Spineless Ivies, climate fantasy, Marilyn: Weekend reads for October 12, 2024

What we've been reading this week

Happy weekend, readers of The Ink!

As we do each weekend, we’ve collected some of the most intriguing writing we’ve read during the week — the pieces that have challenged and inspired us, or have just gotten us thinking — so we can share these great ideas and insights with you.

But first, we want to make sure you got a chance to read our interview with scholar Becca Lewis on how the ways we communicate and collaborate online have been shaped from the very beginning of the commercialization of the internet by the influence of right-wing think tanks and conservative politicians. If you’ve been trying to understand the turn of social media giants to the far right, you won’t want to miss this conversation.

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A request for those who haven’t yet joined us: The interviews and essays that we share here take research and editing and much more. We work hard, and we are eager to bring on more writers, more voices. But we need your help to keep this going. Join us today to support the kind of independent media you want to exist.

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Readings

Praise and blame at Princeton

When everything becomes antisemitic, nothing is antisemitic, and it makes it much harder to fight antisemitism. At Princeton, I’ve heard directly from those who’ve been targeted, that students who were involved in April’s protest are being called in for questioning to talk about their friends and roommates. One of my colleagues, in the spring, brought his class on Palestine to the encampment. He has since been put on probation by the university. So when I say chilling effect, it’s not just simply that individuals are scared; they’re being interrogated. They’re being punished. [Mother Jones]