#the academic culture

[turnedpalefromlackofsun]

i am so fucking glad i waited until i was higher level grad student to play sumeru

i would not have understood the weight of these words and academia life before

avo you genius! thank you for your patience

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[thebellekeys]

[nostalgicacademia]

“To create a ghost story is nothing. Quickening of the heart, a brief half-image of terror. In the end, nothing. But to create a ghost…”

— Dark Academia.

[g0j0s]

you cut off women from dancing, because girls of good characters do not indulge in such lewd activities. if they become one with their swaying hips, how will you hold down their bodies and spirits?

you cut off women from reading, because books have so many vile ideas about freedom and humanity. hence, they may begin to spin ideas from the yarn of knowledge, jeopardising the conditional safety of your cage.

you cut off women from adorning themselves lovingly, because lest they begin to like the shape of their noses or the curves of their waist; they will stop caring about other people and conforming to your standards of beauty.

you cut off women from expressing because girls from good families do not raise their voices. you say the devil resides in their voice boxes and if they don’t watch their tongues, they may taint the name of their families.

you cut off women from being, so the only thing they’re left with is fear and misery. grinding that terror on the stone of fate like grains, they toil away their lives.

then you call them many many rotten things if any of them refuses to believe this. still, if they don’t comply, force is applied repeatedly.

they become a skeleton of their potential self, grieving in secrecy; because privacy is a luxury. what if in the empty silence they finally start thinking & questioning?

yet, you wonder why they’re exhausted and angry, fighting silent wars within and outside.

[notesandteacupstains]

a sunny day in my half-decorated home

[winningismyjob]

Late night study sessions might feel exhausting, but they're also some of the most rewarding moments in your academic journey. When the world is quiet, and it's just you and your books, you have the opportunity to dive deep into your studies, to understand, and to grow. Remember, every hour you put in, every note you take, and every concept you master is a step closer to your goals.

It's okay to feel tired. It's okay to take breaks. But never forget the power of persistence. Each time you push through, you're building not just your knowledge, but also your resilience. This is your journey, and while it might not always be easy, it's worth it.

So, surround yourself with what inspires you whether it's a cup of coffee, your favorite study playlist, or motivational quotes that keep you going. You’ve got this. Keep your head up, your mind sharp, and your heart determined. Every challenge you overcome is a victory, every question you answer is progress.

Stay focused, stay motivated, and remember why you started. You’re capable of more than you know, and this is just one step on your path to success. Keep going. The effort you put in today will pay off tomorrow.

[jstor]

Black Periodicals: From the Great Migration through Black Power by Reveal Digital, is a transformative open access resource for librarians, faculty, and students engaging with Black history, social justice, and cultural studies.

Spanning over 75,000 pages of mid-20th-century periodicals, the collection amplifies the voices of Black Americans and their global counterparts. It features a wide range of materials, including women’s advocacy newsletters, labor union publications, and international periodicals from Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean. These resources illuminate connections between early 20th-century activism and the Civil Rights era and beyond.

Whether you're building a library collection, crafting a syllabus, or diving into research, this collection provides unparalleled access to the literature, politics, and culture that shaped a pivotal century.

Explore the collection.

[jasmineaxd]

History class aesthetic

~Pics from Pinterest~

[crimeronan]

okay being real with you guys though. i am Completely Serious when i say the easiest way to secure other people's loyalty and support and admiration and whatnot is by being nice. this is the autism website so i'm trying to express this for people who aren't sure how to make friends or how to make people like them.

the easiest way to be liked and to get a small army under your command is by being kind. a lot of people think you have to be funny or talented or smart or clever or special to be liked.

You Do Not.

you literally only have to be friendly enough and kind enough that other people feel at ease around you. complimenting people, thanking people, asking people questions, acting interested in their answers, making casual small talk: these are the weapons in your arsenal.

if you are seen as someone who's kind and someone who's good at heart then other people will be willing to go to bat for you. and if that doesn't come naturally you can just study how other people do it and imitate them.

Just Be Nice. The Results May Surprise You!

[lurkingteapot]

Every now and then I think about how subtitles (or dubs), and thus translation choices, shape our perception of the media we consume. It's so interesting. I'd wager anyone who speaks two (or more) languages knows the feeling of "yeah, that's what it literally translates to, but that's not what it means" or has answered a question like "how do you say _____ in (language)?" with "you don't, it's just … not a thing, we don't say that."

I've had my fair share of "[SHIP] are [married/soulmates/fated/FANCY TERM], it's text!" "[CHARACTER A] calls [CHARACTER B] [ENDEARMENT/NICKNAME], it's text!" and every time. Every time I'm just like. Do they though. Is it though. And a lot of the time, this means seeking out alternative translations, or translation meta from fluent or native speakers, or sometimes from language learners of the language the piece of media is originally in.

Why does it matter? Maybe it doesn't. To lots of people, it doesn't. People have different interests and priorities in fiction and the way they interact with it. It's great. It matters to me because back in the early 2000s, I had dial-up internet. Video or audio media that wasn't available through my local library very much wasn't available, but fanfiction was. So I started to read English language Gundam Wing fanfic before I ever had a chance to watch the show. When I did get around to watching Gundam Wing, it was the original Japanese dub. Some of the characters were almost unrecognisable to me, and first I doubted my Japanese language ability, then, after checking some bits with friends, I wondered why even my favourite writers, writers I knew to be consistent in other things, had made these characters seem so different … until I had the chance to watch the US-English dub a few years later. Going by that adaptation, the characterisation from all those stories suddenly made a lot more sense. And the thing is, that interpretation is also valid! They just took it a direction that was a larger leap for me to make.

Loose adaptations and very free translations have become less frequent since, or maybe my taste just hasn't led me their way, but the issue at the core is still a thing: Supernatural fandom got different nuances of endings for their show depending on the language they watched it in. CQL and MDZS fandom and the never-ending discussions about 知己 vs soulmate vs Other Options. A subset of VLD fans looking at a specific clip in all the different languages to see what was being said/implied in which dub, and how different translators interpreted the same English original line. The list is pretty much endless.

And that's … idk if it's fine, but it's what happens! A lot of the time, concepts -- expressed in language -- don't translate 1:1. The larger the cultural gap, the larger the gaps between the way concepts are expressed or understood also tend to be. Other times, there is a literal translation that works but isn't very idiomatic because there's a register mismatch or worse. And that's even before cultural assumptions come in. It's normal to have those. It's also important to remember that things like "thanks I hate it" as a sentiment of praise/affection, while the words translate literally quite easily, emphatically isn't easy to translate in the sense anglophone internet users the phrase.

Every translation is, at some level, a transformative work. Sometimes expressions or concepts or even single words simply don't have an exact equivalent in the target language and need to be interpreted at the translator's discretion, especially when going from a high-context/listener-responsible source language to a low-context/speaker-responsible target language (where high-context/listener responsible roughly means a large amount of contextual information can be omitted by the speaker because it's the listener's responsibility to infer it and ask for clarification if needed, and low-context/speaker-responsible roughly means a lot of information needs to be codified in speech, i.e. the speaker is responsible for providing sufficiently explicit context and will be blamed if it's lacking).

Is this a mouse or a rat? Guess based on context clues! High-context languages can and frequently do omit entire parts of speech that lower-context/speaker-responsible languages like English regard as essential, such as the grammatical subject of a sentence: the equivalent of "Go?" - "Go." does largely the same amount of heavy lifting as "is he/she/it/are you/they/we going?" - "yes, I am/he/she/it is/we/you/they are" in several listener-responsible languages, but tends to seem clumsy or incomplete in more speaker-responsible ones. This does NOT mean the listener-responsible language is clumsy. It's arguably more efficient! And reversely, saying "Are you going?" - "I am (going)" might seem unnecessarily convoluted and clumsy in a listener-responsible language. All depending on context.

This gets tricky both when the ambiguity of the missing subject of the sentence is clearly important (is speaker A asking "are you going" or "is she going"? wait until next chapter and find out!) AND when it's important that the translator assign an explicit subject in order for the sentence to make sense in the target language. For our example, depending on context, something like "are we all going?" - "yes" or "they going, too?" might work. Context!

As a consequence of this, sometimes, translation adds things – we gain things in translation, so to speak. Sometimes, it's because the target language needs the extra information (like the subject in the examples above), sometimes it's because the target language actually differentiates between mouse and rat even though the source language doesn't. However, because in most cases translators don't have access to the original authors, or even the original authors' agencies to ask for clarification (and in most cases wouldn't get paid for the time to put in this extra work even if they did), this kind of addition is almost always an interpretation. Sometimes made with a lot of certainty, sometimes it's more of a "fuck it, I've got to put something and hope it doesn't get proven wrong next episode/chapter/ten seasons down" (especially fun when you're working on a series that's in progress).

For the vast majority of cases, several translations are valid. Some may be more far-fetched than others, and there'll always be subjectivity to whether something was translated effectively, what "effectively" even means …

ANYWAY. I think my point is … how interesting, how cool is it that engaging with media in multiple languages will always yield multiple, often equally valid but just sliiiiightly different versions of that piece of media? And that I'd love more conversations about how, the second we (as folks who don't speak the material's original language) start picking the subtitle or dub wording apart for meta, we're basically working from a secondary source, and if we're doing due diligence, to which extent do we need to check there's nothing substantial being (literally) lost -- or added! -- in translation?

[escapismsworld]

The Mildenhall Great Dish

From the Cultures/period of the Romano-British (40s AD). The characters include the hero Hercules, drunk on wine, supported by two satyrs. This is a mesmerising, glorious relic from pre-Christian Britain.

Photos: Vinnie Sullivan

[g0j0s]

orange peel theory this pomegranate peel theory that. but have you thought about badaam peel theory? when they soak the almonds overnight and peel them in the morning for you. now that right there is love at its peak.

[justatorturedpoet]

Fuck male validation and academic validation, I only want the little queer autistics on my phone (my Tumblr mutuals) to like my rambles. Call this Tumblr validation.

[vaguely-concerned]

lmao if you're a mourn watch (and possibly other urban-ish based backgrounds too I'm not sure?) mage, when you get the scene with strife coming to pick up emmrich for their date (bless) and he says that 'the thing about your friend is that for a city mage, he isn't afraid to play in the mud' thing, rook puts up the faux big wounded eyes and protests 'hey, I'm a city mage! 🥺'. (to which strife says 'well we can't all be perfect' and stone cold walks away. king. have fun out there with the lightning bugs and your lanky fancylad I've seen his fully unleashed rizz in action and you're a lucky guy <3<3<3)

[goodnight-ensign]

Trinkets and charms