Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 5h

I don't know if she counts as "newer" but I've really liked Pamela Sanderson's books.

Reposted by Eric Selinger

Lincoln Michel @thelincoln.bsky.social · 8h

People always take whatever they want from art. (Part of the reason it is silly so many people fret over whether the "right" messages are in novels and movies.) Musk names spaceships after anarchist space operas. Paul Ryan works out to RATM. Better art isn't going to save a right-wing brain.

Stephen Geigen-Miller @stephengm.bsky.social · 8h

I wonder sometimes if it would have helped at all if they'd read Le Guin, Butler, and Jemisin as well as Tolkien and Gibson. But given how wildly they misunderstood Tolkien and Gibson and even Iain M. Banks, I don't know that it would have.

Corvid Spooky-Howls @parodybit.bsky.social · 9h

I think Kendra's right about Thiel and a lot of other people. A thought I often find myself having is, "Did these people read the same books I did? Did [tech billionaire, any of them] think, 'Yes, I want to control everyone else like that,' and if so, why do they lack empathy and critical thinking?"

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Reyhan Harmanci @harmancipants.bsky.social · 12h

We wanted to know what it was like to own a Cybertruck. So @zoeschiffer.bsky.social went to the desert got this absolutely amazing quotes (and Michelle Groskopf took the pictures!) www.wired.com/story/owning...

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 1d

No obvious echoes of other literature to track down, but chick lit as a genre would be on the table, and there's interesting use of particular prayers, Quranic quotations, etc., and the relationships between the three books would be interesting to explore.

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 1d

Thought of a new option this morning: teach the full Sofia Khan trilogy by Ayisha Malik. Two novels and a novella, so maybe 900 pages overall, but I've been working on the texts for a couple of articles, and I'll never get the chance to teach all three except in a senior seminar.

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 2d

Emezi gets me a take on politics and violence, YA as a publishing category, some interesting allusions (Assata Shakur, Gwendolyn Brooks, maybe Paul Robeson, via the quoted Brooks poem), and the nature of Virtue, which could make for an interesting discussion. Also Emezi as social media presence.

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 2d

The Hayden opens out on Hayden's poetry, Douglass himself, the sonnet as a form, some Baha'i topics, and political theory (re: freedom). The Clifton opens onto other Bible-revising Clifton poems, Paradise Lost, quilting, and that new book about LC by Kazim Ali could be a secondary text.

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 2d

I think (THINK) I've narrowed down the options to Robert Hayden's sonnet about Frederick Douglass, Lucille Clifton's Tree of Life sequence (about Lucifer, Eve, and Adam), and Akwaeke Emezi's YA novel Bitter. Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora was a contender, but I think it's too long, alas, at 4-500 pp.

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 2d

For the first time in years I'm completely stumped as to what poem or novel to have my students focus on in their Senior Capstone Seminar. Not sure what they OR I will find valuable to read in depth this winter. Unpleasant feeling.

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 2d

I think there was a whole issue of Poetry East that did this: poems paired with little prose pieces by each poet about the writing process

Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 3d

Wow! So much to explore--thanks, Laura!

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Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 3d

This update got very long, but maybe that means there's a higher chance of it including something you'd be interested in reading?

Most of the entries are to open-access publications, so they're free to view.

A very long list of new (and some not so new) publications about romance

The open access journal TEXT dedicated a special issue to romance/romantic fiction, under the subtitle " Trope Actually – Popular Romance" b...

teachmetonight.blogspot.com

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Reposted by Eric Selinger

Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 9d

For The Conversation, @dramyburge.bsky.social and I wrote an obituary for the late, great Jilly Cooper.

Jilly Cooper: why readers still cherish her ‘fat, fun, frothy novels’

Many of Cooper’s depictions of sex are very funny. However, there is a clear message throughout.

theconversation.com

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Reposted by Eric Selinger

Esther Schindler @estherschindler.bsky.social · 10d

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

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Owen K.C. Stephens (He/Him) @owenkcstephens.bsky.social · 10d

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Laura Ashe @lauraashe.bsky.social · 10d

Epic; no notes

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

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Reposted by Eric Selinger

Susan Kaye Quinn is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱 @susankayequinn.bsky.social · 22d

They've lost the 9yos

JA Westenberg
@Daojoan@mastodon.social

My 9 year old and his classmates have started using “that’s AI” to mean “I don’t believe you.”

Me: we’re having dinosaur meat for dinner

Kiddo: that’s AI
Sep 24, 2025, 07:36 AM

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 22d

Curiosity, research, understanding: such a fun process when it all goes well!

Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 22d

Spent an hour or so this morning figuring out whether the phrase from Psalm 34 that Stephen Mitchell and Chana Bloch put in their translation of Amichai's "Song of Lies on Sabbath Eve" is in the original (it isn't), and then figuring out what the actual Hebrew bit is, so I'd know why they did that.

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@AuthorMsBev @authormsbev.bsky.social · 23d

Join me. Free. events.howard.edu/event/black-...

Black Love is Resistance: A Conversation with Beverly Jenkins and Kristina Forest - International Black Writers Festival 2025

events.howard.edu

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Reposted by Eric Selinger

Nomadic Warriors for Pritzker @nomads.bsky.social · 23d

Hey everybody - I was raptured, but then chose to return to Earth to aid all sentient beings in their quest for nirvana. This may not have been the eschatology you were expecting but my advice is to start practicing compassion and loving kindness right now. Svaha!

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 23d

If you’ve waited four months and the feeling ain’t gone…

Lauren S. Hallion, Ph.D. @laurenshallion.bsky.social · 24d

United States academic landscape got you down? Apply to join my lab at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada!

I’m planning to accept a graduate student in Clinical Psychology. Additional information:

https://www.uregina.ca/academics/programs/arts/master-phd-clinical-psychology.html

Reposted by Eric Selinger

Laura Vivanco @lauravivanco.bsky.social · 23d

@dramyburge.bsky.social and Joseph Crawford have a short article out on the legacy and impact of Twilight

Twilight at 20: how Stephenie Meyer’s vampire saga changed young adult fiction forever

In 2005, Twilight’s adolescent female readership made it a target for mockery. Today, that same demographic is the most coveted in publishing.

theconversation.com

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 24d

Folks in the romance scholar community, take note--my materials probably won't be there much longer. A pity; they recommended a lot of useful material to me over the years.

Justin Weinberg @dailynous.com · 24d

A popular online service for academics is claiming an irrevocable right to use its subscribers' voice, signature, photograph, likeness, etc., "in any manner"...

What Will Academia.edu Do with Its New Rights to Your Name, Likeness, and Voice? - Daily Nous

Users of the Academia.edu service are cancelling their subscriptions in response to perceived overreach by the firm in its recent update to its terms of service. Catching users' attention was a new pa...

dailynous.com

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Eric Selinger @emselinger.bsky.social · 28d

Popular romance scholars, keep an eye out for this--I wonder when it will start showing up in books....

N.V. Binder 𓀨 @nvbinder.io · 28d

wow sounds like a cool consumer technology that everyone wants

ChatGPT Is Blowing Up Marriages as Spouses Use AI to Attack Their Partners

Across the world, marriages are being destroyed as spouses use AI like OpenAI's ChatGPT to attack their partners.

futurism.com

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