Ben Wurgaft
@benwurgaft.bsky.social
writer, historian, appetite!
there is a humanistic equivalent to innumeracy besides "illiteracy."
https://benwurgaft.org/
there is a humanistic equivalent to innumeracy besides "illiteracy."
https://benwurgaft.org/
Pinned
Ben Wurgaft
@benwurgaft.bsky.social
· May 18
I have a new cool guy thing I do which is, when I see a driver weaving across lanes of highway traffic, I say "whoa check out Anni Albers over there."
when I go to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston/first I go to the room where they keep the paintings of acorns/but if I had beside me a squirrel friend/I could look through the paintings, look right through them - 'cause I'd have found something that I understand - I understand a squirrel friend
January 5, 2026 at 2:18 PM
when I go to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston/first I go to the room where they keep the paintings of acorns/but if I had beside me a squirrel friend/I could look through the paintings, look right through them - 'cause I'd have found something that I understand - I understand a squirrel friend
Reposted by Ben Wurgaft
Ah, academia, where having published on a topic is both necessary but also apparently shameful, unless you can claim a fundamental newness contrary to every lesson we've ever been taught on scholarship.
January 5, 2026 at 1:39 PM
Ah, academia, where having published on a topic is both necessary but also apparently shameful, unless you can claim a fundamental newness contrary to every lesson we've ever been taught on scholarship.
Reposted by Ben Wurgaft
hey!
hey!!!
if you are an academic of any rank in the critical tech studies space who cares about how money, finance, and business structures work in science and technology, i want to see your abstracts for a collected volume! they're due tomorrow!!!
https//oddletters.com/tech-money/
hey!!!
if you are an academic of any rank in the critical tech studies space who cares about how money, finance, and business structures work in science and technology, i want to see your abstracts for a collected volume! they're due tomorrow!!!
https//oddletters.com/tech-money/
January 5, 2026 at 1:30 PM
hey!
hey!!!
if you are an academic of any rank in the critical tech studies space who cares about how money, finance, and business structures work in science and technology, i want to see your abstracts for a collected volume! they're due tomorrow!!!
https//oddletters.com/tech-money/
hey!!!
if you are an academic of any rank in the critical tech studies space who cares about how money, finance, and business structures work in science and technology, i want to see your abstracts for a collected volume! they're due tomorrow!!!
https//oddletters.com/tech-money/
yes, but hear me out, a Procrustean gyre would be even worse.
Hate it when I wake up in a wider gyre than the one I went to sleep in
January 3, 2026 at 4:36 PM
yes, but hear me out, a Procrustean gyre would be even worse.
After all the talk about restoring the glory of American industry, here they go, "doing a regime change" without even manufacturing consent domestically.
January 3, 2026 at 2:06 PM
After all the talk about restoring the glory of American industry, here they go, "doing a regime change" without even manufacturing consent domestically.
How can professors prove their merit? Well, I recommend doing your doctorate with a friend of your Dad's from grad school.
January 2, 2026 at 9:06 PM
How can professors prove their merit? Well, I recommend doing your doctorate with a friend of your Dad's from grad school.
I often let New Years go without so much as a party hat ("Gregorian calendar, mumble mumble, arbitrary, mumble mumble") but this year I decided to mark the day: from the old rabbit to the new, and some things I have never made before: Irish soda bread, and a vegetarian (!) hoppin' john.
January 2, 2026 at 9:04 PM
I often let New Years go without so much as a party hat ("Gregorian calendar, mumble mumble, arbitrary, mumble mumble") but this year I decided to mark the day: from the old rabbit to the new, and some things I have never made before: Irish soda bread, and a vegetarian (!) hoppin' john.
Reposted by Ben Wurgaft
When you get the reputation of being the guy with the encouraging words on New Year's Eve, it can start to come through as a little pressure -- what if the situation on the ground is worse than usual? what if people are more scared than they usually are, and with cause? what use are good vibes then?
December 31, 2025 at 11:21 PM
When you get the reputation of being the guy with the encouraging words on New Year's Eve, it can start to come through as a little pressure -- what if the situation on the ground is worse than usual? what if people are more scared than they usually are, and with cause? what use are good vibes then?
Despite all my rage I am still just
A) gnocchi, brown butter, sage
B) cheddar plus skilled affinage
C) a stained Silver Palette page
A) gnocchi, brown butter, sage
B) cheddar plus skilled affinage
C) a stained Silver Palette page
December 31, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Despite all my rage I am still just
A) gnocchi, brown butter, sage
B) cheddar plus skilled affinage
C) a stained Silver Palette page
A) gnocchi, brown butter, sage
B) cheddar plus skilled affinage
C) a stained Silver Palette page
Too many book reviews are like “this is a well-informed study of the history of citrus-growing up and down the Italian peninsula. Unfortunately, the author fails to explain how this knowledge helps us to break the power of the Dark at its midwinter height.”
December 31, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Too many book reviews are like “this is a well-informed study of the history of citrus-growing up and down the Italian peninsula. Unfortunately, the author fails to explain how this knowledge helps us to break the power of the Dark at its midwinter height.”
I’ve been following @meganlcook.bsky.social’s dirtbag medievalism project eagerly - looking forward to this:
hey hey! as promised, we're back with a new episode! here we talk with @meganlcook.bsky.social about book history (including how reading works now) and grungy, gritty "dirtbag" visions of the Middle Ages.
happy listening #medievalsky!
pca.st/zt66xxja
happy listening #medievalsky!
pca.st/zt66xxja
Dirtbag Medievalism with Megan L. Cook
pca.st
December 31, 2025 at 2:42 PM
I’ve been following @meganlcook.bsky.social’s dirtbag medievalism project eagerly - looking forward to this:
established professor: they forced us to lecture in masks!
me, as a lifetime observer of established professors: you were all wearing masks your whole careers, that's why they call it imposter syndrome.
me, as a lifetime observer of established professors: you were all wearing masks your whole careers, that's why they call it imposter syndrome.
December 31, 2025 at 2:12 AM
established professor: they forced us to lecture in masks!
me, as a lifetime observer of established professors: you were all wearing masks your whole careers, that's why they call it imposter syndrome.
me, as a lifetime observer of established professors: you were all wearing masks your whole careers, that's why they call it imposter syndrome.
per NYT, ”With Doge, Big Disruptions Returned Meager Savings.” But how about avoiding the inelegant “With…“ formulation: ”Doge Returned Meager Savings.” Saved three words and a comma.
December 29, 2025 at 1:49 PM
per NYT, ”With Doge, Big Disruptions Returned Meager Savings.” But how about avoiding the inelegant “With…“ formulation: ”Doge Returned Meager Savings.” Saved three words and a comma.
Perhaps like myself, you have wondered if the staff at Berghain know that American high schools students have access to "Could You Get In To Berghain?" computer simulations. I can now report that, yes, they do.
December 29, 2025 at 3:22 AM
Perhaps like myself, you have wondered if the staff at Berghain know that American high schools students have access to "Could You Get In To Berghain?" computer simulations. I can now report that, yes, they do.
Reposted by Ben Wurgaft
A pet peeve: when an established scholar declares that they wrote their conference paper on the plane (or, worse, in their hotel room after a night of carousing).
It either signals disregard for the enterprise or serves as a self-congratulatory boast about their own brilliance.
Seems to me.
It either signals disregard for the enterprise or serves as a self-congratulatory boast about their own brilliance.
Seems to me.
December 28, 2025 at 5:16 PM
A pet peeve: when an established scholar declares that they wrote their conference paper on the plane (or, worse, in their hotel room after a night of carousing).
It either signals disregard for the enterprise or serves as a self-congratulatory boast about their own brilliance.
Seems to me.
It either signals disregard for the enterprise or serves as a self-congratulatory boast about their own brilliance.
Seems to me.
my favorite structure built in my home town since my birth is not a building. It is a stone bench inscribed with words from Woolf’s Orlando, now picked out in snow:
December 28, 2025 at 4:40 PM
my favorite structure built in my home town since my birth is not a building. It is a stone bench inscribed with words from Woolf’s Orlando, now picked out in snow:
Dessert course accidentally celebrating Walter Benjamin, the great flaneur (flan, and tragically, but deliciously, gateaux basque)
December 27, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Dessert course accidentally celebrating Walter Benjamin, the great flaneur (flan, and tragically, but deliciously, gateaux basque)
All these posts about "academic" James Bond movie titles confuse me, because my own career as an academic involved car chases through the Alps, killing guys while wearing a tux, bedding age-inappropriate starlets, and listening to villain monologues while strapped to a space laser.
December 26, 2025 at 6:33 PM
All these posts about "academic" James Bond movie titles confuse me, because my own career as an academic involved car chases through the Alps, killing guys while wearing a tux, bedding age-inappropriate starlets, and listening to villain monologues while strapped to a space laser.
Maybe you haven't heard David Rakoff's remarkable report about his time as "Christmas Freud" in the window of Barney's, in New York? It aired in 1996 on This American Life, and it makes a perfect gift for fans of psychoanalysis, shopping, or secular Judaism.
www.thisamericanlife.org/47/christmas...
www.thisamericanlife.org/47/christmas...
Christmas Freud - This American Life
David Rakoff tells about his experience playing Sigmund Freud in the window of upscale Barney's department store in Manhattan.
www.thisamericanlife.org
December 24, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Maybe you haven't heard David Rakoff's remarkable report about his time as "Christmas Freud" in the window of Barney's, in New York? It aired in 1996 on This American Life, and it makes a perfect gift for fans of psychoanalysis, shopping, or secular Judaism.
www.thisamericanlife.org/47/christmas...
www.thisamericanlife.org/47/christmas...
“would you like an extra pair of hands?” I ask my mother in the kitchen. “Yes, but they need to be attached to my same brain.”
December 24, 2025 at 3:32 PM
“would you like an extra pair of hands?” I ask my mother in the kitchen. “Yes, but they need to be attached to my same brain.”
This Christmas, don’t forget the Reason for the Season
December 24, 2025 at 1:08 AM
This Christmas, don’t forget the Reason for the Season
19th C Kyoto is on fire for my new browser, netsuke navigator.
December 23, 2025 at 10:43 PM
19th C Kyoto is on fire for my new browser, netsuke navigator.
In which Charles Dickens becomes synonymous with Christmas and invents his own form of time travel, with your guide, @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social - perfect for listening to whilst prepping your fruitcakes, Christmas goose, or latkes: omny.fm/shows/in-the...
Christmas Special: Tobias Wilson-Bates on Charles Dickens - In These Times with Bill Nigut
omny.fm
December 22, 2025 at 9:25 PM
In which Charles Dickens becomes synonymous with Christmas and invents his own form of time travel, with your guide, @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social - perfect for listening to whilst prepping your fruitcakes, Christmas goose, or latkes: omny.fm/shows/in-the...
for my PhD exams I spent months reading 300+ books in European intellectual history, modern European history, modern Jewish history, medieval Jewish history, and critical theory. There is a huge difference between the style of reading that accommodates this, and having a computer "summarize" books.
December 22, 2025 at 8:01 PM
for my PhD exams I spent months reading 300+ books in European intellectual history, modern European history, modern Jewish history, medieval Jewish history, and critical theory. There is a huge difference between the style of reading that accommodates this, and having a computer "summarize" books.
Reposted by Ben Wurgaft
Hi all: reupping my perennial call for indexing and editing clients for Spring / Summer 2026. It might be my last year doing this work, so get it while it's hot! Email at sosment@uchicago.edu for rate and availability. Feel free to share!
December 22, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Hi all: reupping my perennial call for indexing and editing clients for Spring / Summer 2026. It might be my last year doing this work, so get it while it's hot! Email at sosment@uchicago.edu for rate and availability. Feel free to share!