Kári Driscoll

Adorno & Horkheimer get a lot of shit for supposedly identifying liberals & fascists in their 30s/40s work, but where they really start is: of course there’s a difference, but don’t you think it’s strange that so often right when the difference should matter—it doesn’t at all?

Happy to get to join this program on Audre Lorde’s literary & political legacy with Mariken Heitman, @sylvanasimons.bsky.social & @lazeefuik.bsky.social .

As Lorde said, “Every day of your lives is practice in becoming the person you want to be.” 🍉

Quote from a story on changes at the U of Chicago that notes they are "pausing" doctoral eduction in Classics, Comp Lit, Germanic studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Romance languages and literatures, and South Asian Studies.

Wow. The University of Chicago, a world-class institution whose humanities faculty in the past has included Homi Bhabha & Lauren Berlant & Ralph Ellison & Hannah freaking Arendt, is getting rid of basically every graduate department involving the acknowledgment that other cultures & languages exist.

Flyer for the conference, featuring orcas gliding through the evening sky above Utrecht

🐋 1 month left! CFP for #EASLCE2026 – Join the Orca Uprising! (14–17 April, Utrecht University).
Deadline for abstracts: 15 Sept 2025.
Keynotes: Greg Garrard, Kate Rigby, Eva Meijer.
Full details here: easlce2026.sites.uu.nl
@easlce.bsky.social
@utrechtuniversity.bsky.social

Out Now: Humanimalia 15.2!
Featuring timely essays on human–animal entanglements, including 🐴 a taxidermied horse in London, 🐗 a feral pig in Australia, 🐐 “happy” goats in Italy, 🐾 robot dogs in Gaza, 🐦 pheasants in NL, and 🐑 sheepdogs in the UK.
🔓 OA here: humanimalia.org/issue/view/1...

screenshot from an online job application form. the question reads "Can you describe specific ways you have integrated AI tools into your development workflow? Please include any custom setups, automations, or use cases beyond single prompt usage" (a red asterisk indicates that this is a required question). an answer has been typed in the textbox below the question: "there is a monster in the forest and it speaks with a thousand voices. it will answer any question you pose it, it will offer insight to any idea. it will help you, it will thank you, it will never bid you leave. it will even tell you of the darkest arts, if you know precisely how to ask. it feels no joy and no sorrow, it knows no right and no wrong. it knows not truth from lie, though it speaks them all the same. it offers its services freely to any passerby, and many will tell you they find great value in its conversation. “you simply must visit the monster—i always just ask the monster.” there are those who know these forests well; they will tell you that freely offered doesn’t mean it has no price for when the next traveler passes by, the monster speaks with a thousand and one voices. and when you dream you see the monster; the monster wears your face."

applying for jobs again

The 11th Biennial EASLCE (@easlce.bsky.social) conference, entitled “‘Join the #OrcaUprising!’: Nonhuman Resistance and Multispecies (In)Justice”, will be held at Utrecht University (@utrechtuniversity.bsky.social) in April 2026.
Visit easlce2026.sites.uu.nl for further details.

PhD defence in Literature: Maria Trejling - Stockholm University Research at Stockholm University.

Meanwhile, I’m off to Stockholm to be the opponent at a PhD defence. The thesis, on Creaturely Metaphors in modernist literature, is brilliant, so my opposition will be quite amicable, luckily.

www.su.se/english/rese...

Google is tripe kosher All Images Videos Shopping Forums News Al Overview Learn more : Whether tripe is kosher depends on the religion of the cow. Kosher meat can be ordered online, including kosher beef tripe. ~ Generative Al is experimental.

I don’t know if Google can top this, their finest work to date

Currently reading this as well and finding it both reassuring and depressingly relevant

Clown country run by clowns.

“ Steve Bannon who may turn out the most prescient philosopher of our era said you don’t have to prove or disprove anything, you just need to drown the zone in shit. “

Sad and dangerous.

Can we just all bid a collective Fuck You to Zuckerberg and all things META?

Is that aggressive enough?

The New York Times Newsletter DealBook caption “How Much Would Buying Greenland Cost?” President-elect Donald Trump wants to buy the territory from Denmark, which says it’s not for sale. DealBook asked experts how they’d approach the deal.”

Global Western colonialism is so infused in media that this DealBook article frames Greenland as a “deal” to “approach.” Capitalism involves assessing and quantifying land while removing the people- Inuit are mentioned nowhere in these media articles. 1/

Issue 15.1 is out now!
Featuring 🐌 snails on Mt Fuji,🐂 mithuns in the eastern Himalayas, 🐈‍⬛ cats in multispecies communities, 🦮 sniffer dogs at airport security, 🐜 ants in Mexico, and 🐳 orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar.

The issue is 🔓 open access, available here: humanimalia.org/issue/view/1...

In 2010, anti-copyright activist Aaron Swartz hanged himself after being prosecuted to the full extent of the law for making copyrighted academic publications freely available. Today, academic publishers are insisting those copyrights be lifted to feed the corporate AI slop machine.

Trar som vitner og som voktere Pá denne dagen i november ligger de forste gule bladene pa bakken i den innerste gärden i et tempel giemt bak en liten port i enden av en sidevei tett pá elven som loper inn i og former deltaet denne byen ligger i. Kraftfullt har gink-goen (tempeltreet) brutt giennom taket pà tempelporten, dens tunge gren som dreier og tvister seg opp i luften, barer pà en tung krone. Ved noye iakttakelse av treet ser en at barken, som ellers er roff med dype strukturer, er smeltet og glatt pà den siden som vender mot sorvest. Treet virker á ha vendt seg i denne retningen, som om det vil nã noe bestemt, noe som er usynlig for betrakteren. 2160 meter sorvest for treet, i 600 meters hoyde, detonerte atombombeni Hiroshima den 6. august 1945. Tre dager senere valgte USA à bruke den andre atombomben mot det fascistiske Japan, i Nagasaki. Mer enn 200.000 mennesker dode som resultat av atombombene; omtrent halvparten av dem dode umiddelbart av bombingen, og resten strukket ut over en lengre periode som folge av skader, strälingsforgiftning og sult, med enorme lidelser. I flere kilometers radius rundt hyposenteret var alt rasert, báde Hiroshima og Nagasaki var i praksis tilintet-giorte av sjokkbelger, varme og radioak-tivitet. Historien om disse atombombene er velkjent, senest fra storfilmen «Oppen- heimer», som dyrket Manhattan-pro-sjektet og Trinity-provesprengningen i New Mexico. Filmens fremstilling inkluderte verken urbefolkningen i New Mexico eller menneskene og naturen som ble rammet av atombomben. Historien om hibakusha - de overle- vende etter atombombene i Hiroshima og Nagasaki - er heller ikke en historie folk flest kjenner godt til. Nobels fredspris 2024 I 1956 ble organisasjonen Nihon Hidan- kyo opprettet for à representere hibakus-ha og for á minne om konsekvensene av atombombene i Hiroshima og Nagasaki. Siden har 650.000 blitt anerkjent som hibakusha. …

The Nobel Peace Prize is being given today for work with the Japanese atom bomb survivors (Hibakusha) so @finnarne.me & @melinabuns.bsky.social wrote about the trees that also survived and will continue to bear witness to the atrocities even after the humans have passed away.
#envhist #envhum

Cover of the forthcoming issue of Humanimalia, depicting a slug following a circuitous route toward the top left-hand corner

Humanimalia 15.1 coming soon!

Dear Professor | Scientist | Scholar, Greetings! I hope that you are healthy and doing well. You are invited to submit original research article (s) based on your research expertise. Article (s) can be submitted from the journal website by using the “Article Submission System” throughout the year if: The plagiarism of the article is less than 15%, including references. The article is within the scope of the journal. The article is original and result-oriented. For more detailed information, please visit ‘editorial and publishing policies’.

This was a new one for me: a predatory journal stipulating that submitted articles can only be 15% plagiarised and have to be within the scope of the journal! Whatever will they think of next?

Holding a grudge – is it a petty character flaw or a desire for justice in an unjust world? | First Dog on the Moon Who better to ask than corvids Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...

Holding a grudge – is it a petty character flaw or a desire for justice in an unjust world? | First Dog on the Moon

Animal Studies Abstract. This review essay explores some key contributions to animal studies in 2023. In Section 1, Humanitarianism Beyond Humanism, I consider how Benjam

De-mining rats. Stray dogs. Lal Kandhari cows. Marxist cats. And fishy resistance. My review of Animal Studies in 2023 is available here. DM me for the PDF.

doi.org/10.1093/ywcc...

I’m sure there’s a podcast that will help you get over it 🤓

Trans, Utrecht, November 2024.
Die Ästhetik des Widerstands
Photo credit: Kári Driscoll

Photo of the book “Becoming Animal” by Teresa Präauer, translated by Kári Driscoll

This week I received advance copies of my translation of Teresa Präauer's Becoming Animal, published by Seagull Books. It was both a pleasure and a challenge to translate this kaleidoscopic exploration of the boundary between the written word and the living world
www.seagullbooks.org/becoming-ani...

"Our Arabic program is half a millennium old but couldn't withstand the corporatization of the contemporary university because it isn't nuclear engineering"

Looking forward to participating in the annual MESH symposium in Cologne next week, on the topic of “Multispecies Conviviality”. Naturally, given the topic, I will be talking about the War against Animals, nonhuman resistance, and interspecies solidarity.
mesh.uni-koeln.de/events/meshw...

We have a cover finally! My translation of Teresa Präauer's Tier werden will be out later this year with Seagull Books: www.seagullbooks.org/becoming-ani...
A perfect stocking stuffer for that special someone.

#vogonmusk

This piece by my friend and colleague @miayou.bsky.social is probably one of the most beautiful essays I've ever read. It had me in tears when I heard her read it last year, and I have thought about it often since then. Now you can read it too at the ERB:
europeanreviewofbooks.com/the-barren-n...

University is like a videogame If you skip all the side quests it will be quicker, but you’ll miss out on a lot of story and world-building and you’ll be underpowered for the final boss.

University is like a having a gym membership It’s our job to provide the equipment and personal training regime but its effectiveness still depends on how often you show up and the work you do

First year induction today! Still my favourite slides:

#AcademicSky