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Cathy Waters @catherinefaver.bsky.social · May 21

Great to celebrate the launch of ‘The Verse of Charles Dickens’ and ‘The Plays of Charles Dickens’ with their respective editors - Lydia Craig and @emilyjlm.bsky.social - and - Joanna Hofer-Robinson and @peteorford.bsky.social - at the Charles Dickens Museum.👏

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Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · May 8

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell casts a huge shadow over the book world. I'm seeing a flood of books that borrow its genre-hopping, generation-spanning format.

So in my latest newsletter, I wonder: is Cloud Atlas becoming a bit of a genre on its own?

buttondown.com/charliejane/...

Has "Cloud Atlas" Become a Genre?

Thanks for reading my newsletter! If you wanna consume even more of my words, I have a novel coming out in August. It’s called Lessons in Magic and Disaster,...

buttondown.com

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Gorey Cask of Amontilladoing @coreybrickley.bsky.social · May 9

"i dont know what id do widdout my chatgpt 🥺👉👈" Oh my god go back to Baby School you fucking failure

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Feb 23

Saw this in Edinburgh a few years ago and have carried the thought with me since 🩷

Graffiti on a brick wall reading "No TERFS on our turf" with a smaller, handwritten statement below reading “trans rights are human rights”

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Apr 6

Thank you. 6 students had their visas revoked here at Stanford. It's so horrifying.

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Apr 6

Very excited about the two new books I picked up at #SCMS2025! Love @robinmeanscoleman.bsky.social so I'm especially thrilled to have snagged Horror Noire.

Overall a lovely conference - it was so fun to present on creepy little kids in horror games, and the papers I saw on cozy games were super! 👾

Two books placed next to one another. The first is Horror Noire: A History of Black American Horror from the 1890s to Present by Robin R. Means Coleman and the second is The Well-Read Game: On Playing Thoughtfully by Tracy Fullerton and Matthew Faber.

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Maggie Hennefeld @hennefem.bsky.social · Mar 13

Rest in Power Linda Williams. 💔 (1946-2025) This loss hangs heavy on my heart. Linda was a legend--inspiring feminist scholar, warm interlocutor always generous to students & newbies, and fierce/indomitable presence whose commitment made us all care more. I'm grateful to have known her!! ❤️😢

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Úna-Minh 🔥 Play Eyes of Hellfire! @unaminh.bsky.social · Mar 11

A chairde, as they say, "every wishlist helps!" Our gothic horror game, set in #Ireland - specifically set in the Hellfire Club in #Dublin 😱 - will be going into Early Access this year :))

Find out more below, & wishlist us today. Míle baochas 🙇‍♀️

Eyes of Hellfire on Steam

Eyes of Hellfire is a co-op gothic horror game. Hoist the candelabra and, along with your friends, step into the darkened halls of the Hellfire Club.

store.steampowered.com

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Mar 11

Just listened to a wonderful talk from @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social about her very interesting (and very beautiful) book! Excited to display it on my bookshelf 🧟‍♀️

Photo of Humans: A Monstrous History by Surekha Davies

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Mar 7

One of the use-cases for ChatGTP in our diss was "coming up with metaphors for tricky concepts." Surely that is something I should be asked to do myself, as I am in training to be a professor?? Surely those metaphors are important substance and need to be crafted carefully?? It's just ridiculous.

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Mar 7

I was recently subject to a talk about how to use generative AI for my DISSERTATION. A talk led BY a faculty member, to all English grads currently dissertating. I can understand an individual choosing to be lazy and immoral, but why do the AI-obsessed try to rope everyone else into this junk!

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Academic Anarchy🏴 - Antifa Founder @johnbrownbread.bsky.social · Mar 2

How is the top University in the Bluest state in the US reacting to Trump’s attacks on Academic Freedom in the form of the “Anti-DEI order? The answer is: NOT good. A thread 🧵 about how the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa is responding to these attacks.

Do not obey in advance:
Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Feb 26

Devastating read.

"'You would have thought at some point you escape the poverty trap,' said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and an author of the study. Black boys — even rich black boys — can seemingly never assume that."

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys (Published 2018)

A study of 20 million children shows the fragility of the American Dream.

www.nytimes.com

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Feb 23

Saw this in Edinburgh a few years ago and have carried the thought with me since 🩷

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Feb 20

Ah, if only there was an online option! The topics sound so interesting!

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Feb 20

What does the assignment entail? I imagine it would be transferable to an eighteenth century class!

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Dave Weigel @daveweigel.bsky.social · Feb 18

Interesting. Here's my alternative take: Kill it with fire.

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Feb 17

My hometown!

Stephen Blackmoore @stephenblackmoore.com · Feb 16

School play gets canceled for "inappropriate content".

In response students write [REDACTED], their own anti-censorship play skewering the school district, sells out performances, and ultimately takes gold at the Lenaea High School Theatre Festival.

www.kqed.org/arts/1397192...

After Censorship, Santa Rosa Students Write Their Own Play — and Take the Gold | KQED

A state festival awarded top honors to ‘REDACTED,’ which ruthlessly lampooned district officials.

www.kqed.org

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Siobhan Hoffmann Sønderborg @siobhanhoffmann.bsky.social · Feb 16

Yesterday, I discovered a(n apparently v famous) theatre tradition 'Grand-Guignol' that was both unbelievably gross, but also cool af.

I'm kind of ashamed I hadn't heard of it before...

Massive props (no pun intended) to @alexiamandla.bsky.social for her enthusiastic/detailed gore descriptions.

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Feb 16

I truly close 4-6 pop ups every time I visit a website now. I can't believe this is what the internet has become.

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Feb 16

Every clothing website is now an endless battle. 10% OFF IF YOU SIGN UP FOR TEXTS! ACCEPT COOKIES, EVEN IF YOU'VE BEEN TO THIS WEBSITE 100 TIMES! SPIN OUR WHEEL TO GET 15% OFF IF YOU SIGN UP FOR TEXTS! FREE SHIPPING IF YOU SPEND $300! GIVE US YOUR PHONE NUMBER SO WE CAN TEXT YOU!
I'm exhausted.

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Feb 12

Though a true Ann Radcliffe joke would require about 5 times more allowance on the word limit

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Feb 12

Ann Radcliffe tries to joke

They wound through black woods of pine as even the last tints of stars died in the savage foliage, seeking safety in the wretched inn; if Misery ever had local habitation, this may have been "her dearest place of seclusion," where even the moon declined to shed her rays.

Carlisle Yingst @ceyingst.bsky.social · Feb 12

[any 18th-centry novelist tries to tell a joke]

THE ALEHOUSE; or the SURPRIZING HISTORY of A TAVERN

containing the CHARACTER of A Rabbi, A Prieſt, & A Miniſter

WITH An Account of how, having left their Lantern at a Table found themſelves loſt in a Wood & were at laſt Deliver’d by a HIGHWAYMAN.

John MacNeill Miller @snarlsdickens.bsky.social · Feb 12

[George Eliot tries to tell a joke]

One night, walking into a bar, a beautiful woman—but why always a beautiful woman? Was her point of view the only possible one with regard to this joke? I pity the poor barkeep subjected to such endless torrents of beautiful women, priests, rabbis, parrots, dogs,

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Tim Waterman @tim-waterman.co.uk · Feb 12

Now here's an attractive CFP: Railway Aesthetics: Experiencing Locomotion across Media and Cultures. Takes place ON THE TRAIN Vienna-Bucharest-Istanbul, 10-13 September 2025. Deadline for submissions: May 2, 2025 call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/02/...

View down a well lit railway platform with a sleeper train alongside

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Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇 @alexiamandla.bsky.social · Feb 11

I think it's helpful, for me, to realize that this is just an old move. These things have happened before. Therefore, we actually do know how to fight it because it's been fought before. We left the monarchy! We beat the Nazis! To say it's old is also to say we won once and we can win again.

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