Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
@travisclau.bsky.social
(he/him/his) Assistant Professor, Poet: c18/c19 British Literature/History of Medicine (immunity and vaccination)/Health Humanities/Disability Studies
travisclau.com
travisclau.com
Pinned
What's Left is Tender by Travis Chi Wing Lau — Small Harbor Publishing
www.smallharborpublishing.com
It's officially release day for WHAT'S LEFT IS TENDER, a book that I truly didn't think I had it in me to write: www.smallharborpublishing.com/books/whats-...
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
If you're buying gifts for the holidays, maybe consider supporting artists, writers, creators. Gift someone a Patreon, commission an art piece, buy a book, purchase handmade jewelry, etc. Your support means everything.
November 22, 2025 at 8:39 PM
If you're buying gifts for the holidays, maybe consider supporting artists, writers, creators. Gift someone a Patreon, commission an art piece, buy a book, purchase handmade jewelry, etc. Your support means everything.
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
Major measles outbreaks have repeatedly cropped up in the Southwest this year. Yet at IHS hospitals in the region, agency officials deemed “measles” and “immunizations” a "medium risk" in internal agency emails.
Staffers, including doctors, now need to get approval to use them in public messaging
Staffers, including doctors, now need to get approval to use them in public messaging
NEW: Officials at the Indian Health Service have deemed terms like “immunizations” and “vaccines” risky “buzzwords” that require approval to be used in social media posts, pamphlets and presentations for patients.
The Indian Health Service Is Flagging Vaccine-Related Speech. Doctors Say They’re Being Censored.
Officials have deemed terms like “immunizations” and “vaccines” risky “buzzwords” that require approval to be used in social media posts, pamphlets and presentations.
www.propublica.org
November 21, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Major measles outbreaks have repeatedly cropped up in the Southwest this year. Yet at IHS hospitals in the region, agency officials deemed “measles” and “immunizations” a "medium risk" in internal agency emails.
Staffers, including doctors, now need to get approval to use them in public messaging
Staffers, including doctors, now need to get approval to use them in public messaging
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
ICYMI Dept of Education will no longer considers these professional degrees:
Nursing
Public health
Social work
Physician assistant
Occupational therapy
Physical therapy
Audiology
Speech-language pathology
Social work
Counseling & therapy
Health Admin
A smaller health workforce makes us all sicker
Nursing
Public health
Social work
Physician assistant
Occupational therapy
Physical therapy
Audiology
Speech-language pathology
Social work
Counseling & therapy
Health Admin
A smaller health workforce makes us all sicker
November 21, 2025 at 11:14 PM
ICYMI Dept of Education will no longer considers these professional degrees:
Nursing
Public health
Social work
Physician assistant
Occupational therapy
Physical therapy
Audiology
Speech-language pathology
Social work
Counseling & therapy
Health Admin
A smaller health workforce makes us all sicker
Nursing
Public health
Social work
Physician assistant
Occupational therapy
Physical therapy
Audiology
Speech-language pathology
Social work
Counseling & therapy
Health Admin
A smaller health workforce makes us all sicker
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
It also implies that “Writer” is a medical condition, which would explain a lot.
Almost a year now since I received this absolutely classic burn from the Canadian government.
November 21, 2025 at 11:04 PM
It also implies that “Writer” is a medical condition, which would explain a lot.
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
Okay, so the way this scam normally works is that PACs and other political fundraising groups order pallets of the books in question - thousands of copies. This catapults it into bestseller lists and coincidentally sells enough to cover the publisher advance (weird how that works out).
"The Barnes and Noble in York—where Fetterman was born and raised—had sold zero copies. The Barnes and Noble in Philadelphia had sold two copies. An independent store in Pittsburgh and an independent store in Philadelphia each told me they weren’t stocking Unfettered" defector.com/john-fetterm...
John Fetterman's Memoir Is As Low-Effort As His Senate Tenure | Defector
John Fetterman’s just-released memoir, Unfettered, argues that he’s turned a corner and has everything under control. Fetterman was a “stubborn asshole” (his words), he was clinically depressed, he wa...
defector.com
November 21, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Okay, so the way this scam normally works is that PACs and other political fundraising groups order pallets of the books in question - thousands of copies. This catapults it into bestseller lists and coincidentally sells enough to cover the publisher advance (weird how that works out).
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
A lovely tribute to Alice Wong by @thrasherxy.bsky.social. "She did not gatekeep knowledge; she shared it with the generosity and glee of a neighbor passing out full-sized candy bars on Halloween." I laughed at the part where she told him to “EAT THE FUCKING COOKIES!!!!” So very Alice.
Remembering Alice Wong: Writer, Advocate, Friend
Though we were in frequent conversation for a decade, I only got to meet my friend Alice Wong in person just once. And when I did, I was a bundle of nerves—and that was before she cussed me out wi…
lithub.com
November 18, 2025 at 3:27 PM
A lovely tribute to Alice Wong by @thrasherxy.bsky.social. "She did not gatekeep knowledge; she shared it with the generosity and glee of a neighbor passing out full-sized candy bars on Halloween." I laughed at the part where she told him to “EAT THE FUCKING COOKIES!!!!” So very Alice.
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
As an easy rule of thumb - if this is how you have to start your class with a group of young people, you probably shouldn’t be anywhere near said young people; never mind a position of power.
Larry Summers discusses his “statement of regret” for his disturbing messages to Jeffrey Epstein with Harvard students
November 19, 2025 at 2:01 PM
As an easy rule of thumb - if this is how you have to start your class with a group of young people, you probably shouldn’t be anywhere near said young people; never mind a position of power.
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
It’s that time of year friends! Thanks to @erinbartram.bsky.social and our friends at @contingent-mag.bsky.social, Laura and I are putting together a list of 2025 articles & books by contingent & indie lit critters. DM, reply, email me @ suny press. And spread the word!!
We are at it again! Myself & the wonderful @rcolesworthy.bsky.social😍
Seeking pubs -- articles, book chapters, monographs -- by contingent lit scholars for the 2025 list 👇👇 please spread the word!!!
contingentmagazine.org/2024/12/08/2...
Seeking pubs -- articles, book chapters, monographs -- by contingent lit scholars for the 2025 list 👇👇 please spread the word!!!
contingentmagazine.org/2024/12/08/2...
2024 Literary Studies Book and Journal Article List
A companion list for lit studies scholars.
contingentmagazine.org
November 9, 2025 at 5:07 PM
It’s that time of year friends! Thanks to @erinbartram.bsky.social and our friends at @contingent-mag.bsky.social, Laura and I are putting together a list of 2025 articles & books by contingent & indie lit critters. DM, reply, email me @ suny press. And spread the word!!
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
We are at it again! Myself & the wonderful @rcolesworthy.bsky.social😍
Seeking pubs -- articles, book chapters, monographs -- by contingent lit scholars for the 2025 list 👇👇 please spread the word!!!
contingentmagazine.org/2024/12/08/2...
Seeking pubs -- articles, book chapters, monographs -- by contingent lit scholars for the 2025 list 👇👇 please spread the word!!!
contingentmagazine.org/2024/12/08/2...
2024 Literary Studies Book and Journal Article List
A companion list for lit studies scholars.
contingentmagazine.org
November 9, 2025 at 5:04 PM
We are at it again! Myself & the wonderful @rcolesworthy.bsky.social😍
Seeking pubs -- articles, book chapters, monographs -- by contingent lit scholars for the 2025 list 👇👇 please spread the word!!!
contingentmagazine.org/2024/12/08/2...
Seeking pubs -- articles, book chapters, monographs -- by contingent lit scholars for the 2025 list 👇👇 please spread the word!!!
contingentmagazine.org/2024/12/08/2...
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
I made the mistake of having a look at the rest of the paper. It was never going to go well with the opening line of "The unpalatable truth must be faced that all postmenopausal women are castrates". But somehow it just keeps on getting worse....
Science is objective, you said? Screenshot from R.A. Wilson & T.A. Wilson, ‘The Fate of the Nontreated Postmenopausal Woman: A Plea for the Maintenance of Adequate Estrogen from Puberty to the Grave’, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 11, no. 4 (1963): 347–62, doi.org/10.1111/j.15....
November 19, 2025 at 2:03 PM
I made the mistake of having a look at the rest of the paper. It was never going to go well with the opening line of "The unpalatable truth must be faced that all postmenopausal women are castrates". But somehow it just keeps on getting worse....
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
This is the most frustrating and exhausting thing about academia. When I mentioned it to a headhunter who was asking about things that could change, they said, “you are the first person to bring this up” — but two other women in the room backed me up.
November 16, 2025 at 3:16 PM
This is the most frustrating and exhausting thing about academia. When I mentioned it to a headhunter who was asking about things that could change, they said, “you are the first person to bring this up” — but two other women in the room backed me up.
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
I, however,
Have such meagre power,
Clutching at a
Moment,
While you control
An hour.
But your hour is
A stone.
My moment is
A flower.
-Langston Hughes, "Poet to Bigot"
#everynightapoem As ever.
Have such meagre power,
Clutching at a
Moment,
While you control
An hour.
But your hour is
A stone.
My moment is
A flower.
-Langston Hughes, "Poet to Bigot"
#everynightapoem As ever.
October 8, 2025 at 6:25 PM
I, however,
Have such meagre power,
Clutching at a
Moment,
While you control
An hour.
But your hour is
A stone.
My moment is
A flower.
-Langston Hughes, "Poet to Bigot"
#everynightapoem As ever.
Have such meagre power,
Clutching at a
Moment,
While you control
An hour.
But your hour is
A stone.
My moment is
A flower.
-Langston Hughes, "Poet to Bigot"
#everynightapoem As ever.
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
Please note: none of these are university presses. Thank you.
"academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it... The dominant four collectively generated... $12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024."
November 19, 2025 at 4:27 AM
Please note: none of these are university presses. Thank you.
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
JOB POSTING!
Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Rare Books and Prints at the @folger.edu
amherst.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/FSL_Em...
Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Rare Books and Prints at the @folger.edu
amherst.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/FSL_Em...
Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Rare Books and Prints
The Folger Shakespeare Library knows that an exceptional staff is the backbone of any great organization. We hire exceptionally qualified individuals who are committed to the mission, vision, and valu...
amherst.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com
November 19, 2025 at 1:34 AM
JOB POSTING!
Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Rare Books and Prints at the @folger.edu
amherst.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/FSL_Em...
Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Rare Books and Prints at the @folger.edu
amherst.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/FSL_Em...
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
Remember: they used thousands of academic books too! If you’re a scholar, check for your books too. This isn’t just novelists and pop writers, it’s academic books too!
AI advocates have warned that if every author in the class action filed a claim, it would "financially ruin" the entire industry.
Authors celebrate “historic” settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action
Advocates fear such settlements will “financially ruin” the AI industry.
arstechnica.com
November 18, 2025 at 6:32 AM
Remember: they used thousands of academic books too! If you’re a scholar, check for your books too. This isn’t just novelists and pop writers, it’s academic books too!
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
New — I wrote about the myriad ways journalism’s moral rot manifests, and how our crumbling institutions have created the conditions for it to fester:
Moral rot in elite journalism is killing the whole field
The Nuzzi/RFK Jr. mess and the revelation of Esptein's journo pals lay bare a profound moral absence at the heart of our free press.
www.thehandbasket.co
November 18, 2025 at 10:03 PM
New — I wrote about the myriad ways journalism’s moral rot manifests, and how our crumbling institutions have created the conditions for it to fester:
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
WE JUST KEEP WINNING. (UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program RESTORED!!!!)
![On official UC letterhead:
UNIVERSITY
OF
CALIFORNIA
James B. Milliken President
Office of the President
1111 Franklin Street Oakland, CA 94607
universityofcalifornia.edu
CAMPUSES Berkeley
Davis
Irvine
UCLA
Merced
Riverside San Diego San Francisco
Santa Barbara Santa Cruz
MEDICAL CENTERS
Davis
Irvine
UCLA
San Diego
San Francisco
NATIONAL LABORATORIES Lawrence Berkeley Lawrence Livermore Los Alamos
DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES
November 18, 2025
Dear Chancellors:
I'm writing with regard to the President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PPFP) and the program's associated faculty hiring incentive.
As you know, for more than 40 years, PPFP has provided postdoctoral research fellowships, professional development, and faculty mentoring to scholars in all fields whose research, teaching, and service advance the academic and research missions of the University of California.
Since 2003, UC campuses that hire current and former PPFP fellows into ladder-rank positions have been eligible for a hiring incentive funded by the University that provides support for newly hired fellows for five years. Since the creation of the incentive, more than $162 million has been invested by the University to support PPFP faculty hires. This commitment has enabled our campuses to successfully recruit and retain outstanding faculty across a range of disciplines.
Given the myriad challenges currently facing UC - including disruptions to billions of dollars in annual federal support, as well as uncertainty around the state budget- reasonable questions were raised in recent months about whether the University could maintain the commitment to current levels of incentive funding. After considering a recommendation to sunset the incentive program due to these significant fiscal constraints, I consulted with all of you as well as faculty and campus academic administrators and systemwide Academic Senate leadership.
[continued on next image]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rzn6yramffebefeitqifiqqz/bafkreigiwq5ongzwpj4wqmgjam3yfvhyjnv5e3dbq6cnrrbwblqvs624gq@jpeg)
November 18, 2025 at 10:34 PM
WE JUST KEEP WINNING. (UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program RESTORED!!!!)
Beginning to teach my death, dying, and palliative care unit in class while grieving might be the cruelest irony
November 18, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Beginning to teach my death, dying, and palliative care unit in class while grieving might be the cruelest irony
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
If you are not in academia, you might not know this, but job interviews used to be held at conferences IN HOTEL ROOMS. Women candidates in a hotel room alone with often all-male committees. People sitting on beds! The horror stories I've heard.
I thing I sometimes thing about is that university departments were still doing job interviews in hotel rooms in the mid aughts
November 16, 2025 at 7:42 PM
If you are not in academia, you might not know this, but job interviews used to be held at conferences IN HOTEL ROOMS. Women candidates in a hotel room alone with often all-male committees. People sitting on beds! The horror stories I've heard.
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
I will say something more later about the depths of @sfdirewolf.bsky.social’s love and friendship and knowledge and courage and bad assery. Alice Wong was a disabled Warrior Oracle and I am so blessed to know her.
But for now all I got is Fuck 2025.
But for now all I got is Fuck 2025.
Our beloved Alice Wong has joined the ancestors. It was one of the great honors of my life to call Alice my friend, co-author & co-conspirator. She was a true genius, a force of nature the likes of which the world has never seen before. I love you, Alice, and am equal parts grateful and devastated
November 15, 2025 at 1:58 PM
I will say something more later about the depths of @sfdirewolf.bsky.social’s love and friendship and knowledge and courage and bad assery. Alice Wong was a disabled Warrior Oracle and I am so blessed to know her.
But for now all I got is Fuck 2025.
But for now all I got is Fuck 2025.
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
In memory of Alice Wong, the 10 Principles of Disability Justice. May she rest in power
sinsinvalid.org/10-principle...
sinsinvalid.org/10-principle...
10 Principles of Disability Justice | Sins Invalid
sinsinvalid.org
November 15, 2025 at 2:21 PM
In memory of Alice Wong, the 10 Principles of Disability Justice. May she rest in power
sinsinvalid.org/10-principle...
sinsinvalid.org/10-principle...
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
I am gutted to learn of @sfdirewolf.bsky.social (Alice Wong’s) passing. She was always a warm friend, a wonderful spirit, and someone who fostered my own growth. She helped me see that, as a #disabled person with chronic illness, I matter—I am whole. I’ll be posting some of Alice’s work. ❤️ forever
November 15, 2025 at 11:37 AM
I am gutted to learn of @sfdirewolf.bsky.social (Alice Wong’s) passing. She was always a warm friend, a wonderful spirit, and someone who fostered my own growth. She helped me see that, as a #disabled person with chronic illness, I matter—I am whole. I’ll be posting some of Alice’s work. ❤️ forever
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
RIP Alice Wong, fiercest, finest, most fabulously dressed freedom fighter and friend. She changed the world a bit at a time every day and never stopped loving it. She taught me so much. I can’t believe this. I miss her bravery and clarity already. 💔♿️
November 15, 2025 at 7:04 AM
RIP Alice Wong, fiercest, finest, most fabulously dressed freedom fighter and friend. She changed the world a bit at a time every day and never stopped loving it. She taught me so much. I can’t believe this. I miss her bravery and clarity already. 💔♿️
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
Alice Wong was one of the most effective people challenging the Whiteness of disability communities and its many flaws, but who believed fiercely in us as a community, in disabled people as oracles.
Alice brought so much to so many of us, it’s hard to measure the kind of gratitude I have for that.
Alice brought so much to so many of us, it’s hard to measure the kind of gratitude I have for that.
November 15, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Alice Wong was one of the most effective people challenging the Whiteness of disability communities and its many flaws, but who believed fiercely in us as a community, in disabled people as oracles.
Alice brought so much to so many of us, it’s hard to measure the kind of gratitude I have for that.
Alice brought so much to so many of us, it’s hard to measure the kind of gratitude I have for that.
Reposted by Travis Chi Wing Lau (劉志頴)
One way I have found to mourn someone is to set up a monthly sustaining donation to a mutual aid effort they cared about. If you can join me in honoring Alice Wong, @sfdirewolf.bsky.social with a sustaining donation today, please do. Thank you Alice, and I will not let the bastards grind me down.
November 15, 2025 at 12:34 PM
One way I have found to mourn someone is to set up a monthly sustaining donation to a mutual aid effort they cared about. If you can join me in honoring Alice Wong, @sfdirewolf.bsky.social with a sustaining donation today, please do. Thank you Alice, and I will not let the bastards grind me down.