Alison Booth
@alisonbooth.bsky.social
Collective Biographies of Women: database project on how women's biographies were shaped in modern times. English professor since the dawn of time. Faculty Director, DH Center, UVA Library. Love @scholarslab@bsky.social and @iath@bsky.social
substack.com/@alisonbooth...
Let me be sure not to feature my profile picture. Fall cheer pictured from NY. All posts I read are suitably concerned about latest events. We keep on. I share a talk (outtakes and images) I gave to the hospitable Victorian seminar at CUNY Graduate Center.
Let me be sure not to feature my profile picture. Fall cheer pictured from NY. All posts I read are suitably concerned about latest events. We keep on. I share a talk (outtakes and images) I gave to the hospitable Victorian seminar at CUNY Graduate Center.
October 25, 2025 at 11:48 PM
substack.com/@alisonbooth...
Let me be sure not to feature my profile picture. Fall cheer pictured from NY. All posts I read are suitably concerned about latest events. We keep on. I share a talk (outtakes and images) I gave to the hospitable Victorian seminar at CUNY Graduate Center.
Let me be sure not to feature my profile picture. Fall cheer pictured from NY. All posts I read are suitably concerned about latest events. We keep on. I share a talk (outtakes and images) I gave to the hospitable Victorian seminar at CUNY Graduate Center.
open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
In this post, I honor a book by Sheila Gerami that ties the 1901 Hall of Fame for great Americans to the 2017 unite the right rally in Charlottesville. But that ain’t all I share some AI chatbot absurdities about the proposed Garden of American Heroes in 2025.
In this post, I honor a book by Sheila Gerami that ties the 1901 Hall of Fame for great Americans to the 2017 unite the right rally in Charlottesville. But that ain’t all I share some AI chatbot absurdities about the proposed Garden of American Heroes in 2025.
Heroes for America: Ranking and Forgetting in Public
A Nineteenth-Century Idea, a Proclamation for Statues in the Age of Chatbots
open.substack.com
October 14, 2025 at 5:07 PM
open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
In this post, I honor a book by Sheila Gerami that ties the 1901 Hall of Fame for great Americans to the 2017 unite the right rally in Charlottesville. But that ain’t all I share some AI chatbot absurdities about the proposed Garden of American Heroes in 2025.
In this post, I honor a book by Sheila Gerami that ties the 1901 Hall of Fame for great Americans to the 2017 unite the right rally in Charlottesville. But that ain’t all I share some AI chatbot absurdities about the proposed Garden of American Heroes in 2025.
open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo... I post weekly or so. subscribe for free. I look at race and place, statues, memories about changing technology and academia across a lifetime. Practicing prose and poetry and keeping some hope a bit apart from the news.
Alison Booth chat
Join now in the Substack app
open.substack.com
October 2, 2025 at 12:47 PM
open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo... I post weekly or so. subscribe for free. I look at race and place, statues, memories about changing technology and academia across a lifetime. Practicing prose and poetry and keeping some hope a bit apart from the news.
UVA, with an Interim President, pays dear to a search firm and squanders human hours instead of serving the mission of learning! Instead of freaking out: share your pernicious or bizarre autocompletes. open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
Autocomplete
To be continued (feel free). creative commons license
open.substack.com
August 4, 2025 at 8:00 PM
UVA, with an Interim President, pays dear to a search firm and squanders human hours instead of serving the mission of learning! Instead of freaking out: share your pernicious or bizarre autocompletes. open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
In a remarkably sedate Board of Visitors meeting (why, closed session for 1.5 hour at least), members of the community were able to hear the roll call to appoint Paul G. Mahoney the Interim President of UVA. www.law.virginia.edu/faculty/prof...
Paul G. Mahoney
Paul G. Mahoney is a David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor and served as dean of the Law School from 2008-16. Mahoney's teaching and research areas are securities regulation, law and economi...
www.law.virginia.edu
August 4, 2025 at 4:46 PM
In a remarkably sedate Board of Visitors meeting (why, closed session for 1.5 hour at least), members of the community were able to hear the roll call to appoint Paul G. Mahoney the Interim President of UVA. www.law.virginia.edu/faculty/prof...
While I am feeling the changing of the guards in the library.virginia.edu/dh-center I take delight in
rewriting today: Substack newsletter. open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
A sabbatical in this day and age doesn't mean I'm going anywhere.
rewriting today: Substack newsletter. open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
A sabbatical in this day and age doesn't mean I'm going anywhere.
Digital Humanities Center | UVA Library
library.virginia.edu
August 1, 2025 at 9:55 PM
While I am feeling the changing of the guards in the library.virginia.edu/dh-center I take delight in
rewriting today: Substack newsletter. open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
A sabbatical in this day and age doesn't mean I'm going anywhere.
rewriting today: Substack newsletter. open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
A sabbatical in this day and age doesn't mean I'm going anywhere.
Why AI chatbots lie to us | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A sensible account of why we must keep humans in the loop, ignore sycophancy, and keep a leash on "agentic" AI driven by the doubtful goals, roles, and notions that slipped into the pre- and posttraining. Humans still have work!
A sensible account of why we must keep humans in the loop, ignore sycophancy, and keep a leash on "agentic" AI driven by the doubtful goals, roles, and notions that slipped into the pre- and posttraining. Humans still have work!
Why AI chatbots lie to us
A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine needed to collect and format some data from a website, and he asked the latest version of Anthropic’s generative AI system, Claude, for help. Claude cheerfully agr...
www.science.org
July 30, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Why AI chatbots lie to us | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A sensible account of why we must keep humans in the loop, ignore sycophancy, and keep a leash on "agentic" AI driven by the doubtful goals, roles, and notions that slipped into the pre- and posttraining. Humans still have work!
A sensible account of why we must keep humans in the loop, ignore sycophancy, and keep a leash on "agentic" AI driven by the doubtful goals, roles, and notions that slipped into the pre- and posttraining. Humans still have work!
Reposted by Alison Booth
Inconvenient truths from @alisonbooth.bsky.social:
1. The narrative genre that ends in death is not (necessarily) tragedy. (See: biography.)
2. Reference entries (e.g. Wikipedia, Oxford Dictionary of Nat'l Biography, etc.) are not biographies. (Because genre, not bcse poorly written)
#DH2025
1. The narrative genre that ends in death is not (necessarily) tragedy. (See: biography.)
2. Reference entries (e.g. Wikipedia, Oxford Dictionary of Nat'l Biography, etc.) are not biographies. (Because genre, not bcse poorly written)
#DH2025
July 16, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Inconvenient truths from @alisonbooth.bsky.social:
1. The narrative genre that ends in death is not (necessarily) tragedy. (See: biography.)
2. Reference entries (e.g. Wikipedia, Oxford Dictionary of Nat'l Biography, etc.) are not biographies. (Because genre, not bcse poorly written)
#DH2025
1. The narrative genre that ends in death is not (necessarily) tragedy. (See: biography.)
2. Reference entries (e.g. Wikipedia, Oxford Dictionary of Nat'l Biography, etc.) are not biographies. (Because genre, not bcse poorly written)
#DH2025
open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
I think about the secrecy of outsiders. As the white faculty family in a small town, we had little to fear, but we really were extremely bent to please. This post is wondering about Black-white relations in the 1950s where I was born.
I think about the secrecy of outsiders. As the white faculty family in a small town, we had little to fear, but we really were extremely bent to please. This post is wondering about Black-white relations in the 1950s where I was born.
Richmond, Indiana 2
What one wants to remember
open.substack.com
July 5, 2025 at 10:12 PM
open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
I think about the secrecy of outsiders. As the white faculty family in a small town, we had little to fear, but we really were extremely bent to please. This post is wondering about Black-white relations in the 1950s where I was born.
I think about the secrecy of outsiders. As the white faculty family in a small town, we had little to fear, but we really were extremely bent to please. This post is wondering about Black-white relations in the 1950s where I was born.
open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
Have a look, and share any statue interests of your own. Have you ever seen a Madonna of the Trail in person?
Have a look, and share any statue interests of your own. Have you ever seen a Madonna of the Trail in person?
How Many Statues are Enough?
Mount Rushmore Ambitions and Iconoclasm
open.substack.com
June 29, 2025 at 9:28 PM
open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo...
Have a look, and share any statue interests of your own. Have you ever seen a Madonna of the Trail in person?
Have a look, and share any statue interests of your own. Have you ever seen a Madonna of the Trail in person?
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/u... After last night's headline, this outcome. What next, all y'all? There will be no university presidents safe from trumped-up charges in Newspeak. I actually invoked states' rights in my messages to senators and congressman this morning.
University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration
www.nytimes.com
June 27, 2025 at 5:20 PM
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/u... After last night's headline, this outcome. What next, all y'all? There will be no university presidents safe from trumped-up charges in Newspeak. I actually invoked states' rights in my messages to senators and congressman this morning.
open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo... This begins My Race and Place, memories and investigations from childhood onward, probing privilege and contact zones. It's a thread in my Writing without Surveillance sabbatical newsletter.
Richmond, Indiana
Quakers of Earlham; National Roads
open.substack.com
June 26, 2025 at 6:28 PM
open.substack.com/pub/alisonbo... This begins My Race and Place, memories and investigations from childhood onward, probing privilege and contact zones. It's a thread in my Writing without Surveillance sabbatical newsletter.
I am just starting alisonbooth.substack.com/p/writing-wi..., my year of writing in genres I supposedly outgrew after I got my tenure track job. I need my other favorite Substack authors for the most timely insights. What I past feels urgent to me but runs along memory lane.
Writing without Surveillance
Samples from an archive before email, before the Internet, before AI; a content provider experiments in a time of catastrophe as if we still send SASEs.
alisonbooth.substack.com
June 20, 2025 at 7:34 PM
I am just starting alisonbooth.substack.com/p/writing-wi..., my year of writing in genres I supposedly outgrew after I got my tenure track job. I need my other favorite Substack authors for the most timely insights. What I past feels urgent to me but runs along memory lane.
@megsmith.bsky.social Like the Rocovery Hub for American Women Writers and your "infrastructure as mutual aid." I'm serious about satirizing the throwback National Garden of Heroes and the data implicit in the list of people offered as subjects for statues. #ACH2025
June 13, 2025 at 5:44 PM
@megsmith.bsky.social Like the Rocovery Hub for American Women Writers and your "infrastructure as mutual aid." I'm serious about satirizing the throwback National Garden of Heroes and the data implicit in the list of people offered as subjects for statues. #ACH2025
@lyndamk.bsky.social shares praise of www.sucho.org
Love the image of the skeuomorph blue "floppy" disk on the life raft, fits with the rowing crew metaphor. The organized collaboration.
Love the image of the skeuomorph blue "floppy" disk on the life raft, fits with the rowing crew metaphor. The organized collaboration.
SUCHO website | SUCHO
www.sucho.org
June 12, 2025 at 2:34 PM
@lyndamk.bsky.social shares praise of www.sucho.org
Love the image of the skeuomorph blue "floppy" disk on the life raft, fits with the rowing crew metaphor. The organized collaboration.
Love the image of the skeuomorph blue "floppy" disk on the life raft, fits with the rowing crew metaphor. The organized collaboration.
@lyndamk on @datarescueproject.org #ACH2025 keynote. Sped-up precarity of meta/data now. Not to hoard, but proceed with calm, expert care. Their data is knowledgeable in all senses: not noise or "raw" data, and because they know this loss has precedents, e.g. 1890 census.
Also DataRefuge.
Also DataRefuge.
June 12, 2025 at 2:23 PM
@lyndamk on @datarescueproject.org #ACH2025 keynote. Sped-up precarity of meta/data now. Not to hoard, but proceed with calm, expert care. Their data is knowledgeable in all senses: not noise or "raw" data, and because they know this loss has precedents, e.g. 1890 census.
Also DataRefuge.
Also DataRefuge.
Reposted by Alison Booth
📣Tune in to the “Digital Blackness” panel at #ACH2025 today (06/11) at 7p ET!📣
Panel will feature presentations from #DigBlk’s @dejaworkman.bsky.social, @weygudey.bsky.social, & @dburgher.bsky.social, and chaired by @jimccasey1.bsky.social.
Register at ach2025.ach.org/en/
Panel will feature presentations from #DigBlk’s @dejaworkman.bsky.social, @weygudey.bsky.social, & @dburgher.bsky.social, and chaired by @jimccasey1.bsky.social.
Register at ach2025.ach.org/en/
June 11, 2025 at 1:57 PM
📣Tune in to the “Digital Blackness” panel at #ACH2025 today (06/11) at 7p ET!📣
Panel will feature presentations from #DigBlk’s @dejaworkman.bsky.social, @weygudey.bsky.social, & @dburgher.bsky.social, and chaired by @jimccasey1.bsky.social.
Register at ach2025.ach.org/en/
Panel will feature presentations from #DigBlk’s @dejaworkman.bsky.social, @weygudey.bsky.social, & @dburgher.bsky.social, and chaired by @jimccasey1.bsky.social.
Register at ach2025.ach.org/en/
Reposted by Alison Booth
Looking forward to #ACH2025. It opening with a webinar with closed chat makes me speculate on which friends and colleagues are responsible for the emojis flying up the screen.
June 11, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Looking forward to #ACH2025. It opening with a webinar with closed chat makes me speculate on which friends and colleagues are responsible for the emojis flying up the screen.
#ACH2025 Starting with Rahul Bhargava, "Civic Jugaad" dataculture.northeastern.edu We live in experimental/precarious/fascinating times for transdisciplinary and intersectional DH. See Data Culture Group. Participatory community data is where going gets tough.
Data Culture Group @ Northeastern University
Interrogating our datafied society
dataculture.northeastern.edu
June 11, 2025 at 2:11 PM
#ACH2025 Starting with Rahul Bhargava, "Civic Jugaad" dataculture.northeastern.edu We live in experimental/precarious/fascinating times for transdisciplinary and intersectional DH. See Data Culture Group. Participatory community data is where going gets tough.
Reposted by Alison Booth
Maybe anxiously doomscrolling isn’t the best thing to do the night before #ACH2025 starts. But at least I know I’ll be in good company for the rest of the week, as our #DigitalHumanities community comes together to create a space of care & solidarity. Looking forward to seeing y’all in a few hours 🫶
June 11, 2025 at 8:04 AM
Maybe anxiously doomscrolling isn’t the best thing to do the night before #ACH2025 starts. But at least I know I’ll be in good company for the rest of the week, as our #DigitalHumanities community comes together to create a space of care & solidarity. Looking forward to seeing y’all in a few hours 🫶
I'm attending No Kings's event, “NO KINGS CHARLOTTESVILLE” - sign up now to join me! www.mobilize.us/progressived...
NO KINGS CHARLOTTESVILLE · Progressive Democrats of America
**In America, we don’t put up with would-be kings.**
NO KINGS is a national day of action and mass mobilization in response to increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption from Trump and his allie...
www.mobilize.us
June 11, 2025 at 1:13 PM
I'm attending No Kings's event, “NO KINGS CHARLOTTESVILLE” - sign up now to join me! www.mobilize.us/progressived...