This remains one of my favorite posts on the internet, from back when Twitter was funny.

Of course, even if this reference has traveled very far from where the song started, this very violent moment is now part of the song’s story. It’s an uncomfortable truth for those who understand the song differently, but also a reminder to resist its collapse into a simple, one-note meaning.

I want to emphasize that, as far as I've read, it is by no means certain that he learned the song from Far Cry 6, but given how the other references he made are steeped in video game culture, this example illustrates that broader context.

More on that: www.seattletimes.com/nation-world...

The first stanza of this version starts somewhat in the vein of the Italian resistance song (an earlier version is about workers’ rights), but then they devolve into something much more violent.

The OG Italian lyrics (w/ English translation) are here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bella_c...

It’s looking possible that Robinson’s use of “bella ciao” comes by way of video game culture, rather than a historical study into the song. There’s a version in Far Cry 6 that is used as a rebel song against a fictional dictator of a fictional country.

farcry.fandom.com/wiki/Bella_C...

A good example is the version by Marc Ribot & Tom Waits, which has been circulated quite a bit. It is slow, & there's more pain in Tom Waits’s voice than there is a sense of victory against fascism (the way I hear it, which is far from the only way to interpret it).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qyk...

I was curious how the sound of its many (recorded) interpretations can shape a listener’s meaning-making experience. E.g. this article describes it as a “jaunty, earwormy tune composed in the major key,” yet there are many interpretations that don’t fit that description.

www.npr.org/2025/09/12/n...

I was already thinking about doing a "Realism–vibe or not?" activity with my students. Any worries I had about that being too unserious are now gone.

(And yes, this is going into the slides, because it is infinitely better than whatever I could have put together.)

Also, that’s a fantastic playlist!

Thanks for reading, and glad it introduced a few new versions! There’s such a dizzying array.

And yet, over and over we see the reverse, with quant methods held above qual methods, and qual researchers expected to develop at least some quant expertise (but rarely the other way around).

It’s a fundamentally incurious position, one that reduces our ability to test and generate new knowledge.

You would be hard-pressed to find a transdisciplinary research opportunity requiring “strong qualitative skills” (and thus closing the door on anyone who specializes in quant instead).

Such an advertisement would quickly be identified as violating the spirit of transdisciplinarity.

Many social science researchers also use qualitative methods in their work, as opposed to quantitative.

Why?

Because they are the methods best suited to answer certain research questions (just as quant methods are best suited to other types of inquiry).

Wrt this postdoc, it is simply not possible to run a truly transdisciplinary program if only one set of research methods is supported. It baffles me why you would seek out humanities scholars in cases like these, only to shut out the types of inquiry that the humanities require.

…when I went to look at the requirements, I was surprised to see “strong quantitative and computational skills” at the top.

Such skills are ofc well-suited to many types of research, and in some fields, they are *the* methods you use. But not all fields—ESPECIALLY not the humanities—require them.