Alyssa S.
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drsepinwall.bsky.social
Alyssa S.
@drsepinwall.bsky.social
16K followers 3.6K following 8.8K posts
Writer. Prof. Lover of Music and Film. 🇭🇹🇫🇷🎮🎬🗃️Views expressed through this account represent my own opinions and not my employer's.
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drsepinwall.bsky.social
The "Feel My Noodle" guy who skipped work and grinded on unsuspecting roommates... would like to lecture us about respectability and honor...
Text: On The Real World: Boston, he was the quintessential 'jock-type guy' who, according to his castmates, 'liked to party' - and party he did. From flirting with roommates to skipping mentorship responsibilities for romantic escapades, Duffy's time on the show was anything but tame. One of the most infamous plotlines centered on his fixation with Genesis Moss, a roommate who identifies as a lesbian. Despite her clear disinterest, Duffy pursued her relentlessly, making awkward advances and even propositioning her with gems such as 'feel my noodle.'
November 24, 2025 at 10:59 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Kery James goes HARD here. 🗃️

(in French,
droit de l'homme &
syndrome Stockholm rhyme!)
clip from video,with lyrics My respect is violated by the so-called country of Human Rights/Hard to feel French without Stockholm Syndrome
November 24, 2025 at 8:04 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Reuters: the Pope has told kids not to use AI instead of doing the work!

Also Reuters: wanna skip reading the story and have AI summarize it for you? 😈
Ad in the middle of an article, asking the reader if they want to let Reuters AI summarize it instead of reading it
November 23, 2025 at 5:34 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
This is some nasty, short-sighted thinking here. 100% do not agree.

@arnorosenfeld.bsky.social, great article.
Text: Yet the bulk of speakers seemed to reject the notion that any consolation was needed for Jews who were uncomfortable with the Jewish establishment’s traditional support for Israel. Mark Charendoff, who runs the influential right-leaning Maimonides Fund, said he was in the process of re-calibrating the organization’s focus to fighting the enemies of the Jewish people, after years focusing on reaching young Jews. Charendoff said this new strategy means building alliances with people who “we might disagree with on 80%” so long as “we agree with them on Israel.”
November 22, 2025 at 9:15 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Hmmm... I think this Langer person is onto something.
Text: “Disengagement is not our problem,” Langer, the JFNA executive, told a group assembled to discuss the future of Israel education. “Rather, it’s our ability to hold space for complexity and cultivate belonging in a deeply connected — and yet deeply divided — community.” She pointed to statistics that showed half of American Jews believe the community does not allow for nuanced conversations about the war in Gaza. And nearly 70% found it hard to support actions taken by the Israeli government, even though only 7% of Jews report avoiding communal institutions over these concerns. Langer said the research suggested Israel education needed to feature more nuance: “When students perceive their education as one-sided or incomplete, it undermines their trust and engagement.”
November 22, 2025 at 9:13 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Also, Jonathan Greenblatt STFU challenge.

And SHurwitz is convinced Jews "slide into anti-Zionism" as a reflection of a "void" and disconnection from their Jewishness.

(I'm very grateful to be in a shul with a rabbi who has a brain and believes Judaism requires us to value every human life!)
Text: Another frequent refrain at the conference was that the real solution to communal divisions was a stronger commitment to what Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, described as “Jewish education, Zionist identity and Torah learning.” “These are the essential elements of a healthy constitution for our community,” he said. Hurwitz, too, suggested that young Jews were drifting from Israel because their Jewish identities had been reduced to “a big empty void.”
November 22, 2025 at 9:12 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Jews at Penn - including Hillel - do not want this!!
The executive committee of Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors has applauded the university for refusing to comply. Penn Hillel and MEOR Penn, two prominent Jewish groups on campus, issued a joint statement saying they supported the fight against antisemitism but were “deeply concerned” about the E.E.O.C.’s subpoena, adding that “the privacy, consent and safety of Jewish students, staff and faculty cannot be compromised.” “Collection of Jews’ private information carries echoes of the very patterns that made Jewish communities vulnerable for centuries,” the statement said.
November 22, 2025 at 6:53 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Do you think colleges making lists of Jews on a campus, at DJT's request, is a scary idea?

Please sign this petition, organized by Jewish profs at Penn, standing against Penn handing over lists of Jewish faculty or students!
actionnetwork.org/petitions/st...
Amanda Shanor, a UPenn professor and leading scholar on academic freedom, offered this apt quote in the NYTimes yesterday: The history of creating lists of Jewish people for the government is one of the most frightening in world history. And the idea that this is being done in the interest of the Jewish community is particularly frightening.
November 22, 2025 at 6:51 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Yeah, f*** Joscha Bach here. "The Very Important senior scholars said Epstein wasn't raping anymore, and they thought he was good to get money from - so As a Young Person, I looked to their wisdom!"
Text: Mr. Bach said in a statement on Friday that he continued to associate with Mr. Epstein after he served time because highly respected academics recommended him as a funding source for research. “They acknowledged his past crimes but assured me he was reformed,” he said. Researchers “far more senior and famous than me were accepting such funds, so as a young person just getting started, I took my cue from them on this.”
November 22, 2025 at 2:29 AM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Oh HELL no. It's not just that AI trains on racist material - it's that the "AI researchers" can themselves be racist AF.
Text: Under Mr. Ito, the Media Lab used money provided by Mr. Epstein to support the work of Joscha Bach, an A.I. researcher, according to a 2020 M.I.T. review.; ad; then Mr. Bach appeared in last week’s document dump, writing long and often technical emails to Mr. Epstein. In 2016, he wrote to Mr. Epstein that “black kids in the US have slower cognitive development,” and “You cannot learn what does not attract your attention. Women tend to find abstract systems, conflicts and mechanisms intrinsically boring.”
November 22, 2025 at 2:26 AM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Also good old Elisa New here, gushing at how Epstein helped make Harvard's importance to the humanities known in the WORLD (her caps).

I'm pretty sure the humanities' value is in teaching us *not* to suck up to people who rape children.
Text: Ms. New, who is married to Mr. Summers, wrote to Mr. Epstein in 2015, the emails show, to thank him for a donation he had arranged. “Finally, Jeffrey, you have been such a wonderful supporter of my Poetry in America project,” she wrote. “That gift woke up the Deans to the importance of Harvard’s role in producing the highest quality humanities content in the WORLD.”
November 22, 2025 at 2:24 AM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
☠️☠️☠️ #AcademicSky
The evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers is also mentioned in the new tranche of emails. In 2015, he told Reuters that Mr. Epstein had given him about $40,000 for his research. And he defended Mr. Epstein, saying girls mature sooner than they used to. “By the time they’re 14 or 15, they’re like grown women were 60 years ago, so I don’t see these acts as so heinous,” he said to Reuters.
November 22, 2025 at 2:23 AM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Also @nushpowell.bsky.social to Montclair State and the Times. Tell 'em!!!!
“Mergers done well, with care and intentionality and faculty buy-in, are a way to protect a future that’s still exciting and worthwhile and full of community,” she said. “Mergers, if done as a way to sort of soft-close doors, are a cowardly and sad thing to do.”
November 20, 2025 at 10:56 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Ayyy! I see you @nushpowell.bsky.social!
But Arizona State invested in the humanities, instead of making cuts, a move that was key to its transformation, said Manushag Powell, a literary historian who chairs what is still called the English department at the university but which is now a multidisciplinary program that includes subjects such as film and media studies.
November 20, 2025 at 10:55 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
"All public commitements" -

BUT NOT TEACHING!!

Get this man out of the classroom ASAP! He should not have power over any young people given his record of harassing mentees and looking to Epstein for advice on wooing junior scholars.
“While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort,” he added in his statement.
November 18, 2025 at 2:00 AM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
🚨🚨In fact... according to the @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social, the 'public commitments' Larry Summers's stepping away from do...

NOT INCLUDE HIS TEACHING.

Dude wants to keep his ready access to young people he has power over. @harvard.edu this Title IX violator needs to be off your faculty!
Text: “While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort,” he added in his statement.
November 18, 2025 at 1:58 AM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Also Spoiler Alert: the sexual harasser who said he wanted to "get horizontal with Peril" and that it's hard to be a man these days is NOT in fact "deeply ashamed."

He's mad these are now public, fin!
"I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein," Summers said in a statement obtained by CNBC.
November 18, 2025 at 1:51 AM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Of course he is! (unethical people + AI = meant for each other)
Summers is a board member of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company, and is a former president of Harvard University.
November 18, 2025 at 1:49 AM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Chicago Manual of Style arcana!

In my meeting with a student about to file his thesis, he told me he realized there's an asterisk to the idea that CMS 18 does away with place of publication.

It only does that if the book is post-1900!

Before that, you keep place & normally omit publisher!
14: Source Citations: Examples 14.31: Place and date only, for books published before 1900 Chapter Contents / Books / Facts of Publication / Place of Publication For books published before 1900, the city of publication is typically of greater interest than the name of the publisher (often a long-defunct printer); it is therefore usually preferable to omit publishers’ names and instead include only a place and date of publication. A comma follows the place. See also 14.30. 1. Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (Salisbury, 1766). Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. 2 vols. Madrid, 1605–15. If for any reason the publisher is included, retain the city of publication, followed by a colon. Austen, Jane [as “A Lady”]. Sense and Sensibility. London: T. Egerton, 1811.
November 17, 2025 at 11:39 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
This is even more disgusting than it seemed. The mentee Summers was trying to hit on… was Chinese, and LS & Epstein code-named her *PERIL*. (As in yellow???)

And LH tells Epstein “u r better at understanding Chinese women than probability theory” 🤮
The final tranche of messages, beginning in mid-June, shows the relationship still unresolved and Summers again turning to Epstein for guidance on how to pursue it. Summers asked Epstein whether it was “meaningful” to discuss the probability of “my getting horizontal w peril,” drawing parallels to forecasting Trump’s reelection. ADVERTISEMENT “U r better at understanding Chinese women than at probability theory,” Summers told Epstein. The two men bantered about probability and mathematics, but repeatedly steered the conversation back to Summers’ relationship.
November 17, 2025 at 6:04 AM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Looking over my bookshelf & all the wonderful Jewish American women writers (including early feminists, socialists &&) that Elisa New introduced me to, before she was trying to be a Celebrity.

Tess Schlesinger hits differently now for her perhaps?
On Being Told That Her Second Husband Has Taken His First Lover, and Other Stories Tess Slesinger 4.24 59 ratings14 reviews One need only read the first lines of Tess Slesinger's title story-or indeed any of her stories-to know that hers is a unique literary voice, one that rivets a reader's attention to the page from the very beginning and holds it to the very end. Hers is, one soon discovers, also a wholly feminine voice: compelling, filled with insight, acute at observation, sure of its tone, and everywhere discovering the reality behind human appearances and pretensions. This is a remarkable collection of short stories by a brilliant young writer who was cut off in her prime when she died of cancer in 1945.
November 16, 2025 at 9:06 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
This is "don't blame parents for the sins of their kids" Exhibit A.

Prof. Anita Summers was a pioneering woman in econ & *fought male chauvinists who said women shouldn't be in the field*. Super gross to see their kid ****ing on their legacy. #GiftLink

www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/b...
Mrs. Summers was proud to be a woman cutting a path through a male-dominated field, a path that following generations of women were able to walk — among them Betsey Stevenson, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, whose first job was in Mrs. Summers’s department at Wharton. “It meant a lot that it was a department founded by Anita Summers,” Dr. Stevenson said in a phone interview. “Being a parent, being a spouse, it’s a reminder of how things have changed and the amount of grit and talent it took female economists to succeed in that generation.”
November 16, 2025 at 7:35 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
And Theda Skocpol brings the HEAT here:
Text: Government and Sociology professor Theda R. Skocpol — who frequently crossed swords with Summers during his tense presidency — declined to comment on Summers’ case, but called the web of connections between Epstein and elite spheres “sickening.” “This kind of mutually reinforcing corruption,” Skocpol wrote, “is what one sees in failing societies and empires in decline.”
November 16, 2025 at 7:17 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
So many of the people professing to be surprised here are... not credible. Walter Johnson speaks for all of us here, from the middle of the article:
Text: But other faculty members said that the news was not a surprise to them, given Summers’ long and conflicted history at Harvard. For Blitzstein, the “blatant sexism” in the messages was a validation of the FAS’s vote of no confidence in Summers in 2005 following his controversial remarks on the underrepresentation of women in science. “I’m not sure what we’ve learned from it all,” Walter Johnson, a professor of History and African and African American Studies, wrote in a statement. “I think Larry Summers told us who he was a long time ago.”
November 16, 2025 at 7:10 PM
drsepinwall.bsky.social
Lepore *regrets* that students said they didn't feel safe around *a residential dean* who'd become Weinstein's lawyer - & thinks it would be a sign of *health* in the university if they don't complain like that anymore!!!!

I'm sorry, but what is up with (some of) these women profs at Harvard?!
Text: Lepore: An example of change would be to revisit the story of Ron Sullivan, a criminal defense attorney and a faculty member at the Law School who was a residential dean. He was on the defense team for Harvey Weinstein, and the students in the house where he was dean insisted that he be removed from that position because they felt unsafe on the basis of his legal defense of Weinstein. And Harvard College did, in fact, remove him from his house deanship. A test of your theory that we’re in a different place would be whether A) current members of the faculty think that something like that would happen now, and B) whether those people would say what did happen was wrong. Goldstein: When you look at public disfavor towards higher ed, conservatives have a story of what’s gone wrong. You have a different diagnosis, one that emphasizes the corporatization of higher ed. Can you flesh that out?
November 15, 2025 at 11:43 PM