Scott Selisker
@sselisker.bsky.social
literature prof at U of Arizona. books: HUMAN PROGRAMMING (on metaphors for ideology), NETWORKED CHARACTER (on social networks in recent US fiction and history, forthcoming 2026ish). he, suh-LISK-er, views mine, sporadically present here.
Pinned
Scott Selisker
@sselisker.bsky.social
· Jun 12
Mostly recovered from a humbling 2-year-covid-to-post-concussion-syndrome interlude, hoping to get back up to speed with academic pals and lit studies fields. Hi!
Reposted by Scott Selisker
"the heist film offers audiences a spectacle of highly choreographed expertise. From Rififi to Sneakers to Soderbergh canon (Out of Sight Logan Lucky Oceans 11–13), the genre has generated some of cinema’s most powerful allegories of collective action"
homework: read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlant...
homework: read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlant...
November 11, 2025 at 2:16 PM
"the heist film offers audiences a spectacle of highly choreographed expertise. From Rififi to Sneakers to Soderbergh canon (Out of Sight Logan Lucky Oceans 11–13), the genre has generated some of cinema’s most powerful allegories of collective action"
homework: read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlant...
homework: read.dukeupress.edu/south-atlant...
Reposted by Scott Selisker
For the Monday morning crowd! My take on THE MASTERMIND and the politics of the heist film for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social lareviewofbooks.org/article/rebe...
Rebel Without a Clue | Los Angeles Review of Books
Elizabeth Alsop picks up the trail of Kelly Reichardt’s alienated art thief in “The Mastermind.”
lareviewofbooks.org
November 10, 2025 at 2:12 PM
For the Monday morning crowd! My take on THE MASTERMIND and the politics of the heist film for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social lareviewofbooks.org/article/rebe...
A beautiful piece of writing and a valuable take on media coverage These Days,
Peter Coviello isn't on Bluesky, but this definitely should be: lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
lithub.com
November 8, 2025 at 12:41 AM
A beautiful piece of writing and a valuable take on media coverage These Days,
Reposted by Scott Selisker
Peter Coviello isn't on Bluesky, but this definitely should be: lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
lithub.com
November 7, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Peter Coviello isn't on Bluesky, but this definitely should be: lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Reposted by Scott Selisker
Reposted by Scott Selisker
if you are wondering why the Trump administration is creating racist memes with images from Halo and Lord of the Rings
Speculative Whiteness
Reveals the alt-right’s project to claim science fiction and—by extension—the future Fascists such as Richard Spencer interpret science fiction films a...
www.upress.umn.edu
October 30, 2025 at 1:55 PM
if you are wondering why the Trump administration is creating racist memes with images from Halo and Lord of the Rings
I reviewed Ben Mangrum’s new book, on the surprising range of American comedies about computers, for ASAP:
Check out our newest review by sselisker.bsky.social on Ben Mangrum's newest book about comedy, GenAI, phenomenology, slop, and more: "The Comedy of Computation offers a toolkit for understanding a load-bearing portion of the discourse about new technologies."
asapjournal.com/review/revie...
asapjournal.com/review/revie...
Review of Ben Mangrum’s The Comedy of Computation, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obsolescence - ASAP/Review
This spring, I tuned in to an episode of the New York Times podcast Hard Fork to hear an interview with Karen Hao, the author of Empire of AI (2025). Hao explains her choice of “Empire”…
asapjournal.com
October 30, 2025 at 2:13 PM
I reviewed Ben Mangrum’s new book, on the surprising range of American comedies about computers, for ASAP:
Reposted by Scott Selisker
Thrilled to announce my new book (electronic version out now, print next month) — it proposes a new value theory grounded in the longue durée of literary institutions, 1800–present.
October 29, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Thrilled to announce my new book (electronic version out now, print next month) — it proposes a new value theory grounded in the longue durée of literary institutions, 1800–present.
A truly legendary run, transformative contributions to letters & humanities, and a wonderfully supportive and insightful editor on a personal level. Congrats and thanks for everything @noctambulate.bsky.social !
Doug Armato, who has helmed the 100-year-old press for 27 years, is retiring at the end of December. His tenure saw the expansion of the press’s list and the development of strong Indigenous studies, trade, and regional publishing programs.
University of Minnesota Press Director Retires
Doug Armato, who has helmed the 100-year-old press for 27 years, is retiring at the end of December. His tenure saw the expansion of the press’s list and the development of strong Indigenous studies,…
buff.ly
October 29, 2025 at 5:42 PM
A truly legendary run, transformative contributions to letters & humanities, and a wonderfully supportive and insightful editor on a personal level. Congrats and thanks for everything @noctambulate.bsky.social !
Kitamura report: found *Audition*’s Goffmanian thriller vibe more exciting than its ending, but in *Intimacies,* the end made the novel. Further research (the first one) required…
October 21, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Kitamura report: found *Audition*’s Goffmanian thriller vibe more exciting than its ending, but in *Intimacies,* the end made the novel. Further research (the first one) required…
I doubt I’ll beat Silksong (1/3 through Act 2), but awed by Team Cherry’s vision of gracefulness and fluidity, where boss fights and platforming sequences are explicitly *dancing*…
October 21, 2025 at 1:47 AM
I doubt I’ll beat Silksong (1/3 through Act 2), but awed by Team Cherry’s vision of gracefulness and fluidity, where boss fights and platforming sequences are explicitly *dancing*…
U of Arizona says NO to the Compact: president.arizona.edu/sites/defaul...
president.arizona.edu
October 20, 2025 at 9:31 PM
U of Arizona says NO to the Compact: president.arizona.edu/sites/defaul...
Reposted by Scott Selisker
AAUP holds a day of action this Friday Oct 17
nationwide teach in against the loyalty oaths us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
the original 9 persecuted campuses have in-person events
find your chapter www.aaup.org/chapters/fin...
nationwide teach in against the loyalty oaths us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
the original 9 persecuted campuses have in-person events
find your chapter www.aaup.org/chapters/fin...
Find a Chapter
A list of AAUP chapters, both unionized and nonunionized. (You can also see a list of just union chapters.)
www.aaup.org
October 15, 2025 at 12:44 PM
AAUP holds a day of action this Friday Oct 17
nationwide teach in against the loyalty oaths us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
the original 9 persecuted campuses have in-person events
find your chapter www.aaup.org/chapters/fin...
nationwide teach in against the loyalty oaths us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
the original 9 persecuted campuses have in-person events
find your chapter www.aaup.org/chapters/fin...
Reposted by Scott Selisker
How W. E. B. Du Bois responded to government policing of "anti-American" sentiment during the 1910s:
"I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, 'We are seeking to have the Constitution of the United States thoroughly and completely enforced.' ”
"I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, 'We are seeking to have the Constitution of the United States thoroughly and completely enforced.' ”
October 13, 2025 at 6:37 PM
How W. E. B. Du Bois responded to government policing of "anti-American" sentiment during the 1910s:
"I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, 'We are seeking to have the Constitution of the United States thoroughly and completely enforced.' ”
"I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, 'We are seeking to have the Constitution of the United States thoroughly and completely enforced.' ”
Reposted by Scott Selisker
crafting an administrative turducken: reporting on the reports to be reported inside a larger, meatier report
October 9, 2025 at 5:42 PM
crafting an administrative turducken: reporting on the reports to be reported inside a larger, meatier report
Reposted by Scott Selisker
ACLS statement against White House “compact”: THIS IS SOVIET SHIT
October 6, 2025 at 4:10 PM
ACLS statement against White House “compact”: THIS IS SOVIET SHIT
Excellent analyses that go beyond a lot of the media coverage of the Compact I’ve seen. Esp good on the glaring absence of a carrot here, and on the significance of the range of medium-to-soft targets…
for any UVA folks that follow me you should circulate this among your networks balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...
Balkinization: The Art of Replacing the Law with the Deal
A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics
balkin.blogspot.com
October 5, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Excellent analyses that go beyond a lot of the media coverage of the Compact I’ve seen. Esp good on the glaring absence of a carrot here, and on the significance of the range of medium-to-soft targets…
Reposted by Scott Selisker
this great point about the social character of knowledge —how knowing real things relies on others signaling when you’re wrong—is another way of highlighting the political importance of social shame. It also clarifies the fundamental nihilism of the AI-industrial complex
Memorizing this
October 3, 2025 at 11:31 AM
this great point about the social character of knowledge —how knowing real things relies on others signaling when you’re wrong—is another way of highlighting the political importance of social shame. It also clarifies the fundamental nihilism of the AI-industrial complex
Reposted by Scott Selisker
“This is extortion, plain and simple.
It is not hyperbole to say that the future of higher education.. requires that every university reject it…The only solution is solidarity and collective action against this effort at federal control over higher education.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...
It is not hyperbole to say that the future of higher education.. requires that every university reject it…The only solution is solidarity and collective action against this effort at federal control over higher education.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...
Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion
www.nytimes.com
October 2, 2025 at 11:03 PM
“This is extortion, plain and simple.
It is not hyperbole to say that the future of higher education.. requires that every university reject it…The only solution is solidarity and collective action against this effort at federal control over higher education.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...
It is not hyperbole to say that the future of higher education.. requires that every university reject it…The only solution is solidarity and collective action against this effort at federal control over higher education.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...
Recent reading:
Marlen Haushofer, The Wall: amazing experience of reading thinking it was from ~2015, finding out midway it’s from 1963. Evergreen Robinsonade Mood
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shroud: Another first-rate encounter study
Martha Wells, Murderbot: my students’ comfort reading, I so get it.
Marlen Haushofer, The Wall: amazing experience of reading thinking it was from ~2015, finding out midway it’s from 1963. Evergreen Robinsonade Mood
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shroud: Another first-rate encounter study
Martha Wells, Murderbot: my students’ comfort reading, I so get it.
September 28, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Recent reading:
Marlen Haushofer, The Wall: amazing experience of reading thinking it was from ~2015, finding out midway it’s from 1963. Evergreen Robinsonade Mood
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shroud: Another first-rate encounter study
Martha Wells, Murderbot: my students’ comfort reading, I so get it.
Marlen Haushofer, The Wall: amazing experience of reading thinking it was from ~2015, finding out midway it’s from 1963. Evergreen Robinsonade Mood
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shroud: Another first-rate encounter study
Martha Wells, Murderbot: my students’ comfort reading, I so get it.
Recent reading: Mick Herron’s Slow Horses books, smack between Dickens and Le Carré, silly at times but still a sustained meditation on failure, hopelessness, dysfunction, delusion, incompetent leadership, corruption, decline etc for These Times.
The short *spy novellas* are lovely studies in mood.
The short *spy novellas* are lovely studies in mood.
September 28, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Recent reading: Mick Herron’s Slow Horses books, smack between Dickens and Le Carré, silly at times but still a sustained meditation on failure, hopelessness, dysfunction, delusion, incompetent leadership, corruption, decline etc for These Times.
The short *spy novellas* are lovely studies in mood.
The short *spy novellas* are lovely studies in mood.
Reposted by Scott Selisker
The thing regular people don’t often grasp about ‘academic freedom’ is that if you don’t allow experts to research & teach in their fields of expertise, guided by their professional judgment & decades of training, you have effectively given up on the concept of knowledge & shut down your university
Universities are moving rapidly to comply with laws that don't exist.
“I’m emotionally shellshocked right now,” said one professor in the Texas Tech system. “What does it say about academic freedom? It says we don’t have it.” The professor spoke by phone from the inside of a car to avoid being overheard by colleagues.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...
September 27, 2025 at 11:41 AM
The thing regular people don’t often grasp about ‘academic freedom’ is that if you don’t allow experts to research & teach in their fields of expertise, guided by their professional judgment & decades of training, you have effectively given up on the concept of knowledge & shut down your university
Reposted by Scott Selisker
I genuinely think so much of our present pass is crystallized in the idea/hope that big data is the "end of theory." Similarly, Cass Sunstein on "infotopia" (and really his whole deal). Such a thirst for circumventing the social and politics as such. www.wired.com/2008/06/pb-t...
The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete
Illustration: Marian Bantjes “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we have? Only models, from cosmologi...
www.wired.com
September 20, 2025 at 2:18 PM
I genuinely think so much of our present pass is crystallized in the idea/hope that big data is the "end of theory." Similarly, Cass Sunstein on "infotopia" (and really his whole deal). Such a thirst for circumventing the social and politics as such. www.wired.com/2008/06/pb-t...
Still thinking about this, the idea of bespoke, custom, single-use text or code as the source of LLM appeal… McConaughey’s weird fantasy of his own LLM seems right in line with it…
Something about the way LLMs build in the idea that to find something out, you shouldn't read an already existing text that other people have also read (ew!); you should get fresh text generated just for you. Each time, new disposable text.
September 20, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Still thinking about this, the idea of bespoke, custom, single-use text or code as the source of LLM appeal… McConaughey’s weird fantasy of his own LLM seems right in line with it…
Reposted by Scott Selisker
Big essay out by @sdileonardi.bsky.social in @publicbooks.bsky.social today, drawing on 100 years of translations and bestseller data to show that the US has seen three waves of translation: European; Latin American Boom; Nordic Noir. And what this means for us.
www.publicbooks.org/how-translat...
www.publicbooks.org/how-translat...
How Translations Sell: Three U.S. Eras of International Bestsellers - Public Books
A translation renaissance in US publishing just ended. And you probably missed it.
www.publicbooks.org
September 16, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Big essay out by @sdileonardi.bsky.social in @publicbooks.bsky.social today, drawing on 100 years of translations and bestseller data to show that the US has seen three waves of translation: European; Latin American Boom; Nordic Noir. And what this means for us.
www.publicbooks.org/how-translat...
www.publicbooks.org/how-translat...