Suzanne Conklin Akbari

@sakbari.bsky.social

1509 Followers 317 Following

Living on Lunaapahkiing, faculty at IAS, servant of two cats and sometimes one dog.

“Even for left-wing political purposes, questioning these premises can be useful. What I have found in the classroom is that my students need no help taking reflexive, strident political positions. Instead, they need help understanding why other people believe what they do, their political coalitions, and their theories of change. If what they learn in the classroom is unflattering to the assumptions they think are integral to left politics, then it may be the assumptions themselves that need modifying. If students are to go out into the world and do good politics, they need to be equipped with the countervailing habits of good scholarship. You will never win a campaign if you are incapable of dispassionately assessing the field of battle.”
And the spellinge! Yn al those tales, the spellinge was no thinge lyke the modern and correct spellinge that Ich do use. Thirtye percent of the wordes koude have been the names for Klingon captaynes. Go back but a fewe centuryes, and spellinge doth go completely sidewayes. And thus, goode folk, from those olde bokes we maye take the lessoun that spellinge ys but a temporarye agreement for a litel tyme, lyke unto a familyes house rules for Monopolye.
Alex Trebec in front of the Jeopardy board
“I wonder then if part of what is driving this new love for old things is a desire for these same pieces of emotional flotsam. To tether what memories will be built in these new hard years to something that will dance joyfully on the surface, and give new and eager hearts something to hold on to. There is something to be said about analog, and the way things used to be, that gives us this.”
Nine majors “sunsetting”: Classical civilization Classics (Greek and Latin) Digital humanities Fine arts German Latino-Latin American studies Middle Eastern studies Modern Jewish studies Russian
Two soft cats sleeping on a bed. One has his paws extended just touching the other.
Soft cat snoozing on foldout couch
Slightly less soft but also amiable cat, dozing upright
Soft and extremely gentle cat sleeping next to a book
Contribution receipt for donation to campaign of Damon Lynch IV for Congress
The seven Democrats who voted in favor of the homeland security spending measure were: Representatives Don Davis of North Carolina, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Laura Gillen of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine and Tom Suozzi of New York.
large furry cat curled up in fetal position in small box
Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street looking sad
“The arrival of the Border Patrol in Charlotte, a moderately Democratic city known for its booming banking industry, has puzzled many people in the state. Federal law limits the Border Patrol’s focus to the country’s 6,000 miles of international borders and a zone extending about 100 miles inland from the borders and the coastline. Charlotte is about 170 miles from the nearest point on the coast.”
Screenshot of a New York Times article on Epstein as part of a “Lost New York” printed in the “Style” section
Soft gray cat with Laurie Colwin’s books Home Cooking and More Home Cooking, plus a 1980s article clipping.
Soft gray cat looks wistfully at a book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Two cats sleeping
A poem by Michelle Sylliboy written in the Komqwejwi’kasikl writing system (#11 in her book ‘Kiskajeyi-I AM READY’).
Chonky cat in cat tree surrounded by books.
“Grossman told Inside Higher Ed Friday that ‘the Ukraine statement was purely historical. It was well within our scope.’ He said, ‘No serious professional historian in the United States considers Putin’s historical explanation to be anything close to accurate history, so the war itself was based on an abuse of history, and that’s what our statement addressed.’ There’s ‘no such consensus’ among U.S. historians on the situation in Gaza, he said. Two pro-Israel organizations, the American Jewish Committee and the Academic Engagement Network, said they sent a joint letter to the council Thursday urging the veto. The letter calls the scholasticide accusation ‘preposterous.’”
Jan 9 –12: MLA Members for Justice in Palestine stage a number of successful protests at the MLA annual convention, including a die-in and walkout at the Saturday DA meeting, as covered in IHE, Common Dreams, and LitHub. I cannot do justice to the scale and impact of the protests here, but will share the words of Karim Mattar, a Palestinian American professor of English, who told Common Dreams that “Saturday's protest brought tears to his eyes. ‘To see this protest, this movement emerging at the MLA, to see this national and international movement of solidarity with Palestine to emerge in the last year, has been incredibly moving for me.’” In that, Mattar is not alone.
This is the second time this academic year of the top body of a major scholarly organization has shot down a pro-Palestinian resolution before the group’s full membership could vote on it. In the fall, the Modern Language Association’s elected Executive Council rejected a resolution that would’ve also accused Israel of scholasticide—and would’ve gone further by endorsing the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israeli policy. Unlike the American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association Executive Council, which has different bylaws, axed that resolution before its convention this month even began.
Mangione is no autoworker, and his lawyers are not members of a revolutionary union movement. Still, a percussive line of popular support is scrambling the banal and increasingly feckless story that American politics is about fealty for two parties, rather than, say, class warfare. Mangione’s lawyers have floated the possibility of invoking temporary insanity, presumably to ease the path to jury nullification. Calls to “Free Luigi” on the streets and inside jails express solidarity not just with one man, but against the catastrophic realities of capitalism, where necessities like health care, food, and housing are financialized commodities that few can truly afford. This is the system UnitedHealthcare stands for and profits from. This is the system that Mangione (allegedly) took aim at.
Fluffy cat schmoozing Gabrielle and Perry’s new book “Oathbreakers.”