Jeff Kessler
@jckessler.bsky.social
Senior Lecturer at UIC. Union agitator, parent, Victorianist, digital media critic, grammarian, & writer. PhD, Indiana Univ.
Co-Editor/Author of "Writing for Inquiry and Research" https://tinyurl.com/55wxre5x
Co-Editor/Author of "Writing for Inquiry and Research" https://tinyurl.com/55wxre5x
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
Whether it's garbage NYT left-bait or right wing flood-the-zone nonsense that we all pile on to, we are letting the wrong people set our overall information agenda in a very deep and fundamental way. And it's a very serious mistake.
November 14, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Whether it's garbage NYT left-bait or right wing flood-the-zone nonsense that we all pile on to, we are letting the wrong people set our overall information agenda in a very deep and fundamental way. And it's a very serious mistake.
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
This one time on Twitter, @lecagle.bsky.social asked ppl to link to 1 pub of theirs they loved, but maybe slipped under the radar. I got SO many good recs from that list, so I wanted to replicate it here: link to one of your pubs that you wish more people read/cited!
#TeamRhetoric
#AcademicSky
#TeamRhetoric
#AcademicSky
November 11, 2025 at 4:42 PM
This one time on Twitter, @lecagle.bsky.social asked ppl to link to 1 pub of theirs they loved, but maybe slipped under the radar. I got SO many good recs from that list, so I wanted to replicate it here: link to one of your pubs that you wish more people read/cited!
#TeamRhetoric
#AcademicSky
#TeamRhetoric
#AcademicSky
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
The #1 lesson from yesterday’s blowout:
Humanities majors killed on the job market
1) Mamdani- Africana Studies
2) Spanberger -French
3) Sherill - Global History
Humanities majors killed on the job market
1) Mamdani- Africana Studies
2) Spanberger -French
3) Sherill - Global History
November 5, 2025 at 3:59 PM
The #1 lesson from yesterday’s blowout:
Humanities majors killed on the job market
1) Mamdani- Africana Studies
2) Spanberger -French
3) Sherill - Global History
Humanities majors killed on the job market
1) Mamdani- Africana Studies
2) Spanberger -French
3) Sherill - Global History
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
Brilliant.
"I’m not looking so bad now, huh? Absolute best case, the LLM-generated legal advice you get is merely plagiarizing, probably from me. But more likely, it’s a mish-mash of Reddit posts filtered through an algorithm coded by a Belarusian teen on the run from Interpol."
Hi, It’s Me, Wikipedia, and I Am Ready for Your Apology
“Wikipedia, the constantly changing knowledge base created by a global free-for-all of anonymous users, now stands as the leading force for the dum...
buff.ly
November 4, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Brilliant.
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House.
Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity.
They are not the same.
Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity.
They are not the same.
October 30, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House.
Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity.
They are not the same.
Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity.
They are not the same.
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
friend shared this, immediately updated my settings
October 27, 2025 at 4:28 PM
friend shared this, immediately updated my settings
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
Long overdue, "Criticism LTD" has a stand-alone webpage with working links to every episode bibliography, etc.
Criticism LTD (2023-2024)
Apple Podcasts Season Link Criticism LTD. Trailer (July 26, 2023) A first look at the eighth season of The American Vandal Podcast, an assessment of the contemporary state of literary criticism and…
mattseybold.com
October 27, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Long overdue, "Criticism LTD" has a stand-alone webpage with working links to every episode bibliography, etc.
"As we say in higher ed labor organizing, our working conditions are student learning conditions. Militating against the transformation of not just the classroom but the university in general by “disruptive technologies” is a crucial front in the fight for higher ed."
defector.com/higher-eds-r...
defector.com/higher-eds-r...
Higher Ed’s Rush To Adopt AI Is About So Much More Than AI | Defector
If you don’t work at a university or have college-age kids, you may have missed the flurry of news stories and social media banter about AI adoption in higher ed, stories which have snowballed into th...
defector.com
October 23, 2025 at 7:20 PM
"As we say in higher ed labor organizing, our working conditions are student learning conditions. Militating against the transformation of not just the classroom but the university in general by “disruptive technologies” is a crucial front in the fight for higher ed."
defector.com/higher-eds-r...
defector.com/higher-eds-r...
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
chicago! WHAT'S FUNNY ABOUT STUDENT DEBT?!
do your homework now and join us next wednesday the 29th
SUPER DUPER SPECIAL GUESTS
novelist kashana cauley
jason wozniak of the debt collective
interccect.com/2025/09/26/w...
do your homework now and join us next wednesday the 29th
SUPER DUPER SPECIAL GUESTS
novelist kashana cauley
jason wozniak of the debt collective
interccect.com/2025/09/26/w...
What’s Funny About Student Debt?
For only the second time in our fourteen years, InterCcECT hosts an event centered on the novel’s unique faculty for theorizing capitalism. The Payback is a comic critique of contemporary lif…
interccect.com
October 21, 2025 at 2:52 PM
chicago! WHAT'S FUNNY ABOUT STUDENT DEBT?!
do your homework now and join us next wednesday the 29th
SUPER DUPER SPECIAL GUESTS
novelist kashana cauley
jason wozniak of the debt collective
interccect.com/2025/09/26/w...
do your homework now and join us next wednesday the 29th
SUPER DUPER SPECIAL GUESTS
novelist kashana cauley
jason wozniak of the debt collective
interccect.com/2025/09/26/w...
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
Johanna (@johannawinant.bsky.social) and I believe that close reading is for everyone. So a few months ago I wrote this essay for @defector.com, in anticipation of our book, thanks to the incredible editor @brandyjensen.bsky.social, "Close Reading Is for Everyone" defector.com/close-readin...
October 21, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Johanna (@johannawinant.bsky.social) and I believe that close reading is for everyone. So a few months ago I wrote this essay for @defector.com, in anticipation of our book, thanks to the incredible editor @brandyjensen.bsky.social, "Close Reading Is for Everyone" defector.com/close-readin...
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
“… the gross repeal of a right that took decades to build is at risk of going unreported … Without culture, our capacities for self-government atrophy, our local communities wane, our intellectual and emotional lives wither and default to AI slop, and our paths to meaning and fulfillment close.”
Culture might seem a less consequential right than free assembly+ its infringement makes less spectacular news than repressive violence. But the repeal of the right to culture is grave.
honored to be with @isanchezprado.bsky.social in @hyperallergic.com today!
hyperallergic.com/1049388/how-...
honored to be with @isanchezprado.bsky.social in @hyperallergic.com today!
hyperallergic.com/1049388/how-...
How to Protect Your Right to Culture
The United States government’s coordinated repeal of the right to culture has grave consequences for the texture of our daily lives. But there are ways to fight back.
hyperallergic.com
October 15, 2025 at 2:13 PM
“… the gross repeal of a right that took decades to build is at risk of going unreported … Without culture, our capacities for self-government atrophy, our local communities wane, our intellectual and emotional lives wither and default to AI slop, and our paths to meaning and fulfillment close.”
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
"This technology that is ruining education has incredible potential to save education, if only I could figure out how to use it better to improve my students’ education."
I Need AI to Write Better Lesson Plans So My Students Stop Using AI to Write Their Papers
I care deeply about my students’ learning, but with all the new technologies available to help them cut corners, I worry that they’re not doing the...
buff.ly
September 30, 2025 at 6:30 PM
"This technology that is ruining education has incredible potential to save education, if only I could figure out how to use it better to improve my students’ education."
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
I love how we're going to see 500 articles on this and the answers are just:
- More people are getting accurate diagnoses
- We finally have a significant number of women in medicine and they're diagnosing women and girls
- More people are getting accurate diagnoses
- We finally have a significant number of women in medicine and they're diagnosing women and girls
A new @nature.com feature on autism with real data and facts
Published today, written before the Tylenol debacle.
' Kennedy and the HHS are “going to falsely
declare the cause for autism — and that that
gets in the way of a great deal of progress”.'
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Published today, written before the Tylenol debacle.
' Kennedy and the HHS are “going to falsely
declare the cause for autism — and that that
gets in the way of a great deal of progress”.'
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
September 25, 2025 at 3:05 PM
I love how we're going to see 500 articles on this and the answers are just:
- More people are getting accurate diagnoses
- We finally have a significant number of women in medicine and they're diagnosing women and girls
- More people are getting accurate diagnoses
- We finally have a significant number of women in medicine and they're diagnosing women and girls
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
They've lost the 9yos
September 24, 2025 at 4:03 PM
They've lost the 9yos
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
AI is a lack of consent machine
“Technology firms behind artificial intelligence–based note-taking software — marketed to therapists as a time-saving administrative tool — have quietly included provisions in their terms and conditions that allow patients’ therapy records to be sold and manipulated to train other AI applications.”
Your Therapists’ Notes Could Become Fodder For AI
Tech companies are marketing AI-based note-taking software to therapists as a new time-saving tool. But by signing up, providers may be unknowingly offering patients’ sensitive health information as d...
jacobin.com
September 17, 2025 at 5:48 PM
AI is a lack of consent machine
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
I have books on my shelf right now that are nearly 300 years old. There is absolutely no way that any digital media that exists today will be accessible in 300 years.
Any updates on the "downsizing" of space for physical books in academic and public libraries?
theconversation.com/turning-a-pa...
theconversation.com/turning-a-pa...
Turning a page: downsizing the campus book collections
Keeping a printed book in a campus library comes with steep costs. How are campus libraries evolving?
theconversation.com
July 23, 2025 at 1:57 PM
I have books on my shelf right now that are nearly 300 years old. There is absolutely no way that any digital media that exists today will be accessible in 300 years.
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
Good, practical shit from @astra.bsky.social & @debtcollective.bsky.social with the added elegant diagnosis: “This is class war, pure and simple.”
WTF is happening with SAVE, PSLF & SCOTUS?
If you have student debt, here's a helpful update from your friends at the Debt Collective
open.substack.com
July 22, 2025 at 8:52 PM
Good, practical shit from @astra.bsky.social & @debtcollective.bsky.social with the added elegant diagnosis: “This is class war, pure and simple.”
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
Ed Tech is a Trojan horse for tech elite capture of public resources. Every time.
Twenty years in education and I have seen so many things that were going to "save teachers time" and then it got weaponized into "if you don't use this, you're ruining your students' future" and usually when that mindless zealousness comes around it's less than a year for that tech to collapse.
June 19, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Ed Tech is a Trojan horse for tech elite capture of public resources. Every time.
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
probably my favorite prose about LLMs recently
June 4, 2025 at 4:27 AM
probably my favorite prose about LLMs recently
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
Sure, AI may be an environmental disaster and produce mid outcomes in cases where it doesn't straight up lie, but at least it's extremely unprofitable.
As Klarna flips from AI-first to hiring people again, a new landmark survey reveals most AI projects fail to deliver
Just 1 in 4 AI investments bring in the ROI they promise—but CEOs just can’t resist the technology.
fortune.com
May 13, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Sure, AI may be an environmental disaster and produce mid outcomes in cases where it doesn't straight up lie, but at least it's extremely unprofitable.
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
Rage Against the Machine: You use the term “journey” to describe your training for a charity 5K, changes to your skincare routine, your evolving relationship with gluten, the fact that you occasionally take a yoga class, and your secretly failing marriage.
What Your Favorite ’90s Band Says About the Kind of Bored Suburban Mom You Are Today
Our 4th most-read article of 2024. - - -Veruca Salt: Like Captain Ahab, you are defined by an all-absorbing monomaniacal obsession: to find comfor...
buff.ly
May 9, 2025 at 1:20 AM
Rage Against the Machine: You use the term “journey” to describe your training for a charity 5K, changes to your skincare routine, your evolving relationship with gluten, the fact that you occasionally take a yoga class, and your secretly failing marriage.
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
Can you blame the students who believe them?
All this is to say, the AI crisis did not begin with ChatGPT4, & it could be solved by public investment that expands & stabilizes educational workforce, lowers/elminates cost of education for students, supports literacy/numeracy & adult education.
All this is to say, the AI crisis did not begin with ChatGPT4, & it could be solved by public investment that expands & stabilizes educational workforce, lowers/elminates cost of education for students, supports literacy/numeracy & adult education.
May 7, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Can you blame the students who believe them?
All this is to say, the AI crisis did not begin with ChatGPT4, & it could be solved by public investment that expands & stabilizes educational workforce, lowers/elminates cost of education for students, supports literacy/numeracy & adult education.
All this is to say, the AI crisis did not begin with ChatGPT4, & it could be solved by public investment that expands & stabilizes educational workforce, lowers/elminates cost of education for students, supports literacy/numeracy & adult education.
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
This is a really beautiful piece from @mcsweeneys.net about the inherent value of neurodivergent people. RFK Jr. is dead wrong in the way he demeans and diminishes people with autism.
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-...
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-...
An Open Letter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Who Thinks My Daughter is a Tragedy
Dear Mr. RFK Jr.,
(The “dear” is tradition. Don’t mistake it for affection.)
You said autistic children are a burden. That they ruin families. That...
www.mcsweeneys.net
May 8, 2025 at 3:04 PM
This is a really beautiful piece from @mcsweeneys.net about the inherent value of neurodivergent people. RFK Jr. is dead wrong in the way he demeans and diminishes people with autism.
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-...
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-...
Reposted by Jeff Kessler
It works. The government here largely works. Because we are so spoiled by how well it works, we are letting a fool convince us it is broken.
In 90 years of social security, we have never had a check bounce or be late, but they want you to believe the system is broken.
April 16, 2025 at 1:48 PM
It works. The government here largely works. Because we are so spoiled by how well it works, we are letting a fool convince us it is broken.