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David J. Hensley

@david-j-hensley.bsky.social

Associate Professor of History at Georgia Highlands College, opinions my own. Specialized in Modern European History (Belgium, language, and nationalism). Check out my book, Defending French in Flanders, 1873-1974 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).

created March 7, 2025

322 followers 1,154 following 62 posts

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Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

"Once you have paid him the Danegeld / You never get rid of the Dane"

2/9/2025, 7:52:04 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

1/9/2025, 7:32:18 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

I thought the Rozhenkos were Belarusian?

31/8/2025, 10:05:08 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Can't believe Number One would support Tricky Dick.

25/8/2025, 8:22:43 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

link / reference?

19/8/2025, 7:44:21 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Did you see the post a while back from the guy who went on a date, and his date asked ChatGPT what she should order for dinner? The same reason as students having AI do low-stakes, fun, "get to know you" stuff: abdication of any kind of decision-making (or mental effort).

5/8/2025, 8:50:54 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

AI outputs are typically worse than algorithimic searches, and very often contain "hallucinated" (nonexistent) citations, because AI cannot judge/reason, and usually cannot actually search the live web, but only produce things that mimic the pattern of its inputs.

5/8/2025, 8:48:52 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Students turning in annotated bibliographies, complete with hallucinated "citations" and still containing "Sure, here is the output for your prompt" language from the LLM: ✔️ Students submitting ungraded, informal introductions in an online class that are nevertheless clearly spat out by an LLM: ✔️

5/8/2025, 8:43:51 PM | 14 3 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Ah, that makes sense.

23/7/2025, 9:12:21 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Apparently an old term for Finnic peoples (Finns, Estonians, etc.).

18/7/2025, 1:15:39 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Yeah it's terrible. I've seen academics get fooled by this. If you look up "udm14" there are tools for making Google with no AI summary your default search, on both compters and phones.

7/6/2025, 1:09:44 PM | 2 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

oh I'm not a fan!

20/5/2025, 6:16:29 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

I know of a college history prof who apparently does a similar exercise with their students.

20/5/2025, 6:09:55 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Bidets may not be "American" but they should be.

5/5/2025, 3:44:55 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

I know academic administrators who use Google AI to create "podcasts" of reports they think are too long for them to read.

3/5/2025, 9:09:02 PM | 5 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

I know academics who put long readings into Google AIs to get a "podcast" to listen to instead of doing the reading. We are doomed.

3/5/2025, 9:07:39 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Yeah I was looking for more like an organized or principled movement, but I applaud your student's perspicacity.

2/5/2025, 11:15:38 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social)

Are there any examples my academic followers on here know about of *student* resistance to the use of LLMs, among undergrads or graduate students?

2/5/2025, 10:04:51 PM | 8 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

marcorogers.com/blog/the-rea... Seems apropos

28/4/2025, 3:53:35 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

brb moving my investments into hydrogen dirigibles

27/4/2025, 3:11:36 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

"Michigan":

Google map with a pinned location just south of Jackson, Mississippi.
27/4/2025, 3:03:28 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Did you see this piece of credulous (sorry to borrow your term) fluff, from an honest-to-goodness historian? www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

26/4/2025, 9:30:37 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

The extremely deterministic methods of LLMs -- basically a probability calculator for words -- also seem to fly in the face of the turn toward "contingency" as a historical explanation in the last few decades.

26/4/2025, 9:25:58 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

It assumes that the LLM can somehow know the totality of a person's thoughts through the portion of their written words that have survived -- and of course, what's the guarantee that the body of texts hasn't been chosen to favor particular narratives / interpretations?

26/4/2025, 9:24:50 PM | 9 4 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Apparently a historian at a college near my own has her students "interview" historical figures like Thomas Jefferson and whatnot by asking questions of LLMs that have been "instructed" to respond in the voice of those people. Jesus wept.

26/4/2025, 9:20:58 PM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Now most places that don't take federal money tend to lean right anyway, but what's interesting -- chilling? -- about attacking accreditation is that it is an attempt to force ideological compliance on places that cannot be readily bent by just taking away (or threatening to do so) federal funds.

24/4/2025, 2:59:41 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Can't wait for Hillsdale to hire some Leninists and med schools to hire some people who believe in the humoral theory of disease to promote viewpoint diversity and keep their accreditation.

24/4/2025, 2:57:35 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Can't wait for the AI version of Cyrano de Bergerac to hallucinate a bunch of non-existent works by the Old Masters when some bro is trying to impress his date.

21/4/2025, 11:11:19 PM | 7 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

"Once you have paid him the Danegeld / You never get rid of the Dane."

16/4/2025, 10:20:47 PM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "meaning... measured by capital?" Recent events have led me to think that capitalism tends to be the handmaiden of fascism rather than the other way around.

16/4/2025, 9:40:07 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Video evidence needed

12/4/2025, 2:28:48 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social)

Good piece from @kjephd.bsky.social

11/4/2025, 2:15:34 PM | 35 10 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social)

RIP Dartmouth v. Woodward?

10/4/2025, 6:40:07 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

"Mass Deportation to Ease Demand." What a wretched line.

8/4/2025, 8:18:58 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Edwardian*, sigh

5/4/2025, 4:01:53 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Yeah, most of this rw anti-consumerist stuff is just cope because they realize how bad the tariffs will be, but it has left an opening for the kinds of folks you describe. (I think of the example of late Victorian/Edward intellectuals in the UK seeing "tinned food" as an indicator of decadence.)

5/4/2025, 4:00:34 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

GOP sounding like AdBusters this week.

5/4/2025, 3:47:37 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Agreed.

31/3/2025, 10:05:56 PM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

I don't want to defend Schumer but I don't think that's what he's saying. I think he's comparing Kosovo "becoming Muslim" to Palestine "becoming Israeli" and saying that as the Serbs gave up (!?) in Kosovo, Palestinians should give up in Israel.

31/3/2025, 5:54:11 PM | 10 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Tangentially related, but every year I get students writing about Black Americans during Jim Crow or the Great Migration and calling them "slaves." I don't think this is a clever "slavery by another name" commentary on sharecropping or whatever, alas.

31/3/2025, 5:17:41 AM | 13 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Must've rankled a lot of staffers to have to paint the Nazis (and Putin's Russia) as bad guys. I also noted that "melting ice" -- which I thought MAGA saw as just egghead scientist BS -- was listed as a threat. Or are they painting it as an opportunity for a new Northwest passage?

29/3/2025, 1:13:21 AM | 4 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social)

Grading in the age of Generative "AI."

Screenshot from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode
24/3/2025, 1:12:44 AM | 8 1 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Ah yes, the 1980s, when the totally race-neutral "welfare queen" rhetoric and Willie Horton ads roamed the Earth.

23/3/2025, 8:13:02 PM | 55 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social)

Having a hard time working; maybe I should get another coffee.* *(Wholesale restructuring the world's social, political, and economic structures, including but not limited to funding of and attitudes toward education from kindergarten onward).

22/3/2025, 11:03:38 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

I have had multiple students very clearly use AI to write (informal! ungraded!) introductions in the "Introduce Yourself" fora of my asynchronous courses.

21/3/2025, 5:50:38 AM | 28 4 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Oh, it's apparently "snivelry."

20/3/2025, 11:42:42 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

For the life of me, I can't figure out what the guy in the clip is saying.

20/3/2025, 11:41:51 PM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Thanks for the insight! (I mean this seriously; I know "tone" can come off incorrectly online.)

18/3/2025, 4:08:31 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Thanks! I will take a look at that. I might also consider Elisabeth Zerofksy's piece in the NYT in October 2024 where she interviews Robert Paxton. Of course, both of those have become a bit *dépassés par les évenements* since 20 January.

18/3/2025, 3:55:21 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

*for people

18/3/2025, 2:38:27 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Ok. I was looking for a short introduction to people (read: undergrads) who had no foreknowledge of this debate.

18/3/2025, 2:38:04 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

I am teaching in a study abroad program in Ireland this summer and I have the exact same worries. I also worry that the Gilman Scholarship program might be on the chopping block soon.

18/3/2025, 2:12:23 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social)

I am also teaching in a summer study abroad program this summer, and I have the exact same worries.

18/3/2025, 2:11:09 AM | 3 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

To be fair (?), apparently most of his children were not conceived through coitus.

17/3/2025, 4:33:29 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Forgive me for piggybacking on this post, but do you know of a relatively recent and relatively short (15 pages or less) introduction to the "Is Trump(ism) fascist" debate?

16/3/2025, 4:55:08 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

DOGE is already *de facto* shutting down large chunks of the government, and Trump is itching to use a pretended power of impoundment to shut down others. What an utterly weak excuse. Also, you have just telegraphed to the Republicans that they will always be able to outmaneuver you.

15/3/2025, 3:05:44 AM | 0 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

I would also point out that 1. DOGE is already *de facto* closing parts of government it doesn't like and 2. Trump has all but promised that he would attempt to impound anything in the continuing resolution that he doesn't like anyway.

14/3/2025, 4:01:02 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Churchill said to Chamberlain after the Munich Conference in 1938: "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war." I think that applies to you pretty well.

14/3/2025, 3:41:25 AM | 1 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social)

For all of my contacts who are historians of Ireland: Is there an Irish analogue to this book? I am looking to teach a World History II (since 1500) course using Ireland as the main case study / point of entry. Thanks! www.routledge.com/Transnationa...

12/3/2025, 9:31:00 PM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social) reply parent

Why did you and @warnock.senate.gov vote to confirm Chavez-DeRemer? As one of your constituents, I'm very disappointed.

12/3/2025, 12:33:36 AM | 8 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social)

Columbia University forbidding faculty from moving classes online to protect students from ICE. The email also lists "resources" for concerned students, which is rich, given that Mahmoud Khalil contacted Columbia the day before his apprehension to reach out for help: zeteo.com/p/scoop-emai...

11/3/2025, 1:52:19 AM | 2 0 | View on Bluesky | view

Profile picture David J. Hensley (@david-j-hensley.bsky.social)

Horrible. As a past recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, as well as an educator who has touted the Gilman scholarship to my own students (who tend to come from disadvantaged backgrounds) this really hits home.

7/3/2025, 11:42:27 PM | 6 1 | View on Bluesky | view