Ryan Cordell
@ryancordell.org
he/him—textual technologies enthusiast—Associate Professor at UIUC's School of Information Sciences & Department of English—co-director of the Viral Texts Project (viraltexts.org) & Director @skeuomorphpress.org —also https://theanxiousbench.bandcamp.com
Pinned
Ryan Cordell
@ryancordell.org
· Sep 5
Exhalation EP, by The Anxious Bench
3 track album
theanxiousbench.bandcamp.com
Late this summer I got to go into the studio with @pablohutch.bsky.social & our buddy Tim to record some tunes—and our EP is up today on Bandcamp!
I feel a little weird as a middle-aged dude asking folks to listen to my band—but I'm pretty proud of these songs & would love if y’all gave em a listen
I feel a little weird as a middle-aged dude asking folks to listen to my band—but I'm pretty proud of these songs & would love if y’all gave em a listen
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
I vaguely remember a quote on the wall of the drafting lab at St. Cloud State. Something similar to "If we only teach the mind, but not the hands, then we have only taught half a person"
November 19, 2025 at 1:19 AM
I vaguely remember a quote on the wall of the drafting lab at St. Cloud State. Something similar to "If we only teach the mind, but not the hands, then we have only taught half a person"
Kiddo is a senior this year & is taking some classes just for fun & as a consequence he’s realized that he really loves woodworking—every day he comes home more excited about that class than just about anything I can remember—every project has been thrilling+
November 19, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Kiddo is a senior this year & is taking some classes just for fun & as a consequence he’s realized that he really loves woodworking—every day he comes home more excited about that class than just about anything I can remember—every project has been thrilling+
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Very good mail day: @ryancordell.org @deliadraws.bsky.social & other @skeuomorphpress.org students' gorgeous handmade (book, letterpress, illustrations>lino) edition of Ursula K Le Guin's "A Rant about 'Technology'" #DHmakes Some poster versions from the book may still be available? (link in QT)
November 18, 2025 at 11:13 PM
Very good mail day: @ryancordell.org @deliadraws.bsky.social & other @skeuomorphpress.org students' gorgeous handmade (book, letterpress, illustrations>lino) edition of Ursula K Le Guin's "A Rant about 'Technology'" #DHmakes Some poster versions from the book may still be available? (link in QT)
If you invented a robot that sometimes cleaned my house really well & quickly & saved me lots of work—but *often* just moved things around without really cleaning—& *sometimes* added germs *to* the surfaces—such that just to be safe, I always had to clean after it
I don’t think I’d buy that robot
I don’t think I’d buy that robot
November 17, 2025 at 10:15 PM
If you invented a robot that sometimes cleaned my house really well & quickly & saved me lots of work—but *often* just moved things around without really cleaning—& *sometimes* added germs *to* the surfaces—such that just to be safe, I always had to clean after it
I don’t think I’d buy that robot
I don’t think I’d buy that robot
just a few days after someone wrote to me asking where to find an article of mine that was in fact an AI hallucination, a google scholar notification points me to a citation that’s a mashup of about 3 things I wrote or might have written—in what looks like a predatory journal to boot!
November 17, 2025 at 10:04 PM
just a few days after someone wrote to me asking where to find an article of mine that was in fact an AI hallucination, a google scholar notification points me to a citation that’s a mashup of about 3 things I wrote or might have written—in what looks like a predatory journal to boot!
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
This - the Wheatley Census - has been at the center of my research life for the last year (and a half, honestly)! Proud to finally share the first iteration of it publicly. Take a look. Poke around. And send me your info about copies you work with!
Pleased to announce the Wheatley Census is ready for 1.0 public release! As detailed a census as possible (right now) of the first six editions - those printed in the 18th century - of Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, is available here: www.wheatleycensus.org.
Wheatley Census
www.wheatleycensus.org
November 17, 2025 at 4:47 PM
This - the Wheatley Census - has been at the center of my research life for the last year (and a half, honestly)! Proud to finally share the first iteration of it publicly. Take a look. Poke around. And send me your info about copies you work with!
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Very persuasive. Worth underlining that there are trade-offs. If your goal is to "improve the writing," but also "keep this accessible to the widest possible audience, and don't advocate any specific perspective," you are pulling and pushing on the same lever. Humans can't both pull & push either.
November 17, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Very persuasive. Worth underlining that there are trade-offs. If your goal is to "improve the writing," but also "keep this accessible to the widest possible audience, and don't advocate any specific perspective," you are pulling and pushing on the same lever. Humans can't both pull & push either.
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
The new features are still in alpha—but @djevans.bsky.social's contextual tools for Viral Texts data are live clusters.viraltexts.org
Click "View witness in context" to see a given reprint on the newspaper page, alongside other reprints on that page—click a cluster ID here to see its other reprints
Click "View witness in context" to see a given reprint on the newspaper page, alongside other reprints on that page—click a cluster ID here to see its other reprints
November 17, 2025 at 5:34 PM
The new features are still in alpha—but @djevans.bsky.social's contextual tools for Viral Texts data are live clusters.viraltexts.org
Click "View witness in context" to see a given reprint on the newspaper page, alongside other reprints on that page—click a cluster ID here to see its other reprints
Click "View witness in context" to see a given reprint on the newspaper page, alongside other reprints on that page—click a cluster ID here to see its other reprints
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
For the enjoyment of @ryancordell.org class, the purple loopy thing in the middle there is the class visit. #DHmakes
November 17, 2025 at 7:39 PM
For the enjoyment of @ryancordell.org class, the purple loopy thing in the middle there is the class visit. #DHmakes
The new features are still in alpha—but @djevans.bsky.social's contextual tools for Viral Texts data are live clusters.viraltexts.org
Click "View witness in context" to see a given reprint on the newspaper page, alongside other reprints on that page—click a cluster ID here to see its other reprints
Click "View witness in context" to see a given reprint on the newspaper page, alongside other reprints on that page—click a cluster ID here to see its other reprints
November 17, 2025 at 5:34 PM
The new features are still in alpha—but @djevans.bsky.social's contextual tools for Viral Texts data are live clusters.viraltexts.org
Click "View witness in context" to see a given reprint on the newspaper page, alongside other reprints on that page—click a cluster ID here to see its other reprints
Click "View witness in context" to see a given reprint on the newspaper page, alongside other reprints on that page—click a cluster ID here to see its other reprints
Overall students’ "AI Audit" assignments are really strong—evaluating AI-written essays using our class rubric has lead to careful analysis & many (self-reported) revelations about LLM writing
BUT they do all VASTLY overestimate how much "distinct human voice" a typical non-AI student essay evinces
BUT they do all VASTLY overestimate how much "distinct human voice" a typical non-AI student essay evinces
November 17, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Overall students’ "AI Audit" assignments are really strong—evaluating AI-written essays using our class rubric has lead to careful analysis & many (self-reported) revelations about LLM writing
BUT they do all VASTLY overestimate how much "distinct human voice" a typical non-AI student essay evinces
BUT they do all VASTLY overestimate how much "distinct human voice" a typical non-AI student essay evinces
Hey friends I’m hoping to pack up these posters Friday and get them in the mail; will probably close the form then and keep any remaining posters for local events
If you’d like one, now’s the time!
If you’d like one, now’s the time!
Now that our edition of Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Rant About 'Technology'" is (finally!) printed, bound, packed, & with campus mail, on its way to folks, we’re making approximately 60 of the internal poster available separately
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
November 17, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Hey friends I’m hoping to pack up these posters Friday and get them in the mail; will probably close the form then and keep any remaining posters for local events
If you’d like one, now’s the time!
If you’d like one, now’s the time!
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Trump's campaign to kill an industry where America runs a massive trade surplus is succeeding
New foreign student enrollment in the US fell 17% this fall www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
How foreign student enrollment is shifting in the U.S., in 6 charts
Foreign student enrollment in U.S. colleges has stalled, with a 17 percent decline in new students this fall after Trump policy changes, a key survey shows.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 17, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Trump's campaign to kill an industry where America runs a massive trade surplus is succeeding
I know it’s an automation, not an over-eager editor, but
please know that if I get a review request late Friday afternoon & then wake up to a reminder that arrived in the wee hours of Monday morning—“It’s been 3 days since we asked”—I’m mentally crossing your publication off my list
please know that if I get a review request late Friday afternoon & then wake up to a reminder that arrived in the wee hours of Monday morning—“It’s been 3 days since we asked”—I’m mentally crossing your publication off my list
November 17, 2025 at 1:22 PM
I know it’s an automation, not an over-eager editor, but
please know that if I get a review request late Friday afternoon & then wake up to a reminder that arrived in the wee hours of Monday morning—“It’s been 3 days since we asked”—I’m mentally crossing your publication off my list
please know that if I get a review request late Friday afternoon & then wake up to a reminder that arrived in the wee hours of Monday morning—“It’s been 3 days since we asked”—I’m mentally crossing your publication off my list
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Now that our edition of Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Rant About 'Technology'" is (finally!) printed, bound, packed, & with campus mail, on its way to folks, we’re making approximately 60 of the internal poster available separately
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
November 12, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Now that our edition of Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Rant About 'Technology'" is (finally!) printed, bound, packed, & with campus mail, on its way to folks, we’re making approximately 60 of the internal poster available separately
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
By far one of the most impactful readings of the semester in "Writing with Robots" has been @johnrgallagher.bsky.social's piece on LLM’s propensity to substitute lists for argumentation—students are suddenly *noticing* the lists everywhere & engaging them critically
The Curious Question of AI-written Lists: Or, LLMs are Genre Machines
Ending with a solution for teaching writing
meresophistry.substack.com
November 16, 2025 at 3:44 PM
By far one of the most impactful readings of the semester in "Writing with Robots" has been @johnrgallagher.bsky.social's piece on LLM’s propensity to substitute lists for argumentation—students are suddenly *noticing* the lists everywhere & engaging them critically
In case you were thinking all college tours are basically the same, the Cordell family did just nope out of a post-tour info session after a disastrous tour convinced both twins & parents “this school is definitely not for us”
November 15, 2025 at 6:56 PM
In case you were thinking all college tours are basically the same, the Cordell family did just nope out of a post-tour info session after a disastrous tour convinced both twins & parents “this school is definitely not for us”
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
When I think about how exquisitely careful NEH staff were to be fair, impartial, and rigorous, and how much work people put into grants so small they’re pocket change…I just want to scream.
Fired Scholars and Big Grants to Favored Projects: Inside Trump’s N.E.H.
www.nytimes.com
November 15, 2025 at 4:12 PM
When I think about how exquisitely careful NEH staff were to be fair, impartial, and rigorous, and how much work people put into grants so small they’re pocket change…I just want to scream.
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
I (finally?) had someone reach out asking how to find a paper that I never wrote. To be fair
"Reprogramming Style: Style Transfer for Computational Stylistics." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 34, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-21
does sound like my bs. Where do LLM hallucinations go on my CV?
"Reprogramming Style: Style Transfer for Computational Stylistics." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 34, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-21
does sound like my bs. Where do LLM hallucinations go on my CV?
November 14, 2025 at 6:16 PM
I (finally?) had someone reach out asking how to find a paper that I never wrote. To be fair
"Reprogramming Style: Style Transfer for Computational Stylistics." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 34, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-21
does sound like my bs. Where do LLM hallucinations go on my CV?
"Reprogramming Style: Style Transfer for Computational Stylistics." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 34, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-21
does sound like my bs. Where do LLM hallucinations go on my CV?
November 14, 2025 at 4:56 PM
This linocut that my colleague made for tomorrow’s Yiddish printing event @skeuomorphpress.org looks absolutely incredible
November 13, 2025 at 10:32 PM
This linocut that my colleague made for tomorrow’s Yiddish printing event @skeuomorphpress.org looks absolutely incredible
I’m pretty pleased by this riff on a @iamdylanlewis.bsky.social / @umdbooklab.bsky.social print I worked up for my “Writing with Robots” class’ visit to @skeuomorphpress.org today
November 13, 2025 at 6:01 PM
I’m pretty pleased by this riff on a @iamdylanlewis.bsky.social / @umdbooklab.bsky.social print I worked up for my “Writing with Robots” class’ visit to @skeuomorphpress.org today
If a skilled improv actor was given the prompt, “act like the guiltiest motherfucker alive” they could not perform the role better than DJT is right at this moment
November 13, 2025 at 4:57 PM
If a skilled improv actor was given the prompt, “act like the guiltiest motherfucker alive” they could not perform the role better than DJT is right at this moment