jedesty.bsky.social
jedesty.bsky.social
@jedesty.bsky.social
Absolutely vital reading on the media and ed tech systems as they currently stand.
Inspired by Northwestern students protesting EdTech-delivered loyalty oaths, by the student-led Luddite Renaissance, by Matthew Josephson, Connie Bruck & @tressiemcphd.bsky.social, I tried to track how kleptocratic antitrust policy enables a surveillance megalith.

open.substack.com/pub/theameri...
October 13, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Another good take on the compact in higher ed and the problems inherent to viewpoint diversity talk.
Opinion | When Viewpoint Diversity Means Conformity www.chronicle.com/article/when...
Opinion | When Viewpoint Diversity Means Conformity
Trump’s compact isn’t just coercive. It’s incoherent.
www.chronicle.com
October 13, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Crisp clear decisive account of the self-contradictory nature of viewpoint diversity. Bravo @lsiraganian.bsky.social !
I appreciate how @lsiraganian.bsky.social is seriously engaging claims about "viewpoint diversity" and "intellectual pluralism" and how they're weaponized by the Trump administration and other actors to launch attacks against Higher Ed. A Well-researched, compelling, and important read. #academicsky
October 13, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by jedesty.bsky.social
The Autumn Schedule of the London Modernism Seminar is here!
18 Oct: Asha Rogers 'Un/modern matter'
James Jordan 'The East End, Television and the Documentary Imagination, July 1939'
1 Nov: Aaron Rosenberg 'Climate of Conspiracy: Conrad, Greenland, and the Fourth Dimension'
Jed Esty Title tbc.
September 19, 2025 at 11:32 AM
"the trivialization of reading by AI hype merchants is a fable of obsolescence in support of a practice of enclosure." YES

Always worth reading(!): theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/the-techno...

As well as following:
theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/cruelfutur...
The Technofeudal Text
Literacy Is Our Commons, Technolords Wish To Enclose It
theamericanvandal.substack.com
August 25, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Excited for this new OUP series on Literature & Politics! Paired authors tackling vital terms and topics of the day, starting with Amanda Anderson and @simoncd.bsky.social on *Humanities Theory*. Next up Doug Mao and @duncanbell.bsky.social on *Utopia*.

global.oup.com/academic/con...
global.oup.com
August 11, 2025 at 6:32 PM
A great reading project! @katemarshall.bsky.social and I are glad you joined. And thanks for the reminders about Schnitzler & Zweig in relation to Zoë Henry’s talk on novella/play relations
Inspired by the novella seminar in SNS coordinated by Jed Esty and Kate Marshall, I decided to get a bunch of nouvelles from my to-read shelves and dedicate aome of my reading time this week to them.
June 3, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Reposted by jedesty.bsky.social
The ChatGPT-driven disruption of education is often presented, including in today’s viral NYMag piece, as a surprise event for which ed workers were caught unprepared

This ignores dynamics & decisions that, in some cases, go back decades, without which we could’ve metabolized ChatGPT competently

🧵
May 7, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Everyone should be reading and following these blistering pieces about this real-time bailout and consolidation of the tech right
For decades, the PayPal Mafia have sustained the illusion Ferguson & Spitzer articulate in Inside Job, that they are innovators, value generators, & creators.

They hope that by capturing & then dismantling the New Deal regulatory state, they will be able to preserve that status for posterity.
Authoritarianism is the Bailout
Klepto-Keynesianism's final phase.
theamericanvandal.substack.com
March 1, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Reposted by jedesty.bsky.social
👇 Gil (& @newrepublic.com) were among the handful of journos who saw this coming. My conversation with him (recorded before the election) will be part of the next arc of American Vandal, during which we will turn to the political economy of mass media in Gilded Ages old & new.
These stories were ahead of the curve and seemed far-fetched to many people in 2024.

In 2025, it's a different story. This is our reality.

It's crucial to understand what we're up against.

Many of these stories started as notes in the Nerd Reich newsletter. Subscribe! www.thenerdreich.com
The Nerd Reich | Silicon Valley Tech Extremism
Silicon Valley tech billionaire politics: authoritarianism, fascism, plutocracy, weirdness
www.thenerdreich.com
February 12, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by jedesty.bsky.social
Friends, I had the fantastic fortune of writing a postscript to a @mmodernity.bsky.social cluster abt book covers w/ some amazing covers & authors. Thank you @alixbeeston.bsky.social & @pdabashi.bsky.social for including me (& highlighting my own cover 💜) modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts...
Judging by its Cover, Part 2 | Modernism / Modernity Print+
The first section of “Judging by its Cover” consists of pieces that are interested in the cover as a form of compensation, a covering over, as a piece of gorgeous textile can mask or stand in for what one doesn’t want to confront, or what can’t be confronted for whatever nefarious, oblivious, or self-deceptive reason. The pieces are interested, too, in how covers spur
modernismmodernity.org
March 20, 2024 at 1:10 PM