Alexis Lothian
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alothian.bsky.social
Alexis Lothian
@alothian.bsky.social
910 followers 340 following 30 posts
Scholar and sometimes practitioner of queer speculation, critical fandom, digital social justice, and feminist world building. Associate Professor in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at University of Maryland.
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alothian.bsky.social
I can think of few people whose insights our moment more desperately needs than @lnakamura.bsky.social !
November 9, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
ryancordell.org
Job alert!

@ischoolui.bsky.social is hiring in 4 areas this year

Early literacies: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Information behavior/HCI/UX: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Information, Culture & Society: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Open IS: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...
November 6, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
jasonkoebler.bsky.social
The long-running ideological war on libraries, education, and government workers is not separate from AI boosterism. It is the same ideological war on human knowledge and expertise. In some cases AI is being used to directly supercharge this effort:

www.404media.co/ai-is-superc...
AI Is Supercharging the War on Libraries, Education, and Human Knowledge
"Fascism and AI, whether or not they have the same goals, they sure are working to accelerate one another."
www.404media.co
November 6, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
mesa1966.bsky.social
MESA and the AAUP have released a critical report exposing the weaponization of civil rights law to suppress campus speech concerning Palestine.
Read full report here: mesana.org/advocacy/tas...
November 5, 2025 at 1:32 PM
alothian.bsky.social
Brilliant forthcoming book from my brilliant former advisee! I’m so proud to have been part of the journey that led to this work.
storti.bsky.social Anna Storti @storti.bsky.social · 14d
My book, Torn, is available for pre-order 🌪️

If you place an order before Nov 9, you can take advantage of the
@dukepress.bsky.social fall sale (use code FALL25 to get 50% off). Torn drops March 2026!

dukeupress.edu/torn
November 4, 2025 at 2:59 AM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
mkirschenbaum.bsky.social
Very proud to have worked on this statement of the Modern Language Association with @annamillsoer.bsky.social and other colleagues on the MLA’s task force on AI in Research and Teaching. It is a direct call for faculty input into Ed Tech decision-making, especially AI: www.mla.org/Resources/Ad... 🧵
Screenshots of the following text: Statement on Educational Technologies and AI Agents The following statement of endorsement was drafted by the MLA Task Force on AI in Research and Teaching. The Executive Council approved it as an MLA statement in October 2025. Software, specifically learning management systems (LMSs), is as important to teaching and learning as physical classrooms and facilities. The recent and hasty integration of generative AI features into those systems is already redefining student and instructor relationships, evaluative standards, and instructional outcomes—with no compelling evidence that any of it is for the better. At the same time, so-called agentic browsers are becoming widely available to the public. These offer AI “agents” that can navigate LMSs and complete assignments without any student involvement. All of this is unfolding at a time when contractual arrangements between institutions and commercial vendors often lack transparency, with worrisome implications for data collection and student privacy. Screenshots of the following text: The Modern Language Association therefore unequivocally 1. Advocates for full faculty and instructional involvement, including faculty of languages, literatures, and the humanities, at all levels of decision-making in the selection, procurement, and responsible implementation of instructional technology systems and software, including those incorporating AI.

The instructional mission cannot be fulfilled in the absence of faculty expertise, and this expertise extends not only to the “content” of the curriculum but also to the infrastructures and environments—virtual and otherwise—in which learning happens.
  2. Calls upon law- and policymakers, LMS vendors, and companies offering agent-based AI browsers to cooperate in order to prevent misuse and to ensure that academic institutions have the ability and option to block agentic AI when needed.

Without dedicated outside cooperation from lawmakers and technology providers, academic institutions may not have the technical capacity to do so on their own. If we do not act, we risk seeing the development of a fully automated loop in which assignments are generated by AI with the support of a learning management system, AI-generated content is submitted by an agentic AI on behalf of the student, and AI-driven metrics evaluate the work on behalf of the instructor.
November 4, 2025 at 1:09 AM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
wgss-umd.bsky.social
The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies is hiring an Assistant/Associate Professor in Black Feminisms. Read more about the position and apply at https://go.umd.edu/WGSSBlackFeminisms🌈🎓 #AcademicSky #Blackademics #PhDSky
October 28, 2025 at 9:01 PM
alothian.bsky.social
My department is hiring in Black Feminisms! wgss.umd.edu/news/now-hir...
Now Hiring: Assistant/Associate Professor Black Feminisms | The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
wgss.umd.edu
October 25, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
Roddey Reid’s book, now revised and expanded, is the best text I have found that not only grasps the full meaning of Trump, but places him in the context of American business culture. Be afraid.

roddeyreid.squarespace.com/new-book-1
About 1 — UNSAFE THOUGHTS BY RODDEY REID
roddeyreid.squarespace.com
September 21, 2025 at 1:17 AM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
hagenblix.bsky.social
We wrote a thing about AI, fascism, and why framing this as "hype" is too apolitical

www.liberalcurrents.com/deflating-hy...
Deflating “Hype” Won’t Save Us
The problem with AI isn’t hype. The problem is who and what it’s useful for.
www.liberalcurrents.com
September 16, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
schock.cc
AI systems don't have to be controlled by fascist bootlickers. They don't have to be controlled by for-profit tech companies!

Check out our report on the possibility and necessity of an #AICommons: oneproject.org/ai-commons/
AI Commons - One Project
What if we could redefine AI? What if we could shift its development from a capitalist model to a more disruptive, inclusive, and decentralized one?
oneproject.org
September 14, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
mkirschenbaum.bsky.social
I missed this when it came out over the summer but it’s well worth the read. @biblioracle.bsky.social
September 9, 2025 at 2:04 AM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
alexandragallant.com
Did you used to make LiveJournal icons? Do you still have some of the ones that you made? I'm looking to include more icons in the second print run of my LiveJournal Iconic zine and would love to see yours!

Share them here: form.jotform.com/252444103676...
The cover of my zine 'Iconic' about LiveJournal icons, a bunch of colorful 100x100 pixel images all set out in a grid "A zine about design, aesthetic and LiveJournal icons from the early 2000s"
September 2, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
olivia.science
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
transformativeworks.org
The #OTW is turning 18 this year! Look back with us on some milestones, and participate in our anniversary bingo at otw-news.org/yckwkcuj #18YearsOTW
Celebrating the OTW’s 18th Anniversary
September 6, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
olivia.science
Made these for fun — hope you get a chuckle at least & consider signing

Open Letter: Stop the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia
openletter.earth/open-letter-...

💥🩷🌿‼️
Image that says: Have you considered NOT using AI? Funky font and flowers and a qr code that links to the open letter Image that says: Have you considered NOT using AI? Funky font and flowers and a qr code that links to the open letter Image that says: AI is evil. Funky font and flowers and a qr code that links to the open letter Image that says: AI is evil. Funky font and flowers and a qr code that links to the open letter
September 4, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
technomalinche.bsky.social
Thread of the Day
savasavasava.myatproto.social rom comrade @savasavasava.myatproto.social · Sep 2
ok a question: if you could have your students read one thing on genAI that you hope will encourage them not to use it, what would it be?
September 3, 2025 at 3:14 AM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
hagenblix.bsky.social
I really think imagining what it would mean to develop technology for life, rather than for profit is a serious task of the political imaginary. The way things are now are so dire and dreadful, but there is also so much room beyond capitalist realism here
faineg.bsky.social Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · Aug 29
I also wish more people were empowered to design tech tools really only intended for the use of themselves and their friends - and be content with that, too.
August 29, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
drnollid.bsky.social
'OpenAI is the most prominent of many EdTech enterprises, most owned by venture capital and private equity, whose mission is to automate and gigify education, to surveil students, mine their data and modify their behavior.'

We're witnessing the dismantling of the very possibility of learning itself
dan-sinnamon.bsky.social Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · Aug 27
Matt Seybold ( @mattseybold.bsky.social )

"I ask my fellow educators to consider some measures for reducing our complicity in efforts to steal our students identities, attention, and right to education, even indenture them to train algorithms"
theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/against-te...
Against Technofeudal Education
Pillars For Protecting Our "Core Infrastructure" From OpenAI
theamericanvandal.substack.com
August 27, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
nsousanis.bsky.social
My drawn statement on Ai as standalone from my now finished minicomic as syllabus for new liberal studies class! As promised this is shareable, printable - all from my site, feel free to make use of it, cite me & let me know how it’s received. Share away all here! spinweaveandcut.com/fall-2025-sy...
a snippet of a mini-comic, at top - straight line stretches from point A to B. Immediately below, same dot at A, then becomes a curving, meandering line that winds through the page and ends at a point with rays and a question mark emanating from it. Text reads: "Nothing can do this for you - that robs you of experience and conflates answers with learning. Rather, it's all the decisions you make along the way, the mistakes, struggles, and surprises! These pathways you create - this is learning. Pages from a mini comic Pages from a mini comic Pages from a mini comic
August 20, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
cwarzel.bsky.social
Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it
AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event
Three years in, one of AI’s enduring impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing it.
www.theatlantic.com
August 18, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
anthonymoser.com
This may also be why I dislike the use of "learnings" as a noun

Learning is not an object you acquire, it is a process that transforms you
nsousanis.bsky.social Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · Aug 12
my statement on Ai from the mini-comic I'm making as syllabus for a new class I'm teaching this fall. It's simple, but I pretty much said all I have to say on it - it robs you of decisions and struggle - and the joy of being surprised. It robs you of learning...
a snippet of a mini-comic, at top - straight line stretches from point A to B. Immediately below, same dot at A, then becomes a curving, meandering line that winds through the page and ends at a point with rays and a question mark emanating from it. Text reads: "Nothing can do this for you - that robs you of experience and conflates answers with learning. Rather, it's all the decisions you make along the way, the mistakes, struggles, and surprises! These pathways you create - this is learning.
August 17, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
sarahkendzior.bsky.social
sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/on-palestine
From free article, look for "Red Lines": https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/on-palestine
August 17, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Alexis Lothian
annakornbluh.bsky.social
teachers!

excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.

take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com
AGAINST AI
against-a-i.com
August 15, 2025 at 5:39 PM