Nick Sturm

If you're in the Triangle area, the @post45.bsky.social grad symposium is happening tomorrow and Saturday, organized by the excellent Julia Gordon and @cassandraluca.bsky.social. Plus, a talk by me and a roundtable on sociality and the university!

Mellon collaborating to step into the vacuum left by the zombified NEA.

Poet A. B. Spellman helped to build the NEA's Jazz Masters Fellowship during a long career working for the endowment.

Not enough people are acknowledging that Xander had to re-read "The Catcher in the Rye" to write this. Huge win for my HS English teacher, Mr. Decker.

Finished reading this & (to state the obvious) it's highly recommended. The discussion of theme is especially valuable. I also v. much enjoy the image of high school English as the separated fraternal twin of university literary studies.

High School English and the Making of American Readers Abstract. The high school English classroom is the most influential literary institution in the United States, and the most overlooked by literary scholars

As some of you may know, I’m writing a book on the history of high school English in the United States, and I’m excited to share a new article from that project—“High School English and the Making of American Readers”—out today in American Literary History! 🧵

academic.oup.com/alh/article/...

The First Draft Symposium: Developing The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary Editing 13 February 2026 Venue: Zoom (single link for the full day; registration required) Paper lengths: 15 minutes

Me & @benfried.bsky.social are co-editing the Bloomsbury Handbook to Literary Editing - it'll be a while before this appears, but we're excited to work on it!

Tomorrow we're running an online symposium where some contributors will test out material - if you're interested in joining, DM for details

Book open to first two pages reads MACHINES which seem to think Marie Neurath Max Parrish London

Via Rick Prelinger archive.org/details/mari...

Does humanities research matter anymore? (opinion) The rapid collapse in available research funding is one crisis in the humanities we aren’t talking enough about, Asheesh Kapur Siddique writes.

It's possible to do a non-reactionary critique of the current landscape of humanities research funding: www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

Olivier Zunz's "Philanthropy in America: A History"; Linsey McGoey's "No Such Thing as a Free Gift"; Emma Saunders-Hastings's "Private Virtues, Public Vices"

I study the history of arts funding, literary institutions, and philanthropy. Unless you're happy with the author's culture wars agenda, it's obvious that article is not a good faith criticism of institutional power.

No, thanks. Sounds like you're eager to take up the article's focus on Alexander as both appropriate & intellectually worthwhile. I'm not. This is a Federalist Society white paper masquerading as journalism in the Atlantic.

I have a big new essay out that argues that Erich Auerbach is the crucial figure for historicist reading in lit studies today + argues that the epistemology of such reading depends on the profoundly humanist criterion "sufficient passion" muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

I’m currently funded by Mellon. Every night my backers leave a little liberalization pill on my pillow, I take it, and then arise each morning to further chill the humanities discourse.

So glad someone finally uncovered this abuse of power.

tell us more, Josh...

"How can Black poetry and letters be considered to be still marginalized when she's setting the agenda for the Mellon Foundation?" This is a ludicrous question equating instance to system. It's a trap to wade into a consideration of Alexander as emblematic of a crisis in the politics of philanthropy

now he proudly serves the Federalist Society!

genuinely hilarious that it took him a year to write this!

lmao

A pathetic, idiot-rich attempt to drag Mellon president Elizabeth Alexander as a powerful juggernaut of woke philanthropy. The concluding belief that higher ed has ever been "safe" from the market, culture, politics is far right lite garbage. Reads like a Heritage Foundation white paper.

The Atlantic piece on how the Mellon foundation is to blame for reactionaries defunding the humanities is a remarkable piece of blame shifting.

Age verification? Every fall in elementary school, we had a library day during which they reminded us how to use the card catalogue & made us practice

Close Reading For The 21st Century Symposium (Vandal Live at Emory) Podcast Episode · The American Vandal · S12 E4 · 1 sec

It's here! I hosted a symposium on close reading at Emory in November. Matt Seybold recorded it for his podcast, American Vandal, and the first of three episodes is out today. Catch me, @johannawinant.bsky.social, @becimay.bsky.social, @bakaari.bsky.social + more podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Sherman Alexie, Graham Foust, Bhanu Kapil, Alice Notley, Zachary Schomburg, with most of the authors declining after 2015 except for Alice Notley who skyrockets after 2021.

Here are 'top' five poets:

Line chart from 2006-2023 revealing the relative declines of Flood Editions, Ugly Duckling, and Ahsahta, the mixed successes of Black Lawrence, and the meteoric rise of The Song Cave.

My GA and I compiled all the Small Press Distribution (SPD) Bestseller lists from 2006-2023. Using number of mentions by press, I charted the 'top' five poetry presses of the time period, which reveals the rise and dominance of my grad school cohort Alan Felsenthal's The Song Cave.

“If The Best American Poetry captures ‘the zeitgeist of the current attitudes in American poetry,’ we should be asking: Why are those attitudes so fucked up?”

Great time to reread this brilliant piece by @nicksturm.bsky.social.

Cover of Gay Print Culture: A Transnational History of North America by Juan Carlos Mezo González. Cover features an image of a handsome young man with dark hair wearing a blue tank top and a beige hat with its strap around his neck. The background includes green foliage and colorful flowers. The title is in verlaid text in a large white font with the subtitle in a smaller cream font below it. The author's name is at the bottom right in yellow font. There is a faint overlay of typed text across the entire image.

Check out our great new books coming out this February, including “Gay Print Culture,” by Juan Carlos Mezo González @jcmezo.bsky.social. See them all on our blog: buff.ly/yFB1kAQ

the ways that this image from the Naropa University course catalog up-ends all sorts of supposed divisions between the New American Poetry & higher education

remake The Bear as The Floating Bear where Diane di Prima and LeRoi Jones run a restaurant

Each individual noodle is named Dan.

Writing Backwards | Columbia University Press Winner, 2026 Barbara Perkins and George Perkins Prize, International Society for the Study of NarrativeFinalist, 2025 SHARP Book History Book Prize, Society ... | CUP

More details to come but…

🎉🎉 I just learned that my book has won the first ever Biennial Book Prize from MELUS, the Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States! I’m over the moon! 🎉🎉

cup.columbia.edu/book/writing...