Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Website For MAGA-Friendly Businesses Backfires As People Use It For Boycotts

Jen Bendery @jbendery.bsky.social · Apr 26

NEW: PublicSquare, a website that lets you search for businesses in your community that explicitly want you to know they endorse Trump/MAGA values, is backfiring as people use it to boycott those businesses. www.huffpost.com/entry/public...

Social media posts about PublicSquare have gone viral as Trump critics use it to find companies not to support – the opposite of what the site was set up for.

www.huffpost.com

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Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Mar 29

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

US issues broad order to consulates to vet student visas over ‘terrorist activity’

State department shares new standard for denials based on social media posts, financial donations and memberships

www.theguardian.com

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Mar 24

SAW's Exertions published a discussion of my recent book a few days ago that the indomitable Carrie Lane organized. There is no better gift to give an author then this kind of generous engagement: saw.americananthro.org/book-forum--...

Book forum : The Pandemic Workplace

saw.americananthro.org

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Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Feb 24

If this is something the community needs, I am happy to host it on the CaMP anthropology blog (of course, it would have to be blogposts).

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Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Feb 16

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/15/u...

Trump Suggests No Laws Are Broken if He’s ‘Saving His Country’

President Trump shared a quotation on social media, making it clear it was one he wanted people to absorb: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

www.nytimes.com

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Feb 16

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/15/u...

Trump Suggests No Laws Are Broken if He’s ‘Saving His Country’

President Trump shared a quotation on social media, making it clear it was one he wanted people to absorb: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

www.nytimes.com

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Feb 9

I keep thinking that Trump and Musk are changing what it means to be pro/life --- it is now profits over life

Opinion | Don’t Believe Him

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Feb 2

The most hopeful take on why Trump's current actions show his weakness that I have seen yet: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/o...

Look closely at the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s second term and you’ll see something very different than what he wants you to see.

www.nytimes.com

What’s the Point of Trump’s War on D.E.I.?

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Jan 31

I thought this was such a useful take on what DEI programs are actually doing at universities, and what it means to ban them: www.newyorker.com/news/fault-l...

To distract from his larger plan to gut the federal government, the President has taken a relatively powerless program and turned it into an excuse for everything that goes wrong in the country.

www.newyorker.com

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Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Jan 20

Just in time for the inauguration: newlinesmag.com/argument/lab...

Laboratories of Authoritarianism

How undemocratic workplaces sowed the seeds of Trumpism

newlinesmag.com

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Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Jan 5

I would happily be a guest speaker in your class if you wanted to add a bit of anthropological spice to such a great mix

Intellectual Freedom in All Workplaces

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Dec 18

I think faculty are thinking too small when we talk about academic freedom. Wwe should fight for intellectual freedom in all workplaces. Go big!
academeblog.org/2024/12/18/i...

BY ILANA GERSHON Academic freedom sounds so academic—especially for employees frustrated at work because they are answering workplace surveys all the time, and yet somehow their insights about how…

academeblog.org

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Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Dec 3

I might teach Caitrin Lynch's short piece alongside Akrich's article: anthro-age.pitt.edu/ojs/anthro-a...

or maybe something from Caitrin's Retirement on the Line book -- aging and workplaces might be interesting

Design for Aging: Perspectives on Technology, Older Adults, and Educating Engineers | Anthropology & Aging

anthro-age.pitt.edu

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Nov 27

I have been wondering where all the claims of election fraud went. Why does fraud only exist when you lose?

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Nov 13

Someone already mentioned it, but What's Now with Trevor Noah is pretty great. And I also like Jon Stewart's podcast

Ilana Gershon on her book, The Pandemic Workplace

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Nov 13

I thought maybe a different take on Trump's appeal might be interesting to read -- so just posted a discussion about my new book on the CaMP anthropology blog: campanthropology.org/2024/11/11/i...

Interview by Bonnie Urciuoli Bonnie Urciuoli: What arguments in your book seem relevant right after Trump’s victory on November 5th? Ilana Gershon: We just had an election that, for half the …

campanthropology.org

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Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Nov 11

bsky.app/profile/roxa...

Roxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · Nov 10

This narrative that the Democrats ignored the working class is really aggravating. Be specific. You’re talking about the white working class because the Black working class understood the stakes of this election just fine.

Roxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · Nov 10

This narrative that the Democrats ignored the working class is really aggravating. Be specific. You’re talking about the white working class because the Black working class understood the stakes of this election just fine.

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Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Feb 28

That is so right! I even wrote an article about how it is a bullshit genre machine, really good at producing the bullshit genres that make so many of our jobs into bullshit jobs

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Feb 5

For academics -- mid career fellowship: www.isrf.org/funding-oppo...

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Jan 7

Our mouths are filled with other people's words. (and even this is a paraphrase of Bauman paraphrasing Bakhtin)

But do you think that our ideas are always also other people's ideas?

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Dec 21

I do not create extra credit!
I do not create them on Canvas.
I do not create them in Kansas.
I do not create them here or there.
I do not create them anywhere.

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Dec 21

I am almost finished reading contentious pandemic US school board meetings for an article. I finally came across an anti-masker mentioning Thomas Paine. So far, the historical figures anti-maskers mention have been: Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Nelson Mandela. I am so befuddled by this.

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Dec 17

I am darkly fascinated by the ways in which people seem to long for a Protestant reformation in relationship to scientific expertise (scientists are very much treated as Catholic priests were during Reformation)

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Dec 17

I am spending the break reading US school board meeting transcripts recorded during the pandemic, which means reading over and over again how people justify this.

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Dec 3

But also -- blech!!! And on a Sunday!!!?!!

Ilana Gershon @structureless.bsky.social · Dec 3

In these situations, I try to find anyone I know (a bit removed from the actual participants involved) for whom the academic system has been built, the most structurally privileged person I can find, and ask what would they do? I am so often surprised by the answers, invariably good tactics.