hometown 4.6.8+hometown-1.3.0Founder, Lenox Institute for Advanced Study; co-host, LEPHT HAND podcast. PhD in critical theory and STS. Mostly I've worked as a professor. I write & perform music too. Unverified bc I don't want the link on my site, but it's definitely me. NYC
the "just give it a short skirt" approach to creating costumes for women 😭 - not against sex appeal, but i don't like the homogeneity. can someone specialize in women's costumes that aren't insanely expensive but also don't end at the mid thigh 🙏 #halloween #autumn #fashion #women
Dear #Mastodon what are the going rates for someone who can take a janky #Wordpress site, redesign it, and optimize for #SEO? The site is emmastamm.com (mine) & I'm realizing it's not doing me any favors professionally. Also, if you have recs for people who do this, lmk. I don't have a lot of money 🙂 but I'm easy to work with.
#webdesign #webdev & I'll put the #NYC tag here too bc it would be great to work with someone locally, although that's not necessary.
boosts appreciated. thanks!
Here I am making videos for Instagram, but I'm still inhibited about posting there 😭 ... so, sharing here first. It's info about an upcoming #philosophy talk I'm giving, online, open to all, Thurs Sep 3rd 8pm ET. As a heads-up, it's an expansion of a talk I gave IRL in June.
The image is a shot from the video; the video is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iKxaoZ70k6gSdlJbM4f9psGd7G5uvqJ6/view?usp=sharing
Link to more info + registration: https://weirdosphere.mn.co/
Boosts appreciated, thanks so much!
"Does Expertise Matter?: Authority in the Age of Infinite Information" is an event I’m hosting Thurs Sept 24th, 7-9pm, IRL at Index Chinatown. I’ll use frameworks from epistemology and political theory to explore how standards of intellectual authority have been shaped by the evolution of tech. It’ll be very interactive - structured thought experiments, back-and-forth, etc.. and no deck, we do it live 🙂
Link:
https://luma.com/index-49m5
hope to see you there!
New archetypes just dropped! For your armchair-psychologizing pleasure. Also, Acid Horizon Research Commons is hiring faculty!
Also also structuralism, literary theory, and the cosmic battle between good scientists and bad scientists… lot going on in this one, truly a Science Is Fucking Cool post
https://elftheory.substack.com/p/science-fantasist-vs-social-scientist
I’m taking a huge risk in starting an educational organization at a time when the conditions for risk-taking aren’t ideal. I wrote about what this has looked like recently, & why I’m doing it:
https://elftheory.substack.com/p/why-im-starting-lenox
If you don't like Substack, this essay is archived on my very non-Big Tech website:
https://emmastamm.com/why-lenox/
We've already made a lot of magic happen through organic connections. If you're at all inclined to like & share, please know it makes a real difference! ✨ 🙏
AI as Anti-Politics! AKA a fresh new episode of LEPHT HAND. Our guest Daniel Stanley argues that AI isn't an external assault on democratic life, but the product of decades of shifts that already hollowed out collective political power. Also: why obsessing over misinformation isn't useful, technopopulism, the revival of interest in in-person organizing, and the challenge of funding new forms of collective power.
No paywall:
https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND/posts/ai-as-anti-on-165597873
Why is astrology femme-coded? Why are boyfriends so mean about it? If belief in astrology is unscientific, can it still express a coherent epistemology, or anything that might justify it theoretically? In an age where right-wing thought seems to have a claim on myth & magic, can we integrate critical politics, interest in metaphysics, & scientific worldviews, w/o reinforcing any of these topics' pathological aspects?
New LH episode! No paywall: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND/posts/was-adorno-right-167014682
I wrote about how cultural theorist Mark Fisher’s writing style contrasts with the style of corporate LLMs and why it matters, focusing on the rhetorical approach of Acid Communism and ideas from The Weird & The Eerie. It’s up as a monologue here, professionally mixed:
https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND/posts/patreon-writing-164755969
I don’t love paywalls but between the research + writing + recording + production, it’s a lot of work! The occasional paywall makes this labor possible 🖥️🎛️💫
this is tonight!
I wrote about #autism. Specifically, having an autistic twin; pondering a diagnosis myself; The Telepathy Tapes; pop-psych bullshit; the 90s; life-giving beauty, & stupid deaths.
I recorded an #audio version of it too. 11 minutes long, downloadable wav file.
I feel bad posting Substack links to Mastodon, so I put it on my website. The audio's not up on my site yet but I include the url for the original.
Link here: https://emmastamm.com/autism/
Donnie Darko, Justin Timberlake, & Camper van Beethoven mentioned -- a few thoughts on Richard Kelly's bizarre & extremely entertaining film Southland Tales. Plus, news about stuff I'm up to -- upcoming talks & events online & irl (in #nyc) -- and an audio monologue about Mark Fisher & corporate LLMs.
This one's sort of all over the place but it was fun to write! (I'll put it somewhere that's not Substack when I'm less time-crunched..)
last nite my apartment flooded, everything is fine now but it was crazy for a few hours - somehow i actually slept, but waking up later than usual to find that the wildfire smoke in nyc is worse today than it was yesterday- while i've also been dealing with a lung thing that's unpleasant regardless of air quality- is not great... & today i have to be super dialed-in to work.. (1/2)
2 questions I'm trying to answer as I get a business off the ground:
> How much value is there in using mainstream social media for publicity (which we badly need) vs. its psychological costs (the thought of getting on IG is... ugh..)?
> Are there optimal ways to use the #fediverse for this?
Any thoughts? & since I'm hustling (sorry), here are links to the project:
https://elftheory.substack.com/p/special-announcement
Thanks, hope you're all ok, greetings from #NYC
Happy 80th birthday, Robert Fripp. Impeccable in every way
we made eye contact
color study: The Jar Bar, Sunnyside, Queens; Aeon Books, Chinatown, Manhattan
serious question, #mastodon - which, if any, new forms of technology *that weren't designed to solve a problem* excite you the most? which non-solution innovations do you like?
"Safety" is doing so much harm in #AI that it would be a social net positive to just strike it from the dictionary
What does it mean that the music most associated with wizards, capes, & sixteen keyboards also harbored some of the most radical left politics in rock history?
LEPHT HAND did an episode on prog rock! Ft. @dmandl@mastodon.social - here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/prog-rock-and-of-157472737
I pitched this mostly because I love the music, but also to fill a void of good content about prog. This goes way beyond "10 best albums."
&, yes, most prog isn't left-leaning or political at all - we get into it.
Re: what to do if ICE shows up. Solid resource, share it widely:
https://elftheory.substack.com/p/is-literature-superior-to-philosophy
This took me a very long time!
#AI + #linguistics + #philosophy in the service of poetry. Links back to Mastodon, to make sure everyone on Substack understands my allegiances.
#Philosophy/ #physics / #math poll:
Is it fair to describe quantity as having agency? I.e., is quantity as such a causal force?
Sorry to force a binary choice, happy to read comments.
Here's a video about whether philosophy is self-indulgent in moments of crisis, plus some thoughts about the anti-civilization movement:
Ich kann gerade genug Deutsch, um mich hier lächerlich zu machen.
new orleans 2014, brooklyn 2026
@Irisfreundin@troet.cafe did you listen to the episode at all [edit]- of course i understand what you're saying, but this is just a short description of a very long conversation. we have to use conventions of speech such as "believe in" in order to summarize what it's about. in the episode we take a closer look at "belief." you might not dislike it
you don't need to be on Patreon, there's no paywall, as I pointed out. "Femme-coded" refers to its cultural reception; "-coded" isn't about the intrinsic features of whatever it's applied to, but the stereotypes that surround it. I'm not sure where "here" is to you, but I don't assume a particular location.
Your words are condescending to the point of being hurtful. The episode is free for you to listen to and then engage w/o making assumptions. We are not anti-astrology.
