K. Morrissey
LightNews LightNews
banner
katiedidnt.bsky.social
K. Morrissey
@katiedidnt.bsky.social
1.3K followers 220 following 500 posts
Assistant Prof at ASU. Research/Teach: Media studies, digital culture, and female desire in pop-media. (She/Her.)
Posts Replies Media Videos
katiedidnt.bsky.social
Okay, this is for my fan historians, does anyone know anything about the origin story for the first IDICon logo/program cover (shown at left). Because, I can not unsee this. Given the origins of IDICon and this politics of the Lissitzky poster (right), this has to be intentional, right?!
Program cover for the 1984 ICICon. Cover image shows simply line art. It is three concentric circles being pierced by a triangle. While it is simply geometric pattern, the image evokes classic Star Trek imagery of the Enterprise flying in space. El Lissitzky's famous 1919 poster "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge." A work of protest/propaganda made during the Russian Civil War art, the image shows a large white circle (the Whites) being pierced by a red triangle (the Bolsheviks).
November 7, 2025 at 9:08 PM
katiedidnt.bsky.social
"Bogus upsides" is officially my new favorite phrase.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/s...
Quote from linked article reads: "Dr. Abalkina said that such papers are typically riddled with fraud — everything from doctored images to plagiarized text. To avoid plagiarism detectors, paper mills often use artificial intelligence to alter the text they lift from other papers, sometimes introducing bizarre phrasing such as “bogus upside” instead of “false positive.”"
August 5, 2025 at 4:49 PM
katiedidnt.bsky.social
Why does the press keep saying things like this? Where is this idea coming from? I’m assuming it’s not from people who actually know what well written papers look like? Because, I really wish I could convey to them the utter tedium of reading AI generated papers.
Quote from NY Times article. It says: “For several years, this phenomenon has raised concerns about the reliability of these systems. Though they are useful in some situations — like writing term papers, summarizing office documents and generating computer code — their mistakes can cause problems.”
May 6, 2025 at 4:15 PM
katiedidnt.bsky.social
New pub alert! My chapter “(Media) Fandom is Not a Noun” is out in the new edition of The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom. This is the one where I tell you why you might want to stop using the word fandom.

(Next term I take on in my efforts at being a fan studies killjoy? Slash.)
Image of the book cover for Routledge Companion to Media Fandom Image of an inside page of a book featuring the article “(Media) Fandom is Not a Noun” by Katherine E. Morrissey.
April 1, 2025 at 2:08 AM
katiedidnt.bsky.social
Major sources of stress for higher ed workers in the past year. 46% of faculty identified political influence with faculty, staff, and administrators combined at 42%.
Bar graph visualizing sources of stress for higher ed employees. Text summary is in article linked above. Bar graph visualizing sources of stress for higher ed employees. Text version is in article linked above.
February 18, 2025 at 4:13 PM
katiedidnt.bsky.social
This article is paywalled, but the key quote is here:
This is a screenshot from a news article. The quote reads: “More than a third of faculty members said they feel more constrained, compared to six or seven years ago, in their ability to speak freely while teaching, participating in faculty governance, or just living as a citizen. Faculty members are also feeling the heat from those outside campus — about a third of respondents, on average, believe that there is now more pressure from trustees, state lawmakers, and donors to avoid negative publicity. Professors were most likely to see their chief academic officers, like a dean or provost, as having the most influence in determining how much their academic freedom was protected.”
January 9, 2025 at 7:19 PM
katiedidnt.bsky.social
This is the part that really resonates with me. I'm not in Texas, but I still I feel this is my own classes. Particularly the larger entry-level courses. When discussing anything cultural, there's a constant worry about what to say and how to say it, or what might get me the wrong kind of attention.
This is a screencap of a quote. It reads: "Faculty members cannot cede their authority to bureaucrats who overinterpret the law. Laws like SB 17 have already chilled conversations around race, class, and gender in the classroom and with fellow faculty. Students ask meekly, “Are you sure we are allowed to talk about this?” Faculty members worry about hidden cameras in the classroom. Fears and uncertainties around such laws are bad enough without preemptively sacrificing our power to freely and responsibly pursue ideas in the classroom and in our scholarship."
November 27, 2024 at 6:13 PM
katiedidnt.bsky.social
This is a screencap of a quote. It reads: "At an October Faculty Senate meeting, my concern turned into full-blown alarm when our chief compliance officer, Clay Simmons, told us that SB 17 applies to teaching and research. I was shocked, not only because this seemed like a clear breach of academic freedom, but also because SB 17 explicitly exempts “academic-course instruction” and “scholarly research.” Simmons relayed to us, however, that classroom lessons that touch DEI topics have to be appropriately “limited” and that research on such topics “must meet the definition of true research,” and the topic must “be essential to the research.”"
November 27, 2024 at 5:59 PM
katiedidnt.bsky.social
William Morris believed in hand-crafted work. He was suspicious of industrialization and capitalism. He was a socialist. I wonder how he'd feel about this set of salad plates being sold for $79.95 at Williams Sonoma.

(They're awfully pretty though.)
www.williams-sonoma.com/shop/tableto...
October 16, 2023 at 4:46 AM
katiedidnt.bsky.social
These Frazier review headlines are getting ridiculous.
NY Times headline reads: Frazier Returns, Tossed, Scrambled and Eggscruciating
October 15, 2023 at 4:57 PM
katiedidnt.bsky.social
I'm supposed to dress in a halloween costume for the party and I'm contemplating going as weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon). Anyone seen a basic pink dress that would work as a costume base?
Photo of Kate McKinnon as "Weird Barbie" in the Barbie move. She's in a bright pink dress that's covered in scribbles and has messy multicolored hair. She's a Barbie that's been played with a little too much.
September 8, 2023 at 11:15 PM