Erin Grievances
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erinbartram.bsky.social
Erin Grievances
@erinbartram.bsky.social
Historian of religion & gender in the 19th c US, drinker of tea in the 21st c US. Museum educator at MTH&M. Wrote some quit lit you may have read. Founder & editor at contingentmagazine.org. Former academic. Sings with Voices of Concinnity. She/her.
Reposted by Erin Grievances
There’s just nothing left of a university’s mission if instructors can be disciplined and fired for teaching the current state of knowledge in their fields, the degrees they issue are worth precisely the value of the paper they’re printed on and not a jot more
December 1, 2025 at 12:42 AM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
I knew it was going to be a grad student or an adjunct. And because grad students and adjuncts are cheap and easy to replace, they're the front line in the student-as-customer model of higher ed. Unhappy customer? Sacrifice a lowly TA or adjunct, problem solved.

Unions now. Unions forever.
OU has put the professor here on administrative leave:
November 30, 2025 at 11:26 PM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
"Cultural reception studies ask us to think of culture as a living being, a creature with a life as old as earth and water . . . Del Toro’s Frankenstein offers an exemplary lens into the life cycle of one of the oldest stories in recorded mythologies: that of the creator and his progeny."
To Invent Immortality
Frankenstein yearns to live.
contingentmagazine.org
December 1, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Academic freedom has never been shared by all of the people teaching at your institution!
It only stops when university admins think it’s in their interest to protect the instructor. And even in the halcyon days of 10 years ago, they didn’t protect grad students.
November 30, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
Woulda been cool if some of y’all fucking cared about TPUSA and weaponizing university administration against faculty like a decade ago but it’s good you’re here now
November 30, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
So pleased to have this piece by @gvaughnjoy.bsky.social to start off our month of monsters!

Don’t sleep on the 1910 silent version— I embedded it so it starts right at the scene of the creature’s creation, which is as unique and marvelous as Vaughn describes.
"Have the creators of each new iteration followed Mary Shelley’s Promethean lead, nurturing a beloved creation, or have they followed Victor’s, embracing their ambition above their creation’s well-being?"

The first in our series A Time Of Monsters, from
@gvaughnjoy.bsky.social
To Invent Immortality
Frankenstein yearns to live.
contingentmagazine.org
November 30, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Once again, a single UP editor heeding my call to submit the books from their press's list means their books are going to get a lot of eyes.
November 30, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
I had so much fun writing this piece on culture as a Frankenstein creature itself.

Thank you to @erinbartram.bsky.social for encouraging a more creative approach and structure for this film analysis of many iterations of Frankenstein culminating in @realgdt.bsky.social's brilliant 2025 creation.
November 30, 2025 at 5:15 PM
So pleased to have this piece by @gvaughnjoy.bsky.social to start off our month of monsters!

Don’t sleep on the 1910 silent version— I embedded it so it starts right at the scene of the creature’s creation, which is as unique and marvelous as Vaughn describes.
"Have the creators of each new iteration followed Mary Shelley’s Promethean lead, nurturing a beloved creation, or have they followed Victor’s, embracing their ambition above their creation’s well-being?"

The first in our series A Time Of Monsters, from
@gvaughnjoy.bsky.social
To Invent Immortality
Frankenstein yearns to live.
contingentmagazine.org
November 30, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
"Have the creators of each new iteration followed Mary Shelley’s Promethean lead, nurturing a beloved creation, or have they followed Victor’s, embracing their ambition above their creation’s well-being?"

The first in our series A Time Of Monsters, from
@gvaughnjoy.bsky.social
To Invent Immortality
Frankenstein yearns to live.
contingentmagazine.org
November 30, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
The first piece in our special year-end issue A Time Of Monsters is in the final stages of its creation. Before we hit publish and cry "It's alive!", tell us about your first Frankenstein.
November 30, 2025 at 12:44 AM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
Please understand, if you are not in higher ed in the US, that this is a playbook that is so common that instructors brace for it (and you can see that in the feedback to the paper, which for sure took more time than the original submission did, & probably at least one meeting)
My favorite part of this is her contacting the fucking governor first, four hours after getting her essay feedback
November 29, 2025 at 11:05 PM
A lot of people are saying "why don't you just fail them?" which absolutely makes sense as a solution if you don't understand university teaching as (often precarious) labor done by humans within a system with really effed up dynamics.
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
November 29, 2025 at 7:17 PM
So I just went through and put all of the 2025 contingent-authored pieces from a journal in my subfield on the list. You can do the same if you want to boost contingent scholars in your subfield! It only took me 10 minutes.
November 29, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
Today's the last day to submit for our end-of-year publication lists. We're soliciting monographs, journal articles, and book chapters by contingent historians with a 2025 pub date! contingentmagazine.org/yearly-pub-l...
Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians
Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...
contingentmagazine.org
November 29, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
November 28, 2025 at 10:15 PM
my dissertation was about the history of Catholic converts in the US and every day something makes me remember how often I was told it was too niche
My dissertation turns 10 next month and I've been dipping in to see if there's anything in there worth pulling out and working with, and each chapter is effectively about a different emotional struggle that would be familiar today.
November 26, 2025 at 11:12 PM
You know, I will tolerate another round of USian discourse if it pushes RL's newest piece out of our feeds.
November 26, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
CONTINGENT PHILOSOPHERS! (Contractually, not metaphysically). I’ve been a big fan of @contingent-mag.bsky.social for a while. This year they’re letting philosophy piggyback one of their institutions: the year-end list of books and articles written by non tenured/permanent academics in that year.
Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians
Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...
contingentmagazine.org
November 26, 2025 at 9:33 AM
When I finally reach the head of the organization, you’ll all kiss the ring of
November 26, 2025 at 7:49 PM
I am on vacation this week and I forgot how much stuff is happening all the time while I'm at work that I usually never hear about, even being on this site. I keep thinking it would be great to have a big digest of it all every night. We could call it the news. Maybe even put it in a paper.
November 26, 2025 at 3:09 AM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
A lot of writers talk about their greatest fear being the empty page but to me that’s nothing compared to mummies
November 26, 2025 at 1:37 AM
Hey thanks! 17 new submissions today!
Haven't received as many contributions as usual for this year's lists--could be many things, but one aspect is surely that our ability to get this in front of people is much diminished. If you know folks whose stuff should be on here, please suggest it! contingentmagazine.org/yearly-pub-l...
Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians
Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...
contingentmagazine.org
November 26, 2025 at 1:09 AM
This is super fascinating and I'm interested in thinking about what we gain and lose with this kind of thing but the subfields that could benefit from this kind of technology are the first ones to have been completely hollowed out in higher ed.
New issue of my newsletter: "The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition" — One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved, and it's a good use of AI newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...
The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition
One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved
newsletter.dancohen.org
November 25, 2025 at 11:37 PM
Reposted by Erin Grievances
I am heavily invested in handwriting & historical documents. Historians need to weigh carefully whether time spent transcribing documents is “wasted,” or whether it actually helps thought processes & skills. This is not to say these tools should not be used.

Just consider the cost of “time saved.”
New issue of my newsletter: "The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition" — One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved, and it's a good use of AI newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...
The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition
One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved
newsletter.dancohen.org
November 25, 2025 at 8:11 PM