Max Shirley
@maxrshirley.bsky.social
AHRC-funded PhD on Kathy Acker & the contemporary avant-garde | writes occasionally
Reposted by Max Shirley
wrote an article for @thebookseller.com outlining to the industry why small presses are the lifeforce & future of book production. Pls share esp w people who may not know what small press publishers do!
www.thebookseller.com/comment/dont...
www.thebookseller.com/comment/dont...
Don’t invest in AI, invest in the future of the book
Why the publishing industry must back small presses, rather than LLMs.
www.thebookseller.com
November 18, 2025 at 11:48 AM
wrote an article for @thebookseller.com outlining to the industry why small presses are the lifeforce & future of book production. Pls share esp w people who may not know what small press publishers do!
www.thebookseller.com/comment/dont...
www.thebookseller.com/comment/dont...
Reposted by Max Shirley
To ensure the future of our paywall-free writing, educational workshops, and staff and operations, we’re challenging ourselves to raise $100,000. All gifts are matched through Dec. 31; donate at: https://lareviewofbooks.org/donate/?utm_source=bsky&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mgfd25&utm_id=mgfd25
November 14, 2025 at 6:03 PM
To ensure the future of our paywall-free writing, educational workshops, and staff and operations, we’re challenging ourselves to raise $100,000. All gifts are matched through Dec. 31; donate at: https://lareviewofbooks.org/donate/?utm_source=bsky&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mgfd25&utm_id=mgfd25
Reposted by Max Shirley
‘Just one of either depopulation in the North or climate change in the South could be enough to drive mass migration.
Anyone who thinks the 21st century will not see the biggest global movement of peoples in history has not been paying attention.’
David Runciman:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Anyone who thinks the 21st century will not see the biggest global movement of peoples in history has not been paying attention.’
David Runciman:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
David Runciman · Are we doomed? The End of the Species
Are we doomed to die out? We find ourselves at the only point in the history of the species when the rate of population...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 13, 2025 at 12:03 PM
‘Just one of either depopulation in the North or climate change in the South could be enough to drive mass migration.
Anyone who thinks the 21st century will not see the biggest global movement of peoples in history has not been paying attention.’
David Runciman:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Anyone who thinks the 21st century will not see the biggest global movement of peoples in history has not been paying attention.’
David Runciman:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Reposted by Max Shirley
Bound proofs have arrived. Coming 26 Feb 2026.
November 11, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Bound proofs have arrived. Coming 26 Feb 2026.
Reposted by Max Shirley
Paolo Virno 1952-2025
November 8, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Paolo Virno 1952-2025
Reposted by Max Shirley
YEARBOOK OF ENGLISH STUDIES 55 has just been published. In addition to many fine chapters, it has a kind of call-to-arms for English studies in the UK, full of thoughts and suggestions about ‘What to Do for English Now’: it’s fully open access here muse.jhu.edu/article/970710.
Project MUSE - What to Do for English Now
muse.jhu.edu
October 21, 2025 at 1:16 PM
YEARBOOK OF ENGLISH STUDIES 55 has just been published. In addition to many fine chapters, it has a kind of call-to-arms for English studies in the UK, full of thoughts and suggestions about ‘What to Do for English Now’: it’s fully open access here muse.jhu.edu/article/970710.
Reposted by Max Shirley
The programme has been finalised for our one day symposium, Material Poetics: Drafting, Duration, Form, taking place in November. Keynotes from Cole Swensen and Jeanne Heuving!
To check the schedule and sign up to attend, see here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/material-p...
To check the schedule and sign up to attend, see here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/material-p...
October 2, 2025 at 9:27 AM
The programme has been finalised for our one day symposium, Material Poetics: Drafting, Duration, Form, taking place in November. Keynotes from Cole Swensen and Jeanne Heuving!
To check the schedule and sign up to attend, see here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/material-p...
To check the schedule and sign up to attend, see here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/material-p...
Reposted by Max Shirley
New online: The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) collection is now available on LSE Digital Library! We’ve digitised and published the GLF Diaries and the GLF newspaper Come Together. Further series from the archives will be added as digitisation continues.
1/2
digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/...
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digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/...
October 14, 2025 at 11:16 AM
New online: The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) collection is now available on LSE Digital Library! We’ve digitised and published the GLF Diaries and the GLF newspaper Come Together. Further series from the archives will be added as digitisation continues.
1/2
digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/...
1/2
digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/...
Reposted by Max Shirley
pro writing tip: always start the day by addressing a minor administrative task so that you’re in a bad mood when you begin your actual work
October 7, 2025 at 8:12 AM
pro writing tip: always start the day by addressing a minor administrative task so that you’re in a bad mood when you begin your actual work
Reposted by Max Shirley
'Sticking Together in Tough Times' with Dean Spade
6 Oct 6-8pm
Discussing the kinds of bold, rule-breaking, risk-taking resistance that people are taking up to care for each other and save lives right now.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
6 Oct 6-8pm
Discussing the kinds of bold, rule-breaking, risk-taking resistance that people are taking up to care for each other and save lives right now.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
'Sticking Together in Tough Times' with Dean Spade
qUCL and the SPRC are pleased to jointly host Dean Spade, who will discuss the kinds of bold, rule-breaking, risk-taking resistance that people are taking up to care for each other and save lives righ...
www.ucl.ac.uk
September 19, 2025 at 10:16 AM
'Sticking Together in Tough Times' with Dean Spade
6 Oct 6-8pm
Discussing the kinds of bold, rule-breaking, risk-taking resistance that people are taking up to care for each other and save lives right now.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
6 Oct 6-8pm
Discussing the kinds of bold, rule-breaking, risk-taking resistance that people are taking up to care for each other and save lives right now.
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
Reposted by Max Shirley
This is grim & dangerous over reach.
This is a government that have lost the moral argument & are still selling arms to Israel. Now further cracking down on dissent.
Absolutely the opposite of what they should be doing - so of course this is what the Labour Government choose.
This is a government that have lost the moral argument & are still selling arms to Israel. Now further cracking down on dissent.
Absolutely the opposite of what they should be doing - so of course this is what the Labour Government choose.
NEW: Home Office announces planned new anti-protest powers, mainly aimed at pro-Gaza protests like those for Palestine Action. Police will be able to consider the "cumulative impact" of repeated protests and potentially order that they be relocated.
October 5, 2025 at 7:44 AM
This is grim & dangerous over reach.
This is a government that have lost the moral argument & are still selling arms to Israel. Now further cracking down on dissent.
Absolutely the opposite of what they should be doing - so of course this is what the Labour Government choose.
This is a government that have lost the moral argument & are still selling arms to Israel. Now further cracking down on dissent.
Absolutely the opposite of what they should be doing - so of course this is what the Labour Government choose.
The programme has been finalised for our one day symposium, Material Poetics: Drafting, Duration, Form, taking place in November. Keynotes from Cole Swensen and Jeanne Heuving!
To check the schedule and sign up to attend, see here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/material-p...
To check the schedule and sign up to attend, see here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/material-p...
October 2, 2025 at 9:27 AM
The programme has been finalised for our one day symposium, Material Poetics: Drafting, Duration, Form, taking place in November. Keynotes from Cole Swensen and Jeanne Heuving!
To check the schedule and sign up to attend, see here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/material-p...
To check the schedule and sign up to attend, see here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/material-p...
Reposted by Max Shirley
It's the end of The Best American Poetry.
I wrote about the forty-year anthology project, poetry’s place in Big Five publishing, and editor David Lehman's culture wars vision of American verse.
defector.com/good-riddanc...
I wrote about the forty-year anthology project, poetry’s place in Big Five publishing, and editor David Lehman's culture wars vision of American verse.
defector.com/good-riddanc...
Good Riddance To ‘The Best American Poetry’ | Defector
When David Lehman, a poet then working as a book critic for Newsweek, proposed the project for The Best American Poetry anthology, he was searching for a national platform. His first anthology project...
defector.com
September 30, 2025 at 3:18 PM
It's the end of The Best American Poetry.
I wrote about the forty-year anthology project, poetry’s place in Big Five publishing, and editor David Lehman's culture wars vision of American verse.
defector.com/good-riddanc...
I wrote about the forty-year anthology project, poetry’s place in Big Five publishing, and editor David Lehman's culture wars vision of American verse.
defector.com/good-riddanc...
Reposted by Max Shirley
This year's @smallpublishers.bsky.social cards, designed (as always) by @uniformbooks.bsky.social, and featuring the work of Erica Van Horn (the subject of this year's exhibition).
Fri 24 / Sat 25 October, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. 11am-7pm, admission free, all welcome.
Fri 24 / Sat 25 October, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. 11am-7pm, admission free, all welcome.
September 24, 2025 at 12:04 PM
This year's @smallpublishers.bsky.social cards, designed (as always) by @uniformbooks.bsky.social, and featuring the work of Erica Van Horn (the subject of this year's exhibition).
Fri 24 / Sat 25 October, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. 11am-7pm, admission free, all welcome.
Fri 24 / Sat 25 October, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. 11am-7pm, admission free, all welcome.
Reposted by Max Shirley
My new novel, AS IF, has a cover. Out from Hamish Hamilton on 26th Feb 2026, and later in the year from FSG in the US.
As of now you can preorder via your usual bookshop or your library—thank you! x
As of now you can preorder via your usual bookshop or your library—thank you! x
September 19, 2025 at 9:12 AM
My new novel, AS IF, has a cover. Out from Hamish Hamilton on 26th Feb 2026, and later in the year from FSG in the US.
As of now you can preorder via your usual bookshop or your library—thank you! x
As of now you can preorder via your usual bookshop or your library—thank you! x
Reposted by Max Shirley
Academia dot edu licensing agreement says it can use your likeness and voice and publications in any manner they want, world wide.
If you’re on academia dot edu, let me suggest that you strongly consider deleting your account.
September 17, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Academia dot edu licensing agreement says it can use your likeness and voice and publications in any manner they want, world wide.
Reposted by Max Shirley
‘Stein can seem so monolithic that it takes a long time to realise how vulnerable her writing is, and one expression of this is the way her sentences refuse to obey our usual priorities.’
Adam Thirlwell on Gertrude Stein, online early from the next issue: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Adam Thirlwell on Gertrude Stein, online early from the next issue: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Adam Thirlwell · Devotion to the Cut: Gertrude Stein makes it plain
We’re so used to voice as confession, as a form of radical honesty, that it can be hard to appreciate Gertrude Stein...
www.lrb.co.uk
September 15, 2025 at 5:09 PM
‘Stein can seem so monolithic that it takes a long time to realise how vulnerable her writing is, and one expression of this is the way her sentences refuse to obey our usual priorities.’
Adam Thirlwell on Gertrude Stein, online early from the next issue: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Adam Thirlwell on Gertrude Stein, online early from the next issue: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Reposted by Max Shirley
"It is time to resist the injustice that now threatens to be normalized by those who capitulate, sometimes in advance, to powers that are clearly willing to destroy the basic principles that protect the university’s independence against external manipulations." www.chronicle.com/article/when...
September 13, 2025 at 9:47 PM
"It is time to resist the injustice that now threatens to be normalized by those who capitulate, sometimes in advance, to powers that are clearly willing to destroy the basic principles that protect the university’s independence against external manipulations." www.chronicle.com/article/when...
Reposted by Max Shirley
Several people asked for the text of this after the talk version appeared in the "Cruel Futurism" episode. Happy to oblige.
The Technofeudal Text
Literacy Is Our Commons, Technolords Wish To Enclose It
theamericanvandal.substack.com
August 26, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Several people asked for the text of this after the talk version appeared in the "Cruel Futurism" episode. Happy to oblige.
Reposted by Max Shirley
CFP - Material Poetics: Drafting, Duration, Form
(London, 5 November 2025)
The symposium takes up poetic practice today, including embodied mark-makings, archival poetics, manuscript and archival practice, form and experiment.
See here for more: call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/07/...
(London, 5 November 2025)
The symposium takes up poetic practice today, including embodied mark-makings, archival poetics, manuscript and archival practice, form and experiment.
See here for more: call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/07/...
cfp | call for papers
call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu
July 29, 2025 at 8:59 AM
CFP - Material Poetics: Drafting, Duration, Form
(London, 5 November 2025)
The symposium takes up poetic practice today, including embodied mark-makings, archival poetics, manuscript and archival practice, form and experiment.
See here for more: call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/07/...
(London, 5 November 2025)
The symposium takes up poetic practice today, including embodied mark-makings, archival poetics, manuscript and archival practice, form and experiment.
See here for more: call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/07/...
Reposted by Max Shirley
pls RT, modernists - CFP now out for 'Weird Modernisms', the collaborative conference between @modernistudies.bsky.social and @moderniststudies.bsky.social !
July 2026, Loughborough University.
www.moderniststudies.org/conference/M...
July 2026, Loughborough University.
www.moderniststudies.org/conference/M...
August 18, 2025 at 12:32 PM
pls RT, modernists - CFP now out for 'Weird Modernisms', the collaborative conference between @modernistudies.bsky.social and @moderniststudies.bsky.social !
July 2026, Loughborough University.
www.moderniststudies.org/conference/M...
July 2026, Loughborough University.
www.moderniststudies.org/conference/M...
Reposted by Max Shirley
teachers!
excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.
take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com
excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.
take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com
AGAINST AI
against-a-i.com
August 15, 2025 at 5:39 PM
teachers!
excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.
take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com
excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.
take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com
Reposted by Max Shirley
In 2026, the MSA Conference will look a bit different-- weird, even! That's because we're having a joint conference with BAMS @modernistudies.bsky.social in Loughborough, UK from July 1- 4, 2026. The CFP will be out soon! But in the meantime, please save the date.
August 7, 2025 at 12:45 PM
In 2026, the MSA Conference will look a bit different-- weird, even! That's because we're having a joint conference with BAMS @modernistudies.bsky.social in Loughborough, UK from July 1- 4, 2026. The CFP will be out soon! But in the meantime, please save the date.
Reposted by Max Shirley
