Academic Twitter Refugee

Ethicist, half-assed text nerd, and kvetch-about-the-house. Sexual ethics, bioethics, Jewish text. Queer. AuDHD. She/her. #WhenWeCollide: March 2023, @IUPress. Twitter: @RJELevi; Instagram: @RJELevi; Mastodon: @[email protected]

[rjelevi]

Hello, tumblr

If you happen to be following me over here from Twitter, I am indeed the same ethicist who occasionally writes formal op-eds, somewhat less occasionally posts threads about some combination of #sexuality, #ethics, #Judaism, #religion, #disability, #rabbinics, and many other things, and even less occasionally rants into the void and posts pictures of her cats.

I have also made a new professional instagram at RJELevi (nothing there yet, though). Personal insta is ambitious_goo. I expect I will also give in and join Mastodon. I fucking refuse to make a TikTok.

[kiwisoap]

Attempting to get my students to fucking come to class

[kiwisoap]

Good news!!!! Had an average of 17/24 students in both classes show up to the review!! That’s 71% of the class! This is compared to an average 11/24 in previous semesters.

Bird worked

[rjelevi]

Also, gotta say, the previous posts are why I’ve not actually posted much on Mastodon (or Instagram) I WANT to be able to go off on a tangent about apples—yes, even on my professional social feeds—and not have to come up with a photo for it either.

Which is to say, can someone please convince Apartheid Clyde that the TRULY disruptive and innovative thing would be to convert Twitter into an employee-owned company? (Or, you know, a public utility?)

(Yes, I KNOW this is not how it works).

[archliches]

speaking of america’s favorite fruit (not optional) i love applerankings.com so fucking much. absolute necessity for any real Appleheads out there

[archliches]

you just don’t get shit like this anywhere else folks

[kyraneko]

“aside from being excellent for apple cider production”

dudes you just answered your own question. this apple is for making cider with, which means that condemning its existence over its properties when eaten fresh makes about as much sense as cancelling chicken on the grounds that it’s disgusting when eaten medium rare.

[rjelevi]

Okay, ALSO, having lived in Charlottesville for seven years and having become a ciderhead there, this guy is wrong about the attributes of the Newtown Pippin/Albemarle Pippin, full stop. It is a dual purpose apple that has enough tartness and body to make an excellent single varietal cider while retaining enough sweetness and crispness to be a delicious, well-balanced eating apple as well.

Good eating apples NEED tartness and tannin to balance them. Otherwise they’re simply one-note sugar bombs.

[czedwardsblog]

Gotta say, I don’t have any respect for the opinions of the guy behind AppleRankings.com.

Doesn’t even seem to realize that most old apples are cider apples, so yeah, they’re not supposed to be great out of hand.

And he thinks honeycrisps are superb. Tastes spoiled by the grocery store.

[rjelevi]

One word: winesaps.

Also, let’s be real—among grocery store apples, you really can’t beat a Granny Smith.

[fun-home]

This is Alison Bechdel’s coming out story as featured on the Oberlin College website. 

[rjelevi]

You should totally listen to Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri take the piss out of David Brooks' attempt to moralize about BDSM on #IfBooksCouldKillPodcast And then, if you'd like to read something that actually takes ethics and BDSM SERIOUSLY, you should preorder MY book, #WhenWeCollide (out in March from Indiana University Press) which I am assured is nowhere near this asinine.

Image description: Screenshot of a tweet from #IfBooksCouldKillPodcast, which reads "We regret to inform you that Thursday's episode will involve hearing David Brooks encounter the fetish community." Embedded in the tweet is screenshot of text from David Brooks’ “Bobos in Paradise,” of which the final sentence is highlighted, and which reads:

“IF YOU'D like to be tortured and whipped with dignity and humiliated with respect, you really ought to check out the Internet newsletter of the Arizona Power Exchange, an S&M group headquartered in Phoenix. The organization offers a full array of services to what is now genteelly known as the leather community. For example, on a recent August 3, according to the summer newsletter, there was a discussion and humiliation session. On August 6 at 7 P.M., there was a workshop on caning. The next night the Bondage Sadomasochism Personal Growth and Support Group met with Master Lawrence, while on August 10, Carla helped lead a discussion on high heel and foot worship. A week later a visiting lecturer came to discuss "blood sports." All of these meetings were to be conducted with the sort of mature high mindedness embodied in the organization's mission statement: "Treating the S&M, B&D and D&S with experience with acceptance, caring, dignity and respect." Dignity and respect are important when you're tied up on the ground worshiping someone's boot."

[rjelevi]

I have basically spent the morning attempting to begin rebuilding my #AcademicTwitter network between #Mastodon, #Instagram, and #Tumblr, and I just want to be clear that a. having to do this manually is annoying af, and b. yes, this actually IS a Work Task.

[rjelevi]

Where I am on other socials:

#Twitter (well, for now, and I'm not going anywhere til it does): @RJELevi

#Mastodon: @[email protected]

#Instagram: RJELevi (professional), ambitious_goo (personal)

I'm not sure where I'll find myself having the bandwidth to spend the most time; this is sort of a "throw a bunch of socials at the wall and see what sticks" approach.

And, uh, please bear with me as I blunder about trying to cross-post in any sensical manner.

[rjelevi]

Alas, poor twitter

Twitter’s likely demise is all just making me legitimately sad, ngl. Academic twitter, for all its problems, has been SUCH a lifeline to me. I wouldn't have even known to apply for the Sacred Writes public scholarship training, which was in retrospect game-changing for my career. I've made real, honest-to-goodness friends #OnHere. And I cannot overstate the extent to which disability twitter has been CRUCIAL for helping keep me accountable to my fellows as far as COVID practice goes.

Nor can I overstate how life-changing #ADHDTwitter and #ActuallyAutistic twitter have been for me.

It all hurts. And it's infuriating. Twitter, for all its problems, is a vital and indispensable commons for so many people, especially marginalized communities. I'm furious that a vicious, incompetent shande for the neurotypicals was able to buy it and crash it.

(Though I've gotta say, if it had to go up in flames, having the Avignon papacy resurrected via shitpost in the process was *chef's kiss*) And then there’s, again, how it’s helped me professionally. I know I'm not a HUGE account by any stretch of the imagination, but I had built a decent following, especially among the cross-section of folks I'd figured had the most interest in my work. It’s also the space where I had figured out best how to do informal public scholarship. And it is SO annoying to have to figure that out again--ESPECIALLY just leading up to my book coming out!

P.S: I have a book coming out! You can pre-order it here! It is about sex, risk, and Jewish ethics, and I’m reliably told that it is not only good but also occasionally even funny.