Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris

The Hammer by Hamilton Nolan

Moonbound by Robin Sloan

Fire Exit by Morgan Talty

Why They Can't Write by John Warner

The Big Goodbye by Sam Wasson

2666 by Roberto Bolaño

Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford

In Ascension by Martin MacInnes

Resisting AI by Dan McQuillan

The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

Death Valley by Melissa Broder

The Body in Question by Jill Ciment

Poor Things by Alasdair Gray

The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake

Something to Do with Paying Attention by David Foster Wallace

Sure, I'll Join Your Cult by Maria Bamford

Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman

Butts by Heather Radke 

The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself by Robin Reames

Predator: South China Sea by Jeff VanderMeer

https://www.aitrainingstatement.org/

"Whatever AI might be in some imagined utopian future, AI companies in our present moment extract and exploit...This is simply what they do, intrinsically, necessarily — in a perverse sense of the phrase, on principle."
https://blog.ayjay.org/ai-week/

Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu

Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

Filterworld by Kyle Chayka

Consent by Jill Ciment

Relationship-Rich Education by Peter Felten and Leo M. Lambert

The Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han

The Power of Moments by Chip Heath & Dan Heath 

American Flannel by Steven Kurutz

Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee

Lamb by Bonnie Nadzam

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

Building on an assignment suggested by Mark C. Marino, I aim to embolden and empower students by asking them to identify AI’s limitations, recognize the labor involved (i.e., “training” on both AI input and output), and reflect on the value of their own approaches and methods for writing. Such goals contrast with benefits listed in the first MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI Working Paper, benefits which appear to relieve students of responsible participation in the writing process and remove opportunities for centering their own voices, experiences, and abilities. Part of resisting AI hype necessarily involves reaffirming our humanity, and reading texts like Futureproof by Kevin Roose and Unmasking AI by Joy Buolamwini that contextualize and historicize AI development also keep our collective head out of the cloud. Of course, I'd be glad to share early results of students' responses to these assignments. 

Xenos by Dan Abnett

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

Unmasking AI by Joy Buolamwini

Revolutionary Mathematics by Justin Joque 

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Breaking Things at Work by Gavin Mueller

The Robotic Imaginary by Jennifer Rhee

The Algorithm by Hilke Schellmann 

Literary Theory for Robots by Dennis Yi Tenen

The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner

How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement by Fredrik deBoer

Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog 

Mobility by Lydia Kiesling 

Writing for Busy Readers by Todd Rogers and Jessica Lasky-Fink

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Dayswork by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel

Spaceships Over Glasgow by Stuart Braithwaite

Hollow by B. Catling

The Guest by Emma Cline

Exit Interview by Kristi Coulter

Ultra-Processed People by Chris Tulleken 

Harold by Steven Wright 

Saving Time by Jenny Odell

The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe

The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe 

The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Monsters by Claire Dederer

Momo by Michael Ende

The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost

Hiroshima by John Hersey 

Western Lane by Chetna Maroo

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness 

The White Mosque by Sofia Samatar

The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

How to be Animal by Melanie Challenger

All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman

Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World by Barry Lopez

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller 

The Guest Lecture by Martin Riker

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman

Just After the Wave by Sandrine Collette 

Writing on the Job by Martha B. Coven

My Nemesis by Charmaine Craig

The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

Ohio by Stephen Markley

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

Fieldwork by Iliana Regan

Devotion by Patti Smith

Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith

The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa

Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown

The Leopard by Guiseppe di Lampedusa

Chevy in the Hole by Kelsey Ronan

The Future is Analog by David Sax 

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Midlife by Kieran Setiya

The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan

Ancient Sorceries by Algernon Blackwood 

The Twilight World by Werner Herzog

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer

Germinal by Emile Zola

Academia Next by Bryan Alexander

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer

The Iliad by Homer 

Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

Denial by Jon Raymond 

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham

Cogan's Trade by George V. Higgins

Remainder by Tom McCarthy 

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy

The Employees by Olga Ravn

The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is by Justin E.H. Smith

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch

Ground Truth by Mark L. Hineline

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

Summerwater by Sarah Moss 

Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins

Running Out by Lucas Bessire 

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti 

My Work Is Not Yet Done by Thomas Ligotti 

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson 

Wayward by Dana Spiotta

The Summer 2021 MLA Newsletter opened with the following question: “Where Have All the Majors Gone?” A subsequent article noted that, from 2009 to 2019, “the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded across all subjects in the discipline fell by 29%.” The article provided plenty of additional data related to the above question, observing that declines in awarded English degrees is, “particularly troubling.” However, what departments might do to reverse this trend remains “unclear.” As the former chair of an English department that no longer exists and as a tenured faculty member in a program on borrowed time, I want to suggest that maybe there is no reversing this trend, that perhaps we need to consider a different question: “What now?”

Such a suggestion and consideration come from the experience and knowledge that the development of unique and in-demand courses, the diversification of teaching appointments, concerted efforts toward enrollment management, and an active and visible presence at every campus event did not prevent the dissolution of my department. And I worry that such actions are unlikely to stop the end of others. So, much as conversations about climate change have moved from prevention to adaptation, similar discussions are overdue in our field. In therefore drawing upon recent, relevant scholarship on the precarious position of English (broadly construed) within higher education, I hope to highlight and invite testaments of disciplinary survival and to identify the coffins to which we cling while facing our future.

The Midwest Survival Guide by Charlie Berens

Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Leaving The Atocha Station by Ben Lerner 

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

The City & the City by China Mieville

At the End of the World by Lawrence Millman

Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty by W.L. Rusho

Outside Lies Magic by John P. Stilgoe

After Cooling by Eric Dean Wilson

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt 

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett 

The Last by Hanna Jameson

Subprime Attention Crisis by Tim Hwang

Futureproof by Kevin Roose 

Amazon Unbound by Brad Stone

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells 

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells 

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green 

Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert

The Wall by John Lanchester

The Complete Mushroom Hunter by Gary Lincoff

Fulfillment by Alec MacGillis

Inconspicuous Consumption by Tatiana Schlossberg 

Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier

Stoner by John Williams 

I'm annoyed with, frustrated by, and tired of the ridiculously unrealistic "critical" takes on The Chair. Below are some more positive and nuanced responses:

But as it unfolds, The Chair offers far deeper insight into the interpersonal and intergenerational dynamics of campus culture than any novel I’ve read. The show’s dramatic energies are focused on issues of free speech, the changing paradigms of scholarship and teaching, and the prejudice that women faculty and faculty of color face. Yet the subject that gets the most screen time is none of these, nor is it chairing. It’s parenting—although as the series rolls on, we slowly realize that, just possibly, chairing is parenting by other means.

Kevin Dettmar, What The Chair Gets Unexpectedly Right About the Ivory Tower

If we're watching The Chair as Ji-Yoon's story, the portrayal of activist students would exist to shed light on the pressure and complexity of the situation Ji-Yoon is facing as a woman of color in a position of authority, not, as some have interpreted it, as a commentary on activist students in general. That is, Ji-Yoon experiences student activism as high-stakes and unwieldy precisely because she respects their principled stances -- to the point that they intensify her suspicion that, despite her best efforts and intentions, she is not transforming the master's house from the inside (shout out to Audre Lorde).

To operate as if the portrayal of student protesters matters more than how the portrayal illuminates something about Ji-Yoon is to give these characters the primacy

Koritha Mitchell, Stop asking if The Chair is realistic

The show, co-created by Amanda Peet and Harvard Ph.D. Annie Wyman, feels like a real attempt to grapple with the problems of contemporary academia, and the humanities in particular, by someone who has felt invested in them.

Lidija Haas, The Chair Is an Elegy for the Life of the Mind

I don’t know anyone who has gone through the trouble of becoming a professor with the express goal of ending up as a department chair. The role draws on organizational skills that many academics have made a career out of avoiding; it also leeches away time that could be spent researching or teaching...The Chair thrives in scenes where manners and decorum get stripped away and Kim recognizes the futility of her situation. Her strange profession begins to seem relatable. Her face, usually so attentive and patient, evinces rage and disappointment. One complication of institutional diversity is that diverse faces can now lead institutions that are in free fall. 

Hua Hsu, Sandra Oh's Masterly Performance of Empathy in The Chair 

But as much as the characters are—wonderfully—never cynical about the study of literature, they are also exhausted by the situations they find themselves in, both personally and professionally, and especially where those two spheres collide. The current pandemic permanently damaged the academic careers of parents (mostly women) who had to abandon their (our) research to take care of their (our) children, and forced faculty to teach in windowless classrooms to hundreds of students without mask or vaccine requirements. None of that is in this show, yet even so, it depicts the study of literature as unsustainable. I wish it were clearer to the viewer that it’s unsustainable because it’s not supported. 

Johannah Winant, Moby-Done