carrideen

carrideen, 15 days ago to random

Oh no,. I met people from Mastodon in real life and they were incredibly cool! 😭

carrideen, 15 days ago to random

I know Althusser (caveat), but his insight that there is nothing outside of ideology (which for him is actions that support power, not beliefs) is undervalued. I'm so tired of obviously fascist patriarchal oppressors telling us they're "critical thinkers not ideologues" when they obviously do everything to uphold power as it is. You can't step outside of ideology without stepping into another ideological system. Better to know what system you are promoting rather than "unwittingly" back evil.

carrideen, 18 days ago to random

2024 boardgame rehoming season is upon us! @mxtiffanyleigh and I have to get rid of games every 6 months or so, and selling them is way too tedious. Knowing they will get played helps us to part with them. If you live in North America and will pay us back for shipping (packing materials and USPS Ground), you can adopt some of these beauties for your game group. (If you live in NYC, you can come get them, but you do need to come to us in the Bronx.) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TMuZloPXN_mZuMmgmY87mKjzTo3wGtuhR5_ZS2vMJ7M

carrideen, 19 days ago to boardgames

New Elizabeth Hargrave game! Or, not that new, but we finally got around to playing The Fox Experiment. #boardgames #boardgaming #foxes

The main board of Fox Experiment at the end of a game, with purple, teal, and yellow gear and fox meeples on a complicated layout of cards against a background of a Russian river valley in the snow
A player board for a finished game of The Fox Experiment, with purple, brown, and teal tokens on bonus spaces. There is a little dry erase marker for naming foxes, identifying their traits, and scoring

carrideen, 21 days ago to random

Help. I'm home alone and thinking about getting into carnivorous plants. This interview with the owner of Carnivero is blowing my mind (like every CPbBD episode): https://youtu.be/Jlp6ecxmYQY https://www.carnivero.com/collections/beginner-plants/products/indoor-beginner-carnivorous-plant-collection?variant=40260326359153

carrideen, 26 days ago to random

Last night we watched Aniara, a 2018 Swedish film based on an epic poem cycle by Harry Martinson. It hasn't been terribly well received, but we found it quite interesting. Everyone says it's bleak, but I was quite surprised by how relatively stable the society on the ship remains over the years. It's missing a lot about diversity and discrimination that would have made it more insightful, but the questions it raises are as foundational as those in Solaris. Worth seeing, certainly.

carrideen, 28 days ago to random

I applied for an internal grant that I didn't get because the grant is a reward for replacing an expensive textbook with free resources. I applied for the grant so that I can afford to replace an expensive textbook with free-to-students resources. Without the grant, I can't afford to do it. It really isn't free, ever, to just say, OK, no textbooks.

carrideen, 29 days ago to random

One of the reasons I never changed my eye doctor when I moved is that it's an excuse to visit my old neighborhood, where everyone calls me "my love." (Everyone here is "my love." I don't mind sharing.)

carrideen, 1 month ago to Bloomscrolling

There's nothing going on at the NY Botanical Garden until the new show this weekend, but I had a friend in town from Thailand and I will use any excuse to check up on my little plant friends. #bloomscrolling

Some tree blossoms I don't recognize: itty bitty peachy blossoms surrounded by larger white petals
The rock garden pool, surrounded by low flowering plants on a gray day
A hot pink rose, wide open. It was much brighter in real life.

carrideen, 1 month ago to animals

I've honestly forgotten how I got through life before I could bury my face in this fluffy tummy. Massive leap in quality of life. #CatsOfMastodon

carrideen, 1 month ago to random

Applying for an internal grant to make and print course packets for my classes in the fall, because no textbook exists that I would actually want to teach from, and the alternative (everyone looking at random online versions of 1600-1760s source material on their computers) would make me lose what is left of my mind.

carrideen, 1 month ago to random

Someone in an office behind mine is trying to get an AI assistant to simplify a fraction and it's taking sooooooo many steps of miscommunication and correction. At one point, "OK. I'm looking up 'can you represent that as a fraction' on the web. I found some cool answers; check it out!"

carrideen, 1 month ago to random

For a long time, I've said that the thing I love about the gothic novel, in its eighteenth-century form, is that it appealed to young women particularly because it suggests that their fears are not stupid or insignificant; there really is a conspiracy against you, and you must act, now. (The conspiracy is patriarchy! They're not wrong!)

Teaching The Turn of the Screw today, it's like the perfect meta-gothic. The real danger is how we act on our certainty of danger!

Cf. Bodies Bodies Bodies.

carrideen, 1 month ago to random

A piece of advice, for free:

Don't try putting an onion somewhere new. Just put the onions in the same place every time, so that you don't forget about them until they gradually liquify and mysteriously fill your home with a faint, untraceable odor, that, when finally exposed directly to the organs of sense, results in an hour of retching and cleansing and sorrow. Onions go in the onion place, every time!

carrideen, 1 month ago to random

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to turn the police into the world's most overfunded and ignorant paramilitary organization in the world?

carrideen, 1 month ago to random

Who else grew up leaving May Day baskets on friends' doors? I lived in Omaha, NE from age 6-8, so I only had two years of May Day. The first year, I had no idea what was going on (I have to... kiss people?) and the second year, I got really competitive about it (basket-making and running away). Then we moved to Kansas and I never saw a May Day basket again.
https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/04/30/402817821/a-forgotten-tradition-may-basket-day

carrideen, 1 month ago to random

Does anyone recommend a good academic translator, English to French? (I can pay!) It's a small job, under 1000 words, in philosophy.

carrideen, 1 month ago to random

I don't know if this is known outside of academic circles, but most universities are desperate for enrollments these days. Over the past 10ish years, unis changed tactics from attracting students with perks (some of them admittedly dumb) to slashing everything in sight--support staff, new faculty, majors, equipment, software, facilities, retirement plans, landscaping, even PR and marketing. Radical top-down decisions like "Who cares about foreign languages?" made whole divisions disappear. 1/

carrideen, 1 month ago to random

Trauma is information. Someone who has experienced violence knows more about violence than someone who has always been safe. Someone who has a disability knows more about disability than someone who has always been able. I think about this whenever big criminal trials are in the news, that they weed out jurors who have been assaulted, violated, attacked, discriminated against, because they can't be "objective" about violence. I don't trust anyone who thinks inexperience is objectivity.

carrideen, 1 month ago to Bloomscrolling

New York Botanical Garden IRL #bloomscrolling

Black purple tulips with many layers of petals
Violently red rhododendrons in front of the white Haupt Conservatory dome
Big huge white tulips

carrideen, 1 month ago to random

Baby Reindeer on Netflix is super-intense, but all very recognizable to me as a bisexual who has loved many bisexuals. We are the sexual identity most likely to experience domestic violence, partner assault, and stalking, especially when we enter into relationships/friendships with monosexual people--and being bi and trans increases the risk.

It's definitely not for people who avoid representations of queerphobic violence. For people who have endured it, it may be cathartic and even healing.

carrideen, 1 month ago to animals

Please tell Camilla happy 5th birthday today! She was born in an abandoned VW bug in Virginia, and rescued as a baby by a friend of mine. I knew the moment I saw her picture that she was our cat. We'd just watched Mulholland Drive, so I told @mxtiffanyleigh "This is the girl." (We named her after Camilla Rhodes, "the girl" in MD.) Aside from a scary bladder stone incident, she has brought nothing but love, laughter, and sweet silky snuggles into our lives. #CatsOfMastodon

carrideen, 2 months ago to random

As I near the end of the semester, with students in a variety of situations, as always, I try to remember what one of my first years said last term: Remember that more flexibility is also more complexity. Negotiation is work not spent on the material itself.

COVID era college instruction has taught all of us to find ways to soften deadlines, allow negotiation of requirements, be responsive to informal as well as formal requests for shifting structure. But it is also more work for them too.

carrideen, 2 months ago to random

So excited to welcome @emilywest @georgeonline @kaushiktekur @etantet and @paranoidreader to c18.masto.host! It's a great idea to write an introduction post (hashtag introduction and newhere as well as any interests you have), add everyone who seems interesting (since there is no pushing unasked-for content at you), and you are always encouraged to "prune" your feed as it grows. Check out trending links and tags here: https://c18.masto.host/explore/

carrideen, 2 months ago to random

The past two years of in-person ASECS meetings were pretty stressful for me. Being around a lot of people, esp c18 scholars, used to be a great joy, so I was sad to feel so drained and frantic in Baltimore and St. Louis. #ASECS2024 in Toronto felt like a new kind of joyfulness and warmth, more even than before. I got to talk to several grad students and ECSs for whom it felt productive and encouraging, rather than intimidating and even vicious, which it so often used to be.