Franck Billé

“The trouble with having an open mind is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it”
— Terry Pratchett

Thank you! ❤️

My book “Somatic States” is coming out in a few weeks with @dukepress.bsky.social

A decade in the making, it’s not just “another book,” it’s the most important I have written.

Introduction available here:
shorturl.at/8zMy5

#geography #anthropology #politicaltheory

“my eyes are up here” i say, pointing to my jar of eyeballs on the top shelf

Cover of the Duke University Press Spring & Summer 2025 catalog. It is bright yellow with painting by Tommi Parrish of a human figure in orange, wearing a yellow hard hat, holding on to a burst pipe which spills water all over. The Duke University Press logo is in the bottom right.

Check out our new Spring 2025 catalog, which features work by @gentlemanjane.bsky.social, @jsrhee.bsky.social, @totomcgee.bsky.social, @burrata.bsky.social, @fbille.bsky.social & many more. Download it today!
issuu.com/dukeuniver...

The deep historical forces that explain Trump’s win Our research shows that political breakdown, from the Roman Empire to the Russian revolution, follows a clear pattern: workers’ wages stagnate, while elites multiply

Nice to see this pithy insight from Peter Turchin, with a nod to his work on Seshat, in @theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...

Farmworkers Are Organizing to Resist Trump’s Attacks on Immigrant Workers Organizers from Florida, Vermont and Washington discuss the rising exploitation and rollback of protections ahead.

What are you doing to resist Trump's corruption? I'm reading about farmworkers who are organizing to protect immigrant laborers. A clip:

"We need to recognize that we’re in a position of power, not weakness, because we hold the levers of the food system."

Don't surrender in advance! Fight back!

Israel demolishes last mosque in Bedouin village in Negev desert Israel this morning bulldozed the last remaining building in the Umm Al-Hiran Bedouin village of the Negev (Naqab) desert, a mosque, to make way for the construction of Jewish-only settlements.

Regional Council for Unrecognised Bedouin Villages in the Negev spokesperson condemned the demolition of the Bedouin village of Umm Al-Hiran in the Negev desert, as "another chapter in the ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Arabs in this country."

www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241114-isr...

“Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged” The 154-page report, “‘Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged’: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza,” examines how Israeli authorities’ conduct has led to the displacement of over 90 percen...

Overwhelming evidence for crimes against humanity.

www.hrw.org/report/2024/...

Um jornalista comprado pelo lobby genocida tentou constranger Francesca Albanese c/a mesma ladainha sionista de sempre.
E a resposta dela é uma AULA de Direito Internacional.

Please add me too

Arabic written from left to right

[facepalm]

Our book REDACTED was published today. It is available in Open Access through the Press’ website.
punctumbooks.com/.../redacted...
Thank you to all our contributors!

How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war A year later, memorials to the 7 October attacks use art, virtual reality and dark tourism to stir support for limitless violence. But there is a different way to remember

Naomi Klein on why Israelis keep comparing October 7 to the Shoah:

"Palestinians have been forced to pay for Europe’s crimes…in the new national identity being forged around that traumatic day… it would be safe to finally finish the job of the Nakba…"

www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

For the last couple of weeks we've been bringing some of our stuff to the new house. The very first items were one meaningful book for each one of us.

Do you use ChatGPT for language learning? I’m finding it really useful but need to be cautious as it’s not always reliable

Kinda obsessed with this handwritten font. But not quite enough to spend €242 on it.

www.arabictypography.com/retail-fonts...

Add me please!

The Publisher Defendants’ Scheme has three primary components. First, the Publisher Defendants agreed to not compensate scholars for their labor, in particular not to pay for their peer review services (the “Unpaid Peer Review Rule”). In other words, the Publisher Defendants agreed to fix the price of peer review services at zero. The Publisher Defendants also agreed to coerce scholars into providing their labor for nothing by expressly linking their unpaid labor with their ability to get their manuscripts published in the Publisher Defendants’ journals. In the “publish or perish” world of academia, the Publisher Defendants essentially agreed to hold the careers of scholars hostage so that the Publisher Defendants could force them to provide their valuable labor for free.

Second, the Publisher Defendants agreed not to compete with each other for manuscripts by requiring scholars to submit their manuscripts to only one journal at a time (the “Single Submission Rule”). The Single Submission Rule substantially reduces competition among the Publisher Defendants, substantially decreasing incentives to review manuscripts promptly and publish meritorious research quickly. The Single Submission Rule also robs scholars of negotiating leverage they otherwise would have had if more than one journal offered to publish their manuscripts. Thus, the Publisher Defendants know that if they offer to publish a manuscript, the submitting scholar has no viable alternative and the Publisher Defendant can then dictate the terms of publication.

Third, the Publisher Defendants agreed to prohibit scholars from freely sharing the scientific advancements described in submitted manuscripts while those manuscripts are under peer review, a process that often takes over a year (the “Gag Rule”). From the moment scholars submit manuscripts for publication, the Publisher Defendants behave as though the scientific advancements set forth in the manuscripts are their property, to be shared only if the Publisher Defendants grant permission. Moreover, when the Publisher Defendants select manuscripts for publication, the Publisher Defendants will often require scholars to sign away all intellectual property rights, in exchange for nothing. The manuscripts then become the actual property of the Publisher Defendants, and the Publisher Defendants charge the maximum the market will bear for access to that scientific knowledge.

this is pretty amazing: @lucinauddin.bsky.social is taking on the giant, hugely profitable publishers of academic journals, on grounds of antitrust

If you'd like to join the case as a plaintiff you can sign up at www.lieffcabraser.com/antitrust/ac...

summary of the case:

Relatedly, I’ve been careful to avoid using the word “seminal” in my work and been replacing it with “germinal”.

Since wrapping up my book (forthcoming spring 2025) I have gone back to my first passion, language-learning, which pretty much defined my late teenage years and early 20s. But now there’s ChatGPT!!—a game changer for languages like Arabic where there is a lot of data for AI training #العربية

In addition to an intensive, and somewhat obsessive, study of Arabic with the aim of finally achieving fluency, I just started auditing an Amharic class. Beginning an entirely unfamiliar language in your 50s is definitely challenging, but it’s also so much fun! #አማርኛ #العربية