Jess Masters

V day with my one and only (JSTOR)

Bad Bunny during the Superbowl halftime show. He is surrounded by electric poles that symbolise Puerto Rico's power outages.

Bad Bunny's halftime show, aside from being fantastic, is a great example of how humanities education & a responsive community discourse supports people to collaboratively identify, analyse, interpret, & finally value meaning from symbolic images & storytelling. Plus, it had Ricky Martin

I might be slow on the uptake but apparently em-dashes are an AI thing? I—a great lover of the em-dash—refuse to let the algorithm have this.

I will retain my overuse—even when unnecessary—

That content knowledge--knowing references, even just a basic history of each discipline--takes more time than you think, & in English specifically, it's possible to take pleasure in slow/close reading of a text without enjoying the prose or plot much. Also, that five dollar wine is a mistake

A friend asked me to go with her. I--who didn't read the book nor knew the details of the plot--assumed it would be kind of like Outlander and was not prepared for the audience of weeping grandparents

CFP Details

CFP Details (2)

CFP Details (3)

We are excited to join forces with the Australasian Modernist Studies Network for:

"Toxic Modernism / Modernist Intoxication"

Hosted at U Adelaide, Nov 19-21; proposals due 24 July. Please spread the word and join us!

And from 'Obstacle':

This body, still walking.
The wind must go around it.

Jane Hirshfield, 'Let Them Not Say' (2014):

Let them not say: we did not see it.
We saw.

Can I suggest using the telescope your younger sister bought you, while you envy the neighbours playing in the new pool your parents bought?

MLA, looking after the people #MLA2026 #MLA26 @modernlanguage.bsky.social

I don’t do end-of-year publication roundups, but I’m deeply proud of this essay cluster on “Modernism in Comics” that I edited for @mmodernity.bsky.social, and I encourage everyone to spend some time with the brilliant pieces in it.

We will be generous Oprah-esque presenters and throw gifts into the audience, while MSA @moderniststudies.bsky.social will buy you a new house.*

(*neither guaranteed)

Ever been generous? Considered the fraught ethical ways generosity shapes modernist literature/studies? Come to @moderniststudies.bsky.social session "Generous Modernisms" at 1.45pm Friday at #MLA2026! Showcasing work from three continents @amyeelkins.bsky.social @tamlynavery.bsky.social & others.

Layover in paradise (aka Vancouver), en route to Toronto for #MLA26. Pls join me — plus all 32 puffer jackets I’m rocking as an Aussie bracing her first 🇨🇦 winter 🤪! — this Fri. 145pm for a roundtable on generous modernisms w/ @jessmasters.bsky.social & excellent @moderniststudies.bsky.social folks.

He must have read À REBOURS (1884)

david lynch meme okay, let's try that again, but this time good.

new quarter century
more art
more good

There are worse ways to farewell one year and begin the next than having the toys from Play School serenade Australia with Auld Lang Syne. May 2026 be a kinder year to us all

Left 2019 as Grease Travolta, leaving 2025 as Pulp Fiction Travolta

The nested narratives in this

An image of a Tarot card empress with a crown of stars on a mustard yellow background. The text says: Weird Modernism, BAMS/ MSA 26, 1-4 July 2026. Loughborough University, UK

Believe it or not, it's already time to think about MSA 2026 in Loughborough, UK. The conference will meet July 1-4, and proposals for panels, papers, roundtables, workshops, and seminars is December 1. Please note this MUCH earlier deadline. The CFP is here: www.moderniststudies.org/conference/M...

The first rule of NYC is obviously mind your business, but the second one appears to be that now it's legal to jaywalk, it's stupid not to

Now that the amazing and insanely full MSA Boston conference is over, I'm just making sure the place in NYC where EE Cummings would bellow YOU ALRIGHT DJUNA to Barnes across the way is still there (it's there)
@moderniststudies.bsky.social

Wish you were here too!

MSA friends! Come watch me read a (too hastily-written) paper on ekphrastic accumulation at 10.15 on Friday and perhaps, if you're lucky, you may even see me butcher @glavey.bsky.social 's amazing work! The potential for fun is endless @moderniststudies.bsky.social

Oddballs unite for a Euro summer!

The CFP for next year's joint MSA/BAMS conference in Loughborough, UK is out! As a longtime oddball, am thrilled for a Euro summer, 'Weird Modernisms'-style

@moderniststudies.bsky.social @modernistudies.bsky.social

This graduate mentoring program designed by @jessmasters.bsky.social is a new MSA initiative, and I wish existed when I was a grad student. Pass it along to any graduate students working in modernism or modernist-adjacent fields, like the Harlem Renaissance, 20th-century studies, etc.

Finally, the MSA Board is excited to announce a new graduate mentoring program! Graduate student MSA members have the opportunity to be paired with a senior faculty member for one-on-one mentoring sessions. More info can be found when you register for the conference. @jessmasters.bsky.social

Reading Scenario Experiments. This series of prompts is designed to get you thinking about how the setting for reading affects concentration, comprehension, and even the existential experience of reading. Every week, one of the following prompts will appear on the syllabus. I encourage you to try all of them that you are able. How does a different reading setting affect your mood? Your receptiveness to the prose? Your pleasure or difficulty reading? What are the particular impacts of changing your lighting or surroundings? What do you notice about yourself and about the work you are reading during this experiment? 1. read by candlelight (use a small lamp in dorms where no candles are allowed!) 2. read for one hour without checking any devices, answering texts, etc. 3. walk out into nature (climb a tree, sit on a rock, grab a spot in a hammock) and read 4. host a reading night with friends & food (sit in companionable silence, reading without chatting) 5. read aloud a chapter to someone else 6. climb into bed at night and read by flashlight under the covers for at least 30 minutes, as if you’ve already been told “lights out” as a kid 7. reread a chapter and see what new things you notice the second time through 8. change your ambient-noise level: add music if you normally read in the quiet; or read without music if you are normally a music-listener 9. read with a sketchpad at hand and sketch scenes, characters, or other elements from the story 10. practice focused listening: have someone read to you 11. make yourself a special, fancy snack on a real plate to nibble while eating: pay attention to the cooking or arranging or choosing of ingredients to make it especially appetizing first 12. make tea (even if you’re not usually a tea drinker), and read and sip 13. invent a new reading scenario for yourself, or repeat the one you liked the best from this term [writing assignment using these prompts follows; text character limit prevents inclusion of it in full]

Here you go! I'll write some new ones for this semester too. They loved them. The "read without your phone or screens in the room" was a revelation, and many of them decided to keep doing it. They had NO IDEA (& were horrified) how often they interrupt themselves to look at a phone for no reason.