Dr LJ Maher (cis: she/her, 🌈, AuDHD, Quaintrelle)

The 2026 Academic year starts tomorrow in Aus
1) Re students who are across the news, and possibly impacted by what looks like World War 3, how do I help them care about their studies?
2) for those who have no idea because they never open a news source, how do I get them to care about World War 3?

And Kristeva earned it. I don't even care if the rumours about her being a Soviet agent are legit.

Defund this

This is the energy I WISH my students brought to a lecture.

a small white dog is running on a wooden floor next to a blue refrigerator Alt: a herd of small white dogs are running on a wooden floor next to a blue refrigerator

It's O Week. Pray for us.

Vale short line for coffee.
Vale clean toilets.
Vale getting food in under 10 minutes.

But, we do have a fresh lot of JAFFYs, and they are so cute and little. It's like new getting puppies at a petting zoo.

#UniMelb

She Bradburied that brilliantly.

What happens when a "private lie" crosses the line into a criminal act?

https://goodlaw.social/ouzo

“That ‘Fast Car’ can be passed down through generations without requiring explanation is both a songwriting triumph and a grim indictment of America.”

What is it like to be an Elder Millennial who remembers life before computers/the internet? You know that TV show Hoarders? That but it's my desktop and/or external hard drives. Also insomnia, back ache and perimenopause.

I'd like to remind everyone who thinks that policing has always existed that modern policing is less than 200 years old, having begun in London in 1829

TeamUP with Collaborative Projects, University Press Week 2025, featuring logos of press projects mentioned in the post: The W. Hodding Carter III and Transregional Middle Easts series, Direct to Open (D2O), First Gen scholars program, and Centre for Literatures in Canada lecture series.

How do university presses #TeamUP to advance knowledge? A baker’s dozen inspiring examples in the #UPWeek Gallery include work by @ucpress.bsky.social, @dukepress.bsky.social, @mitpress.bsky.social, @uofupress.bsky.social, @uncpress.bsky.social & @ualbertapress.bsky.social: https://bit.ly/43CrodY

Differential social media affordances: an actor type-centric, intermediate-level approach using the case of social movements Abstract. Social media have profoundly changed social communication practices across a vast range of contexts. To theorize these changes, numerous authors

📜Fresh off the press: Annett Heft, @michaelvaughan.bsky.social, Barbara Pfetsch & I attempted to find a level for defining social media affordances that permits conceptualizing differences between platforms and uses, and is thus useful for theory building.
doi.org/10.1093/ct/q...

Student thesis: I will fill [x] gap in the literature.

Me: is that a gap in the literature or have you only read and cited white men?

#MarkingCaveOfDoom #DiversifyYourBookshelves #DiversifyCriticalTheory #DiversifyPhilosophy

I was wondering how long Teen Vogue’s remarkably tough-minded progressive journalism would last. The masthead has been doing some fantastic work. It looks like that time has come to an end.

Today I have no classes, the 🐉 (now 1) is in childcare, and my research assistants, Cwtch and Cariad, are helping me mark (which I am doing from bed because insomnia was real last night). There is sun. I have creamy soda and a Bakers' Delight pizza. I am being productive. Small mercies, big loves.

Yes. Our time is precious. I could be reading actual beautiful things or being with people (derogatory).

I hate marking assessments so goddamn much. I've always hated it. Having to also keep an eye out for AISlop in assessments has exacerbated that.

I think this is because I genuinely love reading essays, thinking about innovative arguments, and experimenting with the genre's forms and conventions.

Yiiiike. I am more and more convinced that firms should only be able to be partnerships, not corporations.

As a used bookseller, this is maddening because every damn day I see appetite for strange books, old books, indie books, forgotten books. Readers are there. They love to explore the store & buy things they've never heard of.

Publishing's biggest problem is that they've forgotten how to sell books.

Also, let's discuss the claim from the client's representative that the legal practitioner is accepting donations to the client's defence: it's been a while since I studied trusts accounting, but that doesn't sound like a accepting funds that can be returned.
6/

#Auslaw

In addition, would these social media posts breach s18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975? For funsies is there anything in the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 about interfering with electoral materials?
5/

#Auslaw

5.1.2 is likely to a material degree to—
(i) be prejudicial to, or diminish the public confidence in, the administration of justice, or
(ii) bring the profession into disrepute.

4/
#Auslaw

5 Standard of conduct—dishonest or disreputable conduct
5.1 A solicitor must not engage in conduct, in the course of legal practice or otherwise, which—
5.1.1 demonstrates that the solicitor is not a fit and proper person to practise law, or

3/

#Auslaw

4 Other fundamental ethical duties
4.1 A solicitor must also—
4.1.4 avoid any compromise to their integrity and professional independence...

2/

#AusLaw

Lawyer for Neo-Nazi praised Hitler's Mein Kampf as 'brilliant book' Matthew Hopkins shared racist and antisemitic material from the Neo-Nazi group on social media and described Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf as a "brilliant book" to his followers.

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...
Dear NSW Legal Services Commissioner, question re the Solicitors' Conduct Rules & the practitioner mentioned in the attached article:
1. Do the social media posts that the ABC has identified in this article breach the following provisions of the SCR?

1/
#AusLaw

Black Beauty, broken and rescued: 150 years of equine welfare The legacy of Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty reminds us: cruelty to any creature is everyone’s concern

Heritage Open Days 2025 are from 12 - 21 Sept.

The Anna Sewell House where Black Beauty's author was born is open to the public.
Jarrolds, the novel's publisher, is also offering a History Tour.

The book changed attitudes to horse welfare.

1 / 1 Letter in support of Meanjin’s future As members of the Publishing and Communications program’s staff at the University of Melbourne, we strongly support the continued existence of Meanjin Quarterly. From direct involvements with the journal during the past 25 years and more, we personally attest to the formative role Meanjin has played in the development of writers, editors and publishers, and an independent Australian cultural voice. The creative labour of thousands resonates deeply in the fabric of this cultural institution founded by Clem Christesen in Meanjin/Brisbane in 1940. We call on the University of Melbourne to recognise the rich and continuing social, political and literary value of Meanjin by ensuring its future. The journal is a living resource for our teaching, and vital to our students. Its publications fill our reading lists with ideas from the best minds of our time. It has uplifted many of our students through publication, internships, partnerships and employment, and its connection to the University is part of what makes our writing and editing programs valuable and comparable to other leading universities on the international stage. We believe the University’s enduring purpose of benefiting society compels it to take swift action to preserve the journal and sustain its continued publication, preferably within the University itself. At the very least, the University should do all it can, acting in good faith, to transfer the journal’s cultural and IP assets to another institution prepared to save it. Culturally, the University of Melbourne has benefited immensely from its support of the journal since 1945; the extinction of the journal would be its enduring loss but an even greater loss to the community the University serves. Signed by: Sybil Nolan Tim Coronel Matt Holden LJ Maher Fiannuala Morgan Sharon Mullins Beth Driscoll Claire Parnell Nicola Redhouse Hollen Singleton Bec Kavanagh

Re #MeanjinJournal, a letter from myself and some of my colleagues to The University of Melbourne. #Meanjin is such an important part of Australia's literary ecosystem and losing it would be culturally and industrially devastating. #AusLit #AustralianWriters #Publishing #Unimelb

How did my class on identifying audiences for digital content become a history lesson on Melbourne's Queer clubbing scene between 2000-2012?

I am thinking Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve, Fay Weldon's The Lives and Loves of a She-Devil, Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods and Frankisstein, Frances Cha's If I Had Your Face, etc...