Reading

Created
Wed, 07/05/2025 - 13:22

On 16 April, the UK Supreme Court judged that ‘sex’, in the Equality Act (2010), refers to ‘biological sex’, which they define as ‘the sex of a person at birth’. This has been welcomed by many journalists and politicians as clarifying, as providing necessary clarity: despite it being a highly specific and vexed judgment, it […]

Created
Wed, 07/05/2025 - 09:50

I graduated in 2019 from Vassar with a degree in PR and communications. After studying abroad in Italia (check out my Instagram highlights), I thought I was qualified to apply for jobs abroad. I submitted my profile of reels and posts on Handshake, and by the grace of God—and a Canva Premium subscription—got a response. The Vatican was looking for help jazzing up their profile, and who better to run their brand than a Gen-Z American?

Catholicism has 1.2 billion followers, so they were influencers before it was a thing. I’m tasked with converting centuries of solemn tradition into swipeable, digestible, algorithm-friendly vibes for all of these people. I have to turn the oldest influencer into the newest, trendiest one.

Officially, my title is Director of Digital Evangelism and Brand Stewardship. Unofficially, I am the Vatican’s social media intern and sole poster on @TheVatican. I walk around the grounds and take photos of stained glass, Loewe-coded red loafers, and sometimes, the pope’s shadow looking “mysterious but approachable” (his words) against an eighth-century basilica wall.

Created
Wed, 07/05/2025 - 04:26

Since the founding of our august institution, we have awarded promotion and tenure based on how many pages of your research we could read before falling asleep and the rumors we heard about the time you insulted that emeritus professor’s new vest. In short, we awarded tenure based on vibes.

But thanks to a lawsuit that we can’t discuss and probably never even happened, we have formalized our promotion and tenure criteria so that everyone can be held to the same nearly impossible standard. These guidelines were written by almost-retired professors who never could have met these standards back in the 1980s, when all you needed for tenure was 1.5 publications and a bottle of scotch in your desk.

Research

To demonstrate excellence in research, achieve all of the following:

Created
Wed, 07/05/2025 - 00:35

For the third installment in a series of online events hosted by Fintan O’Toole, New York Review contributors Astra Taylor and Zephyr Teachout and AFA-CWA, AFL-CIO President Sara Nelson discuss what successful opposition looks like today. You may view all available recordings in this series on this page.

The post Organizing the Opposition appeared first on The New York Review of Books.

Created
Tue, 06/05/2025 - 23:24

If the overwhelming deluge from the Trumpian firehose of lies, threats, incompetency, illegal actions, and surreality is sweeping you off your feet, driving you to bedridden depression, leaving you passive and breathlessly unable to mount a response, much less resistance, please get into the huddle, take a time-out, and listen up to your Jock Culture coach. (That’s me, of course!) You need some distraction. Have you noticed lately how few sports stories are making their way to the top of the news beams? That’s because sports — once upon a time our most reliable source of outrage, speculation, cultish behavior, and lessons in domination, smackdown intimidation, and faux masculinity — has been replaced by a remarkable series of presidential half-time... Read more

Created
Tue, 06/05/2025 - 22:00

“Dozens of US arts organizations have been notified that offers of government grants have been terminated, hours after Donald Trump proposed eliminating federal agencies that support arts, humanities and learning.”The Guardian

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I don’t know about you, but I’ve been sweating bullets the last few years, just terrified that the National Endowment for the Arts would receive a sensible amount of funding. It was like watching a slow-motion train wreck of watercolors, ballet shoes, and interpretive dance. Whenever I saw a local poetry slam or a subsidized community theater production of Hamlet, I thought, “This has gone too far.”