Roopika Risam
@roopikarisam.bsky.social
Chair of Film & Media Studies at Dartmouth 💚, equestrian🐴, author of DATA EMPIRE (Harper & Torva, July 2026) https://roopikarisam.com
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Roopika Risam
@roopikarisam.bsky.social
· Sep 23
It's UK official! DATA EMPIRE, coming July 9, 2026 🤩
*sends friend across the country the exact cough drops you need to survive Paxlovid mouth*
Friend: [Partner] thinks this is nice but unnecessary
Roopsi: I AM SOUTH ASIAN I CAN’T HELP IT
Friend: That’s what I told her!
Roopsi: Thank you for allowing me to fulfill my cultural duties.
Friend: [Partner] thinks this is nice but unnecessary
Roopsi: I AM SOUTH ASIAN I CAN’T HELP IT
Friend: That’s what I told her!
Roopsi: Thank you for allowing me to fulfill my cultural duties.
November 24, 2025 at 10:12 PM
*sends friend across the country the exact cough drops you need to survive Paxlovid mouth*
Friend: [Partner] thinks this is nice but unnecessary
Roopsi: I AM SOUTH ASIAN I CAN’T HELP IT
Friend: That’s what I told her!
Roopsi: Thank you for allowing me to fulfill my cultural duties.
Friend: [Partner] thinks this is nice but unnecessary
Roopsi: I AM SOUTH ASIAN I CAN’T HELP IT
Friend: That’s what I told her!
Roopsi: Thank you for allowing me to fulfill my cultural duties.
Your friendly neighborhood digital humanists appear in a promotional video for the initiative that got us hired. Listen, if it gives me the opportunity to work with @wernimont.bsky.social, I'll gladly smile for the camera. vimeo.com/1139014443?f...
November 24, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Your friendly neighborhood digital humanists appear in a promotional video for the initiative that got us hired. Listen, if it gives me the opportunity to work with @wernimont.bsky.social, I'll gladly smile for the camera. vimeo.com/1139014443?f...
I feel deeply vindicated about how much time I spent selecting chapter epigraphs because my editors like them.
November 24, 2025 at 4:20 PM
I feel deeply vindicated about how much time I spent selecting chapter epigraphs because my editors like them.
A project I'm working on has me learning about a lot of extremely awesome people. Dudley Thompson may be my favorite. What did this man NOT do? www.caribbeanaircrew-ww2.com?p=33
Caribbean aircrew in the RAF during WW2 » Blog Archive » THOMPSON – Dudley Lincoln Joseph
www.caribbeanaircrew-ww2.com
November 24, 2025 at 2:59 AM
A project I'm working on has me learning about a lot of extremely awesome people. Dudley Thompson may be my favorite. What did this man NOT do? www.caribbeanaircrew-ww2.com?p=33
Reposted by Roopika Risam
There are more people organizing and pushing back against the regime today than there were in the first term. There are more people in more places (rural towns and big cities across the country). I think it's really strange how resistant some people are to these facts. I wonder what's going on.
November 24, 2025 at 2:28 AM
There are more people organizing and pushing back against the regime today than there were in the first term. There are more people in more places (rural towns and big cities across the country). I think it's really strange how resistant some people are to these facts. I wonder what's going on.
We put my little guy in the round pen to free lunge him and he went WILD. Apparently the two mares in heat are making him think he’s still a stallion, even though that ship sailed five years ago. Oh, Flight.
November 23, 2025 at 9:04 PM
We put my little guy in the round pen to free lunge him and he went WILD. Apparently the two mares in heat are making him think he’s still a stallion, even though that ship sailed five years ago. Oh, Flight.
A little "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" wouldn't go amiss right now.
November 23, 2025 at 2:17 PM
A little "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" wouldn't go amiss right now.
Reposted by Roopika Risam
Another brilliant essay from @eryk.bsky.social, this time he writes the history of ChatGPT against the backdrop of mass loneliness and social distance. This history is still unfolding and the signs are not encouraging for where we are headed.
What was ChatGPT? Now nearly three years old, we can look at OpenAI's LLM as a product of its time, optimized ever since to its earliest uses. While this period of deep disorientation and social isolation has been obscured from public memory, it remains embedded within the interface.
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 23, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Another brilliant essay from @eryk.bsky.social, this time he writes the history of ChatGPT against the backdrop of mass loneliness and social distance. This history is still unfolding and the signs are not encouraging for where we are headed.
“Sometimes I felt like Adam Levine was singing right to me. Or maybe you. But I think it was me.” -my beloved 😂
November 23, 2025 at 5:40 AM
“Sometimes I felt like Adam Levine was singing right to me. Or maybe you. But I think it was me.” -my beloved 😂
My secret shame, Maroon 5, was AMAZING and we had fantastic seats 😍 They never disappoint.
November 23, 2025 at 4:17 AM
My secret shame, Maroon 5, was AMAZING and we had fantastic seats 😍 They never disappoint.
Finally, after countless hours of my life watching Gordon Ramsay on tv… and the waitress told me that he comes to visit a couple times a year, is really nice, and just hops on the line to cook!
November 23, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Finally, after countless hours of my life watching Gordon Ramsay on tv… and the waitress told me that he comes to visit a couple times a year, is really nice, and just hops on the line to cook!
Reposted by Roopika Risam
Gargoyles, grotesques, and corbels reading books are my favorites.
July 18, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Gargoyles, grotesques, and corbels reading books are my favorites.
A good 40% of line edits from my editor address my ardent love of the em dash and another 40% my affinity for triads. At least I conquered my desire to tell people things multiple times, and then a few more times, just to make sure they got it. 😆
November 22, 2025 at 3:17 AM
A good 40% of line edits from my editor address my ardent love of the em dash and another 40% my affinity for triads. At least I conquered my desire to tell people things multiple times, and then a few more times, just to make sure they got it. 😆
My little guy enjoying a visit from his massage therapist, Auntie Stefani 💓
November 22, 2025 at 12:23 AM
My little guy enjoying a visit from his massage therapist, Auntie Stefani 💓
I only under spent a $3 million grant by $3,431.46. I feel like 2,996,568.54 bucks!
November 21, 2025 at 9:30 PM
I only under spent a $3 million grant by $3,431.46. I feel like 2,996,568.54 bucks!
This essay talks about a major turning point in my approach to digital humanities, which has directly shaped what I've been doing for the last 5 years. I can show it to you soon once we finish dealing with some UI issues and do a little bit more data cleaning. But really, it freed me.
The second half of #ComputationalHumanities ("asking about") starts with @roopikarisam.bsky.social on the multiple, overlapping challenges faced in computational ethnic studies, and concrete suggestions for how everyone can help reduce them!
dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/projects/com...
dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/projects/com...
Computational Humanities | Debates in the Digital Humanities
Bringing together leading experts from across North America and Europe, _Computational Humanities_ redirects debates around computation and humanities digital scholarship from dualistic arguments to n...
dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu
November 21, 2025 at 8:30 PM
This essay talks about a major turning point in my approach to digital humanities, which has directly shaped what I've been doing for the last 5 years. I can show it to you soon once we finish dealing with some UI issues and do a little bit more data cleaning. But really, it freed me.
Reposted by Roopika Risam
The second half of #ComputationalHumanities ("asking about") starts with @roopikarisam.bsky.social on the multiple, overlapping challenges faced in computational ethnic studies, and concrete suggestions for how everyone can help reduce them!
dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/projects/com...
dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/projects/com...
Computational Humanities | Debates in the Digital Humanities
Bringing together leading experts from across North America and Europe, _Computational Humanities_ redirects debates around computation and humanities digital scholarship from dualistic arguments to n...
dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu
November 21, 2025 at 6:20 PM
The second half of #ComputationalHumanities ("asking about") starts with @roopikarisam.bsky.social on the multiple, overlapping challenges faced in computational ethnic studies, and concrete suggestions for how everyone can help reduce them!
dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/projects/com...
dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/projects/com...
Here's a good use case for not reducing all AI to commercial Gen AI and writing off its value. www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...
Can A.I. Help Revitalize Indigenous Languages?
Indigenous researchers and roboticists are crafting innovative tools to help save endangered dialects
www.smithsonianmag.com
November 21, 2025 at 3:20 AM
Here's a good use case for not reducing all AI to commercial Gen AI and writing off its value. www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...
I have until December 9th to finish my book revisions, but I vow that on the two days I have fun things planned between then and now (my secret shame *cough*Maroon 5*cough* on Saturday and the day of turkey), I am going to enjoy the hell out of them.
November 20, 2025 at 10:23 PM
I have until December 9th to finish my book revisions, but I vow that on the two days I have fun things planned between then and now (my secret shame *cough*Maroon 5*cough* on Saturday and the day of turkey), I am going to enjoy the hell out of them.
My inability to concentrate is off the charts. I have cycled between writing two abstracts, editing an external review self-study, reviewing a colleague's edits to an article, reviewing page proofs, and revising my book in the last hour and a half — and completely forgetting what I was just doing.
November 20, 2025 at 1:30 PM
My inability to concentrate is off the charts. I have cycled between writing two abstracts, editing an external review self-study, reviewing a colleague's edits to an article, reviewing page proofs, and revising my book in the last hour and a half — and completely forgetting what I was just doing.
I am on the board of a project started by a friend who left us. I love getting updates about what the folks carrying on his legacy are doing. But they also make me tremendously sad that he is not here to do it himself. Un abrazo fuerte, Ángel Nieves.
November 20, 2025 at 1:04 PM
I am on the board of a project started by a friend who left us. I love getting updates about what the folks carrying on his legacy are doing. But they also make me tremendously sad that he is not here to do it himself. Un abrazo fuerte, Ángel Nieves.
Things in the U.S. have gotten so much worse since I wrote my final chapter this summer that I have to rewrite the last third of it because by July it will read even more weirdly than it already does.
November 19, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Things in the U.S. have gotten so much worse since I wrote my final chapter this summer that I have to rewrite the last third of it because by July it will read even more weirdly than it already does.
A friend and I are Venmo-ing the same $50 back and forth between ourselves as we jointly buy Christmas presents, and it is cracking me up.
November 19, 2025 at 5:13 PM
A friend and I are Venmo-ing the same $50 back and forth between ourselves as we jointly buy Christmas presents, and it is cracking me up.
Few things bug me more than higher ed leaders saying that we lost our mission and lost the trust of the public, when we have actually been the target of a decades-long smear campaign by the right wing that worked. The moment we’re losing our mission is right now, in capitulation.
November 19, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Few things bug me more than higher ed leaders saying that we lost our mission and lost the trust of the public, when we have actually been the target of a decades-long smear campaign by the right wing that worked. The moment we’re losing our mission is right now, in capitulation.
Feeling all the feelings of doing research on a topic that is so core to who I am, everything I believe, and how I live in the world but also falls under the list of special dirty words created by the government of the country I live in. 🤬
November 19, 2025 at 3:14 AM
Feeling all the feelings of doing research on a topic that is so core to who I am, everything I believe, and how I live in the world but also falls under the list of special dirty words created by the government of the country I live in. 🤬