Brandi K. Adams
I am an Assistant Professor of English Literature at Arizona State University who works on book history, premodern critical race studies and early modern English drama. I spend a lot of time with Barnabe, an adorable dog. These posts are my opinion.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsNo joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition. Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsJeffrey Epstein, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Marc Andreessen share an enduring fascination with eugenics, race science, and transhumanism and there is an entire generation of public intellectuals who benefited and continue to benefit from their patronage. Pinker, Huberman, Attia, Weinstein, etc.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsSir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adamswhen i say bring that baby home i mean EVERY BABY
- Elizabeth is a Columbia Heights fourth-grader who loves volleyball, learning English and giggling in the halls with her friends. She's been held in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center for nearly a month, and she and her mom have both fallen ill. sahanjournal.com/education/co...
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adams"tired of some of their admiration for [insert lefty or left-leaning political and cultural figure]" explains a solid three-quarters of the last decade of american politics
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adams@jamellebouie.net A terrific explanation of the institutional power of slavery before the civil war, but also the power of individual choice in combatting it. Great job analyzing the historical scholarship, but also calling out books by @katemasur.bsky.social & @profmsinha.bsky.social
- Nice word for @profmsinha.bsky.social’s THE SLAVE’S CAUSE in another fine Bouie video, this one about the incredible odds abolitionists faced for generations, and eventually, overcame.
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adamsliam and his dad are home! and someone please get rep. castro a coat!
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsOnce again, I’m just a small-town political scientist, & it’s still relatively early, but it appears that The Actual Democrats do not Need To Do any of the Things or Learn any of the Obvious Lessons that Ezra Douthglesias said they Must Do & Learn 🤔🧐
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsIn Minneapolis, people on the ground say it’s even worse after Alex Pretti’s murder. It’s all cover to continue what their chaos.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsEnglish translation of statement from Ecuadorian Consulate regarding ICE’s attempt to enter their building in Minneapolis today:
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsBreaking: MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Man tackled to ground after spraying unknown substance on Rep. Ilhan Omar at town hall in Minneapolis.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsEverything they learned in Minnesota they’re applying in Maine from day one. They started off doing fast-moving snatch and grabs on the street, recording and using facial id on observers, and threatening observers directly. They’ll do it all where you live too.
- Why is the msm outside of Maine not covering this? It seems like a huge and very troubling story to me. ICE coming to observers houses or calling them on the phone warning them to back off??!! www.pressherald.com/2026/01/23/i...
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adams“I don’t need to love a field that fails to love me. I don’t need white supremacy to tell me my worth.” 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 #RaceB4Race #ShakeRace
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsRFK Jr. appointee Kirk Milhoan has just clearly stated, out loud, that he wants to experiment on the people of the United States by seeing what happens as vaccination coverage plummets and infectious diseases spread.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsSigns about the history of slavery in the U.S. and the 9 people George Washington enslaved are being removed right now at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, across from Independence Hall, months after the Trump administration threatend to do so. How far we have not come in 250 years.
- This is not it.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsPlease help us bring Liam Adrian Cornejo Ramos (he’s only 5 years of age and is currently in pre-K. Yesterday, he and his father were kidnapped by ICE. This will help the family with legal services to help reunite Liam and his dad with their family. gofund.me/be8a1b2ab
- AI has always lived within the realm of speculation. Surety is for people who are wedded to capitalism.
- Microsoft CEO says AI “risks becoming a speculative bubble unless its use spreads beyond big tech companies and wealthy economies.” Brother you’re the one building this dogshit, we’re three years and hundreds of billions in, how have you not worked it out? www.ft.com/content/2a29...
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adamsit is -10 here today. I was supposed to go do a volunteer shift standing outside loading groceries into people’s cars to deliver to families stuck at home. just got a call not to come in because they have too many volunteers already. if you were wondering if the cold would stop us.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsNew: We built an interactive map of every ICE contractor working with the Trump administration. readsludge.com/2026/01/16/t...
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsMINNEAPOLIS (AP) — US judge rules federal officers in Minneapolis-area immigration operation can’t detain or tear gas peaceful protesters.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsI don’t think people quite understand that the occupation by ICE in the Twin Cities has more or less erased non-white people from public life. They cannot safely exist in any space accessible to the public and moving between private places leaves folks vulnerable to kidnapping by armed masked goons.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsFort Snelling? Kidnap? Citizenship issues, you say? Holy. Fucking. History. Yikes.
- This is surreal. 4 Oglala Lakota men kidnapped by ICE in Minneapolis have finally been located. One of them was released but the other 3 are being held at Fort Snelling, a former concentration camp used to imprison Native people incl. the Dakota 38 during Dakota Wars. ictnews.org/news/north-c...
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsMay we the people prevail—as we have throughout history, especially when we face the fact that there is no Cape Crusader, Green Hornet, or Kato waiting in the wings. We have to save ourselves.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsWASHINGTON (AP) — Claudette Colvin, whose refusal to move seats on a segregated bus helped spark the civil rights movement, dies at 86.
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adams⚠️ Update: It has been 108 hours since #Iran introduced a nationwide internet shutdown leaving Iranians isolated from the rest of the world and each other 📉 The rights to free speech and free assembly are inviolable and must be protected #DigitalBlackoutIran
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsThe signs have always been there. Many of scholars of Borderlands/Chicanx Studies have been warning forever that the US has encouraged the rise of extreme policing along the border--and that these tactics would eventually be used everywhere in the US (and against everyone).
- At first I thought “Who is is Al and what is his role?” Oh. Artificial Intelligence. Sans serif strikes again.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsWhat—and I say this is my most professional professor-of-art-history-voice—the HELL are we doing here? WaPo is committing a fundamental category error. That category error is like gripping the neck of the journalistic integrity in two hands and squeezing it till the lights go out. 1/n
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adams[W]hen life becomes intolerable and government unresponsive and unrepresentative, then [we] have not just got the right but the duty to rise up against it and strike it down.” —Julian Bond
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adamsrare to see an american politician speak in these terms and it rocks
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsThis program recruiting scholars from outside Canada comes with *incredible* funding. If you're looking to move, check it out! research.ubc.ca/federal-rese...
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsDelighted the new year brings (at last!) vol. 53 of Shakespeare Studies to the world, in all its purple-edged glory: Marlowe stars in the Forum, & the NGP, Articles & Reviews all full of wit & wisdom. Congratulations to Jim Siemon for 11 years of leadership, w/ huge gratitude for our collaboration!
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsMy mantra today (and for many days after) is that there is no “good” time to do life things but you should do them anyway because that what makes a life that you want to live. Whew.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsFYI: In 1916 the U.S. signed an agreement for control of St. Thomas, St. John & St. Croix, known as the “Danish West Indies,” in exchange for $25 million & a declaration that the U.S. would “not object to the Danish Govt extending their political & economic interests to the whole of Greenland.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsBen Jonson. Convivial? Check. Big mouth? Check. Penchant for interpersonal conflict? Check (literally murdered someone). Full of self-righteous, sharp-tongued social commentary that didn't always age well? Checkarooni
- Guess what happens when you listen to your mentors? Good things. @oldfortunatus.bsky.social and @profkfh.bsky.social told me to rest. This time I listened. I rested so much that I am actually okay with returning to work! 😭
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsDid you publish a book about or adjacent to #Shakespeare since the 2024 meeting of @saaupdates.bsky.social? Please fill out this Google form to provide information about your book and join us for a celebration at #Shax2026 in Denver on Friday, 4/3, from 10:30-11am. forms.gle/aTKJdQZniypr...
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsI'm deeply sorry to the people of Venezuela. There is no opposition party in the United States to counter the fascist regime's actions and the population is easily demagogued.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsIt is truly wild to see these guys taking SO LONG to realize no one wants this. Like it never occurred to them?
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsThey're going to *throw out* one-of-a-kind NASA archives?! Not even a year since the Inauguration & we're already at the 2nd-time-as-farce version of the burning of the Library of Alexandria.
- I’ve been wondering for the last year when we’d get to the library destruction phase and here we are. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/c...
- This goes for a lot of academia. It’s in the acknowledgements of early 20th century scholarship.
- Is there a word (probably not in English) for “wanting to hear a brand-new cover of an old song”? It’s like nostalgia infused with futurity, maybe.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsDEMS WIN BIG IN IOWA: Democrat Renee Hardman wins IA State Senate SD-16 with 71.5%, a 27-point Dem overperformance from 2024. Harris won the district by 16. Hardman's victory blocks a GOP supermajority and makes history as the first Black woman elected to the Iowa Senate.
- Someone blocked me because I disagreed with his negative review of Sinners.
- Except for when you live in Phoenix. We have to switch summer and winter. And kind of erase spring and fall. 😭
- OHHHHHHH! Thanks, @tracelarkhall.bsky.social! I have always been confused by early modern London city boundaries.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsHey so this seems like something more people should be talking about 🤔 🗳️ www.npr.org/2025/10/23/n...
- The follow up album to Dummy is Portishead|Portishead (1997). That was also utter perfection. These two albums are a diptych of thought and experimentation.
- This is just ragebait at this point.
- No student is using an LLM in this way. They talk to each other—more than you might realize. A thinking space? Black box AI invents sources to draw from, so it’s not anything that one can “think with.” Please.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsRuth Wilson Gilmore's definition of racism gets at why it's not something that can be ignored: "the state-sanctioned and/or extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death". --- THE PREMATURE DEATH part is not something that can be "ignored"
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adamsi wrote this for the guardian
- I hope that the graduate student is able to transfer to a university that will welcome her and her talents. Sigh.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsWhat historians (and other scholars do) is create knowledge. We should use that phrase more and talk about what it means. I think we don't, and it's part of why AI enthusiasts are confused when we don't readily agree that our work can be replicated/replaced by their products.
- And with that, my grades are in, all of my own work due in 2025 has been sent to various and sundry journals. Side question, do y’all think that academics can experience the yips? If so, I feel like I may have just gotten over them after 15 or so months.
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsIf nothing else, this phenomenon is heightening the visibility of those who use citation simply as a signaling apparatus and not for the purposes of leading readers to the source of their claims or the thinking with which they are engaging.
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adams
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsNot just a warning-- a handy visual guide for what to do. This is A+ public health communication!
- My friend Matthew gets it. And if we as a country invested more in education and humanities more of would read well and more of us could take his classes.
- WHAT “The doors seemed to close everywhere…[t]he Atlantic’s editorial staff went from 53 percent male and 89 percent white in 2013 to 36 percent male and 66 percent white in 2024. White men fell from 39 percent of tenure-track positions in the humanities at Harvard in 2014 to 18 percent in 2023.”
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsBrown University says there's an active shooter on campus. Emergency scanner says multiple victims, but unclear how many. Video footage viewed by the Brown Daily Herald "depicted several individuals lying on the ground near the Sciences Library appearing to be assisted by police."
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsThere isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom
- What a woodcut!
- My favorite Tom Hanks (and Shelly Long!) film will always always be Money Pit. I saw it on VHS when I was a kid and it definitely taught me to laugh and then cry in the face of a minor personal disasters. 😆😭
- Name your fav Tom Hanks film. (Thanks, @lillywachowski.bsky.social!)
- Reposted by Brandi K. AdamsHere from the same fabulous series by George Spratt is "The Connoisseur." (I like this art-lover's monocle and also the smaller picture that she's carrying as a reticule, the strap around her wrist.)
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adams[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Brandi K. Adams👀 👀 in response to Trump's DOJ saying the president needs to directly control independent agencies in order to protect the people of the US, KBJ just said something like 'Congress thought replacing all the PhDs with loyalists who don't know anything is not in the interest of the people of the US?'
