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The Scholarly Letter

A weekly publication for the examined intellectual life.

Masthead:

San Choudhury and Reece Barlow

Featured Posts

Commentary

Jun 11, 2026

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6 min read

On Becoming 'Disgustingly Educated'

It’s no longer sexy to simply have your nails done or your hair styled. What’s sexy now is the performance of how much you know.

Essay

May 29, 2026

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12 min read

The On-lightenment

It is the experience of sensing that we know things in a light shaped by the structural conditions of our chronically online lives.

Fiction

Apr 23, 2026

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22 min read

The Man Who Killed The Library

"They said you have committed a crime against knowledge, just like when the Library of Alexandria was bur- ."

Essay

Apr 20, 2025

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13 min read

The Scholar Manifesto

We produce and discard knowledge like the way clothes get produced, consumed, and discarded in fast fashion.

Scholarly Virtues in the Age of AI

A more interesting question is not whether we should, or should not, use AI in academic research, but what our position on academic research signals about what we believe makes a "good scholar" and where that belief comes from.

Essay

Aug 6, 2026

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6 min read

Books, Bodies, and Matter

The implication is that we may pull the academy apart and put it back together any which way we like, without any certainty of making meaningful progress on the problems that have come to define its apparent brokenness.

Essay

Jul 30, 2026

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6 min read

Academia Is Not The Problem

Essay

Jul 23, 2026

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4 min read

Zhang et al. Is Everywhere

While Zhang may be one of the most common surnames in the world, with more than 100 million people sharing the name, I don’t think that fact alone explains why people have started noticing Zhang appearing so frequently in their bibliographies

Essay

Jul 17, 2026

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6 min read

On Research as Leisure

I would start on the Wikipedia page for anime, and hours later, when my mum came into my room to turn on the lights because dusk had fallen, I would be on the page about the militarisation of outer space.

Essay

Jul 9, 2026

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8 min read

Finding Light After Dark Academia

We don’t need to place ourselves into a state of eternal yearning – a tragic condition of never being fucking enough – before we can finally call ourselves scholars and academics.

Essay

Online Study Sessions: Thank you for the company

Jul 2, 2026

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6 min read

Online Study Sessions: Thank you for the company

There’s definitely an element of that; I’ve heard people say things like, ‘I’m shamed into working’, or ‘There’s something about seeing other people work that makes me want to work’.

Essay

Jun 25, 2026

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7 min read

Let’s talk public scholarship.

In many ways, this arrangement is not entirely new: it resembles, in important respects, how intellectual work was supported before the rise of the modern university.

Essay

Jun 18, 2026

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9 min read

Intellectual FOMO: Feeds and Feelings

Why does a feed full of intelligent people and intelligent ideas make me want to open Instagram less and less?

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Featured Posts

On Becoming 'Disgustingly Educated'

The On-lightenment

The Man Who Killed The Library

The Scholar Manifesto

Archive

Scholarly Virtues in the Age of AI

Books, Bodies, and Matter

Academia Is Not The Problem

Zhang et al. Is Everywhere

On Research as Leisure

Finding Light After Dark Academia

Online Study Sessions: Thank you for the company

Let’s talk public scholarship.

Intellectual FOMO: Feeds and Feelings

The Scholarly Letter

Account

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