Alix Beeston

• Professors should never put a student's words or work into an AI software without their consent. • Professors should also be transparent about their Al usage with grading, curriculum building, and any other way they might use it in their teaching. • If a professor does use Al chatbots in the classroom, they should explain their reasoning behind this decision and how its usage will help students meet learning outcomes. • Professors should additionally respect a student's choice to refuse Al. To do this, it would be ideal that they have assignments that students can choose from that do

Eminently reasonable proposed principles for professors’ use of AI, from a student refusinggenai.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/a...

I love this idea Lucy

Sort of in connection with this piece by @alixbeeston.bsky.social I read yesterday - and highly recommend! - I've spent today wondering how different photography might seem if it had been considered similarly to creative non-fiction (rather than inherently mendacious etc)

doi.org/10.1525/fmh....

If I could offer students one bit of…advice: be brutally traditional about what is printed on your degree.

If you are first-gen or in any way non traditional, this goes double. Let rich kids get degrees in AI. You get something called “English”.

Indeed, this issue enters the world at a different moment from the one in which it began. In my introduction, I try to make sense of the histories embedded within the issue itself and clarify my own understanding of just what methods we might require from here. 5/ online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...

The piece is an honest and quite vulnerable attempt to wrestle with the personal and political stakes of a book that's been a long time coming, too long really. Its writing gave me courage to face the final hurdles on its path into the world. Happy to send a PDF to anyone who doesn't have access xx

This one is a bit special. I feel very lucky to have been invited to contribute an essay to a special issue of dream journal Feminist Media Histories on new methods in feminist film and media studies, edited by one of my very favourite scholars @katherinegroo.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1525/fmh....

Volume 11 Issue 4 | Feminist Media Histories | University of California Press

I find it v difficult to put into words how honored and lucky i feel to have edited this issue on feminist historical methods, to have had so many important pieces of writing and thinking entrusted to me over these last few years. 1/
online.ucpress.edu/fmh/issue/11/4

Finally had time to listen to this excellent interview with Mark Goble about his new book, DOWNTIME: THE 20TH CENTURY IN SLOW MOTION, with Alix Beeston on the @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social: tinyurl.com/333dere5. @goblemark.bsky.social @alixbeeston.bsky.social @columbiaup.bsky.social

I almost only listen to leftist baseball podcasts but that’s just me. So many thanks to @alixbeeston.bsky.social and @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social for letting me talk about Downtime. Alix is the best reader and not surprisingly the best here too. Book is available from @columbiaup.bsky.social.

History professor Cate Denial says, “There is nothing that I ask my students to do in my classes that benefits from being done by generative AI.”

Even allowing that GenAI/LLMs might have valid uses, it doesn't matter bc they are inherently unethical bc they're trained on stolen work. Period. Any use of it condones that.

Until they undo that (which would mean rebuilding it from scratch) and fix the environmental impact, it's a no go. Period.

Ed Kiely · Short Cuts: University Finances Universities’ reliance on international students is only the most recent attempt to solve a broader problem, one that...

‘Most of the opprobrium aimed at universities is fantastical. I only wish that academic life was as radical and subversive as its detractors believe.’

Ed Kiely on UK university finances: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

If your business model doesn’t work without breaking the law, then you’re not in business.

You’re in organized crime.

Refusing Generative AI in Writing Studies Visit the post for more.

Written for writing studies but definitely more broadly applicable across the humanities and other disciplines.

refusinggenai.wordpress.com

Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, recently used my second-place finish in the 1,600-meter run, and that of my teammate in the 800-meter run, to malign Soren Stark-Chessa, the trans-identified athlete who finished first. One of the reasons I chose to run cross-country and track is the community: Teammates cheering each other on, athletes from different schools coming together, and the fact that personal improvement is valued as much as, if not more than, the place we finish. Last Friday, I ran the fastest 1,600-meter race I have ever run in middle school or high school track and earned varsity status by my school’s standards. I am extremely proud of the effort I put into the race and the time that I achieved. The fact that someone else finished in front of me didn’t diminish the happiness I felt after finishing that race. I don’t feel like first place was taken from me. Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bully who is using children to make political points. We are all just kids trying to make our way through high school. Participating in sports is the highlight of high school for some kids. No one was harmed by Soren’s participation in the girls’ track meet, but we are all harmed by the hateful rhetoric of bullies, like Rep. Libby, who want to take sports away from some kids just because of who they are. Anelise Feldman Freshman, Yarmouth High School Yarmouth

this is a letter to the editor from a high school track runner who came in second to a trans girl in a race. her state house rep in maine started talking about it. so she wrote this: www.pressherald.com/2025/05/14/r...

"Women are PIs on 58% of the canceled grants, although they are PIs on only 34% of all active NSF grants.

Similarly, Blacks are PIs on 17% of the terminated grants, although they make only 4% of the total pool. Hispanic PIs and those with disabilities were twice as likely to lose a grant."

Apart from all the other miseries of the Immigration White Paper, it’s depressing to see an actual government uncritically relying on the unbelievably flawed media-driven university rankings.

It's so revealing that this government has spent a year ignoring the crisis in higher ed, and the first time it offers any serious policy proposals they are intended to make the UK a *less* attractive place for international students

On Friday night, n+1—alongside many of our peer nonprofit arts organizations—received notice that our 2025 NEA grant has been terminated due to the Trump administration’s “shifting funding priorities.” We knew this might be coming, but receiving the official notice was still jarring, as was some of the messaging itself. It’s unclear to us whether we’ll still be able to recover the money we’ve been promised this year—a $12,500 grant meant to help us pay our authors, our editors, and to have the magazine printed and distributed to our readers. We’ve requested the funds we’ve already spent, and now we’re waiting to see if the money will come through. We’re trying to stay optimistic, but with the administration’s other announcement this week that the NEA might be shut down in its entirety, it’s hard to do so. I’m writing to ask for two things—first, for short-term, immediate assistance to help us replace these funds. You can make a donation through our website, or—if you’re in New York and free on June 10—you can buy a ticket to our annual benefit, the N Plus Ultra. Second, we ask for your ongoing support amid the challenges that we, and other small magazines, are already beginning to face. You can do that by subscribing, of course, convincing your friends to subscribe (or simply sending them a gift subscription), or by buying a bit of merch from our shop. And maybe most meaningfully, you can share the n+1 pieces you’re reading and stay engaged with (and be vocal in your support of) the independent media you care about most. We’ll need all the help we can get. With gratitude, Dani Oliver Development Director, n+1

Our NEA grant was canceled.

Here’s a letter from our development director about what’s happening.

Not In Our Name: Feminist Academics and Educators Speak Out Against Transphobia We call on all trans-inclusive feminist academics and educators to sign this statement: ‘Not In Our Name’ We are non-trans feminist academics and educators. We write in support of trans rights, tran...

STATEMENT: 'Not In Our Name: Feminist Academics and Educators Speak Out Against Transphobia'
Read the statement online here: tinyurl.com/mud7va29
Co-sign the statement, fill in this form: forms.gle/oDYgnobrMiSc...

ACLS, AHA, and MLA File Lawsuit Alleging Illegal Dismantling of National Endowment for the Humanities Lawsuit aims to reinstate NEH grant programs, divisions, and staff.

www.acls.org/news/acls-ah...

The latest entry in our Visualities forum, ed. @alixbeeston.bsky.social and Pardis Dabashi, is John Lurz on Barthes's 'semiographic' work. Read "A Secret Practice: Roland Barthes and the Writing of the Visual" here: modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...

The Valleys Archive at Ffotogallery: Community, Photography & Democracy in South Wales, 1978-2028 at Cardiff University on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - The Valleys Archive at Ffotogallery: Community, Photography & Democracy in South Wales, 1978-2028 at Cardiff University, listed on FindAPhD.com

I'm happy to be co-supervising a funded PhD project on the Valleys archive at Ffotogallery Wales (especially at a moment when the funding landscape is so dire). Please share/consider applying:
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

A safety manual for academics visiting America - Research Professional News Petra Boynton looks at what advice UK universities should give US-bound researchers and students

"As UK academics and universities consider how they can assist their US colleagues, they should be asking the same question about those in other countries whose academic freedom is limited by the actions of their politicians—and ours."

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

If there is one thing, ONE THING, that students want, it is for their human tutors to get to know them as individuals, take their work seriously, & engage in meaningful conversation with them about their ideas. It is extraordinary that, as a sector, we are deliberately moving away from that.

Australian academics refuse to attend US conferences for fear of being detained ‘When academics fear travelling or partnering with US institutions, the impacts ripple through the entire global knowledge ecosystem,’ one says

There are great conferences and science in the US, but with the way things are right now, it’s too risky to attend.

British Steel employs 3.6k people. Coventry Uni group, which auditors say may not survive, employs 7.7k. But there is an emergency debate in parliament for British Steel and nothing for the whole HE sector imploding

Sometimes it feels like my whole career has been a chain of gatherings where UK & US academics trade stories of the particular kinds of stress & grief & short-sightedness that shadow our work. I want better for all of us.