Sam Spinner

Anyone can win a silver medal. You just have to come in second.

In the Winter Olympics it’s done on ice, so it’s proslipsis.

Prolepsis is an Olympic sport.

The Winter Olympics starts tomorrow but it started yesterday. It is streaming live now. The technical term for this is mise en abyme ex eventu.

One of several articles in our new issue that feel especially timely. Through an analysis of literary texts, Barnwell looks at how information is recorded, represented, and trusted (or not).

Apparently the answer to more artificial intelligence is less natural intelligence.

Come Fill Your Dance Card: A Celebration of Jewish Dances Cards in the Library Special Collections 5 February 2026 at 18:00

Looking forward to tomorrow's 'Come Fill Your Dance Fill Your Dance Card'.
Hosted by @uclhjslibrary.bsky.social, @uclhjs.bsky.social and the IJS.

We're all booked up, but you can sign up for the waitlist (or let us know if you'd like a similar future event).

www.tickettailor.com/events/uclin....

Sorry, the pool is closed.

Campus map now with interactive live weather updates!

Yiddish was spoken by 5 million of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Yiddish is an absolutely crucial language for Holocaust research.

This Holocaust Memorial Day, you can support Yiddish at universities facing cuts to the Humanities, including UCL.

🧵 1/4

After 140 years, MLN will have a regular issue devoted to Yiddish, Hebrew, and other Jewish languages. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited!
Please help us get the word out and please send me your work.

Ha!
מחשבה טובה מצרפה למעשה שהיה.

I like how AI is totally ambivalent about being right. Here we go from the right answer directly to spectacularly wrong answers.

Do you teach/research gender/sexuality w/ German sources? Have you had access issues or needed to translate sources yourself bc English versions don’t exist? Fill in this survey (by 2/15) to identify core texts for an anthology of translations in scientific & literary sexology between 1890 & 1930.

Merry Christmas! Roland Clark's incisive interview of my new book juts dropped. Perfect listening fodder for your digestive run, neat 32 min: newbooksnetwork.com/people-witho...

LLMeh.

Generative OY.

Citrus and olive oil is a really great combo.

Happy holidays.

If you love Yiddish and you love Christmas music (I must not be the only one) you have to listen to this album.

Yiddish Chanukah Carols by Yossi Desser on Apple Music Album · 2021 · 12 Songs

“Hey Siri, play Yiddish Chaukah carols.”

And then—a great miracle happened:

music.apple.com/us/album/yid...

It'll be the second year in a row my talk at the @jewishstudies.bsky.social annual conference will be about a writer with fancy rabbinic pedigree. One more time and I'll have to talk about rebbishe eyneklekh forever.

Toronto—very boring.

Just saw Sault Ste. Marie written in Yiddish for the first time. An adventure, but not as exciting as Buenos Aires.

They’re now writing biographies of authors I’ve never heard of.

Support our vital work in these challenging times – Big Give We are the world’s oldest and the UK’s largest archive on the Nazi era and the Holocaust. Please help us raise £64,000 so we can continue to be a freely accessible tool to combat Holocaust denial,…

📣 The Big Give is now live!

This week all donations to support our work made through the Big Give will be matched, meaning they have double the impact on our work.

You have until Tuesday 9 December to help us raise £64,000 as part of this important campaign.

Donate now:

Need more categories:
- More or Less Commonly Taught Languages
- Somewhat Infrequently Taught Languages
- Woah, You Can Take That? Taught Languages

The candidates for @modernlanguage.bsky.social delegate representing Less Commonly Taught Language Programs are professors of... Italian and Portuguese. 😵‍💫

Want to get a PhD in Yiddish or Hebrew? Or Yiddish AND Hebrew? We are accepting applications for the PhD in Jewish Languages & Literatures! Please help me get the word out!

@jhuartssciences.bsky.social

The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved

New issue of my newsletter: "The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition" — One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved, and it's a good use of AI newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...