Hester Blum
@hesterblum.bsky.social
A patched professor in Queen Nature’s granite-founded College. Polar humanities, C19, oceanic studies. Ask me about Moby-Dick. I teach environmental and nineteenth-century American literature at WashU. Protect trans kids. She/her. hesterblum.com
Pinned
Hester Blum
@hesterblum.bsky.social
· May 16
Some personal news: I will be leaving Penn State and joining Washington University in St. Louis as the Lynne Cooper Harvey Distinguished Chair of English. My husband Jonathan Eburne will be J. H. Hexter Chair in Humanities at WashU. We are thrilled and energized by this new chapter in our lives. 1/3
WashU will NOT sign the compact, as the dean of arts and sciences announced just now to faculty – the dean was told by the chancellor that he could share that information (and that moment was the closest I’ve ever seen a college-wide faculty meeting come to a standing ovation).
October 21, 2025 at 10:31 PM
WashU will NOT sign the compact, as the dean of arts and sciences announced just now to faculty – the dean was told by the chancellor that he could share that information (and that moment was the closest I’ve ever seen a college-wide faculty meeting come to a standing ovation).
St Louis says NO KINGS in thunder (and lightning)
October 18, 2025 at 8:45 PM
St Louis says NO KINGS in thunder (and lightning)
Reposted by Hester Blum
What Democratic candidates should be fighting for
I wrote a little about some of the little details you might have missed in this video and why it hit me so hard as a trans person this morning:
www.burnsnotice.com/you-have-to-...
www.burnsnotice.com/you-have-to-...
October 11, 2025 at 3:32 PM
What Democratic candidates should be fighting for
Reposted by Hester Blum
I wrote a little about some of the little details you might have missed in this video and why it hit me so hard as a trans person this morning:
www.burnsnotice.com/you-have-to-...
www.burnsnotice.com/you-have-to-...
October 11, 2025 at 2:53 PM
I wrote a little about some of the little details you might have missed in this video and why it hit me so hard as a trans person this morning:
www.burnsnotice.com/you-have-to-...
www.burnsnotice.com/you-have-to-...
Yesssssss @sunsetandecho.bsky.social !!
September 27, 2025 at 11:17 AM
Yesssssss @sunsetandecho.bsky.social !!
The Penn State BoT is killing the public radio station. WPSU serves a half million rural Pennsylvanians, and it was cut at the same time the Board gave the PSU president--whose greatest hits include closing 7 (seven!) PSU campuses--a 1.1 million dollar raise. Please sign
www.change.org/p/save-wpsu
www.change.org/p/save-wpsu
Sign the Petition
SAVE WPSU
www.change.org
September 14, 2025 at 3:15 PM
The Penn State BoT is killing the public radio station. WPSU serves a half million rural Pennsylvanians, and it was cut at the same time the Board gave the PSU president--whose greatest hits include closing 7 (seven!) PSU campuses--a 1.1 million dollar raise. Please sign
www.change.org/p/save-wpsu
www.change.org/p/save-wpsu
Freakonomics just re-aired its three-part series on the history of whaling – it was a joy and an honor to be part of that conversation: freakonomics.com/podcast/what...
What Can Whales Teach Us About Clean Energy, Workplace Harmony, and Living the Good Life? (Update) - Freakonomics
What Can Whales Teach Us About Clean Energy, Workplace Harmony, and Living the Good Life? (Update) - Freakonomics
freakonomics.com
August 25, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Freakonomics just re-aired its three-part series on the history of whaling – it was a joy and an honor to be part of that conversation: freakonomics.com/podcast/what...
If only the non-Lego Endurance were so well cradled
August 21, 2025 at 2:19 PM
If only the non-Lego Endurance were so well cradled
We are about to move, I finally opened the bottle of hard cider made from apples from Arrowhead, Melville's farm. It was dry and lovely and I drank it amid the packed-up broken pieces of marble that top Melville's commode, which I was even more wonderfully given a few years ago.
August 20, 2025 at 3:36 PM
We are about to move, I finally opened the bottle of hard cider made from apples from Arrowhead, Melville's farm. It was dry and lovely and I drank it amid the packed-up broken pieces of marble that top Melville's commode, which I was even more wonderfully given a few years ago.
Resharing my A.I. statement for the fall semester—I’ll be amending “hallucinatory” because hallucinations are actually interesting and original.
My draft of a syllabus statement on a.i. for my writing class, for what it is worth:
August 19, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Resharing my A.I. statement for the fall semester—I’ll be amending “hallucinatory” because hallucinations are actually interesting and original.
Excellent to see this resource, @annakornbluh.bsky.social—thank you. (I’ll be updating my syllabus statement from last spring: bsky.app/profile/hest...)
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 12:22 AM
Excellent to see this resource, @annakornbluh.bsky.social—thank you. (I’ll be updating my syllabus statement from last spring: bsky.app/profile/hest...)
This is super excellent, Haaris!
We're launching a new Tidewater Initiative at JHU. Our research group on working waterfronts and coastal infrastructures includes a new student research lab, courses, programming partnerships with the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, and more in the works. sites.krieger.jhu.edu/tidewater/
Home | The Tidewater Initiative
We are a multidisciplinary research group devoted to study, stewardship, and stories of working waterfronts, coastal infrastructures, and oceans under conditions of globalization and environmental ins...
sites.krieger.jhu.edu
August 9, 2025 at 7:24 PM
This is super excellent, Haaris!
Reposted by Hester Blum
Look at what the fabulous Dr. Sarah Mesle and I are up to!!! We’re offering a seminar at C19's 2026 conference in Cincinnati, Ohio! Proposals aren't due until September 15th, so you've got plenty of time. Spread the word!
Details on how to apply, etc., at www.c19society.org/2026-confere...
Details on how to apply, etc., at www.c19society.org/2026-confere...
July 30, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Look at what the fabulous Dr. Sarah Mesle and I are up to!!! We’re offering a seminar at C19's 2026 conference in Cincinnati, Ohio! Proposals aren't due until September 15th, so you've got plenty of time. Spread the word!
Details on how to apply, etc., at www.c19society.org/2026-confere...
Details on how to apply, etc., at www.c19society.org/2026-confere...
Ephemera studies is the best
let out a very happy sound at the sight of @hesterblum.bsky.social cited in this book about early 20th century female film fangirls ... MY INTERESTS !!!
July 25, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Ephemera studies is the best
Well-governed angels the both of them
The romantic fiction you didn't know you wanted to read.
July 5, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Well-governed angels the both of them
My therapist today was asking me about moving from an allegedly purple state to a red state and I was saying that Pennsylvania has not felt like a safe place in a while. Fuck Penn (I’m a PhD alum and will never support Penn again), fuck the state medical systems that are now betraying trans kids.
BREAKING
The University of Pennsylvania has come to an agreement with the Trump administration on what the Department of Education said was its Title IX violations.
This will include stripping trans athlete Lia Thomas of her records, titles, and recognitions.
The University of Pennsylvania has come to an agreement with the Trump administration on what the Department of Education said was its Title IX violations.
This will include stripping trans athlete Lia Thomas of her records, titles, and recognitions.
July 1, 2025 at 9:26 PM
My therapist today was asking me about moving from an allegedly purple state to a red state and I was saying that Pennsylvania has not felt like a safe place in a while. Fuck Penn (I’m a PhD alum and will never support Penn again), fuck the state medical systems that are now betraying trans kids.
Can’t teach about gender or queer books in schools, can be “100% cool and 0% awkward”
June 28, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Can’t teach about gender or queer books in schools, can be “100% cool and 0% awkward”
“No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates.”
June 27, 2025 at 6:57 PM
“No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates.”
I just walked out of seeing the Materialists thinking it was the worst thing of all time and then I saw that the US has joined this hideous war and I stand by my judgment of the Materialists
June 22, 2025 at 1:08 AM
I just walked out of seeing the Materialists thinking it was the worst thing of all time and then I saw that the US has joined this hideous war and I stand by my judgment of the Materialists
This may be A.I.‘s biggest crime yet
June 21, 2025 at 10:38 PM
This may be A.I.‘s biggest crime yet
Reposted by Hester Blum
QUEER WHALES! EMANCIPATION NARRATIVES! SCURVY! I’m infiltrating the International @melville-society.bsky.social Conference this week to bring you the latest and greatest in illustrated academics. (Full versions to come when I’m no longer sleeping aboard a Danish sail training vessel from 1882.)
June 18, 2025 at 12:33 PM
QUEER WHALES! EMANCIPATION NARRATIVES! SCURVY! I’m infiltrating the International @melville-society.bsky.social Conference this week to bring you the latest and greatest in illustrated academics. (Full versions to come when I’m no longer sleeping aboard a Danish sail training vessel from 1882.)
