Alexander R. Phillips
@arphillips.bsky.social
Assistant professor of English at Ashoka University, read: rogue Germanist in India. Author: "Ecology and German Realism." Literature, ecocriticism, environmental humanities, C19. I cycle, I make beer, I think about books for money.
Pinned
Before Environmentalism: Nature and Industry in German Literature
Alexander Philips explores how authors such as Raabe and Stifter grappled with the environmental changes that industrialization bought about.
boydellandbrewer.com
Please read my book, "Ecology and German Realism," out now with @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social. But if you're in a hurry, you can also read this.
#litwiss
boydellandbrewer.com/blog/german/...
#litwiss
boydellandbrewer.com/blog/german/...
"Write an e-mail announcing that 1/3 of the staff are to be laid off. Include two sentences about how painful it is to *me.*"
An important enabling structure that is helping slop makes its way into institutional life is several decades of built in bullshit bureaucratic bloat that is not meaningfully attached to advancing institutional goal but nonetheless has to be ground out week after week. It’s a natural home for slop.
February 15, 2026 at 4:58 AM
"Write an e-mail announcing that 1/3 of the staff are to be laid off. Include two sentences about how painful it is to *me.*"
I always called Abrams a card shuffler, this is better. Star Trek and Star Wars both should have been left in the 20th century.
February 15, 2026 at 3:17 AM
I always called Abrams a card shuffler, this is better. Star Trek and Star Wars both should have been left in the 20th century.
Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips
ChatGPT is like this Magic Button you can press to *instantly* make your instructor sad and anxious; like a non-commital insult pre-packaged in digital form.
February 12, 2026 at 2:03 AM
ChatGPT is like this Magic Button you can press to *instantly* make your instructor sad and anxious; like a non-commital insult pre-packaged in digital form.
"AI" has such a hard time imagining itself, it's basically impossible! 🤔
Researchers working with the A.I. system Claude have come to understand that the model’s selfhood, like our own, is a matter of both neurons and narratives. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/kEX1vV
February 11, 2026 at 9:39 AM
"AI" has such a hard time imagining itself, it's basically impossible! 🤔
Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips
I drew a face on a paper plate. Who could even begin to understand how it perceives the world or what it dreams of?
Researchers working with the A.I. system Claude have come to understand that the model’s selfhood, like our own, is a matter of both neurons and narratives. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/kEX1vV
February 11, 2026 at 4:39 AM
I drew a face on a paper plate. Who could even begin to understand how it perceives the world or what it dreams of?
Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work.
"B+ is a perfectly respectable grade ... Sorry, grades are non-negotiable ... The grade that you have is the grade that you earned ... How about you make an appointment with me after semester break?"
"B+ is a perfectly respectable grade ... Sorry, grades are non-negotiable ... The grade that you have is the grade that you earned ... How about you make an appointment with me after semester break?"
Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work.
"Where are your citations?"
"Where are your citations?"
Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work.
"No, you can't leave that here."
"No, you can't leave that here."
February 8, 2026 at 1:59 AM
Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work.
"B+ is a perfectly respectable grade ... Sorry, grades are non-negotiable ... The grade that you have is the grade that you earned ... How about you make an appointment with me after semester break?"
"B+ is a perfectly respectable grade ... Sorry, grades are non-negotiable ... The grade that you have is the grade that you earned ... How about you make an appointment with me after semester break?"
Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips
Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities.
February 5, 2026 at 1:47 PM
Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities.
Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips
Someone made "AI" videos of my late grandmother and I was pissed. Leaving aside that it was a bad likeness, it implied that I couldn't face loss and needed to be shielded from the most basic facts of being alive. Better would be to save the water and energy and just tell me she's on a farm upstate.
Grief has a point, even as gut wrenching and consuming as it feels.
I cannot think of anything unhealthier for me right now, as I grapple with my mother's loss, than engaging with a chabot of her--neither human nor real in any meaningful way.
Not to mention, she would haunt me if I tried this.
I cannot think of anything unhealthier for me right now, as I grapple with my mother's loss, than engaging with a chabot of her--neither human nor real in any meaningful way.
Not to mention, she would haunt me if I tried this.
AI “deadbots” aim to replace the dead—and raise plenty of ethical issues, Charley Burlock argues. “Perhaps the biggest question is how such a product might shift our experience of personal grief and collective memory.”
February 4, 2026 at 6:17 PM
Someone made "AI" videos of my late grandmother and I was pissed. Leaving aside that it was a bad likeness, it implied that I couldn't face loss and needed to be shielded from the most basic facts of being alive. Better would be to save the water and energy and just tell me she's on a farm upstate.
Me designing a class on Marx's "Capital": Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!
Me teaching the chapters about money: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
Me teaching the chapters about money: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
February 3, 2026 at 4:21 PM
Me designing a class on Marx's "Capital": Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!
Me teaching the chapters about money: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
Me teaching the chapters about money: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
Eat your heart out, "Middlemarch," you've got nothing on this banger.
And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I’m a crow
February 2, 2026 at 3:24 AM
Eat your heart out, "Middlemarch," you've got nothing on this banger.
"chomsky fri dinner"
😑
😑
Among the batch of newly released emails from Jeffrey Epstein: Epstein telling Peter Thiel he would “gladly share…expenses for the Gawker suit.”
This was sent the day after @rmac.bsky.social and @mattdrange.bsky.social reported in Forbes that Thiel was behind the lawsuit that would bankrupt Gawker
This was sent the day after @rmac.bsky.social and @mattdrange.bsky.social reported in Forbes that Thiel was behind the lawsuit that would bankrupt Gawker
February 1, 2026 at 3:47 PM
"chomsky fri dinner"
😑
😑
Nevermind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college:
Oceanography
The Monstrous Feminine in Horror Cinema
Intro to Yiddish
Shakespeare's History Plays
Faust
Oceanography
The Monstrous Feminine in Horror Cinema
Intro to Yiddish
Shakespeare's History Plays
Faust
Nevermind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college:
Comic Fiction
Seminar in World Music (learned to play music from Indonesia and Ghana, got into ethnomusicology)
Italian
Intro to Philosophy
Artificial Intelligence /ducks
Comic Fiction
Seminar in World Music (learned to play music from Indonesia and Ghana, got into ethnomusicology)
Italian
Intro to Philosophy
Artificial Intelligence /ducks
Nevermind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college:
Intro to Ordinary Differential Equations
Digital Design
Modern Physics
Electronics Lab
Choral Conducting
Intro to Ordinary Differential Equations
Digital Design
Modern Physics
Electronics Lab
Choral Conducting
January 31, 2026 at 2:37 PM
Nevermind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college:
Oceanography
The Monstrous Feminine in Horror Cinema
Intro to Yiddish
Shakespeare's History Plays
Faust
Oceanography
The Monstrous Feminine in Horror Cinema
Intro to Yiddish
Shakespeare's History Plays
Faust
Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips
The Dept. of Appearing to Take Things Rather Seriously While Wearing a Navy Sport Coat and No Tie is actively searching for a Dean of Comfortably Ordering Wine in a DC Steakhouse Where Denny Hastert Used to Sit Right Over There. The position will pay $580,000. The history department is abolished
Yale is launching a new Presidential Senior Fellowship to expand access to the transformative work of universities. As part of this program, author and columnist David Brooks will join the Jackson School of Global Affairs starting February 1.
Read more in Yale News: bit.ly/49QpJoY
Read more in Yale News: bit.ly/49QpJoY
January 29, 2026 at 9:45 PM
The Dept. of Appearing to Take Things Rather Seriously While Wearing a Navy Sport Coat and No Tie is actively searching for a Dean of Comfortably Ordering Wine in a DC Steakhouse Where Denny Hastert Used to Sit Right Over There. The position will pay $580,000. The history department is abolished
Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips
don’t let chatgpt in the shire
January 30, 2026 at 2:30 AM
don’t let chatgpt in the shire
"Moby-Dick" is basically about Ishmael's complicated suicide attempt, and in the end he's the only one to survive. 🐳
Reminder that in the first paragraph of the novel, Ishmael is window shopping for a coffin when he decides to go to sea. 🐋
(The Pequod 🐋 has lost its wooden cask life-buoy, and the carpenter is converting an unused coffin as replacement)
"Here now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further?"
"Here now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further?"
January 29, 2026 at 7:49 AM
"Moby-Dick" is basically about Ishmael's complicated suicide attempt, and in the end he's the only one to survive. 🐳
Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips
(The Pequod 🐋 has lost its wooden cask life-buoy, and the carpenter is converting an unused coffin as replacement)
"Here now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further?"
"Here now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further?"
January 28, 2026 at 2:43 PM
(The Pequod 🐋 has lost its wooden cask life-buoy, and the carpenter is converting an unused coffin as replacement)
"Here now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further?"
"Here now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further?"
Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips
Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own.”
I feel you, Melville
I feel you, Melville
January 29, 2026 at 12:45 AM
“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own.”
I feel you, Melville
I feel you, Melville
Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips
to make a documentary after Melania is barbaric
January 28, 2026 at 3:38 AM
to make a documentary after Melania is barbaric
Reposted by Alexander R. Phillips
He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad.
January 27, 2026 at 1:47 PM
He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad.
And that horny book should be, of course, Moby-Dick. 🐳
I don’t think students should only read horny books in college, but they should be assigned at least one (1) very horny book at some point when they’re in college.
January 27, 2026 at 4:57 AM
And that horny book should be, of course, Moby-Dick. 🐳
A colleague and her students organized a "Moby-Dick" readathon. We'll be spending the weekend dorking out. 🐳
January 24, 2026 at 3:12 AM
A colleague and her students organized a "Moby-Dick" readathon. We'll be spending the weekend dorking out. 🐳
Calling all the PhDs I know to make monumental annoyances of themselves (and honestly, who better)
January 23, 2026 at 3:59 AM
A colleague is organizing a Moby-Dick readathon on campus this weekend. I'm assigned "Etymologies" and "The Grand Armada," I'm so stoked. 🐳
Fun bluesky fact is that no matter what else is going on, someone is always reading Moby Dick
January 22, 2026 at 2:18 AM
A colleague is organizing a Moby-Dick readathon on campus this weekend. I'm assigned "Etymologies" and "The Grand Armada," I'm so stoked. 🐳