Uma Kumar
@umakumar.bsky.social
Germanist / Big Vienna fan / love dogs / she/her
Pinned
Uma Kumar
@umakumar.bsky.social
· Sep 25
UBC
cenes.ubc.ca
Please join us today, 12:30 pm for our first online Ziegler Lecture 2025-26, focusing on the theme of ‘networks’. Dr. Jeremy Bryant will talk on “From fin de siècle Vienna to the ends of the earth: the legacy of secular Jewish social networks (a case study)”.
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
Reposted by Uma Kumar
THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH A HISTORY MAJOR
Bad Bunny has a consulting historian. news.wisc.edu/pop-star-bad...
Pop star Bad Bunny needed a Puerto Rican history scholar. UW–Madison had just the one.
Bad Bunny collaborated with UW–Madison history professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo on Puerto Rican narratives that accompany the new album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.”
news.wisc.edu
February 9, 2026 at 5:44 AM
THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH A HISTORY MAJOR
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Off to see this exhibition for the second time as it is huge and needs a few visits at least. Highly recommended if you're in Vancouver.
Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama
Enemy Alien: Tamio Wakayama is the first major solo exhibition and retrospective of work by documentary photographer Tamio Wakayama.
www.vanartgallery.bc.ca
January 3, 2026 at 8:07 PM
Off to see this exhibition for the second time as it is huge and needs a few visits at least. Highly recommended if you're in Vancouver.
www.theglobeandmail.com/business/com...
While AI models excel at technical tasks, the job roles that use these models demand versatility and the precise meta-skills developed through liberal arts education.
While AI models excel at technical tasks, the job roles that use these models demand versatility and the precise meta-skills developed through liberal arts education.
Opinion: An AI future demands liberal arts agility
Graduates have the ethical and creative thinking skills that the AI-driven jobs of tomorrow will demand
www.theglobeandmail.com
January 3, 2026 at 7:12 PM
www.theglobeandmail.com/business/com...
While AI models excel at technical tasks, the job roles that use these models demand versatility and the precise meta-skills developed through liberal arts education.
While AI models excel at technical tasks, the job roles that use these models demand versatility and the precise meta-skills developed through liberal arts education.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
It is. It's appalling to see academics push GenAI.
December 30, 2025 at 6:03 PM
It is. It's appalling to see academics push GenAI.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
A Vancouver violinist who was threatened with legal action by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra after breaking a non-disclosure agreement and speaking out about an alleged sexual assault by one of its former senior musicians says she won't be "intimidated" into silence.
Violinist undeterred by Vancouver orchestra’s legal threat over sexual assault claim
A Vancouver violinist who was threatened with legal action by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra after breaking a non-disclosure agreement and speaking out about an alleged sexual assault by one of its former senior musicians says she won't be intimidated into silence.
cheknews.ca
December 31, 2025 at 12:27 AM
A Vancouver violinist who was threatened with legal action by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra after breaking a non-disclosure agreement and speaking out about an alleged sexual assault by one of its former senior musicians says she won't be "intimidated" into silence.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Nice of 2025 to remind me on its last day that it truly is a cursed year.
December 31, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Nice of 2025 to remind me on its last day that it truly is a cursed year.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
auch dieses juli zeh interview lasse ich ungelesen vorüberziehen wie einen tag mit garstigem wetter
December 27, 2025 at 6:23 PM
auch dieses juli zeh interview lasse ich ungelesen vorüberziehen wie einen tag mit garstigem wetter
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Was Thomas sagt. Alles ist Politik, auch und gerade der Versuch, diese Tatsache zu bestreiten.
December 27, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Was Thomas sagt. Alles ist Politik, auch und gerade der Versuch, diese Tatsache zu bestreiten.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Mandatory quote in coverage of far right towns: “I am normal, my neighbours vote for Nazis but I am not someone who would be friends with Nazis so my neighbours are not Nazis. The foreigners are not like me and so I am indifferent to their fate compared to the hurt feelings of my neighbours.“
December 28, 2025 at 9:27 AM
Mandatory quote in coverage of far right towns: “I am normal, my neighbours vote for Nazis but I am not someone who would be friends with Nazis so my neighbours are not Nazis. The foreigners are not like me and so I am indifferent to their fate compared to the hurt feelings of my neighbours.“
Reposted by Uma Kumar
You all, after YEARS of archival research and writing, my book is out in exactly ONE month and it’s my job to promote it. Please help me spread the word!! 😀📚#booksky
December 27, 2025 at 5:02 PM
You all, after YEARS of archival research and writing, my book is out in exactly ONE month and it’s my job to promote it. Please help me spread the word!! 😀📚#booksky
Reposted by Uma Kumar
We’re just going to produce entire generations unable to write or read aren’t we
If you use it as a dialogic thinking space where you externalities thought and use it to hold, reshape, question, extent, perturb your thinking. Just like a good teacher or mentor could, except you need to set and guide the interaction style.
December 27, 2025 at 9:08 PM
We’re just going to produce entire generations unable to write or read aren’t we
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Es ist im Übrigen völlig egal, ob die Wähler*innen der AfD sich selbst als Rechtsextremist*innen identifizieren oder nicht. Die wenigsten Wähler*innen der NSDAP sahen sich selbst als Nazis, sondern sie verrieten ihre jüdischen Nachbarn allein aus Staatsbürgerpflicht.
December 28, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Es ist im Übrigen völlig egal, ob die Wähler*innen der AfD sich selbst als Rechtsextremist*innen identifizieren oder nicht. Die wenigsten Wähler*innen der NSDAP sahen sich selbst als Nazis, sondern sie verrieten ihre jüdischen Nachbarn allein aus Staatsbürgerpflicht.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
"In other words, they argue that Holocaust memory, which was designed to prevent the worst, is being used to motivate and justify the worst. And they feel outraged — and betrayed." Dirk Moses thediasporist.de/is-holocaust...
Is Holocaust Memory Over? – the Diasporist
How the German political and media classes have hollowed out the lessons of history
thediasporist.de
December 24, 2025 at 4:04 PM
"In other words, they argue that Holocaust memory, which was designed to prevent the worst, is being used to motivate and justify the worst. And they feel outraged — and betrayed." Dirk Moses thediasporist.de/is-holocaust...
Reposted by Uma Kumar
This Christmas Eve, let us remember that it wasn’t the CEOs and billionaires who saved us during COVID-19. It was the janitors, nurses, cleaning crews, grocery and food workers with their hard, often invisible labor.
December 24, 2025 at 9:16 PM
This Christmas Eve, let us remember that it wasn’t the CEOs and billionaires who saved us during COVID-19. It was the janitors, nurses, cleaning crews, grocery and food workers with their hard, often invisible labor.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Big AI firms have built their models by hoovering up copyrighted material from the internet as training data. They say this is legal, but copyright holders disagree - and this year they hit back in a major way
AI firms began to feel the legal wrath of copyright holders in 2025
Big AI firms have built their models by hoovering up copyrighted material from the internet as training data. They say this is legal, but copyright holders disagree - and this year they hit back in a major way
www.newscientist.com
December 25, 2025 at 5:29 AM
Big AI firms have built their models by hoovering up copyrighted material from the internet as training data. They say this is legal, but copyright holders disagree - and this year they hit back in a major way
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Wir sind erst seit Kurzem hier bei Bluesky und bräuchten bitte eure Unterstützung: Insta legt unseren Hauptaccount immer wieder lahm und wir würden hier gerne die verlässliche demokratische Alternative aufbauen. Könntet ihr unseren Account vielleicht weiterempfehlen? Das wäre eine Riesenhilfe 💝🌟
December 23, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Wir sind erst seit Kurzem hier bei Bluesky und bräuchten bitte eure Unterstützung: Insta legt unseren Hauptaccount immer wieder lahm und wir würden hier gerne die verlässliche demokratische Alternative aufbauen. Könntet ihr unseren Account vielleicht weiterempfehlen? Das wäre eine Riesenhilfe 💝🌟
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Walter Benjamin wrote that the work of translation is “to liberate the language imprisoned in a work" to find the “pure language” of “the unfathomable, the mysterious, the ‘poetic’”. This is all, of course, utterly anathema to AI
As a multiple language speaker it's also frustrating to see people using AI for translation because the English speaking world tends to treat translators like workers for hire instead of co authors of text and this feels like more of it. Translation at the literary level is creative work.
(2/?)
(2/?)
December 22, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Walter Benjamin wrote that the work of translation is “to liberate the language imprisoned in a work" to find the “pure language” of “the unfathomable, the mysterious, the ‘poetic’”. This is all, of course, utterly anathema to AI
Reposted by Uma Kumar
Still waiting for AI to cure diseases, eliminate climate change and give every animal a home. AI is basically crypto at this point. A propped up Ponzi scheme that will eventually collapse under its own weight.
December 20, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Still waiting for AI to cure diseases, eliminate climate change and give every animal a home. AI is basically crypto at this point. A propped up Ponzi scheme that will eventually collapse under its own weight.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
I think one of the best things my university could do for my mental health is allow me to unsubscribe from end of year emails that tell what a great and wonderful 12 months that was and how jolly things are looking for the future. It's like getting newsletters from a parallel universe.
December 21, 2025 at 12:34 PM
I think one of the best things my university could do for my mental health is allow me to unsubscribe from end of year emails that tell what a great and wonderful 12 months that was and how jolly things are looking for the future. It's like getting newsletters from a parallel universe.
Sounds like an amazing trip.
It's a wrap on our intensive 3-week Jewish-German Berlin program "Migration & Memory," which this year attempted to frame Jewish migration & memory in the context of other groups' within Germany, past & present. Some highlights & speaker recs if others are interested 1/
December 21, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Sounds like an amazing trip.
Reposted by Uma Kumar
How I wish I could have been on this trip!
December 21, 2025 at 4:24 PM
How I wish I could have been on this trip!
Reposted by Uma Kumar
»In Deutschland gilt derjenige, der auf den Schmutz hinweist, als viel gefährlicher als derjenige, der den Schmutz macht.«
Guten Morgen mit Kurt Tucholsky
9. Januar 1890 - 21. Dezember 1935

Guten Morgen mit Kurt Tucholsky
9. Januar 1890 - 21. Dezember 1935

December 21, 2025 at 7:34 AM
»In Deutschland gilt derjenige, der auf den Schmutz hinweist, als viel gefährlicher als derjenige, der den Schmutz macht.«
Guten Morgen mit Kurt Tucholsky
9. Januar 1890 - 21. Dezember 1935

Guten Morgen mit Kurt Tucholsky
9. Januar 1890 - 21. Dezember 1935

Thanks for making it Open Access!
It's out!🍾
I am delighted to announce the publication of our "Germany's History Wars. Contesting Memory and Identity Today"
It is Open Access!
👇 You can download it here for free.
www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
I am delighted to announce the publication of our "Germany's History Wars. Contesting Memory and Identity Today"
It is Open Access!
👇 You can download it here for free.
www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
December 19, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Thanks for making it Open Access!
Please join us on Jan 22 for a talk by Dr. Matache on Anti-Roma Racism in European and Global Studies
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
UBC
cenes.ubc.ca
December 16, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Please join us on Jan 22 for a talk by Dr. Matache on Anti-Roma Racism in European and Global Studies
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...
cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...