Charles Pletcher
@charlespletcher.org
Ancient tragedy, reception studies, digital humanities
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
I think the belief by the powerful that "people will put up with many things if you are excellent at math" is incredibly revealing in terms of understanding How We Got Here
November 11, 2025 at 7:14 PM
I think the belief by the powerful that "people will put up with many things if you are excellent at math" is incredibly revealing in terms of understanding How We Got Here
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
From today's Chronicle of Higher Ed briefing. I am *never* an advocate of cutting programs. But I am curious to see if there will be the same type of "students aren't majoring in this, so let's cut the program" discourse around computer science as there always is for the arts and humanities.
November 11, 2025 at 12:38 PM
From today's Chronicle of Higher Ed briefing. I am *never* an advocate of cutting programs. But I am curious to see if there will be the same type of "students aren't majoring in this, so let's cut the program" discourse around computer science as there always is for the arts and humanities.
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
lol
November 6, 2025 at 4:47 AM
lol
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
Here's another bit of conventional wisdom Zohran completely blew away: His speech was at well above a 10th-grade level. It was complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references. You don't have to condescend to voters with baby talk! Part of re-establishing norms is speaking like an adult.
November 5, 2025 at 5:14 AM
Here's another bit of conventional wisdom Zohran completely blew away: His speech was at well above a 10th-grade level. It was complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references. You don't have to condescend to voters with baby talk! Part of re-establishing norms is speaking like an adult.
The processing instruction found in many TEI documents—which never advanced past Working Group Note www.w3.org/TR/2012/NOTE... —breaks some XML parsers
(Non-standard processing instructions cannot include the string "xml": www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-pi)
So why are we still using it?
(Non-standard processing instructions cannot include the string "xml": www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-pi)
So why are we still using it?
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition)
www.w3.org
November 4, 2025 at 3:40 AM
The processing instruction found in many TEI documents—which never advanced past Working Group Note www.w3.org/TR/2012/NOTE... —breaks some XML parsers
(Non-standard processing instructions cannot include the string "xml": www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-pi)
So why are we still using it?
(Non-standard processing instructions cannot include the string "xml": www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-pi)
So why are we still using it?
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
the power of uh, reading books
a genuine problem is that a lot of this stuff is just completely alien to the mass media elite
like who else besides weirdos like me take time to analyze what the intellectual righties are saying
like who else besides weirdos like me take time to analyze what the intellectual righties are saying
November 3, 2025 at 3:11 AM
the power of uh, reading books
Cleaned up the previous sentence embeddings comparisons—cleaner calculation of similarity for tragedies, and now both charts use the same scale (in autumn hues 🍂)
It makes sense that tragedies overall are v. similar, but their similarities alone don't explain the lower-right messenger cluster
It makes sense that tragedies overall are v. similar, but their similarities alone don't explain the lower-right messenger cluster
November 1, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Cleaned up the previous sentence embeddings comparisons—cleaner calculation of similarity for tragedies, and now both charts use the same scale (in autumn hues 🍂)
It makes sense that tragedies overall are v. similar, but their similarities alone don't explain the lower-right messenger cluster
It makes sense that tragedies overall are v. similar, but their similarities alone don't explain the lower-right messenger cluster
I might need to update the original plot, but so far it's interesting to note that the messenger similarities don't seem to be a result of consolidation across tragedies, which remain quite distinct (at least from the perspective of sentence embeddings) #dh #ancmedsky
November 1, 2025 at 2:11 AM
I might need to update the original plot, but so far it's interesting to note that the messenger similarities don't seem to be a result of consolidation across tragedies, which remain quite distinct (at least from the perspective of sentence embeddings) #dh #ancmedsky
So sentence embeddings of messenger speeches in Attic tragedy show a modest but notable bump in semantic similarity toward the end of the 5th century (see attached image) — generic consolidation, maybe, but why? #ancmedsky #dh
October 31, 2025 at 8:11 PM
So sentence embeddings of messenger speeches in Attic tragedy show a modest but notable bump in semantic similarity toward the end of the 5th century (see attached image) — generic consolidation, maybe, but why? #ancmedsky #dh
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
We have been working at Perseus on an initial release of a new browser for the Art and Archaeology collection. You can read more about it here (sites.tufts.edu/perseusupdat...)
Announcing a new release of the Perseus Art & Archaeology Artifact (A&A) Browser » Perseus Digital Library Updates
sites.tufts.edu
October 15, 2025 at 12:31 PM
We have been working at Perseus on an initial release of a new browser for the Art and Archaeology collection. You can read more about it here (sites.tufts.edu/perseusupdat...)
Could I repurpose this for an upcoming Greek midterm? Give students a ChatGPT- or Claude-translated passage (that we have translated in class) and ask them the same question(s)
scarlet letter reading quiz: give students a sparknotes passage and ask what it misses—a significant detail, some tension, a connection to another text only a member of our class might see
October 9, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Could I repurpose this for an upcoming Greek midterm? Give students a ChatGPT- or Claude-translated passage (that we have translated in class) and ask them the same question(s)
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
As an instructor, I'd rather see your fever dream, No Doze-fueled 4AM essays written at an IHOP rather than anything generated by an LLM.
Hope this helps
Hope this helps
I wrote a 15 page report on heraldic symbolism in medieval armor and weapon design for my art history class the night before it was due (8am class). Made up 90% of it (only found one book for reference) and got an A. GenAI could fucking never.
October 9, 2025 at 4:25 AM
As an instructor, I'd rather see your fever dream, No Doze-fueled 4AM essays written at an IHOP rather than anything generated by an LLM.
Hope this helps
Hope this helps
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
i agree. there's something very dostoyevskian about how the modern sources of terror don't seem to be formally ideological but just seem to be purely postmodern terror, causing terror for the sake of terror
Hot take but apolitical internet brainrot terrorism feels more disturbing than strictly political.
September 12, 2025 at 2:41 PM
i agree. there's something very dostoyevskian about how the modern sources of terror don't seem to be formally ideological but just seem to be purely postmodern terror, causing terror for the sake of terror
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
Chris Rufo being an idiot about Leo Strauss:
September 6, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Chris Rufo being an idiot about Leo Strauss:
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
10/10. Chef's kiss. No notes. 💯
September 6, 2025 at 11:30 PM
10/10. Chef's kiss. No notes. 💯
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
*reading the great books*
Yeah, you can see it right here in Sophocles. The point of Antigone was that Creon was too even-keeled. We should get a guy that is only id.
Yeah, you can see it right here in Sophocles. The point of Antigone was that Creon was too even-keeled. We should get a guy that is only id.
August 24, 2025 at 9:31 PM
*reading the great books*
Yeah, you can see it right here in Sophocles. The point of Antigone was that Creon was too even-keeled. We should get a guy that is only id.
Yeah, you can see it right here in Sophocles. The point of Antigone was that Creon was too even-keeled. We should get a guy that is only id.
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
There’s an essay to be written about how the “conservative” movement that’s spent the past 90 years trying to undo the New Deal has embraced the New Deal’a aesthetic as its propaganda genre of choice for promoting its regressive, anti-worker policies.
August 24, 2025 at 6:01 PM
There’s an essay to be written about how the “conservative” movement that’s spent the past 90 years trying to undo the New Deal has embraced the New Deal’a aesthetic as its propaganda genre of choice for promoting its regressive, anti-worker policies.
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
Sovereign is he who decides the state of exception
I just don't understand what they hope to accomplish. Are they looking to intimidate the opposition? Move assets into place for a proper coup? Put on a show for their base? Like did they think this through, like at all?
August 22, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Sovereign is he who decides the state of exception
“Ain’t no rule says a dog can’t play basketball” 🏀
August 15, 2025 at 3:26 PM
“Ain’t no rule says a dog can’t play basketball” 🏀
Reposted by Charles Pletcher
Any diagnosis of the problem that doesn’t clearly see the “lecturers” doing the grunt work as the *colleagues* whose research careers are already being sacrificed on the altar of Capital isn’t going to identify a path forward for the future of the academic humanities /5
August 15, 2025 at 1:51 AM
Any diagnosis of the problem that doesn’t clearly see the “lecturers” doing the grunt work as the *colleagues* whose research careers are already being sacrificed on the altar of Capital isn’t going to identify a path forward for the future of the academic humanities /5
As preparation for the upcoming @dracor.org summit, I've been experimenting with how to visualize a dramatic network over time. Early results from a test case with Euripides' Andromache here: observablehq.com/@pletcher/ne...
Networks in Euripides' Andromache
Visualizing interactions by line and type
observablehq.com
August 14, 2025 at 9:13 PM
As preparation for the upcoming @dracor.org summit, I've been experimenting with how to visualize a dramatic network over time. Early results from a test case with Euripides' Andromache here: observablehq.com/@pletcher/ne...
Private equity vultures have been circling Philz for a while, I guess, but it doesn't make this news any easier to read. (I have no nice things to say about PE, but I also don't have anything pithy-spicy to add.) missionlocal.org/2025/07/phil...
Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145 million
Employee stocks will be canceled as part of the deal; former employees point to culture change across Philz Coffee.
missionlocal.org
August 1, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Private equity vultures have been circling Philz for a while, I guess, but it doesn't make this news any easier to read. (I have no nice things to say about PE, but I also don't have anything pithy-spicy to add.) missionlocal.org/2025/07/phil...