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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 7h

Octavia E. Butler’s 1993 essay in defense of public libraries.

A scan of Octavia E. Butler’s "Free libraries: Are they becoming extinct?"

tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 7h

Octavia E. Butler said, “Public libraries in particular are the open universities of America. They're free; they're accessible to everyone… I'm a writer at least partly because I had access to public libraries.“

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 8h

Here it is! Octavia E. Butler’s "Free libraries: Are they becoming extinct?"

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 8h

@prisonculture.bsky.social

Mariame, have you ever read Octavia E. Butler’s 1993 piece "Free libraries: Are they becoming extinct?"

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Reposted by tamara nopper

Karl Jacoby @karl-jacoby.bsky.social · 13h

Student government leaders of MIT, UVA, U of AZ, Dartmouth, UPenn, Brown, and Vanderbilt united in their opposition to the "compact" proposed by the Trump administration.

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 15h

www.instagram.com/p/DPm507ljBJ...

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Jaweed Kaleem @jaweedkaleem.bsky.social · 13h

University of California & Cal State campuses have together shared the names of thousands of employees with the Trump admin as it probes antisemitism allegations. Faculty are demanding schools, which say they are legally required to share data, push back:

www.latimes.com/california/s...

UC, CSU released troves of personal employee information to the feds. Now the backlash

Cal State and UC have face campus protest and intense rebuke by faculty, students and staff for sharing employee personal information with the Trump administration as part of investigations into alle...

www.latimes.com

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Reposted by tamara nopper

Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 10h

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy passed away today according to the House of GG. She was a veteran of the Stonewall rebellion and a lifelong organizer for the safety and dignity of trans people, sex workers, and the incarcerated. She came from the same generation and milieu as Marsha and Sylvia. She was 78.

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Ian Carrillo @iansociologo.bsky.social · 12h

In other words, segregate your universities if you want funding.

Bloomberg News @bloomberg.com · 13h

The Trump administration is inviting all US colleges to participate in a compact that would grant preferential federal funding in return for commitments to specific policy changes like DEI bans, according to a source

Trump Offers All Colleges Preferential Funding Plan Rejected by MIT

The Trump administration is inviting all US colleges to participate in a compact — initially rejected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — that would grant preferential federal funding in return for commitments to specific policy changes like DEI bans, according to a person familiar with the matter.

bloom.bg

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 12h

They can help in many material ways but tenure and academic freedom are not guarantees.

We need more tenured faculty to understand that we can be fired cuz workers are always vulnerable to being fired.

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Reposted by tamara nopper

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 12h

If you make "controversial statements" outside of classroom, that the President of the university dislikes, you can be summarily fired even if you are tenured.

Julie Greene @greeneland.bsky.social · 13h

I just learned, Thomas Alter, tenured professor, has been terminated effective immediately. Shame on Texas State! We mst build support for Tom. spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-tex...

Texas State upholds the firing of associate history professor Thomas Alter

Alter’s termination occurred on Sept. 10, stemming from his remarks at the Revolutionary Socialism Conference on Sept. 7.

spectrumlocalnews.com

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Reposted by tamara nopper

Lester K Spence @lkspence.bsky.social · 14h

What's mandate of Black Studies during this moment. What's our responsibility? Join us as we host the first of a series of public conversations in Baltimore, at the Baltimore Unity Hall. We'll be in dialogue with Paul Coates and Olakekan Kamau-Nataki. Next Wednesday from 6-8pm.

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 14h

I might not find some political activism that compelling but I try to keep in mind Kwame Ture's point:

"You don't criticize somebody who's doing something when you doing nothing."

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 15h

The conservative city where I went to college many decades ago has been having anti-fascism protests, many of the participants being middle-agers. Changes like this remind me to politically keep the faith.

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 16h

A character on a show said, "The safest place to hang out at an academic conference is in the hotel gym." The shade, lol.

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 16h

A student wrote, "It’s important to note that though I’ve heard of these terms, it helps to be able to read articles that give me an idea as to what these terms actually mean (instead of assuming through social media content)." ❤️

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 16h

Both bell hooks and Octavia E. Butler were extremely disciplined readers and writers and very productive. They both talked about liking solitude. And they both talked about––sometimes publicly, sometimes privately––feeling lonely and longing for companionship and how life was not all about writing.

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 17h

@prisonculture.bsky.social Think you'll like Ursula K. Le Guin saying bring back I statements, lol.

“There was quite a long time when poets used ‘you’ when they meant ‘I,’ but didn’t want to say so. ‘You walk down the street and you feel…’ No, I don’t! Talk about yourself! Don’t dump it onto me.”

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 17h

Too many people want theory to be a manual.

It's like what Toni Morrison said about how many of us read books, "trained to think of them as resolutions and solutions... as though they are reading a 'How To' column. They go to a book the way you go to a medicine cabinet."

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 17h

Everybody should be required to take a class on keeping things in perspective and getting over yourself.

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 17h

“What I don’t like is that we are more alone. We’re having more and more information while we are enclosed in our homes… can order your food, your hardware, have it delivered, never have to see anybody, never have to interact with anybody.”

Nikki Giovanni said this about technology in 1997.

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Reposted by tamara nopper

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 19h

‘Locked up for 24 years’: joy and sorrow as Palestinian prisoners and detainees return home

Nearly 2,000 prisoners and detainees – including about 1,700 people seized from Gaza and held without charge – set free from Israeli jails

www.theguardian.com

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 19h

Bring back I statements!

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 1d

@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social Hi, I’d love to interview you about your workouts and running habits. To learn how you’re able to run marathons while smiling and doing political ed.

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 1d

Like Octavia E. Butler noted in her journal, “The writing cannot ever be all, but it must always be first.”

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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 1d

In her notes, Octavia E. Butler referred to George W. Bush as “Shrub” and likened him to a cop “who shoots someone and/or beats him to a pulp, then charges him with resisting arrest, and feels nothing, smiles, and moves on and does it again when he wishes.”

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