Orientations, May 2025

Readers, thank you so much for electing to receive this work each week. I appreciate all of your assembled eyeballs, whether you're a long-time subscriber or a new reader. I'm so glad you're here.

As someone who has aspired for my whole life to be a writer, I simply can't express the joy I get from having an outlet for my thinking and words. There's good stuff here, and as subscribers to this letter you have access to all of it. I hope you'll find some ideas that resonate.

I'm writing this week with an orientation to the work and a series of links to work I've written in the past year that I'm especially proud of. I expect to return to regular programming - writing about Hannah Arendt and her thinking through the figure of Adolf Eichmann - on June 2. Catch up on the first four parts of this series here, here, here, and here.

On Jerks

If you've ever wondered what to do with problematic artists, thinkers, or other jerks who make art you appreciate, check out this Remark: Sea of Monster, from June 2024. The monster I'm writing about is Martin Heidegger.

This was part of a larger "Book in Beta" project that I shared last year. The Stakeholder Report that I shared with readers about this project is here (September 9, 2024). The book is still in beta.

Things Fall Apart

After some substantial upheaval at my workplace, I wrote about how to respond after fracture (June 2024) and some ideas about strategic refusal (October 2024).

Solidarity School

In November 2024 and continuing through January 20, 2025, I wrote a series titled Solidarity School. Solidarity School is a pathway designed to develop the sensitivity required to be in solidarity with others. I suggest (and continue to maintain) that sensitivity is preferable to empathy. Several months after the series concluded, I learned that philosopher and mentor George Yancy seems to agree with me, at least about the performative dangers of empathy. Phew.

• Sensitivity for Solidarity #1: Sensitivity, Not Empathy (December 2, 2024)
• Sensitivity for Solidarity #5: Start Making Sense (December 16, 2024)
• Sensitivity for Solidarity #10: Crash Course (January 6, 2025)
• Sensitivity for Solidarity #14: Solidarity in the Trouble (January 20, 2025)

Notes from the (Teaching) Field

I've written two Notes from the Field, which describe wonderful classroom and classroom-adjacent occurrences from the spring 2025 semester.

• A Note from the Field (February 17, 2025)
• Another Note from the Field (April 21, 2025)

The Night of Ideas (Couch's Version)

I was invited to present at the Denver event for the International Night of Ideas on April 10, but I had a likely case of COVID, so I stayed home. My planned remarks are available here: Night of Ideas - Update (April 10, 2025).

In the second half of 2025, I have a series on the syllabus on deck. I'm also working on a series of reflections on AI and the structural concerns it masks, written from my perspective as a critical theorist with a sideline in tech/data/AI ethics. I'm looking forward to writing these, and I hope you appreciate what's to come.