Kevin Spencer
@kevinspencer.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of English at Wenzhou-Kean University. First-generation college graduate. Writing on the American influence on and inheritance of French existentialism. 경기도 안산, 浙江温州, Alberta. Typos are a given
https://wku.edu.cn/faculty/kevin-spencer/
https://wku.edu.cn/faculty/kevin-spencer/
Just explained the concept “cat lady” to my seven-year old. She cannot understand why that’s meant to be pejorative.
October 25, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Just explained the concept “cat lady” to my seven-year old. She cannot understand why that’s meant to be pejorative.
One of the most welcome developments in cussing over the past 15 years or so is the de-gendering of "asshole." Maybe not total, but definitely moving in that direction.
October 25, 2025 at 12:58 AM
One of the most welcome developments in cussing over the past 15 years or so is the de-gendering of "asshole." Maybe not total, but definitely moving in that direction.
Poststructuralism taught literary studies that language and reality are divided by a gap, and we should not trust the illusion of representation. But many theorists naively assume that demolishing hierarchies in language equals doing so in reality.
October 18, 2025 at 6:14 AM
Poststructuralism taught literary studies that language and reality are divided by a gap, and we should not trust the illusion of representation. But many theorists naively assume that demolishing hierarchies in language equals doing so in reality.
It's always interesting to elevate one's irritated scholarly intuitions to the level of a nameable pet peeve.
For instance, I find myself balking against literary theorists' tendency to distinguish morality (bad) from ethics (good), as though the distinction somehow underwrites or corrects conduct.
For instance, I find myself balking against literary theorists' tendency to distinguish morality (bad) from ethics (good), as though the distinction somehow underwrites or corrects conduct.
October 15, 2025 at 3:31 AM
It's always interesting to elevate one's irritated scholarly intuitions to the level of a nameable pet peeve.
For instance, I find myself balking against literary theorists' tendency to distinguish morality (bad) from ethics (good), as though the distinction somehow underwrites or corrects conduct.
For instance, I find myself balking against literary theorists' tendency to distinguish morality (bad) from ethics (good), as though the distinction somehow underwrites or corrects conduct.
I've been reading and rereading the introduction to Cavell's Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome for about five years now, and I keep finding more in it.
The exhiliration I get from it reminds me of how it felt to have fields open up before me as an undergrad.
The exhiliration I get from it reminds me of how it felt to have fields open up before me as an undergrad.
October 10, 2025 at 8:45 AM
I've been reading and rereading the introduction to Cavell's Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome for about five years now, and I keep finding more in it.
The exhiliration I get from it reminds me of how it felt to have fields open up before me as an undergrad.
The exhiliration I get from it reminds me of how it felt to have fields open up before me as an undergrad.
It's remarkable to see how beholden literary studies is to an ontological vision of the subject. So many CFPs keep recycle the same tired vocabulary: fluidity, porousness, hybridity, liminality . . . .
Freedom = breaking barriers. Cultural libertarianism.
Freedom = breaking barriers. Cultural libertarianism.
September 24, 2025 at 2:16 AM
It's remarkable to see how beholden literary studies is to an ontological vision of the subject. So many CFPs keep recycle the same tired vocabulary: fluidity, porousness, hybridity, liminality . . . .
Freedom = breaking barriers. Cultural libertarianism.
Freedom = breaking barriers. Cultural libertarianism.
I envy the problems of the advocates of metafiction and reflexivity. Imagine having an audience of people so literate they need to be reminded it’s just fiction.
September 17, 2025 at 11:32 PM
I envy the problems of the advocates of metafiction and reflexivity. Imagine having an audience of people so literate they need to be reminded it’s just fiction.
In "The Humanistic Case for AI Optimism," (Poetics Today 2024 45:2), So and Duerde argue for AI's potential benefits to literary studies.
I find this article wrongheaded and sketch out why below.
I find this article wrongheaded and sketch out why below.
September 17, 2025 at 12:45 AM
In "The Humanistic Case for AI Optimism," (Poetics Today 2024 45:2), So and Duerde argue for AI's potential benefits to literary studies.
I find this article wrongheaded and sketch out why below.
I find this article wrongheaded and sketch out why below.
Reading Foucault-inspired literary criticism from the '80s is strange. For all its conceptual elaboration, it rests on the naive belief that literary value is just a mask for epochal injustice. If you look for reasons why we should read and teach a novel or poem, you won't find it.
September 16, 2025 at 11:50 PM
Reading Foucault-inspired literary criticism from the '80s is strange. For all its conceptual elaboration, it rests on the naive belief that literary value is just a mask for epochal injustice. If you look for reasons why we should read and teach a novel or poem, you won't find it.
Is it possible to write a first book without the words “the Scylla and Charybdis”?
September 15, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Is it possible to write a first book without the words “the Scylla and Charybdis”?
Fictional characters are moral agents.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
September 12, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Fictional characters are moral agents.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
I hope that when it’s my time, I haven’t left hours and hours of video footage courting violence and mocking the suffering of others.
September 10, 2025 at 10:20 PM
I hope that when it’s my time, I haven’t left hours and hours of video footage courting violence and mocking the suffering of others.
Korean has a saying, 수고했어, that can be used after someone has performed some burdensome activity (working, driving on a long trip, moving furniture, etc.). It is means roughly “you worked hard,” but it sounds kinder. It acknowledges someone’s effort. It’s a lovely thing to say and hear.
September 8, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Korean has a saying, 수고했어, that can be used after someone has performed some burdensome activity (working, driving on a long trip, moving furniture, etc.). It is means roughly “you worked hard,” but it sounds kinder. It acknowledges someone’s effort. It’s a lovely thing to say and hear.
The Grapes of Irritation
Slightly diminish a book
I Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
I Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
diminish a book
Regular Person of the Rings
Regular Person of the Rings
September 8, 2025 at 7:05 AM
The Grapes of Irritation
We’re pleased to offer faculty a convenient new system for reimbursing research costs.
Here are four 80 page PDFs that walk you through it. The system times out every 6 seconds. Due date for submissions is yesterday.
Here are four 80 page PDFs that walk you through it. The system times out every 6 seconds. Due date for submissions is yesterday.
September 7, 2025 at 2:46 AM
We’re pleased to offer faculty a convenient new system for reimbursing research costs.
Here are four 80 page PDFs that walk you through it. The system times out every 6 seconds. Due date for submissions is yesterday.
Here are four 80 page PDFs that walk you through it. The system times out every 6 seconds. Due date for submissions is yesterday.
Best works in literary scholarship investigating human agency and the will?
Something like Jennifer Fleissner’s Maladies of the Will and Yi-Ping Ong’s The Art of Being? Specifically accounts of agency that don’t reduce it to demographic coordinates or treat agency as political success?
Something like Jennifer Fleissner’s Maladies of the Will and Yi-Ping Ong’s The Art of Being? Specifically accounts of agency that don’t reduce it to demographic coordinates or treat agency as political success?
September 2, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Best works in literary scholarship investigating human agency and the will?
Something like Jennifer Fleissner’s Maladies of the Will and Yi-Ping Ong’s The Art of Being? Specifically accounts of agency that don’t reduce it to demographic coordinates or treat agency as political success?
Something like Jennifer Fleissner’s Maladies of the Will and Yi-Ping Ong’s The Art of Being? Specifically accounts of agency that don’t reduce it to demographic coordinates or treat agency as political success?
Researching existentialism in literary studies is odd. Scholars who are opposed to progress narratives tend to regard the 20th century’s most influential intellectual movement as an adolescent misadventure, as though all those thinkers had to make do with it until poststructualism came along.
August 31, 2025 at 12:55 AM
Researching existentialism in literary studies is odd. Scholars who are opposed to progress narratives tend to regard the 20th century’s most influential intellectual movement as an adolescent misadventure, as though all those thinkers had to make do with it until poststructualism came along.
When I attended School of Criticism and Theory in 2019, Robert Brandom gave some lectures on Hegel. Most students didn't bother to show up, and I heard several scoffing at the very idea of taking Hegel seriously. At a Theory school.
August 26, 2025 at 1:45 PM
When I attended School of Criticism and Theory in 2019, Robert Brandom gave some lectures on Hegel. Most students didn't bother to show up, and I heard several scoffing at the very idea of taking Hegel seriously. At a Theory school.
Proud to announce my new book, The Liminal Interstice: Littoral Hybridity Across Heterotopic Borderland Palimpsests, a provocation to seeing the world in new ways that uses the exact same gesture as every other procative book of the past 40 years.
August 25, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Proud to announce my new book, The Liminal Interstice: Littoral Hybridity Across Heterotopic Borderland Palimpsests, a provocation to seeing the world in new ways that uses the exact same gesture as every other procative book of the past 40 years.
What are the best historical studies about the fate of American labor movements during World War I?
August 23, 2025 at 4:50 AM
What are the best historical studies about the fate of American labor movements during World War I?
that moment of terror when you may have clicked on "contact me" and are waiting to see if your email app will come to life
August 22, 2025 at 6:26 AM
that moment of terror when you may have clicked on "contact me" and are waiting to see if your email app will come to life
Great site and good initiative.
teachers!
excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.
take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com
excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone.
take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE
against-a-i.com
AGAINST AI
against-a-i.com
August 16, 2025 at 12:21 AM
Great site and good initiative.
In 2003, a senior professor and former upper administration told me that with the baby boomers retiring, a lot of academic jobs would open up.
I wonder if they failed to understand the trends that were already underway in spite of having decades of administrative experience or because of it.
I wonder if they failed to understand the trends that were already underway in spite of having decades of administrative experience or because of it.
August 11, 2025 at 1:40 AM
In 2003, a senior professor and former upper administration told me that with the baby boomers retiring, a lot of academic jobs would open up.
I wonder if they failed to understand the trends that were already underway in spite of having decades of administrative experience or because of it.
I wonder if they failed to understand the trends that were already underway in spite of having decades of administrative experience or because of it.
East Asian public transportation never ceases to amaze me. I live on the very edge of the Greater Seoul Area. There are fields and mountains out my window. Even so, I just walk 5 minutes to a bus stop and within 10 minutes, a bus will come.
I’m in on express bus now that offer complimentary wifi.
I’m in on express bus now that offer complimentary wifi.
August 8, 2025 at 9:31 AM
East Asian public transportation never ceases to amaze me. I live on the very edge of the Greater Seoul Area. There are fields and mountains out my window. Even so, I just walk 5 minutes to a bus stop and within 10 minutes, a bus will come.
I’m in on express bus now that offer complimentary wifi.
I’m in on express bus now that offer complimentary wifi.