Gerry Canavan's Blog, page 2

SFFTV: Call for Co-Editors

Science Fiction Film and Television is looking for co-editors! See the ad here.

SFFTV call for contributions: “What Was the MCU?”

special section, call for contributions: “What Was the MCU?”
Science Fiction Film and Television (deadline: January 15, 2024)

Science Fiction Film and Television invites contributions (no more than 2000 words) to a special section tentatively titled “What Was the MCU?” Since Avengers: Endgame (2019), the once nigh-invulnerable Marvel Cinematic Universe has faced an increasing drumbeat of fan, critical/scholarly, and labor backlash, culminating in the domestic-box-office disappointment of The Marvels (2023), which made only US$47 million in its opening weekend. That The Marvels—starring a diverse, woman-led cast and helmed by the first Black woman director in the franchise—has already become widely recognized in the discourse as the symbol of this decline is unfortunate, as all of the post-Endgame MCU features have been heavily criticized for their increasingly shoddy scripting and effects work, while also having steep box-office drops from earlier franchise features. What accounts for this fall from grace, and what can those of us working in media studies, franchise studies, and science fiction studies learn from this massive shift in the cultural tide? How has the current state of the MCU been inflected by outside pressures like the shift to Disney+; the COVID-19 pandemic; hyperexploitation of writing, directing, editing and VFX staff; the right-wing targeting of “woke” media and of the Disney Corporation in particular; the fracturing of the existing Marvel fanbase; and a rising “Generation Z” that seems to be almost completely uninterested in this sort of franchise production? Is the moment of “the franchise” as the dominant mode of cultural production in the United States nearing its end—or, for that matter, are accounts of the death of the MCU premature? 

Contributions on any aspect of this topic are welcome; please query Gerry Canavan at gerry.canavan@marquette.edu with any questions.

I Know the Site Is in Arrears – The Blog Has Not Been Fed in Years – It’s Even Worse Than It Appears, but It’s All Right

After (literally) almost twenty straight years, I think my silly little habit of blogging links may be well and truly dead; with everything else going on in my life at the moment I have to accept that I just don’t have the time. Still, a few things I wanted to put up as the site fades to black, at least for a bit:

Science Fiction Film and Television 16.3 was a banger! Check it out! I’ve got a short thing about The Last of Us in there, building on the GSSB episode I was on; let me know if you want to read it and you don’t have access and I can send it along.The “Oversights” double issue was super fun too.I was in the Washington Post over the summer, ranting about Indiana Jones. I had some book chapters come out, too, if you’re into that sort of thing.Uneven Futures has had some great reviews, including this one from LARB, this one from Science Fiction Studies, and this one from H-Net Environment. Ida and Sean and I did a podcast. It was even on the long list for the BSFA. It’s not too late to get your copy!The changes to the grad program I helped develop as DGS and then put through as chair got a nice writeup last week in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Whatever else happens: send your English-curious students to Marquette!I’ve been on the news a couple times.It’s coming faster than you think: the call for papers for SFRA 2024.And I’ll be on the BBC next week for a short show on Parable of the Sower.

We’ll meet again (don’t know where, don’t know when)…

this, to me, is the humanities pic.twitter.com/s7lQV30X9r

— Gerry Canavan (parody) (@gerrycanavan) January 19, 2023

SFFTV: Fall 2023 open call for submissions and call for reviewers

Science Fiction Film and Television invites article submissions on any topics related to sf and visual media; we especially invite articles related to the production economy of the culture industry and to non-US sf, as well as articles that related to possible upcoming special issues on (1) indigenous sf filmmaking and (2) the career of Taika Waititi. We also invite proposals from potential guest editors for special issues; please write gerry.canavan@marquette.edu for more information on this process.

SFFTV is edited by Gerry Canavan (Marquette University), Dan Hassler-Forest (Utrecht University), and Ida Yoshinaga (George Institute of Technology). Preferred length for articles is approximately 7000-9000 words; all topics related to science fiction film, television, gaming, other visual media will be considered. Typical response time is within three months. Check the journal website at Liverpool University Press for full guidelines for contributors; please direct any individualized queries to gerry.canavan@marquette.edu.

The journal is also seeking reviewers of recent works of sf and sf-adjacent critical theory as well as recent SF visual media. We are welcome to pitches, but we also have the following books available for review:

* Rebecca Janicker, ed, THE SCIENTIST IN POPULAR CULTURE (Lexington Books)

* Brian J. Robb, MOON (Constellations in Science Fiction Film and TV series)

* Tyler Sage, MR. FREEDOM (Constellations in Science Fiction Film and TV series)

* David Sweeney, THE OA (Constellations in Science Fiction Film and TV series)

* Taryne Jade Taylor, Isiah Lavender III, Grace L. Dillon, and Bodhisattva Chattopadyay, THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF COFUTURISMS (Routledge)

* Jay Telotte, THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF NEW SCIENCE FICTION CINEMAS (Oxford UP)

* Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa, THE CELLULOID SPECIMEN: MOVING IMAGE RESEARCH INTO ANIMAL LIFE (University of California Press)

* Joe Street, SILICON VALLEY CINEMA (Edinburgh UP)

* Harry Warwick, DYSTOPIA AND DISPOSSESSION IN THE HOLLYWOOD SCIENCE-FICTION FILM 1979-2017: THE AESTHETICS OF ENCLOSURE (Liverpool UP)

Reviews typically run 1000-2000 words, or 2000-4000 words in our “review essay” format. Samples of both types of review are available upon request.

For our media in review section, we are now primarily interested in:

* reviewers who are calling attention to things that have gone overlooked in the larger entertainment-media-complex landscape, especially international film;

* reviewers with a specific aesthetic, political, or philosophical “take” on a text, as opposed to a more traditional review that recapitulates the plot at length and advises the potential viewer whether or not they ought to watch it.

This notion of a specific “take” is especially important for blockbuster franchise fare, like the MCU or Star Wars movies; in most cases we would only be interested in a review essay for such a film, discussing it within some larger critical context.

Due to a recent review backlog we have not been actively soliciting reviewers; as a result, much recent SF media is still available for reviewing. If there is a film you are interested in reviewing, please contact gerry.canavan@marquette.edu and let him know the name of the film and what you think you’d like to say about it. Deadlines are quite flexible. We look forward to hearing from you!

Fall 2023 Syllabus: “Environmental Protection”

Just one course for me this fall, due to my somehow still being chair: an update of my “Environmental Protection” Material Cultures class. I moved some of the more hands-on eco humanities stuff into an extended discussion of The Ministry for the Future, so we’ll have to see how that goes.

Here’s the week-by-week schedule…

M8/28FIRST DAY OF CLASSW8/30N.K. Jemisin, “Emergency Skin” [D2L]F9/1Charles Stross, “Designing Society for Posterity” (Web)   M9/4LABOR DAY—NO CLASSW9/6Johan Rockstrom et. al, “Planetary Boundaries” [D2L] John Bellamy Foster, “Ecology against Capitalism” [D2L] Naomi Klein, “Climate Rage” [Web]F9/8Nathaniel Rich, “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change” [Web] Responses to Rich from Robinson Meyer, Naomi Klein, Alyssa Battistoni, and Matto Mildenberger and Leah C. Stokes [Web]M9/11Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia (first third)W9/13Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia (second third)F9/15Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia (whole book)   M9/18S.B. Banerjee, “Necrocapitalism” [D2L] Vandana Shiva, “Earth Democracy” [Web]W9/20Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, chapters 1-16F9/22The Ministry for the Future, chapters 17-30   M9/25The Ministry for the Future, chapters 31-45W9/27The Ministry for the Future, chapters 46-60F9/29The Ministry for the Future, chapters 61-74   M10/2The Ministry for the Future, chapters 75-90W10/4The Ministry for the Future, whole bookF10/6The Ministry for the Future and responses   M10/9FIRST PAPER WORKSHOPW10/11John Berger, “Why Look at Animals?” [D2L] Randy Malamud, “Zoo Spectatorship” [D2L] Octavia E. Butler, “Eye Witness” [Web]F10/13Kathy Rudy, “Where the Wild Things Ought to Be: Sanctuaries, Zoos, and Exotic Pets” [D2L] Blackfish (discussion)   M10/16Blackfish (discussion continues) Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy, “Grief, Sadness, and the Bones of Elephants” [D2L] Sascha Pare, “Orcas have sunk 3 boats in Europe and appear to be teaching others to do the same. But why?” [Web]W10/18Clare Kendall, “A New Law of Nature” [Web] Mihnea Tanasescu, “When a River Is a Person” [Web] Chris McKay, “Does Mars Have Rights?” [D2L] FIRST PAPER DUEF10/20FALL BREAK—NO CLASS   M10/23Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History” [D2L] McKenzie Wark, “Critical Theory after the Anthropocene” [Web]W10/25Daniel Hartley, “Against the Anthropocene” [Web] Kyle Whyte, “Indigenous Science (Fiction) for the Anthropocene: Ancestral Dystopias and Fantasies of Climate Change Crises” [D2L] Kathryn Yusoff, excerpt from A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None [D2L]F10/27Margaret Atwood, “Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet” [Web] Ted Chiang, “The Great Silence” [Web] film: Ramin Bahrani, “Plastic Bag” (in class)M10/30Richard McGuire, HereW11/1Richard McGuire, HereF11/3SECOND PAPER WORKSHOP   M11/699% Invisible, “Ten Thousand Years” [Web] Sarah Zhang, “The Cat Went Over Radioactive Mountain” [Web] Alan Bellows, “This Place Is Not a Place of Honor” [Web] WIPP Exhibit, “Message to 12,000 A.D.” [Web]W11/8Kim Stanley Robinson, introduction to Future Primitive [D2L] Ernest Callenbach, “Chocco” [D2L]F11/10Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home: “A First Note,” “The Quail Song,” “Towards an Archaeology of the Future,” and “Stone Telling: Part One”   M11/13Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home: “The Serpentine Codex” through“Pandora Worrying About What She Is Doing: She Addresses the Reader with Agitation”W11/15Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home: “Time and the City” through “Eight Life Stories”F11/17Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home: “Some Brief Valley Texts” through “Poems (Fourth Section)”   M11/20Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home: “The Back of the Book” SECOND PAPER DUEW11/22THANKSGIVING BREAK—NO CLASSF11/24THANKSGIVING BREAK—NO CLASS   M11/27FINAL PAPERS/PROJECTS MINI-WORKSHOPW11/29Jeff Vandermeer, Annihilation, 01F12/1Jeff Vandermeer, Annihilation, 02   M12/4Jeff Vandermeer, Annihilation, 03W12/6Jeff Vandermeer, Annihilation, 04F12/8Jeff Vandermeer, Annihilation, 05 Annihilation (film)   T12/12FINAL PROJECT DUE IN D2L DROPBOX BY 10:00 AM

SFFTV open call for submissions and books for review (summer 2023)

Science Fiction Film and Television invites article submissions on any topics related to sf and visual media; we especially invite articles related to the production economy of the culture industry and to non-US sf, as well as articles that related to our current CFPs for special issues and planned special issues on (1) indigenous sf filmmaking and (2) the career of Taika Waititi. 

We also invite proposals from potential guest editors for special issues; please write gerry.canavan@marquette.edu for more information on this process.

SFFTV is edited by Gerry Canavan (Marquette University), Dan Hassler-Forest (Utrecht University), and Ida Yoshinaga (George Institute of Technology). Preferred length for articles is approximately 7000-9000 words; all topics related to science fiction film, television, gaming, other visual media will be considered. Typical response time is within three months. Check the journal website at Liverpool University Press for full guidelines for contributors; please direct any individualized queries to gerry.canavan@marquette.edu.

The journal is also seeking reviewers of recent works of sf and sf-adjacent critical theory as well as recent SF visual media. We are always welcome to pitches, but we also have the following books available for review:

* Rebecca Janicker, ed, THE SCIENTIST IN POPULAR CULTURE (Lexington Books) 

* Jesse Russell, THE POLITICAL CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: LIBERALISM AND THE ANGLO-AMERICAN VISION (Lexington Books)

* Tyler Sage, MR. FREEDOM (Constellations in Science Fiction Film and TV series)

* David Sweeney, THE OA (Constellations in Science Fiction Film and TV series)

* Joe Street, SILICON VALLEY CINEMA (Edinburgh University Press)

* J.P. Telotte (ed.), THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF NEW SCIENCE FICTION CINEMAS (Oxford UP)

* Keith B. Wagner, Jeremi Szaniawski, and Michael Cramer, FREDRIC JAMESON AND FILM THEORY: MARXISM, ALLEGORY, AND GEOPOLITICS IN WORLD CINEMA (Rutgers University Press)

Reviews typically run 1000-2000 words, or 2000-4000 words in our “review essay” format. Samples of both types of review are available upon request.

For our media in review section, we are now primarily interested in:

* reviewers who are calling attention to things that have gone overlooked in the larger entertainment-media-complex landscape, especially international film;

* reviewers with a specific aesthetic, political, or philosophical “take” on a text, as opposed to a more traditional review that recapitulates the plot at length and advises the potential viewer whether or not they ought to watch it.

This notion of a specific “take” is especially important for blockbuster franchise fare, like the MCU or Star Wars movies; in most cases we would only be interested in a review essay for such a film, discussing it within some larger critical context.

Due to a recent review backlog we have not been actively soliciting reviewers; as a result, much recent SF media is still available for reviewing. If there is a film you are interested in reviewing, please contact gerry.canavan@marquette.edu and let him know the name of the film and what you think you’d like to say about it. Deadlines are quite flexible. We look forward to hearing from you!

2023 Peter Lang Emerging Scholars Competition in Indigenous Studies

Peter Lang Publishing is delighted to announce the 2023 Peter Lang Emerging Scholars Competition in Indigenous Studies.

Proposals are invited from emerging scholars in Indigenous Studies for single-author books to be evaluated by a distinguished editorial board. We are particularly welcoming work on Indigenous SF and Indigenous Futurism for consideration in the World Science Fiction Studies series.

Proposals should be submitted to editorial@peterlang.com or via our webform by 31 August 2023 and consist of an abstract (including chapter synopses), a sample chapter (5,000 to 10,000 words in length), a CV, and statement describing how you are an emerging scholar, in separate Microsoft Word documents. Proposals under review elsewhere should not be submitted.

The winner(s) will be offered a Gold Open Access contract for their book. Winning book(s) will be made available for free digital download as part of our efforts to increase accessibility. Planned manuscripts should be from 40,000 to 80,000 words in length and written in English. Authors will be expected to prepare the manuscript in accordance with the style guidelines provided.

Decisions will be made by 1 December 2023 and the winners will be notified shortly thereafter.

For more information, please contact Senior Acquisitions Editor Laurel Plapp (l.plapp@peterlang.com).

SFFTV open call for submissions and special issue proposals, as well as books for review

Science Fiction Film and Television invites article submissions on any topics related to sf and visual media; we especially invite articles related to the production economy of the culture industry and to non-US sf, as well as articles that related to possible upcoming special issues on (1) indigenous sf filmmaking and (2) the career of Taika Waititi. We also invite proposals from potential guest editors for special issues; please write gerry.canavan@marquette.edu for more information on this process.

SFFTV is edited by Gerry Canavan (Marquette University), Dan Hassler-Forest (Utrecht University), and Ida Yoshinaga (George Institute of Technology). Preferred length for articles is approximately 7000-9000 words; all topics related to science fiction film, television, gaming, other visual media will be considered. Typical response time is within three months. Check the journal website at Liverpool University Press for full guidelines for contributors; please direct any individualized queries to gerry.canavan@marquette.edu.

The journal is also seeking reviewers of recent works of sf and sf-adjacent critical theory as well as recent SF visual media. We are welcome to pitches, but we also have the following books available for review:

* Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr, MUTOPIA: SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASTIC KNOWLEDGE (Liverpool UP)

* Rebecca Janicker, ed, THE SCIENTIST IN POPULAR CULTURE (Lexington Books)

* Tyler Sage, MR. FREEDOM (Constellations in Science Fiction Film and TV series)

* George Slusser, SCIENCE FICTION: TOWARD A WORLD LITERATURE (Lexington Books)

* David Sweeney, THE OA (Constellations in Science Fiction Film and TV series)

* Sherryl Vint and Jonathan Alexander, PROGRAMMING THE FUTURE:POLITICS, RESISTANCE, AND UTOPIA IN CONTEMPORARY SPECULATIVE TV (Columbia UP)

Reviews typically run 1000-2000 words, or 2000-4000 words in our “review essay” format. Samples of both types of review are available upon request.

For our media in review section, we are now primarily interested in:

* reviewers who are calling attention to things that have gone overlooked in the larger entertainment-media-complex landscape, especially international film;

* reviewers with a specific aesthetic, political, or philosophical “take” on a text, as opposed to a more traditional review that recapitulates the plot at length and advises the potential viewer whether or not they ought to watch it.

This notion of a specific “take” is especially important for blockbuster franchise fare, like the MCU or Star Wars movies; in most cases we would only be interested in a review essay for such a film, discussing it within some larger critical context.

Due to a recent review backlog we have not been actively soliciting reviewers; as a result, much recent SF media is still available for reviewing. If there is a film you are interested in reviewing, please contact gerry.canavan@marquette.edu and let him know the name of the film and what you think you’d like to say about it. Deadlines are quite flexible. We look forward to hearing from you!

Revised Game Studies Syllabus for Spring 2023 (“Oops, All Disco Elysium”)!

With my new role as chair, I’ve only got one class this term, but it’s a good one: a upper-division version of my Game Studies class, with this term’s special Disco Elysium focus. Here’s the week by week:

DAYDATE ASSIGNMENTWJan 18STARTFIRST DAY OF CLASSFJan 20NARRATIVEGame: The Stanley Parable

Corey Mohler, Existential Comics: “Candyland and the Nature of the Absurd”
Interview with Davey Wreden, Creator of The Stanley Parable    MJan 23ARTGame: Doom

Roger Ebert, “Doom,” “Critics vs. Games on Doom,” “Why Did The Chicken Cross the Genders,” “Video Games Can Never Be Art”
Ian Bogost, “Art”WJan 25MEANINGGame: Journey
Märyä, “What Is Game Studies?” and “Meaning in Games”FJan 27CHOICEGame/Film: Black Mirror:Bandersnatch (in-class viewing)    MJan 30DESIGNGame/Film: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (in-class viewing and discussion)

Nele Van de Mosselaer and Stefano Gualeni, “The Implied Designer and the Experience of Gameworlds”WFeb 1FILMGalloway, “Gamic Action, Four Moments”FFeb 3DISCO!DE: CHARACTER CREATION SCREEN AND GETTING OUT OF YOUR HOTEL ROOM    MFeb 6ROLEPLAYGame: Dungeons and Dragons 

Vox.com, “Dungeons and Dragons, Explained”
Aaron Trammell, “From Where Do Dungeons Come?”
Aaron Trammell, “Misogyny and the Female Body in Dungeons and Dragons”WFeb 8CRITIQUEGame: The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild 

Gerry Canavan, “The Legend of Zelda in the Anthropocene”FFeb 10DISCO!DE: Day 1   MFeb 13HABITGame: Tetris

Bogost, “Habituation”
Chris Higgins, “Playing to Lose”
Sam Anderson, “Just One More Game…”
Film excerpts: The Ecstasy of OrderWFeb 15ADDICTIONGame: Candy Crush, League of Legends, Hearthstone, Marvel Snap!, etc. 

Ramin Shokrizade, “The Top F2P Monetization Tricks”
June Thomas, “Sugar Coma”
Julia Lepetit and Andrew Bridgman, “The Most Realistic Game Ever”
Ian Bogost, “Rage Against the Machines” and Cow ClickerFFeb 17DISCO!DE: Day 1 (replay)    MFeb 20VIOLENCEGame: Doom revisited, Call of Duty, etc.

Galloway, “Origins of the First Person Shooter”and “Social Realism”
Ludus Novus, “Why So Few Violent Games?”WFeb 22EMPIREBogost, “Titilation”
Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig de Peuter, “Designing Militarized Masculinity: Violence, Gender, and the Bias of Game Experience”
Mathieu Triclot, Raphaël Verchère, “Video Game Violence: A Philosophical Conversation with Mathieu Triclot”FFeb 24DISCO!DE: Day 2    MFeb 27SIMULATIONGame: Sid Meier’s Civilization, etc. 

Galloway, “Allegories of Control”
Kacper Pobłocki, “Becoming-State: The Bio-Cultural Imperialism of Sid Meier’s Civilization”WMar 1IDEOLOGYGame: SimCity, etc. 

Ava Kofman, “Les Simerables”
Mike Sterry, “The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat Sim City”FMar 3DISCO!DE: Day 3    MMar 6DECEPTIONGame: Werewolf, etc. 

Nathan Cutietta, “A Mental Model Approach to Deception in Single Player Games”WMar 8WORKMäryä, “Preparing for a Game Studies Project”FMar 10DISCO!DE: Day 4    M-FMar 13-17PAUSESPRING BREAK—NO CLASS    MMar 20ENDGAME 1Disco Elysium endgame discussion WMar 22ENDGAME 2Disco Elysium endgame discussionFMar 24ENDGAME 3Disco Elysium endgame discussion    MMar 27CRITICISMDisco Elysium criticismWMar 29CRITICISMDisco Elysium criticismFMar 31CRITICISMDisco Elysium criticism     MApr 3SEQUELDisco Elysium 2 discussionWApr 5WORKSHOPpaper/project workshop (in class)FApr 7DEATHEASTER BREAK—NO CLASS    MApr 10RESPAWNEASTER BREAK—NO CLASS    M-FApr 12-21DLCWe will choose the special topics for this part of the class together.    MApr 24FLOWStephen Johnson, Everything Bad Is Good for You(excerpt) 
Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken (excerpt)
Braxton Soderman, Against Flow (excerpt)WApr 26RESISTCountergames: molleindustria.org

Galloway, “Countergaming”FApr 28TUTORIALGRAD STUDENT PRESENTATIONS    M-FMay 1-May 5LEVEL UPUNDERGRAD PRESENTATIONS    FMay 9GAME OVERFINAL PAPER/PROJECT DUE ON D2L BY 10 AM

Ring in the New Year the Gerry Canavan Way with New Year’s Eve Eve Eve Links!

ArtReview asked me to write up something about the state of sequels and franchise culture for their year-in-review roundup: “Is the Blockbuster Sequel Worth Saving?”

pic.twitter.com/OsVxEyToqs

— katie kadue (@kukukadoo) December 27, 2022

13 new SF/F books to enjoy this December, and I’m one of them! Uneven Futures is out!Extrapolation 63.3 is out too!Wisconsin 46. MLG 2023.“Spaceman,” a short comic strip by US illustrator Marc Hempel (born 1957, Chicago) that was published in Questar magazine in 1980.This is maybe my favorite viral image of all time: a handout said to be from the Moral Majority in the 1980s warning people not to take my classes. It’s still Christmas somewhere.Higher Ed’s Prestige Paralysis. Reading after the University. Lit Crit after Lit Crit. Land-Grant or Land Grab Universities? Fewer jobs at SLACs? What Should We Do About Undergrads Who Want to Pursue a Humanities Doctorate? Capitalism (more precisely, the neoliberal version that currently reigns) has destroyed the humanities, and we should not pretend otherwise. The Rich Get College Subsidies While the Student Debt Debate Goes On. The Largest Strike in the History of American Higher Ed. University of California faculty join teaching assistant strike. Canceled lectures, no grades: University of California students face chaotic finals as academic workers strike. Skipping meals to scrape by: A striking UC student worker shares his story. UC graduate student workers ratify labor agreement, end historic strike with big wage gains. Many Rank-and-File UC Grad Student Workers Are Unhappy With Tentative Agreement. What’s at Stake in the University of California Graduate Worker Strike. California Medical University Apologizes For Experimenting On Prisoners. New School Strike: Students Occupy University Center Over Longest US Adjunct Strike. Blue Collar/White Collar: Reflections on The New School Strike. After 30 Years, Yale Graduate Students Are Finally Unionizing.A Rare Survey of Faculty Morale Shows That the Pandemic’s Effects Continue to Ripple. Higher Ed Is a Land of Dead-End Jobs.China Mieville on Why Capitalism Deserves Our Burning Hatred. Merry Christmas! We’re All Being Murdered by Capitalism.Will Children’s Books Become Catalogs of the Extinct?Astra Magazine Had Creative Freedom and a Budget. It Wasn’t Enough.Rethinking ‘Run, Hide, Fight’: Our mass-shooting guidance may be woefully out of date.The AIs are coming for what make us truly and most distinctly human: Human-level play in the game of Diplomacy by combining language models with strategic reasoning.Amazon Alexa is a “colossal failure,” on pace to lose $10 billion this year.Dystopia for Realists. Chatbots: they’re just like us! Teachers are on alert for inevitable cheating after release of ChatGPT. Update Your Course Syllabus for chatGPT. The viral AI avatar app Lensa undressed me—without my consent. Trendy Portrait App Lensa Is Accused of Creating Nonconsensual Nudes, Child Abuse Content. The Automation Charade. Jobs you can’t automate: Assistant Professor in the History of Artificial Intelligence.

ZIZEK: that AI will be the death of learning & so on; to this, I say NO! My student brings me their essay, which has been written by AI, & I plug it into my grading AI, & we are free! While the 'learning' happens, our superego satisfied, we are free now to learn whatever we want

— Zack Brown (@LuminanceBloom) December 7, 2022

miyazaki of studio ghibli, upon seeing an artificial intelligence presentation- "i strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself". pic.twitter.com/UmOOWvsfjV

— Tofu (@TofuPixel) December 12, 2022

do you ever think people are just going to get sick of half of media being a sports gambling commercial and the other half being influencers selling eating disorder encouragement or is this just how it’s going to be forever

— kate wagner (@mcmansionhell) December 27, 2022

Nightmare Blizzard in Buffalo. After deadly Buffalo blizzard, families scramble to find food and essentials.Officials fear ‘complete doomsday scenario’ for drought-stricken Colorado River.A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate. Now, I’m just a pointy-headed literature professor, but it seems like this should be MASSIVELY illegal!El Niño Is Coming—and the World Isn’t Prepared.The US is a rogue state leading the world towards ecological collapse.Effective altruism takes an L.It is at this point that we get our bizarro world inversion of the comic book nerd. The fan of comic book movies is now something of a “sore winner,” who continues to act the victim, marginalized, even in his dominance. I would argue that this “sore winner” idea is integral to our contemporary version of the majority, and even fascism to recall the quote about Faulkner. We are far from Deleuze and Guattari’s image of a majority that is all the more powerful in being unstated, in being assumed, now dominance, cultural, political, and economic, focuses on its apparent marginalization in order precisely to reassert its dominance. The inversion is not just that comic books have gone  from margins to mainstream, but that marginalization has gone from being the basis of empathy to an expression of dominance. Victimhood is the language of domination. The bizarro world that we are living in is not just that what was once the obsession of a few has become the culture of many, that Moon Knight is now practically a household name, but that grievance against perceived marginalization has become the language of the majority. An ‘Imperial Supreme Court’ Asserts Its Power, Alarming Scholars.to save some nickels Hertz mindlessly reported 1000s of cars stolen a year and got dozens of people arrested and jailed. Their punishment is to settle a lawsuit, none of the Hertz execs responsible for ruining lives and getting people kidnapped and caged will see a day in prisonOnce You See the Truth About Cars, You Can’t Unsee It. A driver killed her daughter. She won’t let the world forget. Inside Cleveland’s plans to become a 15-minute city. The Case for Guerrilla Crosswalks.Southwest cancels 5,400 flights in less than 48 hours in a ‘full-blown meltdown.’Gloomhaven in the New Yorker! Sci-Fi Board Game Terraforming Mars Has Been Optioned for Film. (Stan Robinson, call your lawyer.) We’re in a golden age of board games. It might be here to stay.The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine. The Homeownership Society Was a Mistake. You Should Probably Wait to Buy a Home. Millions of US Millennials Moved in With Their Parents This Year. Millennials are stuck in the world boomers built.America solved child poverty by accident and immediately gave itself a lobotomy to forget.They Called 911 for Help. Police and Prosecutors Used a New Junk Science to Decide They Were Liars. Florida’s Child Welfare System Is Found to Be Complicit in Sex Trafficking.Why the crypto crash hit black Americans hard.If I pay that much for a car I expect to get the whole thing.Twitter king Dril on Musk’s chaotic reign. Elon Musk claims Neuralink is about ‘six months’ away from first human trial. Elon’s Twitter Enters the Red Zone. Tesla’s Stock Is Burning Faster Than a Lithium Battery. Twitter brings Elon Musk’s genius reputation crashing down to earth. We’re in Denial About the True Cost of a Twitter Implosion. When you’ve lost the worst degenerates on Earth.

Twitter, while bad, was good at doing what it was doing, and now it’s not even good at that

— Gerry Canavan (parody) (@gerrycanavan) December 17, 2022

Scrolling alone. Men have fewer friends than ever, and it’s harming their health.Just in time! TWO YEARS LATER, Jan. 6 panel to vote on urging DOJ to prosecute Trump on at least 3 criminal charges.Finally a political movement I can get behind: Is It Toxic to Tell Everyone to Get Therapy?Enough With the Sad, Put-Upon Woman Essay.The Dark History of Hysteria.Did the Mother of Young Adult Literature Identify as a Man?We Might Have Long COVID all wrong. The Power and Peril of the ICU.The Failed Plot to Kill 6 Million Germans in the Wake of WWII.Scientists Are Investigating Signs of Ancient Human Civilization Underwater.Physicists Create ‘the Smallest, Crummiest Wormhole You Can Imagine.’ I like this energy, scientists.With historic explosion, a long sought fusion breakthrough.If Future Humans Terraformed a New Earth, Could They Get It Right?

even when reporting on research that finds *conservative policies will kill you* and *liberal policies will save your life,* big news companies can't resist the both-sides-are-the-same framing pic.twitter.com/wNjDQ9DxP5

— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) December 21, 2022

The rise and fall of peer review: Why the greatest scientific experiment in history failed, and why that’s a great thing.So little of what defines our lives seems to be in our control.I meet someone; we talk; I explain that Martian colonists will live in structures extracted from their own blood, sweat, and urine; they leave.LIGO may be able to detect alien warp drives using gravitational waves.Testing LEGO Investments.Working on my screenplay for Muppets to the Lighthouse.Domesticating Barbie: An Archaeology of Barbie Material Culture and Domestic Ideology.Film History According to Tarantino.The expanding orbit of Seattle science fiction writer Octavia Butler. Caliban, His Woman, and the Gendered (In)humanism of Wild Seed. Lesson Plan: “Octavia Butler’s Science Fiction Predicted the World We Live In.” How to Survive in Broken Worlds: Jesmyn Ward on Octavia Butler’s Empathy and Optimism.Star Trek showrunners vow to kill again. Avengers’ Anti-Oedipal Endgame. Ryan Coogler shares his original plot for the Black Panther sequel, beat by beat. Star Wars Will Never Escape The Last Jedi. Rian Johnson’s Primal Scream. Police and Thieves: On Tony Gilroy’s “Andor.” The Grown-Up Art of Andor. The Perfect Show for the Era of Disappearing TV. When you stan Ana de Armas so hard you change the course of film history. Ke Huy Quan’s True Hollywood Comeback. The piece of mass culture I’m most excited for. Unless it’s this. Or this.It is easier to imagine the end of capitalism than the end of attempts to adapt The Dark Tower.I decided not to write a review of Cormac McCarthy’s latest dual release The Passenger and Stella Maris in the end, but I did read a bunch of other good reviews when I was thinking about it: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Star Wars is the tragic, multigenerational story of how all the smart and competent characters who were good at their jobs and had the vision necessary to both defeat the Empire and to establish a strong and lasting New Republic died immediately before the events of A New Hope

— Gerry Canavan (parody) (@gerrycanavan) December 23, 2022

A Fifth of American Adults Struggle to Read. Why Are We Failing to Teach Them?Oh: Thousands of Teens Are Being Pushed Into Military’s Junior R.O.T.C.A Century of Serious Difficulty.Is It Art?So You Want to Start Reading (or Writing) Fanfic.MKE 101: Why the Cream City has it all. Just don’t have to go to a hospital! I think we’re not rushing it fast enough. We’re rushing the use of psychedelics as medicine, researchers say.Fitting.And always remember: if the opposition party somehow does win an election, simply strip them of their powers!