing badly in front of someone who doesn't know how much progress I've made since I started.

I mean this is what the fascists always count on: that even as life around you slowly descends into authoritarianism, people get kidnapped off the streets and disappeared, and others start to self-censor their words, *most* of us still live our daily lives as normal. That's the scary part.

There's this thin veil of normalcy that people are desperately clinging to. The sense that we're still in the old times. We're not.

Love to be expected to just keep working like everything's normal during this blatant fascist escalation.

“How to Report ICE” zines now available for these areas:

NYC
Philly
Durham, NC
All of Massachusetts

I will add more as I get them done.
Download them to print here: drive.google.com/drive/folder...

A glaring symptom of fascism:

Downplaying the threat of heavily armed gov’t enforcers while absurdly characterizing the slightest verbal resistance as criminally violent

Creating a reality where throwing a milkshake or sandwich or saying, “I wish you’d die!” to an oppressor is a punishable offense

As a child, I had a babysitter who considered the word "underwear" a bad word. Like...what are you going to call them, then? "Unmentionables"?

Happy birthday!!

This piece is a brilliant companion to @ruha9.bsky.social's Imagination: A Manifesto. "How will you protect your wonder — your freedom dreams — from an authoritarian who absolutely hates it when we imagine?"

Bluesky book club, take note! 📖

This is also reminding me that so many of my academic research interests revolve around this kind of reading, whether it's C19 poetry fans copying passages for themselves or 20th-century lesbians circulating reading lists.

Ghosts! Detectives! Mud! Spontaneous human combustion! It's really got a little of everything.

Last night DC neighbors showed up at a police checkpoint at 14th & V ST. NW with handwritten signs warning drivers to avoid the block.

After realizing that the community was successfully diverting all traffic, agents packed up the checkpoint and left. #WeKeepUsSafe

Keflavik. Not a remarkable airport but it does have a bookshop with C18 editions of Icelandic sagas on display, and you can go directly to the Blue Lagoon to revive yourself after your flight.

you're doing amazing, DC

Tons of actions to take in this thread. 👆👇

Learning History Is a Righteous Form of Resistance It’s a way to combat Trump’s attempts at remaking the past to justify erasing protections for the most vulnerable.

Historians fight back. "Ten steps forward. Five steps back. We face a mean-spirited, lie-fueled campaign that aims to make our lives as rights-bearing citizens untenable. Learning our history is a radical & righteous form of resistance & any one of us can do it."
newrepublic.com/article/1983...

I've scaled back my conference attendance so much since 2020, in large part because most academic and library conferences won't do this.

So much about our current national situation is explained by the fact that a substantial proportion of Americans truly believe that “feeling somewhat uncomfortable” is the same as being the victim of an actual crime

I'm now trying to remember where I read that in the late C19/early C20, being "excessively fond of Wagner" was considered (at least by some) to be a sign of queerness. Which makes it a bit ironic that Mrs. Fish said that line to Oscar, the show's Token Gay.

A scene from Season 3, Episode 8 of The Gilded Age. Mamie Fish (Ashlie Atkinson) is saying “I thought you didn’t like Wagner.”

I always appreciate when The Gilded Age returns to the opera house (sadly, this scene involved no actual opera).

mattobrien ate at a diner that had a "FUCK ICE" sign in the window and I've never ordered huevos rancheros so quickly in my life. a "FUCK ICE" sign is basically a michelin star for mexican food in Los Angeles.

Note to restaurants: I will rearrange my day to eat at an establishment that displays a "FUCK ICE" sign.

I will cancel plans. I will leave the chicken in the freezer. I will stand with you.

Mamdani just keeps doing things that make me like him even more. Making a point about improving bus service while walking at New Yorker speed? ❤️

Not even in the top 500 most impeachable things that Trump has done in office, but I can't get over how he's defacing monuments to republican virtue in order to turn them into symbols of decadent personalism. Caligula-ass government.