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seejenspeak.bsky.social
jen forestal
@seejenspeak.bsky.social
3.8K followers 920 following 95 posts
political theorist, assoc professor at Loyola Chicago. studying digital technologies, democratic practices, (software) architecture, & civic engagement. she/her
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seejenspeak.bsky.social
right, i mean, we kinda already know what the response is going to be, because it already happened in texas six months ago:
www.texastribune.org/2025/03/20/t...
“It was her time on Earth,” the translator said the parents told her. “They believe she’s better off where she is now.” “We would absolutely not take the MMR,” the mother said in English, referring to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination children typically receive before attending school. She said her stance on vaccination has not changed after her daughter’s death. “The measles wasn’t that bad. They got over it pretty quickly,” the mother said of her other four surviving children who were treated with castor oil and inhaled steroids and recovered.
September 4, 2025 at 4:35 AM
seejenspeak.bsky.social
i hate it here.
spam email selling active shooter accreditation for schools and daycares: "The only National Accreditation for the Safety and Security of Children, Teachers, Schools and Daycares in the United States. “We didn’t think it would happen here.” We know that schools and daycares across the country are receiving little to no help when it comes to emergency protocols..."
August 29, 2025 at 5:22 PM
seejenspeak.bsky.social
screenshot of durbin's tweet being rationed with 678 comments, 103 quote tweets, and 11 likes
March 14, 2025 at 9:57 PM
seejenspeak.bsky.social
tenure, if you can keep it.
letter on Loyola Chicago letterhead, dated March 14, 2025, saying "Dear Jennifer Forestal, It is my pleasure to inform you that your petition for promotion to Associate Professor with tenure is approved."
March 14, 2025 at 4:56 PM
seejenspeak.bsky.social
this is from the "Civil Disobedience" essay which is usually published in CRISES OF THE REPUBLIC

...which, now that I think about it, includes some other timely essays as well
CRISES OF THE REPUBLIC (table of contents) Lying in Politics Civil Disobedience On Violence Thoughts on Politics and Revolution HANNAH ARENDT
February 12, 2025 at 2:30 PM
seejenspeak.bsky.social
& yet, she's still right:
"Ever since the Mayflower Compact was drafted and signed under a different kind of emergency, voluntary associations have been the specifically American remedy for the failure of institutions, the unreliability of men, and the uncertain nature of the future."
It is common knowledge that this condition of latent or overt emergency prevails at present-and, indeed, has prevailed for some time-in large parts of the world; what is new is that this country is no longer an exception. Whether our form of government will survive this century is uncertain, but it is also uncertain that it will not. Wilson Carey McWilliams has wisely said, "When institutions fail, political society depends on men, and men are feeble reeds, prone to acquiesce in-if not to commit-iniquity."80 Ever since the Mayflower Compact was drafted and signed under a different kind of emergency, voluntary associations have been the specifically American remedy for the failure of institutions, the unreliability of men, and the uncertain nature of the future. As distinguished from other countries, this republic, despite the great turmoil of change and of failure through which it is going at present, may still be in possession of its traditional instruments for facing the future with some measure of confidence.
February 12, 2025 at 3:57 AM
seejenspeak.bsky.social
boy oh boy does arendt hit differently this semester:
"What we are confronted with is a constitutional crisis of the first order, and this crisis has been effected by two very different factors whose unfortunate coincidence has resulted in the particular poignancy as well as general confusion of the situation. There are the frequent challenges to the Constitution by the administration, with the consequential loss of confidence in constitutional processes by the people, that is, the withdrawal of consent; and there has come into the open, at about the same time, the more radical unwillingness of certain sections of the population to recognize the consensus universalis."
February 12, 2025 at 3:38 AM
seejenspeak.bsky.social
this is the second time in about a week that i've been in a women's bathroom stall--in two VERY different parts of the country!--and seen a note like this, reminding women that they can secretly vote for harris.
post-it note in a women's bathroom stall that reads: "REMINDER your vote is private. no one sees your vote at the polls. vote for your rights, your freedom, and our future generations. vote Harris/walk for a new way forward!"
October 19, 2024 at 4:23 PM
seejenspeak.bsky.social
it's finally here!
ENGAGING CITIZENSHIP is a labor of love, a textbook that introduces students to politics (and political science) by centering practices of democratic citizenship.

we hope people find it useful!
#polisky
newly arrived box full of copies of ENGAGING CITIZENSHIP, a new introduction to political science textbook by Balasco, Forestal, and Abernathy
September 18, 2024 at 10:39 PM
seejenspeak.bsky.social
🤷‍♀️
Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #487,155!
September 16, 2024 at 11:01 PM
seejenspeak.bsky.social
very very excited to share that Abe Singer and I are hosting this workshop, "Democracy & Justice Above & Below the State," at Loyola Chicago this April!
Please join us and share with anyone who may be interested! Register at forms.gle/wnbZ47mvyXuF...

happy to answer questions!
"Democracy and Justice Above and Below the State" workshop flyer, with presenters Emilee Booth Chapman, Jennifer C. Rubenstein, Ben Laurence, Victor Muniz-Fraticelli, Matthew Caulfield, Tobey K. Scharding, Maha Rafi Atal, and Stacy Douglas. At Loyola Chicago Damen Student Center, April 12 8:30a-5p.
February 12, 2024 at 6:09 PM
seejenspeak.bsky.social
happy to share that my article "Social Media, Social Control, & the Politics of Public Shaming" is out now--& open access!--at APSR.

in it, i discuss online public shaming, network structure, and one european_douchebag (no, not Rousseau!)
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
ABSTRACT: While there is disagreement over the value of public shaming, scholars largely agree that social media introduce pathologies. But while scholars rightly identify the effects of online public shaming (OPS), they misidentify the cause. Rather than solely a problem of scale, OPS’s effects are also shaped by the network structure within which they take place. In this article, I argue that the social conditions necessary for productive public shaming are more likely to obtain in a closed social network structure. Using the cases of Twitter, Wikipedia, and Reddit, I show how the design of social media platforms facilitates different network structures among users, with differing results for OPS. In evaluating OPS by way of network structure, I argue, we can not only better understand why OPS works productively in some cases and not in others, but also derive lessons for how to deploy, discuss, and respond to it more effectively.
November 7, 2023 at 9:10 PM