Natalie M. Houston
@nmhouston.bsky.social
Reading poetry with computers | Assoc Prof, digital humanities & Victorian literature, U Mass Lowell | personal productivity coach for academics & adults with ADD | vegan, dog companion
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
ICYMI - wrote this week about AI, student motivation, and writing.
In which I draw upon a long and storied little league career to discuss writing instruction, AI, and play in the classroom - "Step Back Writing"
walshbr.com/blog/step-ba...
walshbr.com/blog/step-ba...
Step Back Writing · walshbr.com
Head of Student Programs at the Scholars' Lab in the UVA Library
walshbr.com
July 24, 2025 at 9:14 PM
ICYMI - wrote this week about AI, student motivation, and writing.
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower was published in 1993 and starts in 2024—a 31-year leap. Are creators imagining futures that are closer or further away?
Explore a *new* dataset of 2.5k narrative works set in the future, each tagged with its release year and setting.
doi.org/10.18737/552...
Explore a *new* dataset of 2.5k narrative works set in the future, each tagged with its release year and setting.
doi.org/10.18737/552...
June 25, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower was published in 1993 and starts in 2024—a 31-year leap. Are creators imagining futures that are closer or further away?
Explore a *new* dataset of 2.5k narrative works set in the future, each tagged with its release year and setting.
doi.org/10.18737/552...
Explore a *new* dataset of 2.5k narrative works set in the future, each tagged with its release year and setting.
doi.org/10.18737/552...
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
What do Elon Musk, Joyce Carol Oates, Adam Schiff & Ezra Pound have in common?
They all remixed T.S. Eliot lines: "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper"
Why have these lines become a meme—used across the political spectrum? Find out in our new book chapter!
They all remixed T.S. Eliot lines: "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper"
Why have these lines become a meme—used across the political spectrum? Find out in our new book chapter!
June 10, 2025 at 7:13 PM
What do Elon Musk, Joyce Carol Oates, Adam Schiff & Ezra Pound have in common?
They all remixed T.S. Eliot lines: "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper"
Why have these lines become a meme—used across the political spectrum? Find out in our new book chapter!
They all remixed T.S. Eliot lines: "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper"
Why have these lines become a meme—used across the political spectrum? Find out in our new book chapter!
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
Lost David Bowie sessions from 1974 rediscovered!
Scrapped David Bowie Tapes From 1974 Sigma Sessions Have Been Discovered
Scrapped David Bowie recordings from his 1974 Sigma Sessions have been discovered by a record collector in Philadelphia.
americansongwriter.com
January 18, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Lost David Bowie sessions from 1974 rediscovered!
This is a great intro activity-- I've done something similar, but always a bit more structured-- next time I'll try it this way and see what kinds of variables emerge --
Taught the first day of "Data for the Rest of Us" and tried an activity I'm calling "We Data." Students construct datasets about themselves in small groups and look for stories in the spreadsheet. A good icebreaker and introduction to the themes of the course. More here:
We Data: An Icebreaking Activity · Brandon Walsh
Head of Student Programs at the Scholars' Lab in the UVA Library
walshbr.com
January 14, 2025 at 8:38 PM
This is a great intro activity-- I've done something similar, but always a bit more structured-- next time I'll try it this way and see what kinds of variables emerge --
So grateful for the people on YT who post videos showing how to fix random things! (Today it was how to remove a drawer from a piece of Ikea furniture I assembled at least 15 years ago and couldn't easily figure out.)
January 6, 2025 at 5:41 PM
So grateful for the people on YT who post videos showing how to fix random things! (Today it was how to remove a drawer from a piece of Ikea furniture I assembled at least 15 years ago and couldn't easily figure out.)
Looking forward to reading this!
My book, Fiction on the Page in Nineteenth-Century Magazines, is out now with Oxford University Press!
academic.oup.com/book/58989
It’s a book about page fillers, product placement, and strange hybrid fiction. It asks how the page of the magazine became a spur for new, odd genres.
academic.oup.com/book/58989
It’s a book about page fillers, product placement, and strange hybrid fiction. It asks how the page of the magazine became a spur for new, odd genres.
January 6, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Looking forward to reading this!
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
Reminder: You actually have three more days to get your shit together for the new year because 2025 doesn't really start until Monday.
January 3, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Reminder: You actually have three more days to get your shit together for the new year because 2025 doesn't really start until Monday.
As a Gen Xer, I have always associated "vibes" with hippie boomers. This essay explains their return: "They are precious fairy dust to keep the all-seeing algorithms from sinking their vampire teeth into our culture, and yet they are a modern marketing tool." www.theguardian.com/culture/2024...
‘It’s game over for facts’: how vibes came to rule everything from pop to politics
From voters picking up ‘bad vibes’ to the Brat girl summer, vague instincts now make the world go round. Does this represent a crisis of seriousness or has it always been feelings that make us human?
www.theguardian.com
December 14, 2024 at 2:33 PM
As a Gen Xer, I have always associated "vibes" with hippie boomers. This essay explains their return: "They are precious fairy dust to keep the all-seeing algorithms from sinking their vampire teeth into our culture, and yet they are a modern marketing tool." www.theguardian.com/culture/2024...
Currently enjoying this take on the "spooky abandoned space ship" genre: Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes. #FridayReads us.macmillan.com/books/978125...
Dead Silence
A Best Book of 2022 by the New York Public Library • One of the Best SFF Books of 2022 (Gizmodo) • One of the Best SF Mysteries of 2022 (CrimeReads) • ...
us.macmillan.com
December 13, 2024 at 11:31 PM
Currently enjoying this take on the "spooky abandoned space ship" genre: Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes. #FridayReads us.macmillan.com/books/978125...
A poem appropriate for the (grading) season, by @josephfasano.bsky.social: poets.org/poem/student...
For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper
Now I let it fall back in the grasses. I hear you. I know this life is hard now. I know your days are precious on this earth. But what are you trying to be free of? The living? The miraculous task of ...
poets.org
December 13, 2024 at 10:20 PM
A poem appropriate for the (grading) season, by @josephfasano.bsky.social: poets.org/poem/student...
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
A frustrated letter from the Library of Congress asking Norbert Weiner what section of a library his book is supposed to be in (1949).
December 12, 2024 at 4:30 PM
A frustrated letter from the Library of Congress asking Norbert Weiner what section of a library his book is supposed to be in (1949).
Happy to see #fridayreads starting to flourish here! I'm currently enjoying The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard: pirate space opera politics and intrigue, with sentient ships in the mix.
November 22, 2024 at 7:52 PM
Happy to see #fridayreads starting to flourish here! I'm currently enjoying The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard: pirate space opera politics and intrigue, with sentient ships in the mix.
Wonderful strategies here for non-poets too:
Hey poets! Check out BERNADETTE MAYER's list of poetry experiments/prompts. Blow your mind and never be stuck again: www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Maye...
November 22, 2024 at 7:47 PM
Wonderful strategies here for non-poets too:
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
some little bluesky tips 🦋
your blocks, likes, lists, and just about everything except chats are PUBLIC
you can pin custom feeds; i like quiet posters, best of follows, mutuals, mentions
if your chronological feed is overwhelming, you can make and pin make a personal list of "unmissable" people
your blocks, likes, lists, and just about everything except chats are PUBLIC
you can pin custom feeds; i like quiet posters, best of follows, mutuals, mentions
if your chronological feed is overwhelming, you can make and pin make a personal list of "unmissable" people
November 20, 2024 at 11:56 AM
some little bluesky tips 🦋
your blocks, likes, lists, and just about everything except chats are PUBLIC
you can pin custom feeds; i like quiet posters, best of follows, mutuals, mentions
if your chronological feed is overwhelming, you can make and pin make a personal list of "unmissable" people
your blocks, likes, lists, and just about everything except chats are PUBLIC
you can pin custom feeds; i like quiet posters, best of follows, mutuals, mentions
if your chronological feed is overwhelming, you can make and pin make a personal list of "unmissable" people
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
University presses putting together starter packs of all their authors on Bluesky is such a good move.
November 21, 2024 at 2:03 PM
University presses putting together starter packs of all their authors on Bluesky is such a good move.
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
I'm giving another paper tomorrow on Annie Edwardes, my favourite Victorian sensation novelist you've really never heard of. Cover 👇 from the yellowback edition of Archie Lovell (1866), depicting a dramatic moment between the heroine & the caddish Gerald Durant on a steamer to London.
November 21, 2024 at 2:48 PM
I'm giving another paper tomorrow on Annie Edwardes, my favourite Victorian sensation novelist you've really never heard of. Cover 👇 from the yellowback edition of Archie Lovell (1866), depicting a dramatic moment between the heroine & the caddish Gerald Durant on a steamer to London.
Next level
Good morning Bluesky.
Here's a helpful starter pack for divorced men named Geoff but one has been murdered. Please help us find the killer.
go.bsky.app/KDY26rh
Here's a helpful starter pack for divorced men named Geoff but one has been murdered. Please help us find the killer.
go.bsky.app/KDY26rh
November 15, 2024 at 1:18 PM
Next level
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
Didn't find one, so made a computational literary studies starter pack, with notable bunch of european folks and early career scholars.
My circle here is small, so please reply/dm to be added or removed and suggest people from your networks!
go.bsky.app/4et1nxZ
My circle here is small, so please reply/dm to be added or removed and suggest people from your networks!
go.bsky.app/4et1nxZ
November 12, 2024 at 4:51 PM
Didn't find one, so made a computational literary studies starter pack, with notable bunch of european folks and early career scholars.
My circle here is small, so please reply/dm to be added or removed and suggest people from your networks!
go.bsky.app/4et1nxZ
My circle here is small, so please reply/dm to be added or removed and suggest people from your networks!
go.bsky.app/4et1nxZ
+1 (h/t @ncecire.bsky.social )
Welcome all.
Life in academia is particularly hard right now.
Toward a modest improvement, consider sending Kudos Emails.
Reach out to a stranger and say you liked their paper. This small mitzvah can make a world of difference.
I’ve seen it happen.
michaelkaspari.org/2016/05/23/o...
Life in academia is particularly hard right now.
Toward a modest improvement, consider sending Kudos Emails.
Reach out to a stranger and say you liked their paper. This small mitzvah can make a world of difference.
I’ve seen it happen.
michaelkaspari.org/2016/05/23/o...
On the salutary effect of the Kudos Email
If you like someone’s work, don’t just cite them, write them!
michaelkaspari.org
November 10, 2024 at 10:43 PM
+1 (h/t @ncecire.bsky.social )
I love to see the paleography bat signal go on -- this is what a social network is good for! (I don't have any answers for this one but maybe you do)
November 10, 2024 at 10:30 PM
I love to see the paleography bat signal go on -- this is what a social network is good for! (I don't have any answers for this one but maybe you do)
Hard to know if it's just the influx of new joins or the new visibility offered by "starter packs", but I'm encouraged by finding lots of once-familiar names and faces now on here-- as well as new ones!
November 10, 2024 at 1:11 AM
Hard to know if it's just the influx of new joins or the new visibility offered by "starter packs", but I'm encouraged by finding lots of once-familiar names and faces now on here-- as well as new ones!
Reposted by Natalie M. Houston
At last, there's a searchable directory of Bluesky starter packs, courtesy of @mubashariqbal.com! Just one more way third-party developers are helping to make this place better.
Search starter packs by keyword, and sort by "Uses" to see which ones people are finding the most helpful
Search starter packs by keyword, and sort by "Uses" to see which ones people are finding the most helpful
All - Bluesky Directory
A curated collection of all things relating to the Blue Sky social media platform.
blueskydirectory.com
November 8, 2024 at 3:58 AM
At last, there's a searchable directory of Bluesky starter packs, courtesy of @mubashariqbal.com! Just one more way third-party developers are helping to make this place better.
Search starter packs by keyword, and sort by "Uses" to see which ones people are finding the most helpful
Search starter packs by keyword, and sort by "Uses" to see which ones people are finding the most helpful