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Paul Fyfe

@pfyfe.bsky.social

Professor at NC State University. Wandering between worlds of C19th British lit, comparative media studies, critical data literacies. Book *Digital Victorians* https://www.sup.org/books/literary-studies-and-literature/digital-victorians

1,816 Followers  |  488 Following  |  274 Posts  |  Joined: 08.08.2023
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Posts by Paul Fyfe (@pfyfe.bsky.social)

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Deus in Machina: AI and Divine Rhetoric β€œThe urgent message from history concerning the process of forcing the metaphorical deus into his machina is that social domination readily takes up the language of philosophy or religion when seeking...

I have a new essay out today with the North American Conference on British Studies about the oligarchical urge to say that AI is going to become God

www.nacbs.org/post/deus-in...

27.02.2026 15:05 β€” πŸ‘ 34    πŸ” 12    πŸ’¬ 4    πŸ“Œ 0

Sign the petition to have Jae Edwards reinstated!
actionnetwork.org/petitions/re...

16.02.2026 20:39 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 6    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Shame on NC State for firing an employee who, under the slimiest and most cowardly of circumstances, was filmed expressing commitment to students’ well-being.

17.02.2026 15:16 β€” πŸ‘ 77    πŸ” 19    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

as a substitute what about retrophilia

11.02.2026 22:01 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

That's awesome! Congratulations Steph!

10.02.2026 16:18 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

That tracks. I am kind of wondering how β€œyou need to know how to code” will translate to the natural language era.

31.01.2026 15:30 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Interesting. If this lets casual users develop stuff, what do they still need to know how to do? In terms of deploying apps, code repos, hosting data, that kind of thing?

31.01.2026 14:56 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Hey, that’s great! Your admiring scholarly audience is also chuffed!

11.12.2025 16:30 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Digital Victorians for just $18! Stuff your stocking, feed your head! www.sup.org/books/litera...

04.12.2025 21:19 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

This is great! Very well deserved. Congrats Adrian!

18.11.2025 14:06 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Feels like a good option to faceplant in a tray of lasagna

15.11.2025 04:29 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Hello thought police. Logically they should also deploy surveillance on all student-submitted work to prevent any unsanctioned learning.

14.11.2025 14:46 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Abandoned and failed projects, ca. 1998-2025: an incomplete, chronological list [This is an updated version of the original from 2021.]

"Abandoned and failed projects, ca. 1998-2025: an incomplete, chronological list" -- worth your time, from Adam Smyth, who lists all the stuff he dropped or which didn't work adamsmyth.substack.com/p/abandoned-...

04.11.2025 19:56 β€” πŸ‘ 12    πŸ” 6    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

I did a talk on just how deep the overlaps are between Frankenstein and AI last year! m.youtube.com/watch?v=fmF1...

17.10.2025 11:37 β€” πŸ‘ 28    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

That was a Brad Pasanek joint. Bet you could share/screen a Google doc and use text color or highlighters

17.10.2025 13:36 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Maybe fictional agency or character, as in M. Ward’s book *Seeming Human*

08.10.2025 12:17 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Oh damn, there's a contender: "Now, what I want is Vibes. Teach our young men nothing but Vibes. Vibes, and only Vibes, are what our feeds crave. Follow nothing else, and block everything else."

07.10.2025 22:02 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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an older woman with blue hair and red glasses says absolutely perfect Alt: Me appreciatively grading a student's essay

Gave students an assignment to rewrite a snippet of Hard Times as, instead, a "condition of America" novel circa 2025. The winner: a scene from a school board meeting in "Woketown."

07.10.2025 21:29 β€” πŸ‘ 29    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Lamott’s β€œShitty First Drafts”? wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/defaul...

07.10.2025 15:27 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

The unholy cult of the Lamb.

23.09.2025 11:56 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

It’s a big deal. You delivered!

09.09.2025 11:42 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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The Ends of Knowledge Bringing together an exciting group of knowledge workers, scholars and activists from across fields, this book revisits a foundational question of the Enlighten…

There’s been an attempt already: Mark Algee-Hewitt,β€œThe Ends of Digital Humanities” chapter In The Ends of Knowledge www.bloomsbury.com/us/ends-of-k...

05.09.2025 00:29 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Senior year I took Gravity's Rainbow to the Florida keys. In class afterwards, it at least looked well read, because it got rained on.

18.08.2025 17:12 β€” πŸ‘ 8    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

Congrats Maria! Its awesome to see your book getting recognition. (And in the TLS!)

25.06.2025 18:07 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

Congratulations Nathan! Looks fascinating.

04.06.2025 16:52 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Action without Hope A study of how writers from the early phases of our prolonged climate emergency used aesthetic strategies to redefine the category of action. What does it feel like to live helplessly in a world that ...

*Action without Hope: Victorian Literature after Climate Collapse* is out today! The official release got pushed back due to an issue w the art, & despite being mostly about literature it's very visual.

So to celebrate its full entry into the world, a thread of some of my favorite images from it:

04.06.2025 16:20 β€” πŸ‘ 131    πŸ” 41    πŸ’¬ 11    πŸ“Œ 5

Privacy is not about something to hide. And invasions of privacy are about power, not uncovering hidden things. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

30.05.2025 17:15 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

It's a perfect fantasy of disintermediation and the hypergendering of the labor it cannot fully erase. In this talk, I will ...

30.05.2025 16:27 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

There's no consensus. But I'd say think about why you're quantifying at all, what and how you want to query or analyze at the other end. And, if you have access, maybe consult with a data librarian for their expertise.

27.05.2025 15:23 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Donated. Contribute a little if you can.

19.05.2025 20:52 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0