Meghan K. Roberts

OpenAI claims new GPT-5 model boosts ChatGPT to ‘PhD level’ GPT-5's release comes as tech firms continue to compete in an effort to claim the world's most advanced AI.

Obviously a lie, since the definition of PhD-level expertise, standard across universities worldwide, is that you can produce original knowledge.

I am *extremely* competitive so it made me whole day when my physical therapist told me I have the best scapular mobility of any patient she’s seen this year. 🥇 ⭐️ 💃

Going to keep saying: a society that wants to keep functioning needs to discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities

Those of us in academic or public history positions do have a range of options beyond brief-writing, though--*teaching* (defined expansively) is our most important form of public outreach, working with and among students from all walks of life, modeling what actual participatory community can be.

Here is Pete Hegseth's tweet announcing the return of the Confederate monument to Arlington National Cemetery. The plan is to restore it and reinstall in 2027.

It's important to point out that this monument was never referred to as a "Reconciliation Monument."

I wish! There are so many amazing associates out there.

I am *not* on the search committee but I’m happy to answer questions about Bowdoin, Maine, or SLACs : )

I’m just so thrilled the department/College is hiring in 18th c studies!

Assistant Professor of English Bowdoin College’s Department of English invites applications for a full-time tenure-track faculty appointment at the Assistant Professor level, beginning July 1, 2026, in the long eighteenth century i...

18th c people!!!! Check out this TT job in the long 18th c in Bowdoin’s English department. We could be #C18 buddies!!!!!

Oh I watch all of it on YouTube! I’d definitely recommend the 5k for sure. The ending was amazing!!!!

Holy smokes, just saw that Melissa won the 200 too!!!! What a star!!!!!!

Wow, the USATF championships are SO GOOD this year!!!! Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in the 400 😍, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden in the 100, Masai Russell in the 100H!!!! And wow Cole Hocker, Grant Fisher, and Nico Young have made the distance races absolutely thrilling to watch. That 5k!!!!!

And it was just part of the general culture that you should put up with all manner of abuse because “he probably just has a crush on you and doesn’t know how to show it.”

Also, I don’t think high school boys listened to Rush Limbaugh per se but he was in the water. Anyone who advocated any kind of gender equality was a “feminazi.” Fun times.

An extremely common topic of discussion at my high school was: were girls actually as smart as boys, or did they just work harder? The standard response was the latter.

Desiree Washington, and a whole host of young women SA'ed during the golden age of hip hop.

R. Kelly and Diddy were the tip of the iceberg.

This has been the dominant thought running through my head for this progressive masculinity/sex discourse. The 90s were AWFUL. Trust me, I was a teenager.

Seriously, Canadians, calm TF down.

How could anyone, even online trolls, be mean to Katie Ledecky?!

A question for eighteenth-century studies people: has anyone published a comparison of Ghislane Maxwell to the 18c "procuress" figure -- e.g. Richardson's Mrs. Sinclair or Hogarth's Mother Needham? Or, for that matter, 17c Dutch paintings of "The Procuress"? www.rct.uk/collection/8...

I told my husband this story and his response was “how could it cost $21,000?! They invented that shot in the 19th century!” 😂

oh my God it’s my two nightmares rolled into one

Course evaluations have been a ticking time bomb for years. An absolute Trojan horse of an institutional feature that offers zero helpful data points for improving education and the research on its downsides *before this* latest manipulation is a mile wide.

I particularly enjoy the “no silk or satin” rule, just in case someone thought a sexy little slip was the right choice for a hospital stay.

NIGHT CLOTHES ARE MANDATORY. Please bring pajamas (no silk or satin) with you. Boxers are not sufficient. A t-shirt and shorts/sweatpants or something similar is also acceptable. If you do not bring nightclothes with you a hospital “Johnny” MUST be worn.

Lol at how adamantly the instructions I received for my sleep study convey that you must wearing clothing. Yes, you. No, underwear doesn’t count. If you don’t comply, you will wear the hospital gown of shame.

Screenshot of the website header for slavesinparis.org comprising a drawing of the Place des Victoires in 18th-century Paris

"Slaves in Paris: A Digital Mapping Project" - a partnership between Miranda Spieler and Colonial Networks slavesinparis.org. Created with the support of our Kress Foundation Digital Art History Grant. Officially launched today in Paris at #GCFHSResist

How to Read an "AI" Press Release — Sonja Drimmer Every so often someone like Mark Zuckerberg or Sam Altman will dribble out some unadorned text in Times New Roman font, announcing with stentorian certitude the advent of a new world that their latest...

Zuckerberg farted out some nonsense today, and since most media outlets refuse to report critically any time a tech CEO offers them some a pseudoserious press release, I've decided to do it for them.

sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/7/30/how-to-read-an-ai-press-release

Onlookers doesn’t work well for the sentence IMO. Full line: “Paris vous retient toujours et nous prive du plaisir de vous voir, vous n’estes pas le seul que cette séduisante ville détache des provinces: trop heureux s’ils n’en viennent pas jusqu’à les mépriser, comme font presque tous les Badauts.”

Maybe, but I don’t think I can render badaud as flâneur because that’s not a translation, that’s just substituting a different French word. And I don’t think the average anglophone knows what a badaud is (and even flâneur would not mean anything to most of my students)