Gus McFadzean

The NAFTA Novel | Nicolás Medina Mora For all its utopianism, the NAFTA Novel remains the literary form of a diminutive bourgeois class.

“The NAFTA Novel remains the literary form of a diminutive bourgeois class: the lettered colonials tasked with mediating between the elites of Mexico and the United States. But the latter elite no longer has use for such cosmopolitan intermediaries.”

Ann Radcliffe eating hard cheese right before bed to give herself nightmares, Stoker claiming Dracula was the result of a nightmare induced by a “too generous helping of dressed crab,” let’s go back to the golden age of eating incredibly rich food before bed to create horror literature

Headline from the Times: "Bestselling novelist Jilly Cooper dies in fall aged 88", illustrated with a rather famous black and white picture of Virginia Woolf

Epic; no notes

There is no pure mass media. Full stop. Not now. Not ever.

Ditch social media altogether if you have that option & the willpower.

If not, Bluesky & Substack are massive upgrades over Meta & X.

The social repercussions of the former replacing the latter would be entirely favorable.

Remembering today the late American🇺🇸 theatre, film and television actor, writer and producer #JeffConaway (5 October 1950 – 27 May 2011) born #OnThisDay in Manhattan, New York

"one lopsided battle after another, by communities and individuals, some with ideologies and many with nothing but a stubborn and principled unwillingness to accept what is unacceptable"

"There are metaphors that we live by, but there are also narratives that we live within." Julien Crockett discusses cognition and metaphors with George Lakoff and Srini Narayanan, authors of "The Neural Mind: How Brains Think."

Elderly Biff dying after changing the timeline in a deleted scene from 1989's 'Back to the Future Part II'.

The pages of our lives | The Observer Diaries can be the most revealing records of who we are. One compulsive diarist introduces the intimate reflections of Audre Lorde, Salvador Dalí, Elton ...

Lovely piece in today's Observer (no paywall) about @lettersofnote.com's latest, DIARIES OF NOTE, which looks like it'll be as fascinating and well-made as the other books in the series. By Anthony Quinn.
observer.co.uk/style/featur...

According to one of the co-founders of Oracle, when she asked Larry Ellison in the mid-1980s what his favorite book was, he answered:

Front and back cover of Public Data Cultures book. The front of the cover is an image of "7 Pyramide in form einer achtel skugel, 1967," by Eduard Paolozzi. The quotes at the top read: “In an era when ‘data’ seems so often a tool of oppression and control, this book provides a marvellous, salutary exploration of its deployment for social change. This is a core optimistic message for our times; Gray is the ideal guide.” - Geoffrey C. Bowker, UC Irvine “This is an enchanting guide to a defining phenomenon of digital culture, which shows how different worlds may come about through practising data otherwise.” - Noortje Marres, author of Digital Sociology The rest of the book blurb can be found at: https://jonathangray.org/publicdatacultures

Grateful for these words from @noortjem.bsky.social and Geoffrey Bowker on final cover of Public Data Cultures ✨ jonathangray.org/publicdatacu...

Out with @politybooks.bsky.social in Oct (UK) and Dec (US). Suggestions welcome for anyone who might like to do an event, interview or class with it. 💜📗🎊

I'm sure someone smarter than me already thought of this but teaching @markmcgurl.bsky.social this week has me thinking: does the Program Era also apply to film schools? The rise of cw programs is mirrored by the rise of film programs.

Baby’s got a pub date! And some juicy catalog copy. MIDDLEMEN coming your way on April 26!

(Cover reveal soon!)

EXTRACT: The Long Heat An exclusive extract from Wim Carton and Andreas Malm’s latest book, The Long Heat, out 7 October from Verso Books.

For the @the-breakdown.bsky.social today, we have an exclusive extract from @wimcarton.bsky.social and Andreas Malm's superb latest book, The Long Heat!

@versobooks.bsky.social

(PDF) Keeping the Nineties Weird PDF | On Mar 1, 2025, Charles U. Zug published Keeping the Nineties Weird | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

I missed this really thoughtful and detailed review in American Political Thought last spring. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

The Sign Of Four is a great book because it opens with Sherlock Holmes giving a shit review to the previous book A Study In Scarlet

Last night I watched the marvellous The Cranes are Flying, a 1957 Soviet movie that I wish Vladimir Putin would watch. Here's my Letterboxd review, and a short thread of stills to show how superbly constructed a movie it is. (They won't show how ALIVE it is: it's a film that delights in movement.)

Amazing archive of mid-20th century extraction and resource colonialism in Canada ⬇️

We lack for genuine, independent education news, at a time we desperately need it.

Chronicle has become a reactionary rag. Inside HigherEd is a private equity football.

Chris’s blog is the trustworthiest round-up of what’s happening.

A lot is happening.

utotherescue.blogspot.com/2025/09/line...

The Beta Band review — an uncompromising and moving comeback, 20 years on The Scottish band’s farewell tour in 2004 came after disappointing early work. Now they’re looking for redemption with hauntingly beautiful gigs

"A moving and cathartic expression of communal reassurance."
I went to see The Beta Band in Glasgow. Dry The Rain felt like a song for our present darkness. Fleeting, of course, just a song, not a solution, but a flicker of necessary light.

www.thetimes.com/culture/musi...

This is such a great practice and as a person who has written a book, it is always amazing on the rare occasion when I have received these types of notes and never a burden.

YouTube video by Edinburgh CityofLiterature Great Scott! Responses to Sir Walter Scott's quotes in Edinburgh's Waverley station

Waverley is Edinburgh’s main railway station, & it’s named after Walter Scott’s bestselling 1814 novel WAVERLEY; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. In 2014 the @edincityoflit.bsky.social celebrated the novel’s 200th anniversary in Waverley station
#BookWormSat #C19th 💙📚 🚂
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOBE...

Absolutely outrageous to say that a uni’s academic press doesn’t serve its undergraduates. Non-profit university presses support and sustain a scholarly and intellectual system THAT MAKES TEACHING UNDERGRADUATES POSSIBLE. No presses? no fields of study, no professors, no college.

"Bucknell has decided to close its highly respected, decades-old UP in June 2026. The stated reason? The press serves scholars, not Bucknell undergrads. Bucknell undergrads—& some grad students as well—disagree." FANTASTIC piece on BUP's student internship program. networks.h-net.org/group/discus...

Three paperback fantasy novel covers by George Lucas and Chris Claremont

Who else read the sequel novels to Willow (Lucasfilm, 1988), the Shadow Moon trilogy? Nobody? Just me?

Power complex

'The state seeks to pacify the university: its goals are managerial rather than intellectual'

Richard Sennett: The Anglo-American state vs the universities

Jurassic 5 is such an underappreciated group. Most people don't know how hard it is to rap in unison like they do.
#vinyl #hiphopvinyl #vinylcollection

Flesh and Emptiness: or, 42 Ways of Looking at Paul Verhoeven Paul Verhoeven's movies talk to each other through time. In other words, all of his movies are the same.

Flesh and Emptiness: or, 42 Ways of Looking at Paul Verhoeven

This only happens to you once

I must have become aware of Tony Harrison in 1985 while doing A-levels: I remember seeking out a kumquat thanks to his John Keats poem. Can’t remember if V. or The Mysteries or some shorter poems came first. I saw The Mysteries on tv; loved them; wrote about them later on my medieval paper.

R.I.P.