Brice Cummings
@abcummings.bsky.social
Peripatetic (adjunct) instructor of philosophy and history
renaissanceanimal.com
renaissanceanimal.com
Pinned
Baudelaire's Bitter Metaphysics
Baudelaire’s Bitter Metaphysics: Anti-Nihilist Readings by Fondane, Benjamin, and Sartre reconstructs a philosophical trialogue that might have been expec…
www.bloomsbury.com
My book's publisher recently joined the
@bloomsburyacad.bsky.social family, so here is an updated link for Baudelaire's Bitter Metaphysics: Anti-Nihilist Readings by Fondane, Benjamin, and Sartre.
www.bloomsbury.com/us/baudelair...
@bloomsburyacad.bsky.social family, so here is an updated link for Baudelaire's Bitter Metaphysics: Anti-Nihilist Readings by Fondane, Benjamin, and Sartre.
www.bloomsbury.com/us/baudelair...
Recycled Books
Denton, Texas
Denton, Texas
November 29, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Recycled Books
Denton, Texas
Denton, Texas
Over on the Bloomsbury website, there are Black Friday savings on Baudelaire's Bitter Metaphysics
(still expensive, but authors don't make the rules)
www.bloomsbury.com/us/baudelair...
(still expensive, but authors don't make the rules)
www.bloomsbury.com/us/baudelair...
Baudelaire's Bitter Metaphysics
Baudelaire’s Bitter Metaphysics: Anti-Nihilist Readings by Fondane, Benjamin, and Sartre reconstructs a philosophical trialogue that might have been expec…
www.bloomsbury.com
November 29, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Over on the Bloomsbury website, there are Black Friday savings on Baudelaire's Bitter Metaphysics
(still expensive, but authors don't make the rules)
www.bloomsbury.com/us/baudelair...
(still expensive, but authors don't make the rules)
www.bloomsbury.com/us/baudelair...
Happy Thanksgiving!
November 27, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Happy Thanksgiving!
The "commemoration" (i.e., building that is way too speculative to be a replica or reconstruction) marking the general vicinity (but not the exact spot) of San Francisco de los Tejas...
November 22, 2025 at 8:16 PM
The "commemoration" (i.e., building that is way too speculative to be a replica or reconstruction) marking the general vicinity (but not the exact spot) of San Francisco de los Tejas...
Reposted by Brice Cummings
It’s publication day! Spread the word. The perfect Christmas gift for the pessimist in your life.
November 18, 2025 at 9:24 AM
It’s publication day! Spread the word. The perfect Christmas gift for the pessimist in your life.
November morning
November 15, 2025 at 3:36 PM
November morning
Reposted by Brice Cummings
huge ty to everyone supporting the Substudies project, & in that spirit i finally finished the translation drafts i started a while back of Adorno-Benjamin’s joint critical (incredibly catty lol) “reports” for Horkheimer on 3 Paris conferences in early August ‘37! open.substack.com/pub/jamescra...
November 11, 2025 at 8:16 AM
huge ty to everyone supporting the Substudies project, & in that spirit i finally finished the translation drafts i started a while back of Adorno-Benjamin’s joint critical (incredibly catty lol) “reports” for Horkheimer on 3 Paris conferences in early August ‘37! open.substack.com/pub/jamescra...
An early imperial Roman lamp and a 5th-century Greek wine pitcher, both sparkling with personality
~ Detroit Institute of Arts ~
~ Detroit Institute of Arts ~
November 9, 2025 at 4:30 PM
An early imperial Roman lamp and a 5th-century Greek wine pitcher, both sparkling with personality
~ Detroit Institute of Arts ~
~ Detroit Institute of Arts ~
Good times at the Society for United States Intellectual History conference in Detroit. I'll be talking tomorrow about AI-generated/influenced documents in the historical archives of the future
November 8, 2025 at 1:23 AM
Good times at the Society for United States Intellectual History conference in Detroit. I'll be talking tomorrow about AI-generated/influenced documents in the historical archives of the future
Ahead of a conference in Detroit, while hanging out in Windsor I came across Biblioasis, a particularly excellent bookstore. It's got a thoughtfully curated selection of new books as a front for a glorious chaos of used books on the back shelves
November 6, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Ahead of a conference in Detroit, while hanging out in Windsor I came across Biblioasis, a particularly excellent bookstore. It's got a thoughtfully curated selection of new books as a front for a glorious chaos of used books on the back shelves
From Occupied Paris to New York, 1943: Benjamin Fondane and the Partisan Review – Renaissance Animal
renaissanceanimal.com/2023/05/13/f...
renaissanceanimal.com/2023/05/13/f...
From Occupied Paris to New York, 1943: Benjamin Fondane and the Partisan Review
This was a paper presented at the Society for U.S. Intellectual History conference on Democracy in Crisis (Boston, MA, November 3-5, 2022). For more on Benjamin Fondane’s wartime thinking in …
renaissanceanimal.com
November 3, 2025 at 3:12 PM
From Occupied Paris to New York, 1943: Benjamin Fondane and the Partisan Review – Renaissance Animal
renaissanceanimal.com/2023/05/13/f...
renaissanceanimal.com/2023/05/13/f...
"A human being in perfection
ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never
to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity.
I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule." (1/4)
~ Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never
to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity.
I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule." (1/4)
~ Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
November 1, 2025 at 2:18 PM
"A human being in perfection
ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never
to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity.
I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule." (1/4)
~ Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never
to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity.
I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule." (1/4)
~ Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
In this history of sanctified demagoguery in the U.S., Worthen samples episodes of charisma - "a contentious invitation to let some great and ungovernable power work through you, whether you were a leader or a follower" - across four centuries of theologico-political spectacle
October 31, 2025 at 12:09 AM
In this history of sanctified demagoguery in the U.S., Worthen samples episodes of charisma - "a contentious invitation to let some great and ungovernable power work through you, whether you were a leader or a follower" - across four centuries of theologico-political spectacle
The snake has arranged itself comfortably and slung itself across 2 empty LED light boxes
October 25, 2025 at 11:12 PM
The snake has arranged itself comfortably and slung itself across 2 empty LED light boxes
Social media was invented for this sort of thing:
This Missal (Texts for the Mass), written in Gothic textualis script, contains a few large red and blue initials with penwork, and a full-page miniature of the Crucifixion. The binding is very early; it may even be original. Northern Italy, 1375-1425 (UPenn Ms. Codex 2053)
🔗: https://bit.ly/4qbm2A9
🔗: https://bit.ly/4qbm2A9
October 20, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Social media was invented for this sort of thing:
Against *research as knowledge production*:
"[A]ll those who are not ready for the work of reflection... can only regard one's research as 'positive' if something new is produced (even if it remains as 'un-understood' as the old that it replaced)."
~ Gadamer, "Reflections," tr. Palmer
"[A]ll those who are not ready for the work of reflection... can only regard one's research as 'positive' if something new is produced (even if it remains as 'un-understood' as the old that it replaced)."
~ Gadamer, "Reflections," tr. Palmer
October 19, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Against *research as knowledge production*:
"[A]ll those who are not ready for the work of reflection... can only regard one's research as 'positive' if something new is produced (even if it remains as 'un-understood' as the old that it replaced)."
~ Gadamer, "Reflections," tr. Palmer
"[A]ll those who are not ready for the work of reflection... can only regard one's research as 'positive' if something new is produced (even if it remains as 'un-understood' as the old that it replaced)."
~ Gadamer, "Reflections," tr. Palmer
“'Higher' education shouldn’t be higher just in its cost or in years—like it’s your thirteenth or fourteenth year of school. No, we should be thinking in terms of your highest aspirations as a human person."
- Jennifer Frey over at @thepointmag.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/thepoint...
- Jennifer Frey over at @thepointmag.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/thepoint...
Can the Humanities Be Saved?
A conversation with Jennifer Frey and Anastasia Berg
open.substack.com
October 15, 2025 at 2:18 PM
“'Higher' education shouldn’t be higher just in its cost or in years—like it’s your thirteenth or fourteenth year of school. No, we should be thinking in terms of your highest aspirations as a human person."
- Jennifer Frey over at @thepointmag.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/thepoint...
- Jennifer Frey over at @thepointmag.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/thepoint...
Following Rowman & Littlefield's acquisition by Bloomsbury, Baudelaire's Bitter Metaphysics is now available to read online at any university library subscribed to Bloomsbury Collections.
If that describes your library, you can access the book here:
www.bloomsburycollections.com
If that describes your library, you can access the book here:
www.bloomsburycollections.com
October 14, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Following Rowman & Littlefield's acquisition by Bloomsbury, Baudelaire's Bitter Metaphysics is now available to read online at any university library subscribed to Bloomsbury Collections.
If that describes your library, you can access the book here:
www.bloomsburycollections.com
If that describes your library, you can access the book here:
www.bloomsburycollections.com
"If there is something comforting--religious, if you want--about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long."
Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (p. 441)
Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (p. 441)
October 12, 2025 at 2:06 AM
"If there is something comforting--religious, if you want--about paranoia, there is still also anti-paranoia, where nothing is connected to anything, a condition not many of us can bear for long."
Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (p. 441)
Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (p. 441)
“[C]ontrary to what [Adam] Smith thought, the goal of Company-States is not to enrich their subjects in order later to tax them [as a national government might], because they are not [pure] States. Nor do their interests lie in buying from and selling merchandise to them,
October 7, 2025 at 5:45 PM
“[C]ontrary to what [Adam] Smith thought, the goal of Company-States is not to enrich their subjects in order later to tax them [as a national government might], because they are not [pure] States. Nor do their interests lie in buying from and selling merchandise to them,
The Crow Museum of Asian Art at twilight, when the skateboarders roam
October 7, 2025 at 12:33 AM
The Crow Museum of Asian Art at twilight, when the skateboarders roam
Reposted by Brice Cummings
Just spent 50 minutes trying to convince college freshmen that the university will take your money and give you a degree AND let you cross that stage completely unprepared for what is coming next. The learning and shaping who they want to be is really up to them. Professors are here to help.
October 6, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Just spent 50 minutes trying to convince college freshmen that the university will take your money and give you a degree AND let you cross that stage completely unprepared for what is coming next. The learning and shaping who they want to be is really up to them. Professors are here to help.
On the trail, it's not about the destination, it's about the snakes along the way
October 4, 2025 at 5:51 PM
On the trail, it's not about the destination, it's about the snakes along the way
"A surprising amount of G.W.F. Hegel’s letters to friends and family touch on the subject of coffee."
(Marie Louise Krogh)
www.jhiblog.org/2025/09/22/h...
(Marie Louise Krogh)
www.jhiblog.org/2025/09/22/h...
Hegel’s “Brown Rivulet of Coffee”: Colonies, Commodities, and Context
by Marie Louise Krogh
This think piece is part of the forum “The Return of Political Economy in Intellectual History”
www.jhiblog.org
September 22, 2025 at 1:44 PM
"A surprising amount of G.W.F. Hegel’s letters to friends and family touch on the subject of coffee."
(Marie Louise Krogh)
www.jhiblog.org/2025/09/22/h...
(Marie Louise Krogh)
www.jhiblog.org/2025/09/22/h...
The western edge of the Ouachita Mountains, in southeastern Oklahoma
September 21, 2025 at 1:01 AM
The western edge of the Ouachita Mountains, in southeastern Oklahoma