Erik Simpson
@erikthesimpson.bsky.social
English professor, Grinnell College. Romanticism, history and future of the book, digital humanities, paper engineering, jazz saxophony. I do not speak for anyone but myself. If that.
Sports but make it cats
October 17, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Sports but make it cats
Job Alert! Tenure-track, Creative Non-Fiction (broadly conceived), Grinnell College. joblist.mla.org/job/2000443/...
Assistant Professor of English: Creative Writing Tenure Track job with Grinnell College | 2000443
Research and teaching interests might include: screenwriting/tv writing, memoir, lyric essay, narrative journalism, graphic storytelling.
joblist.mla.org
October 6, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Job Alert! Tenure-track, Creative Non-Fiction (broadly conceived), Grinnell College. joblist.mla.org/job/2000443/...
This is absurd enough on its own, but it is also not answering the question I searched for (most consecutive one-run games).
June 11, 2025 at 2:30 PM
This is absurd enough on its own, but it is also not answering the question I searched for (most consecutive one-run games).
Implement a 100% tariff and ruin a movie.
Before Sunrises
Before Sunrises
Implement a 100% tariff and ruin a movie.
Ocean’s Twenty-Two
Ocean’s Twenty-Two
Implement a 100% tariff and ruin a movie.
Eight Weddings and Two Funerals
Eight Weddings and Two Funerals
May 5, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Implement a 100% tariff and ruin a movie.
Before Sunrises
Before Sunrises
I wonder whether they’ll take away Amazon’s non-profit status.
White House says Amazon's decision to desplay tariff-based price increases on products is a "a hostile and political act by Amazon," who they accuse of working with "a Chinese propaganda arm."
April 29, 2025 at 2:25 PM
I wonder whether they’ll take away Amazon’s non-profit status.
Reposted by Erik Simpson
Just in case if you missed this printing event in #Mainz: they publically printed a giant page of the Gutenberg bible in the format 5 x 7,20 meter. #bookhistory #skystorians
April 29, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Just in case if you missed this printing event in #Mainz: they publically printed a giant page of the Gutenberg bible in the format 5 x 7,20 meter. #bookhistory #skystorians
I have observed for a while the steady switch from "comfort" to "comfortability" and "discomfort" to "uncomfortability." This morning, a new age dawned: I heard a podcaster say "comfortabilityness."
April 28, 2025 at 2:26 PM
I have observed for a while the steady switch from "comfort" to "comfortability" and "discomfort" to "uncomfortability." This morning, a new age dawned: I heard a podcaster say "comfortabilityness."
Hotel fitness centers are one thing. PHL hotel fitness center during Penn Relays is another thing.
April 26, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Hotel fitness centers are one thing. PHL hotel fitness center during Penn Relays is another thing.
Reposted by Erik Simpson
“A 400-year-old institution should be making decisions with a time horizon of centuries, not news cycles. Making a principled stand now … is the single best thing Harvard could do to earn its continued place as a symbol of genuine excellence, free inquiry, and commitment to the public good.”
“Harvard now faces one of the most consequential choices in its history: Submit to extortion and make itself complicit in the most profound assault on academic freedom and constitutional governance of our time—or go to court. The stakes are high, but the choice should not be difficult.” (Fixed link)
Harvard’s moment of truth - The Boston Globe
The stakes are high, but the choice should not be difficult.
www.bostonglobe.com
April 4, 2025 at 8:39 PM
“A 400-year-old institution should be making decisions with a time horizon of centuries, not news cycles. Making a principled stand now … is the single best thing Harvard could do to earn its continued place as a symbol of genuine excellence, free inquiry, and commitment to the public good.”
My first Blue Bot: @dallowayaside.bsky.social, Mrs Dalloway in Parenthesis. Thank you, @bluebotsdonequick.com!
March 24, 2025 at 8:22 PM
My first Blue Bot: @dallowayaside.bsky.social, Mrs Dalloway in Parenthesis. Thank you, @bluebotsdonequick.com!
My alma mater sent out an alumni mailing today with a feature on the decorations in the baseball coach’s office. Nothing about federal funding.
Our research university leaders are totally failing us in the authoritarian moment. Not even trying to loudly & publicly defend the project of academia or the institutions. Just choosing a combination of “keep our heads down” & anticipatory compliance. Shamefully inadequate to the moment.
Penn has always wanted to be the nation's leading university and it finally is -- in chickenshit cowardice
I guess when your most famous alums are Donald Trump and Elon Musk you have a legacy to live down to www.inquirer.com/education/un...
I guess when your most famous alums are Donald Trump and Elon Musk you have a legacy to live down to www.inquirer.com/education/un...
February 15, 2025 at 5:11 PM
My alma mater sent out an alumni mailing today with a feature on the decorations in the baseball coach’s office. Nothing about federal funding.
Reposted by Erik Simpson
Hi and welcome new followers! We've migrated over from the Other Place. Follow us for announcements of upcoming sessions of the workshop, and other interesting book history news.
February 6, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Hi and welcome new followers! We've migrated over from the Other Place. Follow us for announcements of upcoming sessions of the workshop, and other interesting book history news.
I wonder whether I am about to become the first person to teach Charles Baxter and “Baxter’s Procrustes” on the same day, in different classes. #baxterfest
February 6, 2025 at 1:51 PM
I wonder whether I am about to become the first person to teach Charles Baxter and “Baxter’s Procrustes” on the same day, in different classes. #baxterfest
Remember when there was bipartisan agreement that TikTok should be banned because it could hypothetically give sensitive information to a foreign power?
This sounds like a bad movie it's so hard to believe but does seem to actually, possibly be happening that that core US government private information on US citizens and businesses and confidential govt operations is being carted off by unvetted malevolent possibly foreign actors
4/ who they are, whether they’re even American citizens. They all seem to be Thiel and Musk protégés. And I’ve had multiple references to their refusing to identify themselves by anything but first name. The rationale given is that they could be doxed.
February 2, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Remember when there was bipartisan agreement that TikTok should be banned because it could hypothetically give sensitive information to a foreign power?
Reposted by Erik Simpson
From @aaup.bsky.social, what to do if ICE is on your campus.
January 31, 2025 at 11:12 PM
From @aaup.bsky.social, what to do if ICE is on your campus.
Reposted by Erik Simpson
Calls and text messages have flooded me in the last 72 hours from friends and colleagues in Sierra Leone and elsewhere: Are my meds going to be cut off? Am I going to die? I don't know what to tell them. I don't know what to tell anyone. Hope is my whole jam, but I feel very distant from it.
January 29, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Calls and text messages have flooded me in the last 72 hours from friends and colleagues in Sierra Leone and elsewhere: Are my meds going to be cut off? Am I going to die? I don't know what to tell them. I don't know what to tell anyone. Hope is my whole jam, but I feel very distant from it.
I just learned that “The Tide Is High,” the first pop song I really loved, was first recorded by the Jamaican band The Paragons, and it is fantastic. With surprise violin solo! m.youtube.com/watch?v=2SwK...
The Tide Is High - Original
YouTube video by The Paragons - Topic
m.youtube.com
January 26, 2025 at 11:40 PM
I just learned that “The Tide Is High,” the first pop song I really loved, was first recorded by the Jamaican band The Paragons, and it is fantastic. With surprise violin solo! m.youtube.com/watch?v=2SwK...
Reposted by Erik Simpson
Author copies are here! What a weird wonderful feeling to get your 1st book in print!
Binding Media. Hybrid Print Digital Literature from across the Americas can be preordered now and will be officially out in March from @stanfordpress.bsky.social www.sup.org/books/bindin...
Binding Media. Hybrid Print Digital Literature from across the Americas can be preordered now and will be officially out in March from @stanfordpress.bsky.social www.sup.org/books/bindin...
January 21, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Author copies are here! What a weird wonderful feeling to get your 1st book in print!
Binding Media. Hybrid Print Digital Literature from across the Americas can be preordered now and will be officially out in March from @stanfordpress.bsky.social www.sup.org/books/bindin...
Binding Media. Hybrid Print Digital Literature from across the Americas can be preordered now and will be officially out in March from @stanfordpress.bsky.social www.sup.org/books/bindin...
Reposted by Erik Simpson
New from 404 Media: meet GeoSpy, a powerful AI tool that lets cops (& stalkers) geolocate photos in seconds. Trained on millions of images, it picks out soil, architecture, etc. GeoSpy closed public access after asked for comment, now marketing to police www.404media.co/the-powerful...
January 20, 2025 at 2:13 PM
New from 404 Media: meet GeoSpy, a powerful AI tool that lets cops (& stalkers) geolocate photos in seconds. Trained on millions of images, it picks out soil, architecture, etc. GeoSpy closed public access after asked for comment, now marketing to police www.404media.co/the-powerful...
Reposted by Erik Simpson
AI-fabricated 'junk science' floods Google scholar, researchers warn phys.org/news/2025-01...
AI-fabricated 'junk science' floods Google scholar, researchers warn
AI-generated research is a threat, both in terms of society's knowledge and public trust in science. This was the conclusion made by the researchers from the Swedish School of Library and Information ...
phys.org
January 19, 2025 at 12:26 PM
AI-fabricated 'junk science' floods Google scholar, researchers warn phys.org/news/2025-01...
I can't think of another technology that has been deployed and promoted to emphasize what it does worst. It's like they invented the world's best ice-making machine, jammed it into everybody's ovens, and wondered why people started complaining that their bread doesn't taste as good as it used to.
January 17, 2025 at 5:40 PM
I can't think of another technology that has been deployed and promoted to emphasize what it does worst. It's like they invented the world's best ice-making machine, jammed it into everybody's ovens, and wondered why people started complaining that their bread doesn't taste as good as it used to.
The Man on the Inside necklace is the Vertigo necklace, right? There are great Vertigo references all over the place if you want to follow that trail.
January 16, 2025 at 12:49 AM
The Man on the Inside necklace is the Vertigo necklace, right? There are great Vertigo references all over the place if you want to follow that trail.
Yes. This is the work now.
AI has been everywhere at #mla25 & it’s clear—if it wasn’t already—that the profession is collectively wrestling with the same anxieties & crises—I find myself increasingly unsatisfied about both poles of response—refusal & integration—& convinced what we will need to offer students are alternatives
January 12, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Yes. This is the work now.