Exciting update from our program, where @burnidge.bsky.social is going great work iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/05/26/u...

In this thread, Zach is getting at the fundamental tension of higher education: many (not all) students are coming to us for a credential. Our job is to get them to learn certain skills and ways of thinking before we give them that credential. This leads to an unfortunate tension.

You know about the resources posted at the REL Toolbox? Now managed by @seedpods.bsky.social, the site has grown. Go see. Anyone leading a Dept in the Humanities will find it helpful. reltoolbox.ua.edu

Looking forward to talking with @mccutcheonsays.bsky.social about our work reimagining Religious Studies & the Humanities at UNI. April 29 at 3pm ET. Registration link: aarweb.org/event/strate...

This "Into the Stacks" feature was very fun to contribute to, in large part because it gave me a chance to highlight all of the wonderful work that @shafrhistorians.bsky.social have been doing in the past few decades to integrate religion more holistically into the study of U.S. foreign relations. 🗃️

The closing of African American Studies and GWSS at Iowa is absolutely heartbreaking. It is such an important time to study these subjects. Words really cannot express how upsetting this decision is. www.thegazette.com/higher-educa...

Looking forward to this @naasr.bsky.social conversation with @mccutcheonsays.bsky.social & Leslie Dorrough Smith on Thursday. Interested in the future of Religious Studies & the Humanities? I hope you'll join us.

“Politics is fully immersed in its postliterate era, and political violence, too, has become illegible.”

EXCLUSIVE: @laurenweberhp.bsky.social & I have spent the last year collecting school+county-level vaccination data from across the US and found that only about 28% of counties now have herd immunity for kindergartners from measles—that leaves about 5.2mn kids unprotected. Gift link: wapo.st/49zDc43

i think to understand the meaning of the birthright citizenship clause to the framers of the 14th amendment, you have to understand significance of dred scott to the civil war republican party. dred scott wasn't just a bad ruling, it was understood as a rejection of the declaration itself.

How have religious food movements from the early nineteenth century have to do with America’s MAHA health agenda today? @adriennekrone.bsky.social, author of FREE-RANGE-RELIGION, dives into the history in this recent blog post ⤵️ uncpressblog.com/2025/11/19/h...

UNI is hiring an Assistant Professor of Instruction focused on Religious Ethics. This is a promotable, renewable position. Happy to answer questions! uni.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/UNI/job/Main... #acrel #aar #sbl

I say this extremely seriously: one of the main skills children have to learn to be adults is to do things they *don't* find interesting. This is both because many necessary things in life are boring and because sometimes interesting things take time and effort first.

Good tips and advice here for the inevitable last minute syllabus preps, from @burnidge.bsky.social

Does anyone have examples of colleges or universities advertising themselves as AI-free or, better, anti-AI?

The thing is, by refusing to truly engage with the public and to support/value scholars who do, we cede the public understanding of history to these 'history buffs,' - and at the same time, contribute to the decline of our field, as the public doesn't know what we *do* that they should pay for.

Useful thread on Mahmoud v. Taylor from @scribnerumcp.bsky.social.

There's something really interesting going on here methodologically in Justice Jackson's Medina v. Planned Parenthood dissent. You can see it in one footnote. In short, Jackson is emphasizing that Black Americans are part of the original "public" about which "originalists" should be concerned.

amazing q&a with paul krugman

"The NHGRI Communications Office, and with it the History of Genomics Program, was completely disbanded on April 2nd. My contractual position was finally terminated on April 28th." The first piece in our series "The Losses"

It's the official publication day for the 25th anniversary edition of Cold War Civil Rights!! New preface sets it in the context of the contemporary global Black Lives Matter movement. press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

BREAKING: A federal judge in Massachusetts (the Reagan-appointed William Young) has declared the Trump administration's cuts to NIH grants — ostensibly over Trump's EOs on gender ideology and DEI — are "illegal" and "void." He's ordering many grants restored.

Melissa Hortman, who was assassinated last night, was the Speaker of the Minnesota House in the 2023-2024 session, when Democrats ran the state government. That means she had a leading role in shepherding the many landmark reforms that Dems adopted in that period—an important legacy. Brief 🧵.

Exclusive: US Marines carry out first known detention of civilian in Los Angeles, video shows reut.rs/3ZvxVoY

Really important story - army officials asked soldiers to identify themselves if they don't agree with Trump's politics that way he'd get only supportive soldiers in uniform during his political rally on base. Heavier soldiers were also barred from participating.

Good odds that June 2025 goes down as a fundamental turning point in American civil-military norms longer term (for several reasons).

OSU requiring “AI fluency” within every major.

Foolish and counterproductive—even on the terms set by the selective austerity hawks. $258 million is a drop in the bucket. Plus, an HIV vaccine would not only save countless lives at home and abroad; it would also make HIV prevention more effective and less costly in the long run.

From our spring issue: @elprofebarba.bsky.social and @smgonzalezwi.bsky.social on the sanctuary movement. Sanctuary activists face new challenges under Trump’s second term—but their work has always entailed great personal risk. www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-...

📣Bryn Mawr College invites applications for a one-year Postdoctoral Fellow for a scholar with expertise in contemporary American religion. The Fellow will partner with President Wendy Cadge and research collaborators nationally. Start date July, 2025. sssreligion.org/announcement...

Last summer, a team from @historians.org issued a report on the teaching of history in U.S. K-12 schools. We asked them to write an essay-length version of that report for History of Education Quarterly. And then we invited four leading scholars to comment. In this thread, I'll post links to all.

We read two essays by @mjcressler.bsky.social in my “Religion and Race” class this semester, and here he is going for the hat trick. Check it out!

"If the court allows churches to operate religious charter schools, the public education system, as Americans know it, will take on an entirely new face and set of financial challenges."

Sunday's @nytimes.com carries the photos of 15 medics and rescue workers shot and killed by the IDF in Gaza in March, collected from their families and colleagues. QR links out to video reconstruct, Six Deadly Minutes. Please share. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWhN...

BREAKING: Rumeysa OZTURK must be released from detention, a federal judge ruled Friday, describing her incarceration as an egregious First Amendment violation that could chill the speech of millions.

“The pope will be from Chicago” sounds like an 1880s Republican’s dire prediction for if we don’t stop Irish immigration

a world with poor writers is a world with poor thinkers

“food was one of the top 10 causes of death in the 19th century. That's not true today. …These rules have made us safer, so we don't wanna undo them. We don’t have to repeat every mistake we’ve ever made.”

Today is the official publication day of *Black Religion in the Madhouse: Race and Psychiatry in Slavery's Wake*! Much gratitude to family, friends, students, and colleagues who engaged the project, and to librarians and foundations for support in the research process.

In Vietnam, the war is called "the American War." The Verge's package commemorating the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon is now fully live: www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Judge says 2-year-old US citizen appears to have been deported with ‘no meaningful process’ politi.co/42TgorF

Several students who sheltered in place during Thursday’s deadly shooting at Florida State University shared a traumatizing coincidence: They had also endured the Parkland, Florida, school massacre in 2018.

@oah.org Please help us! The Journal of the Early Republic has launched a "history tracker" to document how the Trump Admin is changing/hiding history. We need your help- if you've seen a change that has not (yet) made the news, please write in. More info: thepanorama.shear.org/2025/04/09/t...

A call for pitches I wish we'd never had to think about.

The National Humanities Alliance is collecting information on canceled NEH grants to share with congressional leaders. This is legit fact finding in support of competent lobbying. If you've had your grant canceled, do let them know. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Very excited to say something I haven't been able to say in a decade: we are hiring a tenure-track historian at Louisiana Tech. We're casting the net wide, basically any field outside of North America. Happy to answer any questions ulsltu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/LATECH...

Notable from Hegseth’s official Twitter account: a photo showing he has a new tattoo on his right arm that’s not in previous pictures of him, a huge “كافر”—“kafir,” Arabic for infidel or unbeliever, a trope of military tattoos and “morale patches” from the early GWOT (Not exactly great calligraphy)

Moving from Florida to Iowa, it became clear very quickly which parts of the country get sustained coverage when natural disasters strike. And now, reduced help for everyone as we enter tornado & hurricane seasons.