Chris Forster
@cforster.bsky.social
Associate English Prof., Syracuse University.
Interested in modernism, history of media, obscenity, and computational approaches to literary studies (uh, fine *digital humanities*).
https://cforster.com
Interested in modernism, history of media, obscenity, and computational approaches to literary studies (uh, fine *digital humanities*).
https://cforster.com
Reposted by Chris Forster
February 5, 2026 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by Chris Forster
If you, like me, are horrified by the censoring of academics at my alma mater @tamu.bsky.social, please consider signing the petition to Defend Academic Freedom at Texas A&M University here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/de...
Let teachers teach. 🗃️
Let teachers teach. 🗃️
bsky.app
February 1, 2026 at 7:49 PM
If you, like me, are horrified by the censoring of academics at my alma mater @tamu.bsky.social, please consider signing the petition to Defend Academic Freedom at Texas A&M University here: actionnetwork.org/petitions/de...
Let teachers teach. 🗃️
Let teachers teach. 🗃️
Reposted by Chris Forster
So, a quick note on Oakland Review of Books, or ORB: a handful of us are working to will it into existence, and--aside from a big boost to get started from our friends at @ebbooksellers.bsky.social--it's a self-funded operation whose goal is to exist and enable writing like this.
You might enjoy my little essay on Greatness in Art in the age of AI, AKA, "Sinners is Great, actually, but greatness doesn't exist, also." www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/sinners-one-...
Talking Greatness to Death
Sinners is WAY too much movie, a level of movie one might even say filmmakers are proscribed from producing. Period drama about race AND vampire slasher? A genre movie with Ideas? In this economy?
www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org
January 30, 2026 at 2:58 PM
So, a quick note on Oakland Review of Books, or ORB: a handful of us are working to will it into existence, and--aside from a big boost to get started from our friends at @ebbooksellers.bsky.social--it's a self-funded operation whose goal is to exist and enable writing like this.
Reposted by Chris Forster
This thread here. Studying histories of human creativity convince me that modern copyright law is beyond broken & generally damaging for artistic expression
But I understand why that ideal feels inadequate as we watch trillion-dollar companies exploit it to steal from artists
But I understand why that ideal feels inadequate as we watch trillion-dollar companies exploit it to steal from artists
When I tell people I don‘t believe in strong copyright laws they look at me so confused and are taken aback. But it’s consonant with so many of these folks’ other values. How quickly the AI issue has altered ppl‘s opinions!
January 27, 2026 at 4:56 PM
This thread here. Studying histories of human creativity convince me that modern copyright law is beyond broken & generally damaging for artistic expression
But I understand why that ideal feels inadequate as we watch trillion-dollar companies exploit it to steal from artists
But I understand why that ideal feels inadequate as we watch trillion-dollar companies exploit it to steal from artists
Reposted by Chris Forster
For CRITICAL INQUIRY,
I reviewed @leifw.bsky.social’s very important LANGUAGE MACHINES. Also, unless someone tells me different, I’m going to lay claim to the first F bomb in CI’s history.
I reviewed @leifw.bsky.social’s very important LANGUAGE MACHINES. Also, unless someone tells me different, I’m going to lay claim to the first F bomb in CI’s history.
"Cultural AI is called out in the subtitle not as a plea to attend to AI’s better half but because culture has been detached from cognition for too long."
New in review, Matthew Kirschenbaum on Leif Weatherby's Language Machines: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/matthew_kirs...
New in review, Matthew Kirschenbaum on Leif Weatherby's Language Machines: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/matthew_kirs...
January 9, 2026 at 1:55 AM
For CRITICAL INQUIRY,
I reviewed @leifw.bsky.social’s very important LANGUAGE MACHINES. Also, unless someone tells me different, I’m going to lay claim to the first F bomb in CI’s history.
I reviewed @leifw.bsky.social’s very important LANGUAGE MACHINES. Also, unless someone tells me different, I’m going to lay claim to the first F bomb in CI’s history.
Reposted by Chris Forster
Happy public domain day to Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Hughes’ Not Without Laughter, the first four Nancy Drew novels, Betty Boop, and more! web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicd...
Public Domain Day 2026 | Duke University School of Law
January 1, 2026 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1930 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1925! By Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle[1] CC BY 4.0 Please note that this site is only about US l...
web.law.duke.edu
January 1, 2026 at 1:45 PM
Happy public domain day to Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Hughes’ Not Without Laughter, the first four Nancy Drew novels, Betty Boop, and more! web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicd...
Reposted by Chris Forster
so we sucked on, chili dogs behind the Tastee Freeze, borne ceaselessly into life going on
December 17, 2025 at 12:25 PM
so we sucked on, chili dogs behind the Tastee Freeze, borne ceaselessly into life going on
Reposted by Chris Forster
Whose bird this is, I think I know
His falcon cannot hear him though;
He will not see the widening gyre
That set the blood-dimmed tide to flow.
That great rough beast must think it queer,
That Bethlehem is very near
In what strange desert did it wake
As centers fell apart this year?
His falcon cannot hear him though;
He will not see the widening gyre
That set the blood-dimmed tide to flow.
That great rough beast must think it queer,
That Bethlehem is very near
In what strange desert did it wake
As centers fell apart this year?
December 23, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Whose bird this is, I think I know
His falcon cannot hear him though;
He will not see the widening gyre
That set the blood-dimmed tide to flow.
That great rough beast must think it queer,
That Bethlehem is very near
In what strange desert did it wake
As centers fell apart this year?
His falcon cannot hear him though;
He will not see the widening gyre
That set the blood-dimmed tide to flow.
That great rough beast must think it queer,
That Bethlehem is very near
In what strange desert did it wake
As centers fell apart this year?
Reposted by Chris Forster
but not very long
waiting for the whole thing to leak
December 23, 2025 at 2:03 AM
but not very long
Reposted by Chris Forster
I worry that the inclusion of a probability score makes people think these tools are more reliable than they are. Even if you know the tools are unreliable, you might see “92%” and think: well, odds are pretty high. But if the entire methodology is faulty, then the probability is, too.
“More than 40% of surveyed 6th- to 12th-grade teachers used AI detection tools during the last school year, according to a nationally representative poll by the Center for Democracy and Technology…”
Teachers are using software to see if students used AI. What happens when it's wrong?
School districts from Utah to Ohio to Alabama are spending thousands of dollars on these tools, despite research showing the technology is far from reliable.
www.kgou.org
December 17, 2025 at 3:28 PM
I worry that the inclusion of a probability score makes people think these tools are more reliable than they are. Even if you know the tools are unreliable, you might see “92%” and think: well, odds are pretty high. But if the entire methodology is faulty, then the probability is, too.
Reposted by Chris Forster
the proximate reason i post here — beyond the fact that i like a lot of you and enjoy reading your thoughts and jokes and observations — is that this is a non-algorithmic platform where people share lots of stuff and people read what is shared. that's still valuable even if it doesn't "influence!"
December 15, 2025 at 8:17 PM
the proximate reason i post here — beyond the fact that i like a lot of you and enjoy reading your thoughts and jokes and observations — is that this is a non-algorithmic platform where people share lots of stuff and people read what is shared. that's still valuable even if it doesn't "influence!"
Reposted by Chris Forster
Folks, this is a massive (up to $5 mil) matching fund program for "Western civilization, American history and government, and civics." This is the govt siphoning your tax dollars off to those Centers for civics & W Civ being founded by conserv politicians and donors+
December 15, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Folks, this is a massive (up to $5 mil) matching fund program for "Western civilization, American history and government, and civics." This is the govt siphoning your tax dollars off to those Centers for civics & W Civ being founded by conserv politicians and donors+
Reposted by Chris Forster
1/ In a recent @britishacademy.bsky.social video @rebeccasear.bsky.social from @brunelpsy.bsky.social takes a clear-eyed look at the 21st‑century rise of eugenics - an ideology that should have been left behind, yet is now re‑emerging in a number of troubling ways ⚠️🧬 🧪
Watch the full talk here 🎥👇
Watch the full talk here 🎥👇
The 21st Century Resurgence of Eugenics
YouTube video by The British Academy
www.youtube.com
December 15, 2025 at 1:48 PM
1/ In a recent @britishacademy.bsky.social video @rebeccasear.bsky.social from @brunelpsy.bsky.social takes a clear-eyed look at the 21st‑century rise of eugenics - an ideology that should have been left behind, yet is now re‑emerging in a number of troubling ways ⚠️🧬 🧪
Watch the full talk here 🎥👇
Watch the full talk here 🎥👇
Reposted by Chris Forster
And 10,000 steps to go before I sleep,
And 10,000 steps to go before I sleep.
And 10,000 steps to go before I sleep.
December 11, 2025 at 7:48 PM
And 10,000 steps to go before I sleep,
And 10,000 steps to go before I sleep.
And 10,000 steps to go before I sleep.
Reposted by Chris Forster
this represents the hollowing out of an entire sector of public education; nothing will address this besides some kind of disqualification campaign for the universities and admin that engage in this now
December 10, 2025 at 5:00 PM
this represents the hollowing out of an entire sector of public education; nothing will address this besides some kind of disqualification campaign for the universities and admin that engage in this now
Reposted by Chris Forster
This is from a satirical magazine written by Anthony Kenny and Julius Kovesi in Oxford, 1958-59. I have reviewed so many papers in the last 5 years that are basically just this.
December 10, 2025 at 11:54 AM
This is from a satirical magazine written by Anthony Kenny and Julius Kovesi in Oxford, 1958-59. I have reviewed so many papers in the last 5 years that are basically just this.
Reposted by Chris Forster
ok these are pretty fun to make
December 10, 2025 at 2:26 PM
ok these are pretty fun to make
Reposted by Chris Forster
My final manuscript in! And now I give you..... COVER REVEAL (US cover, UK is sooooo different but it's not public yet)
December 10, 2025 at 2:11 PM
My final manuscript in! And now I give you..... COVER REVEAL (US cover, UK is sooooo different but it's not public yet)
Reposted by Chris Forster
This is the Tufts PhD student who seized by masked agents on the street and jailed for two months because she wrote an op-ed calling for the school to divest from Israel.
December 8, 2025 at 10:52 PM
This is the Tufts PhD student who seized by masked agents on the street and jailed for two months because she wrote an op-ed calling for the school to divest from Israel.
10+ years ago I amateurishly wrote XSLT to convert a single TEI file into www.harlemshadows.org. There are bug fixes (& improvements) that I have meant to do for ages . But I despair of getting Saxon running...
December 9, 2025 at 11:06 PM
10+ years ago I amateurishly wrote XSLT to convert a single TEI file into www.harlemshadows.org. There are bug fixes (& improvements) that I have meant to do for ages . But I despair of getting Saxon running...
The end of Marianne Moore’s “A Grave,”
“and the ocean, under the pulsation of lighthouses and noise of bellbuoys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which dropped things are bound to sink—
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor consciousness.”
“and the ocean, under the pulsation of lighthouses and noise of bellbuoys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which dropped things are bound to sink—
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor consciousness.”
Which lines of poetry live rent-free in your head?
December 8, 2025 at 4:36 AM
The end of Marianne Moore’s “A Grave,”
“and the ocean, under the pulsation of lighthouses and noise of bellbuoys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which dropped things are bound to sink—
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor consciousness.”
“and the ocean, under the pulsation of lighthouses and noise of bellbuoys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which dropped things are bound to sink—
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor consciousness.”
Reposted by Chris Forster
"Make Looney Tunes gay"
December 6, 2025 at 1:36 AM
"Make Looney Tunes gay"
Reposted by Chris Forster
True and maybe even obvious-- but we need to keep saying things like this to protect our sanity.
"Inflicting collective punishment based on the heinous and isolated crimes of one person is not a rational, appropriate or moral policy response."
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/o...
"Inflicting collective punishment based on the heinous and isolated crimes of one person is not a rational, appropriate or moral policy response."
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/o...
Opinion | I’m an Immigration Lawyer. Trump Is Shattering My Clients’ Lives.
www.nytimes.com
December 4, 2025 at 2:26 PM
True and maybe even obvious-- but we need to keep saying things like this to protect our sanity.
"Inflicting collective punishment based on the heinous and isolated crimes of one person is not a rational, appropriate or moral policy response."
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/o...
"Inflicting collective punishment based on the heinous and isolated crimes of one person is not a rational, appropriate or moral policy response."
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/o...
… and Pokémon cards, and blind bags. I’m not kidding, kids entertainment has an alarming amount of pure gambling in it.
So much of this shit is gambling! Robinhood is fucking gambling! Crypto is gambling! Videogame business models are gambling! It's all fucking gambling! Laws need to really catch up to the fact that the brain can be hacked by this shit.
This is gambling, and we've essentially decided that it's okay to let it go on entirely unregulated for ??? Reasons.
December 4, 2025 at 12:24 AM
… and Pokémon cards, and blind bags. I’m not kidding, kids entertainment has an alarming amount of pure gambling in it.