Michael Tristano Jr.
director of cultural studies & assistant professor @ Towson｜radical queerness, brownness, & performance｜generally a curmudgeon｜he/him/his
- Mmm love a good unexpected barrier to medicine on a Thursday. Another reminder of how bleak it all is rn.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.What a useful resource for organizing.
- 🚨 New: We built a visual tracker of the warehouses ICE is targeting across the US. Working off an idea from @actualkatherine.bsky.social, we’ve mapped active searches, canceled deals, and linked state property records. Explore the map here: tinyurl.com/ICEWarehouse...
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- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.New fuck/marry/kill list just dropped
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- If you were like me today, not much got done and spirits were low swimming the dark cold ocean of existential dread. And if you were like me, it’s ok. You did your best. Try again tomorrow.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.*At least* a thousand people, probably more, out in the streets today protesting against the ICE detention center in downtown Baltimore
- It’s abolish ice which means abolish the police which means free Palestine. Did like 50+ circles of the action today and terrorizes citizens all over the city.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.Baltimore if you’re interested in what your tax dollars are up today that isn’t the removal of a foot of ice from our fucking sidewalks and bike paths, it’s Foxtrot flying low right circles over a bunch of people exercising our constitutional rights.
- It’s so embarrassing to have to admit I graduated from the same uni in the same year as Colton Underwood. Get this stalker off my television.
- I am telling you right now that all my classes this term are teaching students multiple ways a) to understand the contemporary nexus of fascist power (e.g. white supremacy, anti-Blackness, xenophobia, transphobia) and b) to get organized. I sincerely feel it is the only ethical choice.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.From Minneapolis to Baltimore, anti-ICE protests explode New report from me @therealnews.com @baltimorebeat.bsky.social youtu.be/l2OEbJVut1A
- It’s almost like refusing to name white nationalism in schools forever has absolutely gotten us to this point. Because that’s how power works.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.You know me I don't share fundraisers unless I can tell you I trust them with my whole heart and my own wallet. This one gets protective gear to legal observers in Minneapolis / Saint Paul www.gofundme.com/f/help-equip...
- Read this whole thread. This is what we all need to be doing.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.I came to Minneapolis to report on what's going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is "just what is the scale of the resistance?" After all, we're all used to the news calling Portland a "war zone" or whatever when it's just some protests in one part of town.
- The vet 2 times in a week ✅✅💰🤠
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- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.big things happening
- Who is writing about the Black queer sounds of Danny Brown? I want to read anyone thinking critically about it. Specifically about Stardust.
- A little bright spot from the past weeks is that the project @drclaw1.bsky.social and I have been working on for a while has finally been published (film and artist statement!) in Liminalities. With a lovey response by our comrade Michael Frischherz. Open access: liminalities.net/21-5/1000-cu...
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- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.The chapter is an invitation to consider coloniality of sexuality as an analytic, similar to coloniality of gender, with its own critical language, exercise and manifestation, notwithstanding its proximity to coloniality of gender. Head to bit.ly/49L8LIj to read my work on coloniality of sexuality.
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- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.If you read one thing today, let it be this: “An Elegy for My Neighbor, Renee Nicole Good: Fellow poet Danez Smith memorializes the Minneapolis mother's call to witness” ❤️💔 www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/feat...
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- My partner is in a workshop for one of their new musical projects and the focus is ethnography (so that musicians can compose about "culture") and it is taking ALL OF MY STRENGTH to not sit outside their office and scream BOON or BANE every 5 seconds.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.It's illegal for the president to relieve student loan debt. It's completely fine for the president to unilaterally decide to have the head of a foreign nation black bagged on foreign soil.
- The only thing you need to know about my 2025 is that I got hotter. Again.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.the graduation of a cohort of gaza’s new medical professionals in front of the ruins of al shifa hospital. No words, really.
- I would not say any of my Spanish is good. But as a vegetarian of nearly 15 years, it is especially bad at the carniceria.
- Turning 35 tomorrow and my gift to myself is therapy at 9am.
- You can put words like whiteness and settler colonial in scare quotes as much as you'd like, it does not make their materiality any less real. In fact, in some ways, it proves their existence.
- All of this, stop putting our neighbors in cages! Which is why I started using this abolitionist's guide to jury duty for my yearly trip in Baltimore City: beyondcourts.org/sites/defaul...
- The thing about having therapy on Monday mornings is that I am exhausted before I even get into the week.
- Vitiligo is wild because I often cannot tell if on a blanket is mine or the calico cats’s.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.AS A PROFESSOR, I AM ASKING HOW ARE OUR STUDENTS SUPPOSED TO LEARN IN THESE CONDITIONS? HOW ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO GO TO SCHOOL AND TAKE EXAMS KNOWING SOMEONE MIGHT JUST SHOW UP WITH AN EASY TO ACQUIRE AUTOMATIC WEAPON? HOW??????????
- Comm Studies folx: WSCA is now implementing what the LA voted on last year. BDS is now endorsed by the org and a boycott of Israeli institutions is in effect. Read the full adopted motion here: cdn.ymaws.com/www.westcomm...
- Ok this may not seem like much but after 16 (!!) months of relentless emails and calls, Baltimore city has finally removed the stump in front of our house and planted a new tree!!! It’s a true Christmas miracle 🌳🎄
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- Being referred to as high risk on every medical document is my favorite part of being queer.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.what it feels like to post on bluesky
- All of this and putting a TA on leave for a 0/25 on a reflection essay. Absolutely nasty work.
- Léon (2019) remains as one of the greatest love albums of my generation. What a masterpiece in storytelling.
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- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.Local Boycott Target DC Coalition has been picketing the Target store in Columbia Heights for over six months straight urging consumers to spend their dollars elsewhere outside of Target. They are inviting folks in the area to join them on 11/29.
- A good writing day? In this economy? I’ll take it.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”
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- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.People need to understand that Chicago is a preview, not a culmination.
- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.I have been actively watching contracts and surge funding over the last few days and what I would say to my friends in Baltimore is “be absolutely ready, right now.”
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- HJ:
- When I called out for help in the middle of the night because of sleep paralysis, neither of my cats came to help me 😾
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- Witnessing the students in my grad seminar encounter The Cultural Politics of Emotions for the first time during this moment is really wild, awesome, horrifying, and inspiring.
- mentally I am here.
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- I think my pedagogy these days is mostly: make students curious.
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- rest easy. what a life. what a legacy.
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- rainy, cold, & grey outside. im finally at my best.
- I hate manuscript submission portals. Who made them? Why are they all so awful? Why can’t we just send our papers to the editors via the post office? It’s not like it would take any longer.
- One things about me: if you put me in a group chat with more than four (4) people, I will not respond.
- I actually had a very similar discussion in my CCS grad seminar this week. We were reading Conquergood and we situated performance as strain of theory typically outside of CCS. And then we really sat with the question of why 👀
- My department is hiring for a new chair! A really great chance for someone to come and boss me around. Plz. Please share widely, not on the committee, happy to answer questions.
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- A former student of mine (like 5+ years!) messaged me on grindr to invite me to the Bread and Puppet show in town because they are a company member now. I’ve never been so proud of any interaction as an educator. Ever.
- One of the simplest ways to organize is to GET TO KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS. What are their names, how many people live there, where do they go for work, do they have an needs. You need no organization or resources to help you with this. Just speak to your neighbors.
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- Reposted by Michael Tristano Jr.I wrote my own Charlie Kirk obituary, and about valuing truth over manners: www.thenation.com/article/poli...
- He was a violent white nationalist. That’s all.
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- Literally taking a page out of the nazi playbook. Teach to the fascist regime or be removed. This is the time to double down on critical/cultural work, do not be lulled in to compliance via fear.
- Student, to professor: "I'm not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching, because according to our president there's only two genders... and I don't want to promote something that is against our president's laws as well as against my religious beliefs" www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...
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- Yes; let it be true as soon as can be. The nation state will be but a genocidal blip in our collective history. Children will learn for centuries of their crimes in history text books.
- Delighted to be an author on this new piece to consider some new possibilities for intercultural work! Plus its super homosexual. Read it here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
- still running a fever, the provider at the urgent care said “you do look unwell” and then confirmed I have a viral infection that is not Covid. and now the power is out. worst start to the academic year ever?
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- been running a fever for essentially the past 24 hours. ominous start to the term.
- Had a decent first day of class with students ready to think critically about gender and shit. Now I’m running a fever and am freezing in my own home in the middle of summer. You really can’t have everything.
- Sunday evening before the new term. Dreading the conditions we are laboring under. My flame is out before it even had a chance to burn. But I'll show up to teach and learn about radical ways to reorganize society for any student who wants to join me. Open invitation.
