Faith Hahn

In a stunning rebuke of traditional GOP deregulatory instincts, the Senate voted 99–1 to kill the measure. For the first time in decades, conservative priorities placed local cultural guardianship over the absolute freedom to innovate. That vote showed just how unsteady the old coalitions have become, and how powerful the populist realignment... See more

The writing is getting better. The ideas are getting worse. There’s a new genre of essay that other academics reading this will instantly recognize, a clumsy collaboration between students and Silicon Valley. I call it glittering sludge .

"Turning over the leaves it is sometimes like an increase of light on the retina, so fair and open is the effect of particular pages"

"Prose-forward,” though, goes a long way toward explaining what books are counted as literary in the real world. Not just as a term that explains what unites the surrealism of Donald Barthelme, the Kmart realism of Ann Beattie, the lush prose of Toni Morrison, and [insert infinite other examples here]. But also what genre authors are counted among... See more

If Apple wanted to offer exclusive music, they would cut a deal with Taylor Swift. They have the cash to do it. They wouldn’t waste time on locking up Kalevi Aho. That’s so obvious I shouldn’t even have to say it, but (given all the smoke and mirrors here), I really do.

So we’re clearly dealing with the bad Apple here. And the fact that the company... See more

There’s also an almost unbearable sense of intimacy between author and reader — Céline famously said “what interests me is a direct message to the nervous system.” His total reliance on ellipses forecloses the cheap little tricks used to construct the artifice of what we are told is “good” writing: the strategic period, the melodramatic line break,... See more

This process directs anti-patriarchal, feminist sentiment into the narrow channel of the mirror, rather than outwards, towards communal, longer-term feminist goals. The soft smiles and high-pitched giggles are admittedly alluring after the disappointments of earlier feminist movements, but the ecstasy of idiocy reveals a darker sentiment than even... See more

Active for over fifty years, Porphyrios caused great concern for Byzantine seafarers. Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) made it an important matter to capture it, though he could not come up with a way to do so.

Lawsuits from major publishers against Suno and Udio are not, as libertarian boosters, VCs and Tech Bros would say, an attack on innovation. They are a warning shot against a business model that turns creative labor into raw machine fuel under the pretense of fair use.