Ben Doyle

AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | Cory Doctorow AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. A serious fight against it must strike at its roots

Interesting take on AI and the various vested interests surrounding it; www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

One Mississippi

Today's commute listen open.spotify.com/album/3gkxsf...

My fab colleagues are at the APA conference this week and keen to mingle, so if you're in the area and at a loose end then do swing by!

Image shows the jacket proof for 'Black Feminist Theories: Transnational Approaches'. Front cover has a green background with multicolour leaves edging it and an illustration of a Black figure in profile, wearing colourful dress. Back cover copy reads: An innovative contribution to the field of Black Feminist Studies, this landmark collection brings together the most influential historical and contemporary thinkers in Black feminist theories across transnational contexts. Featuring ground-breaking new work alongside canonical essays from key thinkers, this book adopts a truly global approach to its subject. In doing so, it looks beyond North America to showcase a diverse range of continents and perspectives. The collection includes not only standard academic essays, but also vital statements, interviews, manifestoes, and creative work, which transmit and embody Black feminist thought. The book is broken up into five carefully curated sections: - Black Feminist Foundations - Statements and Manifestos - Cultures and Aesthetics - Bodies, Genders, and Sexualities - Black Feminist Futures Timely and important, this is an indispensable resource for students and scholars of Black Studies, Women & Gender Studies and Black Feminist Studies, as well as more generally to American Studies, African Studies, Caribbean Studies, and African Diaspora Studies. A number of endorsements are also included from Amina Mama, Rhoda Reddock, Barbara Smith, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall.

Also publishing in Aug (but you can order your paperback copy now): 'Black Feminist Theories', an amazing collection which brings together the most influential historical and contemporary thinkers across transnational contexts. Perfect for course use! www.bloomsbury.com/black-femini...

Image shows a jacket spread (front and back) for new book 'Vonnegut's War' by Susan Farrell. The front cover is a cartoonish image of a stickperson being beamed up by the icon of a UFO. This image is surrounded by icons of eyes. The back jacket contains endorsements from John Irving, Ken Kalfus and Suzanne McConnell.

Delighted to have a final jacket for @bloomsburylit.bsky.social 'Vonnegut's War'! A fetching £20/$27 jacketed hardback, it fuses biography with popular history & textual analysis, telling the story of the making of a modern classic and the writer that created it. www.bloomsbury.com/vonneguts-wa...

Sign the Petition Hold a Parliamentary Debate on Palantir’s Role in UK Defence, Security & Public Services

c.org/Zn2c8tjnVg

Pretty sobering stuff - they don't get much more evil than Thiel and Palantir...

literally thousands of people with unique expert knowledge and skills being made redundant, universities in the brink of closure, but sure, let's publicly fund the bullshit machine

I resent being (increasingly bluntly) directed to help support the house of cards that technocrats like Altman, Musk et al have built.

Tears of joy! SCOTLAND HAS JUST PASSED SWIFT BRICKS INTO LAW unanimously!
4 years of asking England & Scotland sorts it in a month led by ACE ⁦‪ MARK RUSKELL MSP‬⁩ ♥️The RELIEF is unreal! Tell England to follow 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿by emailing PlanningPolicyConsultation@communities.gov.uk now!WOOP!

Neil Young gifts Greenland free access to his music and withdraws it from Amazon over Trump The singer-songwriter has donated access to his music archive to ‘ease the unwarranted stress and threats’ Greenlanders have experienced from the US government

Keep on rocking in the free world, Greenland.

www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

I hope all the AI boosters understand that they’re training their kids that only chumps do things the hard way—by working diligently and going through the discomfort and hassle of learning and acquiring skills.

And also teaching them that a 30% error rate is good enough.

Microsoft Virtual Events Powered by Teams Microsoft Virtual Events Powered by Teams

Just a reminder to all those interested - please do sign up for our upcoming open access event (moderated by me): Open Access: Responsibility, Censorship, and Resistance. Sign up here:

events.teams.microsoft.com/event/93ee36...

🚨WOW! Now closing on 88,000 signatures! The Petition calling for by-elections to be called automatically when MPs defect to another party is getting so close to the 100,000 needed.

Let’s keep going!

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...

Talking 7.30 pm tonight Thursday 22 January at Macclesfield Lit and Phil Society about Jane Austen’s Fashion Bible. The first lit and phils were founded when Austen was a teenager.

Listening In In 1945, W. Averell Harriman, US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, was presented with a carved wooden plaque of the Great Seal of the United States as a 'gesture…

Next from @bloomsburylit.bsky.social 'Listening In': Beginning with post-WW2 monitoring devices, it traces an arc through the Cold War era into the present day in which state and commercial spyware can record our calls, copy messages and secretly film us. www.bloomsbury.com/listening-in...

Drone Cultures The drone is an object of contradiction: at once a weapon of war and a medium of wonder. Often linked to destruction and death, the drone also sparks creativity…

First up: 'Drone Cultures'. Encouraging us to think critically about the drone, this book traces the emergence of the drone in twenty-first-century warfare it examines its entanglement with surveillance culture, biopolitics, and artificial intelligence.

www.bloomsbury.com/drone-cultur...

Happy publication day to two new books in our @bloomsburylit.bsky.social Studies in Digital Cultures series!

Really proud to have published this groundbreaking collection of essays - out next month. It's a brilliant addition to the series and to work in the area. Congratulations and thanks to all involved!

Microscopy, Magnification and Modernist Fiction Exploring how modernism registered shock experiences of the microscopic and extended vision in prose fiction through the work of four modernist writers – D. H.…

Lovely review of Microscopy, Magnification and Modernist Fiction in the Journal of DH Lawrence Studies: a 'substantial and fascinating study' www.bloomsbury.com/microscopy-m...

Very, very excited to have signed this extremely important book (never more urgent than now). Coming soon from a DH editorial dream team and @bloomsburylit.bsky.social - watch this space...!

A room of people sitting at tables and conversing.

Mary Robson giving a talk at a podium

It's a full house for 'Creative Facilitation: Insights, Practice & Futures'! To mark the occasion, we've published 6 new written interviews with people who used creative facilitation in research, work with communities & clinical practice. Check them out on our website!
tinyurl.com/4s7nke8b

Unsurprising but still rather concerning...

Picture is of a Bloomsbury academic book exhibit, with one table in the front and three in a horseshoe shape behind it. The tables are covered with books.

Great to see so many of our books in one place!

Another crazily busy (but extremely fun) MLA underway! If you're here, swing by the Bloomsbury stand and come see us!

A great topic and should provoke some extremely interesting discussion. Check out this CFP

The American Sentence A compelling quest to locate a history and poetics of the American sentence, this book applies four stages of communication to the story of American writing - t…

Just published in paperback from @bloomsburylit.bsky.social - 'The American Sentence'. A compelling quest to locate a history and poetics of the American sentence, this book asks what an American sentence is and how has it changed? www.bloomsbury.com/american-sen...

Felicity, character, consequence: Jane Austen’s enduring way with words | Maria Frawley on Jane Austen in 50 Words Celebrate Jane Austen’s 250th birthday with insights into her most-used words - like ‘felicity’ and ‘character’ - revealing the genius behind her timeless fiction.

Lovely piece on the @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social blog from Susan Allen Ford on Jane Austen’s enduring way with words: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/discover/...

YouTube video by TV Santa Barbara The Creative Community 2 Author Suzanne Jill Levine

Author Suzanne Jill Levine sat down with TV Santa Barbara's The Creative Community to discuss her book, 'Unfaithful: A Translator's Memoir'

Watch the full interview👉 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktn2...

On Feb 5th I'll be moderating what promises to be a fascinating discussion on Open Access: Responsibility, Censorship and Resistance. Join us online!