Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Timothy S. Miller

@timothysmiller.bsky.social

470 followers 880 following 56 posts

fantasy, science fiction, medieval studies, plants he/him unicorn book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-53425-6 Earthsea book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-24640-1

Videos

History 40%

Art 15%

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · 10d

"Anyone with perfect posture was faking it, overcompensating for entrenched trauma."

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · 16d

There was a time when JSTOR even sold merch: hats, mugs, and whatever else.

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · 28d

Did kids these days still know about CliffsNotes? When I say "It's like the Cliffsnotes version of X," should I be saying something like "It's like the AI summary version of X"?

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Sep 15

This is such a huge problem: I'm googling a quotation to find a page number, and the AI overview confidently produces total nonsense that would mislead students and others. (This is of course a quotation from noted Jung distiller China Miéville speaking to the subject of "Marxism and Fantasy.")

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Sep 2

It was possibly a mistake to assign the entire Tales of Nevèrÿon, because now I just want to spend the entire semester talking about the series.

1 1

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Aug 22

(An advertisement I was served for a different, better way to cheat.)

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Aug 22

What is going on in the world?

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Jun 8

I would give a copy of this book to everyone in my neighborhood but I think they already hate us enough:

www.bloomsbury.com/us/lawn-9798...

Lawn

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.A quintessential feature in Western gardens and landsc…

www.bloomsbury.com

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Jun 5

Very cool!!

Reposted by Timothy S. Miller

Gerry Canavan @gerrycanavan.bsky.social · May 13

A new experience: an undergraduate sending me a request for an article I never wrote based off a fake AI citation.

3 3 20

Reposted by Timothy S. Miller, Carolyne Larrington

James Paz @jamespaz.bsky.social · May 7

Beautiful new medieval-themed issue of our UoM undergrad English Literature journal, with a foreword by me (doing my best to explain why medieval literature is worth studying): www.polyphonyjournal.com

Home | Polyphony

Polypghony

www.polyphonyjournal.com

10 30

Reposted by David M. Schultz, Timothy S. Miller

Dan Hassler-Forest @danhf.bsky.social · May 7

After the brutal reality of dealing with student papers in the ChatGPT era finally hit me, here are a few tactics that I've found at least somewhat effective in getting students to do their own writing: 🧵

26 280 860

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Apr 28

Classes are done: we're closing so many browser tabs today.

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Apr 26

I still think it's funny that we both review the book quite positively, but you say that the discussion of Terry Brooks is one of your favorite parts of it, and in my review I say it's one of my least favorite...!

1 1

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Apr 25

Can it be true that the audiobook of @alexpheby.bsky.social 's Mordew doesn't include the glossary? Unconscionable! I almost want to write a journal article on the glossary by itself.

Reposted by Timothy S. Miller

Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · Apr 25

The latest issue of EXTRAPOLATION has a bunch of great reviews, including my review of Matthew Sanger's AN INTRODUCTION TO FANTASY.

Check it out (or, if you don't have access, DM me for a copy!).
www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/...

Reviews of Books | Extrapolation

View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.

www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk

2 3 6

Reposted by Timothy S. Miller

Anna McFarlane @mariettarosetta.bsky.social · Mar 25

Thanks to our contributors @grmorgan.bsky.social @timothysmiller.bsky.social @dretaylorpirie.bsky.social @nomad93.bsky.social @larsschmeink.bsky.social and many others. You can see the full table of contents here: edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-edi...

edinburghuniversitypress.com

3 6

Reposted by Timothy S. Miller

Ursula K. Le Guin @ursulakleguin.com · Mar 17

You have two weeks left to nominate books for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction!

Nominations close March 31st.

Which books will join those shortlisted the last three years? (Yes, we fit them all in this picture.)

www.ursulakleguin.com/prize-nomina...

28 books are arranged around a handwritten page that says "Nominations open!" The books are: Spear by Nicola Griffith; Wolfish by Christiane M. Andrews; Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo; The House of Rust by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber; How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu; The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente; Sift by Alissa Hattman; The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera; The Employees by Olga Ravn; Drinking from Graveyard Wells by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu; The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher; A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger; After the Dragons by Cynthia Zhang; The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez; Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson; Aboreality by Rebecca Campbell; The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson; Appleseed by Matt Bell; The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed; It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne de Marcken; Geometries of Belonging by R.B. Lemberg; Summer in the City of Roses by Michelle Ruiz Keil; Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky; Orbital by Samantha Harvey; Ten Planets by Yuri Herrera; Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh; Brother Alive by Zain Khalid; and Meet Us By the Roaring See by Akil Kumarasamy.

1 43 110

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Feb 27

"...it was less that they were two separate people and more that they were a single person with two different ways of being in the world, each of which both knew."

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Feb 27

As a consequence of my desire to avoid doomscrolling lately, I feel I've only really been using this site when I'm self-promoting. So, to counter that trend, here is an out-of-context passage from a novel, which is how I used to post in the good old days of social media...

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Feb 27

Here is my own essay reflecting on teaching her interactive fiction The Road to Canterbury: escholarship.org/uc/item/1vv9... .

And you can play/read the thing itself here: www.choiceofgames.com/road-to-cant....

Choice of Chaucers: Teaching Kate Heartfield’s Interactive Novel The Road to Canterbury

Author(s): Miller, Timothy S. | Abstract: Kate Heartfield’s 2018 interactive novel invites a contemporary audience to join Chaucer and his fellow pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. This te...

escholarship.org

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Feb 27

Thank you so much again! They really enjoyed it.

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Feb 27

It also provided students with an important reminder that sometimes an author's response to "Why did you decide to do _________ this way?" has to be "You know, I can't remember."

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Feb 27

My Chaucer course just had a lovely visit with author Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com. What better way to talk about interactive fiction than interacting with the author?

1 2

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Feb 23

I don't really know why (and when) my Wizard of Earthsea book sometimes costs much less, but the ebook version appears to be only $16.99 right now: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Ursula K. Le Guin’s

This introduction to Ursula K. LeGuin's

link.springer.com

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Feb 14

Very excited to be part of the launch issue of the new journal UKL: The Journal of Ursula K. Le Guin Studies, with an article on her 1980 novel The Beginning Place: scholarworks.uni.edu/ukl/vol1/iss...

Returning to The Beginning Place: Le Guin’s Forgotten Anti-fantasy Four Decades On

Ursula K. Le Guin's 1980 portal fantasy The Beginning Place has received a fraction of the critical attention that most of her other novels have attracted over the years. This short book's many enigma...

scholarworks.uni.edu

8 21

Reposted by Timothy S. Miller

postmedieval @postmedieval.bsky.social · Feb 11

/postmedieval/ is launching a new mentorship programme to facilitate publication for scholars whose first language is not English.

👇 find all the details here 👇
sites.google.com/view/postmed...

Call for participants for a mentorship programme for scholars who have not yet published in English

38 45

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Feb 11

New publication: "Speculative Fiction and the Contemporary Novel" in The Cambridge Handbook of Literature and Plants: www.cambridge.org/core/books/a....

Speculative Fiction and the Contemporary Novel (Chapter 10) - The Cambridge Handbook of Literature and Plants

The Cambridge Handbook of Literature and Plants - February 2025

www.cambridge.org

1 4

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Feb 7

That time in the semester when you have a to-do list with the item "make a real to-do list" on it.

1 4

Timothy S. Miller @timothysmiller.bsky.social · Feb 7

You have to admire just the complete confidence of large language models in themselves.