Jeff Sharlet

@jeffsharlet.bsky.social

75691 Followers 2504 Following

Bestselling author of THE UNDERTOW: Scenes from a Slow Civil War; THE FAMILY, also a Netflix series; C Street; THIS BRILLIANT DARKNESS; & SWEET HEAVEN WHEN I DIE. AI stole them all. Professing @ Dartmouth. That's not my cat.

An older white-bearded white man framed by towers of used books
Screenshots of recent posts using the phrase “growing on me.”
Skeleton says: with so much end ahead of us we are obliged to endless beginnings
Sign reads, God Blessed America
Grinning bald man in T-shirt that says American fighter
Mural, When We Fight We Win
A Black man in an American flag hoodie
Man wearing t-shirt that says Fuck the Government
Massive American flag draped over old brick hospital
NYtable: "In five of the six states, the Democratic Senate candidate is outrunning the generic party preference of voters. Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, is the only exception."
Illuminated garden
The author at the mike of the Focus on the Family broadcast deski
Sign featuring a smoking gun and the words “.38 Special / Discount Liquor.” Only when I first tapped this out with my thumbs autocorrect changed it into “Sighs fearing a a smoking gun…”
Book cover of A Better World is Possible
Artificial Intelligence and Creative Writing: A Policy of Sorts This is a course for those interested in writing not as means to an end but as an end in itself. Recently a friend and I read a cover story in New York magazine titled, “Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College,” by James D. Walsh. My friend has also taught writing. He likes to tell his students, “If you want to be a writer, put on a cool hat and go sit in a bar with cheap beer. If you want to write, write.” I didn’t think AI would be a temptation for writing students. “Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College” persuaded me that for many it’s not a temptation but a condition. You sleep in a bed, you wear clothes, you don’t scream at teachers. Just the way it is. Maybe AI is becoming that, too, part of “just the way it is.” Maybe it is that already. My mind raced through ideas about how to “beat” AI. The article dismantled each one of them. Then I thought, “That’s not my job.” I’m a writer and a teacher. I’m not a cop. If you want to work with me on writing, we can do that. If you want to cheat, you have the ability to do that, too, and the truth is, I probably can’t stop you. Per Dartmouth’s policy: “Students may not use GenAI tools for submitted coursework unless expressly permitted.” I do not permit it. That’s my part. Now, about yours. I’m interested in working with students for whom writing feels, somehow, good, even if sometimes it’s painful. Who seek that feeling anyway. A feeling of being, of alertness. Of purpose; of intention. Of practice. This is a course for those who are interested in using writing to experience some variation of this feeling. Sometimes it comes in a moment of clarity, sometimes in the making of a lyrical juxtaposition. There are so many more emotional, intellectual, and spiritual possibilities that arise from the act of shaping language. I live off the aftermath of that act—the recognitions, financial and otherwise, I earn from the results—but there is no payche…
Church sign reads: "The Maker of the Stars Would Rather Die For You Then Live Without You."
Zuckerberg at WH UFC
Any precise meaning of self-governance is necessarily contextual, depend- ing on who is involved and what kinds of say they seek. Likewise, I claim no fixed definition for democracy. I understand it as always a horizon, a longing for power shared equitably among participants, a destination that moves depending on where one stands.3 An orchestra permits hierarchies intolerable to a punk band, but the people in each may still see themselves as living toward democracy. If democracy is the horizon, self-governance is a plausible practice for moving in that direction. Governable spaces, then, are where democratic self-governance can happen.
A folded newspaper in a pink plastic bag lies on concrete snowy with petals
Bumper sticker of Trump asking “How’s those gas prices?”