Alix Beeston

It's just so entirely grim that underlying all of this is the fact that there are really just one or two institutions that can be expected to hire at all for the foreseeable future, even on a replacement basis. Just total ecosystem collapse.

“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”

James Baldwin

Reliance on the US, neglect of key industries, reluctance to raise taxes to fund public services, reluctance to re-embrace Europe, inconsistent foreign policy, commitment to reducing immigration, transphobia, illiberal positions on drugs and sex work are not serious contemporary policy approaches.

One cool thing about unequivocally hating AI is that you will be proven right over and over again every single day

"The UK pattern is one where people have the skills but jobs don’t let them use them."

extremely familiar...

This is entirely correct.

It is *also* true of Labour's earned settlement proposals -which while not as extreme/overtly racist as Reform's, would still have precisely this effect for hundreds of thousands of people

Not too late for government to change course

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

everyone loved the tech industry's free music and friendship machines of 20-30 years ago. it's unclear what could be causing people to feel the opposite about the industry's new racism and insanity machine

My general feeling is that every summary tool shortcuts the library shelf. In grad school there were few things I adored more than finding a book on the shelf bc I inevitably found six or seven other books on proximate shelves that I didn’t even know I needed! Process is the point!

It’s also not our job because “teaching students ethical use” is a largely vacuous slogan built on inevitability narratives, “just a (neutral) tool”discourse, & other misleading hype. In my humanities courses, I begin with the *ethics of non-use* when I explain the many reasons we won’t be using it.

Reading this beautiful weaving of past work and these chapters has healed the day.

“somewhere behind this wall
I have to believe in the quiet rhythm of your Sundays
the blue obstacles routed from the fire
held in your hands
this life that demands only to let down its solitude”

Unfinished: On Kathleen Collins’s “Blue Obstacles” by Alix Beeston February 5, 2026 – “To reappraise women’s incomplete works can be to resist the exclusionary gestures—the refusals, rejections, and roadblocks—that all too often stymie and limit the public careers of...

Thank you so much! Another piece about this here too: www.theparisreview.org/blog/2026/02...

Oh, hell yeah! The new issue of ASAP journal has the first four chapters of an unpublished novel by Kathleen Collins! It's titled Blue Obstacles and is open access here:

muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

🎉🎉🎉

Muriel Box and the Truth About Women Directors Professor Melanie Williams presents her current research on the work of film director Muriel Box and her 1957 film The Truth About Women

Very pleased to be doing this upcoming online research seminar
for University of Reading's Film, Theatre & TV department: Wednesday 25 February, 14.00 - 15.30, "Muriel Box, 'The Truth About Women', and the truth about women directors" www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/muriel-box...

I guess I have to say this too: staff worked ourselves ill to do our best for students and we didn't make the decisions that led to their dissatisfaction *but we know that we'll bear the fallout from it.* We are already losing jobs, departments, campuses, fields of expertise to government decisions.

Unfinished: On Kathleen Collins’s “Blue Obstacles” by Alix Beeston February 5, 2026 – “To reappraise women’s incomplete works can be to resist the exclusionary gestures—the refusals, rejections, and roadblocks—that all too often stymie and limit the public careers of...

A few years ago in the Kathleen Collins archive in New York, I started reading a heavily edited, coffee-spilled notebook. I'm honored to share an excerpt of Collins's first novel, virtually unread before now, in dream magazine @parisreview.bsky.social:

www.theparisreview.org/blog/2026/02...

Hot on the heels of the @parisreview.bsky.social piece featuring an excerpt from Kathleen Colllins's unfinished novel "Blue Obstacles," ASAP/Journal has published a longer version of the draft materials with scholarly notes and a contextualizing essay. It's open access! 🎉🎉🎉 doi.org/10.1353/asa....

Thanks Laura - hope you might be coming to Loughborough in July? Xx

Happy to have had a chance to write about Nella Larsen's author portraits and to reflect on my first book In and Out of Sight in the postscript to a special issue of the Journal of World Literature on the modernist face, edited by Anca Parvulescu and @tynedaile.bsky.social: brill.com/view/journal...

At long last our Special Issue on 'The Modernist Face in/as World Literature' is now out in Journal of World Literature, edited by Anca Parvulescu (Washington University in St. Louis) and me!

Our Introduction is open access here: brill.com/view/journal...

Just a few hours left for this, but it's plenty of time. Even just answering the "overall do you agree" question can be meaningful. Speak against this endless cruelty.

@asapartsnow.bsky.social sorry forgot to tag you!

Hot on the heels of the @parisreview.bsky.social piece featuring an excerpt from Kathleen Colllins's unfinished novel "Blue Obstacles," ASAP/Journal has published a longer version of the draft materials with scholarly notes and a contextualizing essay. It's open access! 🎉🎉🎉 doi.org/10.1353/asa....

from “Blue Obstacles” by Kathleen Collins February 5, 2026 – “I discern everything in a Parisian way. Until the thought comes home that my hair is messy and I am too dowdily colored to look French. I am not even well-colored: just a layer of ...

Kathleen Collins: "Can’t a colored woman be vague and full of notions? Can’t she settle on damp, uneven ground and try to twist herself into some odd, unpredictable shape?" www.theparisreview.org/blog/2026/02...

Unfinished: On Kathleen Collins’s “Blue Obstacles” by Alix Beeston February 5, 2026 – “To reappraise women’s incomplete works can be to resist the exclusionary gestures—the refusals, rejections, and roadblocks—that all too often stymie and limit the public careers of...

A few years ago in the Kathleen Collins archive in New York, I started reading a heavily edited, coffee-spilled notebook. I'm honored to share an excerpt of Collins's first novel, virtually unread before now, in dream magazine @parisreview.bsky.social:

www.theparisreview.org/blog/2026/02...

this will be an extraordinary book + everyone should read Alix's methodological précis!

💞💞💞

For a preview of *Image Encounters* check out this short excerpt from the manuscript I published at the #Visualities forum @mmodernity.bsky.social: modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...

I was lucky enough to contribute a reflection on the approach and ethical stakes of this book to @katherinegroo.bsky.social's fabulous special issue of @femmediahist.bsky.social
on new feminist methods last year: doi.org/10.1525/fmh....

First page of a publication agreement with Penn State University Press for a book tentatively titled *Image Encounters: Photography and the Feminist Art of Being Seen*

✨✨✨ After a bit of a wayward journey, my critical-creative book about women and girls in photography history has found a wonderful home @psupress.bsky.social! *Image Encounters: Photography and the Feminist Art of Being Seen* is coming in late 2027 ✨✨✨