Leila Walker
@lwalker.bsky.social
Assistant Professor in an academic library. Publishes on British romantic literature, climate change, plant humanities, librarianship, social justice, and pedagogy. Not gay as in happy, queer as in free Palestine.
Pinned
Leila Walker
@lwalker.bsky.social
· Aug 31
Open Educational Resources for a More Just Romanticism | Eighteenth-Century Fiction
Efforts to diversify the field of Romanticism, long overdue, have intensified recently, and many Romanticist organizations now sponsor programmes aimed at amplifying Black and Brown voices. Most of th...
utppublishing.com
New article! "Open Educational Resources for a More Just Romanticism." I couldn't include acknowledgments, but I'm so grateful to @zugenia.bsky.social, @reneemc.bsky.social, @profchander.bsky.social, Andrew McKinney, and Duncan Faherty for helping make this happen. utppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3...
I love how much @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social loves New York.
EXCLUSIVE: @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social will be sworn in as mayor on midnight on January 1 inside the old abandoned City Hall subway station, saying that he sees the venue as a symbol for the aims of his upcoming administration.
EXCLUSIVE: Mamdani Will Be Sworn In At Abandoned Original City Hall Subway Station
The mayor-elect will kick off a new era by throwing things back to an older one.
buff.ly
December 29, 2025 at 2:00 PM
I love how much @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social loves New York.
Is "last human on earth" a job?
December 28, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Is "last human on earth" a job?
I love when you Google "what is 1/2 of 1/3 cup" and every mansplainer on Earth has confidently replied "1/6 cup" with a long explanation about how fractions work.
December 28, 2025 at 2:15 PM
I love when you Google "what is 1/2 of 1/3 cup" and every mansplainer on Earth has confidently replied "1/6 cup" with a long explanation about how fractions work.
Moonstruck continues to be the best movie ever.
December 28, 2025 at 4:52 AM
Moonstruck continues to be the best movie ever.
Reposted by Leila Walker
Israel has killed at least 400 Palestinians and injured over 1,100 others since the ceasefire began in October.
Rights Group Warns Israel’s Genocide Isn’t Over in Gaza
Israel has killed at least 400 Palestinians and injured over 1,100 others since the ceasefire began in October.
truthout.org
December 26, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Israel has killed at least 400 Palestinians and injured over 1,100 others since the ceasefire began in October.
Eve Fartlow. (Iykyk)
What these people are doing to the power of calling out real antisemitism, in an incredibly dangerous time of surging global antisemitism….man, it is just so worrisome
December 27, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Eve Fartlow. (Iykyk)
Reposted by Leila Walker
Yes, this!: "this isn't a crisis in teaching; it's an attack on learning"
I'm finding that I don't have just to change assignments. I have to **abandon my entire teaching strategy**, which has always been built around scaffolded independent projects across the semester.
I'm finding that I don't have just to change assignments. I have to **abandon my entire teaching strategy**, which has always been built around scaffolded independent projects across the semester.
It is EXHAUSTING not only being made responsible for coming up with new kinds of assignments for our students; it's also tedious reading op-eds that suggest the core problem is a crisis in teaching. But, as Chris and I lay out here, this isn't a crisis in teaching; it's an attack on learning.
"We envision a resistance that is...a repudiation of the efficiencies that automated algorithmic education falsely promises: a resistance comprising the collective force of small acts of friction."
"How to Resist AI in Education" by me & @cnygren.bsky.social
www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...
"How to Resist AI in Education" by me & @cnygren.bsky.social
www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...
December 26, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Yes, this!: "this isn't a crisis in teaching; it's an attack on learning"
I'm finding that I don't have just to change assignments. I have to **abandon my entire teaching strategy**, which has always been built around scaffolded independent projects across the semester.
I'm finding that I don't have just to change assignments. I have to **abandon my entire teaching strategy**, which has always been built around scaffolded independent projects across the semester.
Remember when I wrote articles about plant consciousness and friendship, and not climate catastrophe and grief? I should maybe reevaluate my research trajectory.
I’m re-reading The Last Man in the wake of truly gutting grief and wow. I do not recommend it.
December 26, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Remember when I wrote articles about plant consciousness and friendship, and not climate catastrophe and grief? I should maybe reevaluate my research trajectory.
I’m re-reading The Last Man in the wake of truly gutting grief and wow. I do not recommend it.
December 26, 2025 at 3:41 PM
I’m re-reading The Last Man in the wake of truly gutting grief and wow. I do not recommend it.
Reposted by Leila Walker
A Simple, Down-to-Earth Christmas Card from the Great Depression (1933)
A Simple, Down-to-Earth Christmas Card from the Great Depression (1933)
The Smithsonian sets the scene for this Christmas card sent in 1933, a few years into the Great Depression. They write:
Despite the glum economic situation, the Pinero family used a brown paper bag to...
www.openculture.com
December 25, 2025 at 2:45 AM
A Simple, Down-to-Earth Christmas Card from the Great Depression (1933)
This is literally the entire point of Christianity.
Pope Leo said in a Christmas Eve sermon that the story of Jesus being born in a stable because there was no room at an inn should remind Christians that refusing to help the poor and strangers today is tantamount to rejecting God himself. For @reuters.com
Pope Leo, on Christmas Eve, says denying help to poor is rejecting God
Pope Leo said in a Christmas Eve sermon on Wednesday that the story of Jesus being born in a stable because there was no room at an inn should remind Christians that refusing to help the poor and stra...
www.reuters.com
December 25, 2025 at 3:29 AM
This is literally the entire point of Christianity.
Reposted by Leila Walker
Anyway I cant really recommend family as a concept idk
December 24, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Anyway I cant really recommend family as a concept idk
Fantastic information literacy assignment.
I have my students write three-sentence summaries of articles and then read them aloud in class, to see how different summaries are depending on the things that most interest you. We map overlaps and differences to help them understand why trusting a supposed summary machine short-circuits thinking.
being conversant in the scholarly discussions within a discipline or a field is different from reading random summaries
December 21, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Fantastic information literacy assignment.
Reposted by Leila Walker
I'm very excited to announce the launch of the #18thC Ecologies Network! Co-convened by myself & @calsutherland.bsky.social at @cecs-york.bsky.social , ECEN is a hub for researchers interested in the many diverse ecologies of the period 🌱
Find out more: hzj520.wixsite.com/eighteenth-c...
Find out more: hzj520.wixsite.com/eighteenth-c...
December 21, 2025 at 12:12 PM
I'm very excited to announce the launch of the #18thC Ecologies Network! Co-convened by myself & @calsutherland.bsky.social at @cecs-york.bsky.social , ECEN is a hub for researchers interested in the many diverse ecologies of the period 🌱
Find out more: hzj520.wixsite.com/eighteenth-c...
Find out more: hzj520.wixsite.com/eighteenth-c...
Yes this, but also: Got edits back on an article yesterday, and a query regarding a page number led me to the realization that I had personally hallucinated a chapter by Amanda Jo Goldstein.
I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite
Do not cite an academic paper unless you’ve read it
December 20, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Yes this, but also: Got edits back on an article yesterday, and a query regarding a page number led me to the realization that I had personally hallucinated a chapter by Amanda Jo Goldstein.
Reposted by Leila Walker
People who aspire to be academics: I wish to live a life of the mind
Actual academics:
Actual academics:
I have a weird question for the #bird people on here. Do you think someone could tell that a book was pooped on specifically by a sparrowhawk (or perhaps hawks generally) just from the feces? I'm looking at a 16th c. case where witnesses claim books were pooped on specifically by sparrowhawks!
December 18, 2025 at 3:34 PM
People who aspire to be academics: I wish to live a life of the mind
Actual academics:
Actual academics:
Reposted by Leila Walker
Excited to share 'Percy Bysshe Shelley in Collaboration: Influence and Intertextuality', ed. with Merrilees Roberts and @paulstephens.bsky.social, forthcoming with @themhra.bsky.social 📖✨️ www.mhra.org.uk/publications...
Percy Bysshe Shelley in Collaboration: Influence and Intertextuality - Edited by Merrilees Roberts, Amanda Blake Davis, and Paul Stephens
Modern Humanities Research Association - Percy Bysshe Shelley in Collaboration: Influence and Intertextuality - Edited by Merrilees Roberts, Amanda Blake Davis, and Paul Stephens
www.mhra.org.uk
December 15, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Excited to share 'Percy Bysshe Shelley in Collaboration: Influence and Intertextuality', ed. with Merrilees Roberts and @paulstephens.bsky.social, forthcoming with @themhra.bsky.social 📖✨️ www.mhra.org.uk/publications...
I have been married for almost 16 years, and I can confidently state that the old "Never go to bed angry" line is horseshit. If it's bedtime, and you're angry, you're probably angry because you're tired and cranky, and the best solution to that problem is to go to bed.
December 16, 2025 at 1:58 PM
I have been married for almost 16 years, and I can confidently state that the old "Never go to bed angry" line is horseshit. If it's bedtime, and you're angry, you're probably angry because you're tired and cranky, and the best solution to that problem is to go to bed.
Reposted by Leila Walker
Gillibrand and Schumer must resign. We cannot wait for primary challenges that are years away. We need to start organizing for their resignations.
Here are the 28 Dem Senators who voted to advance the first federal ban on trans athletes & a federal definition of sex that would make trans & intersex people non-existent: Angela Alsobrooks (MD), Tammy Baldwin (WI), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE), Chris Coons (DE), ->
By a vote of 76-23, S 1071 passes the motion to proceed to the motion to concur. Won't know who voted for this until the roll call is uploaded, but safe to say it passed with the support of at least 24 members of the Democratic caucus. (Rand Paul probably voted nay and Steve Daines has been absent).
December 16, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Gillibrand and Schumer must resign. We cannot wait for primary challenges that are years away. We need to start organizing for their resignations.
Reposted by Leila Walker
we can kill them all if we just work together and ✨believe💫
December 15, 2025 at 5:11 PM
we can kill them all if we just work together and ✨believe💫
Reposted by Leila Walker
retvrn to mystery stories based around the actual mystery and not whether the detective is sad and/or wet
my favorite thing about the benoit blanc movies is that they aren't really about benoit blanc. he is not grappling with demons from his past. we are not getting flashbacks to the husband whose murder he never solved. he just shows up and does his job like mary poppins for homicides
December 14, 2025 at 9:18 PM
retvrn to mystery stories based around the actual mystery and not whether the detective is sad and/or wet
Goodbye, forty-five, you were a good year for the girls.
December 14, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Goodbye, forty-five, you were a good year for the girls.
That 700 number doesn't count the ~1,100 eligible voters mistakenly purged from voting rolls.
25 years ago today, SCOTUS elected George W Bush president of the United States by blocking completion of a voting canvass in Florida. A subsequent canvass by the Associated Press showed that Bush's rival, Al Gore, had won the race in Florida—and thus the contest for the presidency—by 700 votes.
December 12, 2025 at 12:56 PM
That 700 number doesn't count the ~1,100 eligible voters mistakenly purged from voting rolls.
Reposted by Leila Walker
Later this morning if anybody’s free + interested. One thesis: sustained acts of creative attention are deeply countersystemic. Spaces for such activity are tiny + under attack, which means that thinking is itself political & spaces for doing it must be defended together &slowly, tactically expanded
Very excited and honored to be doing an online book conversation about *Action without Hope* at @greenhouseuis.net next Monday, December 8th, at 10 am Eastern / 4 pm Central European — Zoom link below. Would be so psyched to see people there, if you can make it 🌿
newnatures.org/greenhouse/e...
newnatures.org/greenhouse/e...
![Book cover, Action without Hope: Victorian Literature after Climate Collapse, Nathan K Hensley [Detail of Turner watercolor showing wash of gray, blue, orange, yellow, and red]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:m52czdgn43hqqylkdhrwxs5e/bafkreiehmynodhyolkh3xfywdfjpqukr7ymjbtbt5qyl4ce3ldzdiujcby@jpeg)
December 8, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Later this morning if anybody’s free + interested. One thesis: sustained acts of creative attention are deeply countersystemic. Spaces for such activity are tiny + under attack, which means that thinking is itself political & spaces for doing it must be defended together &slowly, tactically expanded