Alan Liu

@alanyliu.bsky.social

2.8K followers 300 following 320 posts

I'm a professor in digital humanities & English at UC Santa Barbara. For public humanities, I founded http://4Humanities.org & co-founded https://center-humanities-communication.org/. My website: https://liu.english.ucsb.edu/ .. more

Videos

Art 25%

Communication & Media Studies 17%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 14d

In the photo in my last post, the painting behind me in my dining room is one I own by artist Harry Reese, ccs.ucsb.edu/ccs-profiles...: a 61 x 47 inch oil work titled "Consensual Hallucination" in allusion to the canonical passage defining "cyberspace" in William Gibson's novel, Neuromancer.

Abstract oil painting by artist Harry Rees in blue-gray and burnt-orange colors titled "Consensual Hallucination" (61 x 47 inches)

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 14d

Physical copies of our Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities book (newest volume in Debates in DH series) arrived today just in time for the holidays! www.upress.umn.edu/978151791608... @uminnpress.bsky.social

Alan Liu cradling in his arm five copies of the paperback edition of Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities while standing in front of a painting against the red wall of his dining room. The painting is a large, abstract oil work in blue-gray and burnt-orange colors by artist Harry Reese; it is titled "Consensual Hallucination" in allusion to the canonical passage defining "cyberspace" in William Gibson's novel, Neuromancer.

Reposted by Shawn Graham, Alan Liu

Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 22d

We’re doing it, y’all!

Starting this spring @skeuomorphpress.org will sponsor a "Media Necromancy" speaker series—each talk will "unearths what @alanyliu.bsky.social describes as 'the déjá vu haunting of new by old media'"

Hoping for skeuomorphic talks about a range of time periods/locations/&c.+

“Media Necromancy” Series – Skeuomorph Press

skeuomorph.ischool.illinois.edu

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 29d

Thanks, Steve ;)

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · Dec 7

To my knowledge, alt-text is plain text only. No italics & other formatting or HTML rendering—in great part because that defeats the purpose of alt-text for enabling vision-impaired readers to use screen reader devices, etc. So my underscores were improper.

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · Dec 5

Thanks! Is “Bildbeschreibung” the standard German for “alt-text” in a digital/technical context?

Reposted by Alan Liu

James Smithies @jamessmithies.bsky.social · Dec 4

It’s exciting to see this long-running project, that evolved after formative conversations in Aotearoa New Zealand many years ago, coming to fruition.

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · Dec 4

I think my improvised alt-text for the book cover captures well our book's general, collective spirit toward the idea/practice of infrastructrure. The tension between systematicity & what lies beyond the system is what powers the 1st word in our title: Critical Infrastructure Studies and DH....

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · Dec 4

I had fun writing alt-text for this image of the cover of the new _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities book (in Debates in DH series) I co-edited. See alt-text of the image. (Book description & contents here: www.upress.umn.edu/978151791608...) @uminnpress.bsky.social.

Cover of new book in the U. Minnesota Press Debates in DH series: _Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_, eds. Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, and James Smithies. The book cover shows the title of the book in large, upper-case-only, sans-serif block letters (colored yellow for "Critical Infrastructure Studies" and red for "Digital Humanities") against a diagonally tiled, grey background with a drawn, shaded texture suggesting concrete. The overall visual effect is of text stenciled on a concrete wall in an urban infrastructural environment whose brutalist modern style has been given nuance in two ways. First, the architect has qualified the heavy-handed systematicity of modernism through the decor of slightly irregular tesselation (the tiles are of several shapes in an overall geometry whose system is unclear and unpredictable). Then it is as if some street artist or street theater group has come along and stencil spray-painted a poster for their improv event over the building wall.

Reposted by Martin Paul Eve, Brian Keegan, Michael Hancher , and 1 more Martin Paul Eve, Brian Keegan, Michael Hancher, Frank Fischer

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · Dec 4

U Minnesota Press's Spring 26 catalog, listing our new Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities (in Debates in DH series), eds. Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, @jamessmithies.bsky.social): z.umn.edu/spring26. Table of contents: www.upress.umn.edu/978151791608... @uminnpress.bsky.social

Screenshot of page 52 University of Minnesota Press Spring 2026 catalog, showing the book cover, description, and contributor names of the new book in the Debates in DH series (ed. Alan Liu, Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, and James Smithies) titled _Critical Infrastructrure Studies and Digital Humanities_. The text of the description reads as follows:

How digital humanities can shape and be shaped by the infrastructures that sustain our world.

_Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities_ reimagines the digital humanities (DH) through the expanding field of critical infrastructure studies. Featuring voices from around the globe, this volume explores how DH builds on and extends theories and technologies of infrastructure that affect society, culture, and knowledge in different national and regional contexts. Examining DH’s own infrastructural genealogy, the contributors offer readers critical reflections and bold visions for the future as they address issues of environmentalism, decolonization, Indigenous sovereignty, multilingualism, labor justice, feminism, national development, and beyond from a variety of disciplinary perspectives embedded in concrete digital systems. Including innovative “infrastructure manifests,” the essays in this book illuminate how DH can both study and shape the systems that sustain culture, scholarship, and connection....

Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · Nov 7

Fan letter I wrote to journalist Alina Tugend for her “Building a Thriving Humanities Program,” Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 25, 2025, www.chronicle.com/report/licen.... (A non-paywalled PDF here: www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/cor... )

Screenshot of email sent by Alan Liu to Alina Tugend on Nov. 6, 2025. Text of the email reads:

"Dear Alina,

I finally had a chance to read your piece on "Building a Thriving Humanities Program." I just wanted to send you a note expressing my admiration of it. It's terrific longform reporting grounded on superb research from all over the nation. The piece is just bristling with reports on innovative programs and curricular revisions in the humanities elsewhere, but is framed in a way that brings a unifying perspective to it all so that the sum of the efforts seems like more than panicked humanities people throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. All the tactics, in your writing up of them, suggest broader strategies.

Kudos to you."

Reposted by Alan Liu

Scott Kleinman @skleinman.bsky.social · Nov 7

Like many DH colleagues, I've been testing the vibe coding waters. As a case study, I ended up re-engineering Andrew Goldstone's dfr-browser for exploring topic models. github.com/scottkleinma... It has a bright new look, a lot of new features, and it's hopefully easier to use. +