Dr Victoria Austen
@vickyausten.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Classics at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Public Engagement Coordinator for @peoplingthepast.bsky.social
Gif Enthusiast.
My own unique mix of 🇬🇧🇨🇦🇺🇸
victoriaausten.com
Public Engagement Coordinator for @peoplingthepast.bsky.social
Gif Enthusiast.
My own unique mix of 🇬🇧🇨🇦🇺🇸
victoriaausten.com
It’s a classic Midwestern Fall-Winter combo on campus today!
November 10, 2025 at 6:11 PM
It’s a classic Midwestern Fall-Winter combo on campus today!
Honestly could have done without waking up to the first snow of the season on Monday of week 12 of the semester 🙃
November 10, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Honestly could have done without waking up to the first snow of the season on Monday of week 12 of the semester 🙃
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
What you’re witnessing is a populist assault on the BBC.
This is not an institutional scandal in any meaningful sense of the word. It is an attack on public service broadcasting.
iandunt.substack.com/p/extra-edit...
This is not an institutional scandal in any meaningful sense of the word. It is an attack on public service broadcasting.
iandunt.substack.com/p/extra-edit...
November 10, 2025 at 10:52 AM
What you’re witnessing is a populist assault on the BBC.
This is not an institutional scandal in any meaningful sense of the word. It is an attack on public service broadcasting.
iandunt.substack.com/p/extra-edit...
This is not an institutional scandal in any meaningful sense of the word. It is an attack on public service broadcasting.
iandunt.substack.com/p/extra-edit...
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage
November 10, 2025 at 5:02 AM
Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
This term is so social media-brained. Coined by people who can't imagine themselves without an audience, or that anyone could genuinely want to pass time in any other form than Stare at Phone
November 10, 2025 at 11:34 AM
This term is so social media-brained. Coined by people who can't imagine themselves without an audience, or that anyone could genuinely want to pass time in any other form than Stare at Phone
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...
Fedora man unmasked: Meet the teen behind the Louvre mystery photo
Fifteen-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux has become an internet sensation after an Associated Press photo captured him outside the Louvre on the day of a crown jewels heist.
apnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
This thread right here.
A friend recently texted me the same thing. “Do you really not use ChatGPT?!” It was a sign of where we are culturally on this. People are compelled to use it but also starting to question the normalcy?
Recently met someone who was very surprised to hear I didn’t use ChatGPT or any LLM.
I said my job depended on doing distinctive work. That was my selling point. If I started to sound like ChatGPT and turn out what it did, then how on earth could I justify doing it? What would that make me?
I said my job depended on doing distinctive work. That was my selling point. If I started to sound like ChatGPT and turn out what it did, then how on earth could I justify doing it? What would that make me?
November 8, 2025 at 8:29 PM
This thread right here.
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
generally wild how we have accepted "AI" as a universal inevitability rather than an incipient technology that should be understood and regulated for the common good
November 8, 2025 at 1:31 PM
generally wild how we have accepted "AI" as a universal inevitability rather than an incipient technology that should be understood and regulated for the common good
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Call me controversial, but technology that leads vulnerable people into crisis and even holds their hand as they die by suicide should not be endorsed by schools and universities, we should not be giving discounted subscriptions to this monstrous tech to young people AT ALL
The boyfriend of a friend of my son's has spent several weeks in a psych ward due to Chat GPT induced psychosis. He isn't suicidal but AI encouraged him down a toxic and paranoid wormhole until he became completely delusional. Evil stuff.
1.This is not the only known example we know of ChatGPT cheering on a vulnerable young person to die by suicide, this time it is a recent Texas A&M grad
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
November 7, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Call me controversial, but technology that leads vulnerable people into crisis and even holds their hand as they die by suicide should not be endorsed by schools and universities, we should not be giving discounted subscriptions to this monstrous tech to young people AT ALL
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
i mean this sounds cool but our masculinity depends entirely on how much petroleum we consume so you can see how our hands are tied
bsky.app/profile/davi...
bsky.app/profile/davi...
The US is the world's largest oil and gas producer. Yet, "China is now making more money from exporting green technology than America makes from exporting fossil fuels."
China’s clean-energy revolution will reshape markets and politics
The world’s biggest manufacturer now has an interest in the world decarbonising
www.economist.com
November 7, 2025 at 1:09 PM
i mean this sounds cool but our masculinity depends entirely on how much petroleum we consume so you can see how our hands are tied
bsky.app/profile/davi...
bsky.app/profile/davi...
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
I think lots of you all will be as excited as I am to see Jess Moody’s “Plants, Enslavement and Public History” project website
and you can sign up for the mailing list in the little box in bottom right corner
plantpublichistory.blogs.bristol.ac.uk
🗃️🌿🪴
and you can sign up for the mailing list in the little box in bottom right corner
plantpublichistory.blogs.bristol.ac.uk
🗃️🌿🪴
Plant Public History – Plants, Enslavement and Public History: Re-imagining green spaces as places of heritage and healing
plantpublichistory.blogs.bristol.ac.uk
November 7, 2025 at 6:53 AM
I think lots of you all will be as excited as I am to see Jess Moody’s “Plants, Enslavement and Public History” project website
and you can sign up for the mailing list in the little box in bottom right corner
plantpublichistory.blogs.bristol.ac.uk
🗃️🌿🪴
and you can sign up for the mailing list in the little box in bottom right corner
plantpublichistory.blogs.bristol.ac.uk
🗃️🌿🪴
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Had to dig this up.
November 7, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Had to dig this up.
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
🧵
🧵
November 6, 2025 at 8:43 PM
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
🧵
🧵
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
<Sue Sylvester face> I am going to create a workplace that is so ruined
November 6, 2025 at 2:38 PM
<Sue Sylvester face> I am going to create a workplace that is so ruined
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Thinking of ruining my workplace today, tbd. Will depend on whether I have time between meetings
November 6, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Thinking of ruining my workplace today, tbd. Will depend on whether I have time between meetings
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Oh I am not linking that amazingly misogynistic thing by that predictably misogynistic man, but good lord---why does anyone, anywhere, take him seriously?
If you do, or you're like, "oh, he's got some good points, he's just conservative" please know that I judge you an absolutely unserious person
If you do, or you're like, "oh, he's got some good points, he's just conservative" please know that I judge you an absolutely unserious person
November 6, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Oh I am not linking that amazingly misogynistic thing by that predictably misogynistic man, but good lord---why does anyone, anywhere, take him seriously?
If you do, or you're like, "oh, he's got some good points, he's just conservative" please know that I judge you an absolutely unserious person
If you do, or you're like, "oh, he's got some good points, he's just conservative" please know that I judge you an absolutely unserious person
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
That man earns a wage with this.
November 6, 2025 at 1:12 PM
That man earns a wage with this.
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Reminded of Gisèle Pelicot in France asserting "shame must change sides."
Brava: “If I don’t file a complaint, then what message does that send to all Mexican women?” Ms. Sheinbaum said at her daily news conference, noting sexual harassment was a crime… “If this can happen to the president, what’s going to happen to all the young women & women across our country?”
Mexico’s President Presses Charges Against Man Who Groped Her on the Street
www.nytimes.com
November 6, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Reminded of Gisèle Pelicot in France asserting "shame must change sides."
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Included is a state-of-the-field piece about disability in antiquity (open access), which I co-wrote with @horusofnekhen.bsky.social and @tibg1312.bsky.social. See where we're at with this subfield!
New issue of The Classical Review Vol. 75 , No. 2 (2025) www.cambridge.org/core/journal... @universitypress.cambridge.org @debscavator.bsky.social
@thedancinggrad.bsky.social @alysonroy.bsky.social @jessicamckenzie.bsky.social @pacman343.bsky.social
@thedancinggrad.bsky.social @alysonroy.bsky.social @jessicamckenzie.bsky.social @pacman343.bsky.social
November 5, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Included is a state-of-the-field piece about disability in antiquity (open access), which I co-wrote with @horusofnekhen.bsky.social and @tibg1312.bsky.social. See where we're at with this subfield!
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Every time discover a new piece on the dangers of LLMs, particularly for research and teaching, I add it to a Zotero library. I figure that I might as well share it, so here's my library of Cautionary AI Tales: www.zotero.org/groups/62758...
October 28, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Every time discover a new piece on the dangers of LLMs, particularly for research and teaching, I add it to a Zotero library. I figure that I might as well share it, so here's my library of Cautionary AI Tales: www.zotero.org/groups/62758...
I love/hate that I cannot go an election cycle in the US without learning an unnecessary amount of information about counties in Virginia 😅
November 5, 2025 at 1:22 PM
I love/hate that I cannot go an election cycle in the US without learning an unnecessary amount of information about counties in Virginia 😅
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Virginia/ New Jersey understood the assignment
November 5, 2025 at 1:51 AM
Virginia/ New Jersey understood the assignment
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Nerd life is L I F E
Impossible to overstate how exciting field conferences are for academics. We spend 11.95 months a year with people only understanding 5-15% of our jokes and references, but then for three glorious days 😍😍😍
November 5, 2025 at 1:41 AM
Nerd life is L I F E
Don’t you threaten me with a good time Universal 🙏
Universal is reportedly set to bring The Mummy franchise back to life with stars Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz returning and Ready or Not's Radio Silence team directing.
For more info: https://bit.ly/4onxmaX
For more info: https://bit.ly/4onxmaX
November 5, 2025 at 12:50 AM
Don’t you threaten me with a good time Universal 🙏