Country #94 of my Cooking Round th World challenge is LEBANON 🇱🇧 Sheikh El Mahshi is roasted eggplants stuffed with ground lamb, onions, pine nuts, & such spices as allspice & cinnamon. Topped with tomatoes & tomato sauce. Served with vermicelli rice with pine nuts.

A standing invitation to serve as my pinned tweet. Ask me anything about historical games and I'll do my very best to answer thoughtfully. - critiquing them - designing them - analyzing them - using them in history education - learning from them - enjoying them Let me know what you're thinking.

I was just preparing this 😁:

I've never gone through so many steps to publish a book review as I have with the Journal of Roman Studies (CUP).

It is the rebirth and resurrection of King Helios, the father of us all!

Fully agree with 'only cite stuff you've actually read' re: AI in academia, but it needs to be paired with 'give folk proper time to read & reflect'. The pressure to read/write/produce can drive shortcuts. Primarily thinking students here, but also academics, who need proper (paid) research leave.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPLX... Thanks to @metalclassicist.bsky.social for introducing me to this song! #SolInvictus #WinterSolstice

💙 🧡 💙 🧡

I’m sorry, but it is disgraceful to be an academic who uses this technology to conduct research. It should be prohibited in all of our scholarly institutions, including universities and journals.

A compelling interview with the brilliant Ellen Muehlberger about her new book. So many great insights!!

✨New Episode - The Gallic Sack of Rome - Part Three ✨ Things are heating up as the Gauls enter the city of Rome itself in our coverage of the dramatic events of 390 BCE.

Possibly the most sublime Roman fresco of a temple. The architectural detail of the spiky-topped wooden barrier, the painted relief in the pediment, & the offerings burning on the altar; it’s a symphony of observations. Archaeological Museum of Capri (no provenance) #FrescoFriday

“There’s beauty everywhere. There are amazing things happening everywhere, you just have to be able to open your eyes and witness it.” Photo is my own, unedited.

I bet this goes hard if you’re dumb as hell

Breaking: giant flamingo devours travelers at Florida airport

Country #93 of my Cooking Round the World challenge is LATVIA 🇱🇻 Frikadeļu Zupa is a soup of chicken broth with onions sautéed in butter, carrots, & potatoes, spiced with bay leaves & fresh dill, plus meatballs made of ground beef, milk, breadcrumbs, eggs, & marjoram. Served with dark bread.

Country #93 of my Cooking Round the World challenge is LATVIA 🇱🇻 Frikadeļu Zupa is a soup of chicken broth with onions sautéed in butter, carrots, & potatoes, spiced with bay leaves & fresh dill, plus meatballs made of ground beef, milk, breadcrumbs, eggs, & marjoram. Served with dark bread.

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... this is it

Home in Boston for the holidays, in case you couldn’t tell.

Zora, the queen of floof, granting me some cuddle time today. 🐈‍⬛📷 #CatsOfBlueSky #Cats #fluffy #MaineCoon

Day 1 of “The ‘Other’ and ‘Empire’ in Christianity: Postcolonial Readings of Late Antique Literature,” a small conference/workshop organised by Classics and Ancient History at Durham University (www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...). This has been a superb meeting so far.

Country #92 of my Cooking Round the World challenge is LAOS 🇱🇦 Khao Soi is rice noodles in a chicken/fish sauce broth, topped with a stew of ground pork, onion, garlic, soybean paste, & crushed tomatoes. Garnished with bean sprouts, cilantro, & sriracha.

The director of MSU’s Integrative Arts & Humanities (IAH) program informed me that my Spring section of IAH 208, i.e. my Metal & Premodernity class, currently has a waitlist of 21, th longest of any in-person IAH course on offer next semester.

Country #91 of my Cooking Round the World challenge is KYRGYZSTAN 🇰🇬 Lagman is a stir fry of beef (top sirloin), onions, garlic, ginger, cabbage, tomatoes, & peppers in soy sauce, black vinegar, & tomato paste. Garnished with scallions & served over noodles.

And that’s a wrap on my first semester at Michigan State University.

Country #91 of my Cooking Round the World challenge is KYRGYZSTAN 🇰🇬 Lagman is a stir fry of beef (top sirloin), onions, garlic, ginger, cabbage, tomatoes, & peppers in soy sauce, black vinegar, & tomato paste. Garnished with scallions & served over noodles.

The Hebrew calendar’s days start at sundown instead of, say, midnight or sun-up. The explanation everyone gives is that the Torah says something about evening coming before morning. But is that where the practice started? Is there historical evidence of different ways of marking the day change?

Visited the @worcesterartmuseum.bsky.social today with @drchristinah.bsky.social & friends to see the new expanded exhibit of the Higgins Armory collection of armor & weapons from all sorts of eras & cultures. Here’s some classical examples.

There isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom

Odysseus: the sea was dark as wine. the sun, tequila gold. the wind, as clear as peppermint schnapps Achilles: hey man, we're all worried about you

This is one of the first images - published in 1488 - of the later called #Dracula. A short 🧵 of the media history of the legend.

Thanks to @nevillemorley.bsky.social, we learned that Ernetti (19925–94) in fact claimed to have traveled to Rome, where he watched a performance of Ennius' Thyestes. He made transcript for posterity. He also took a photo of the crucifixion. He admitted both were fakes shortly before his death.

The wiki entry for Euripides Thyestes is slightly bonkers pls enjoy

Anyone have a comprehensive (or attempting to be comprehensive) list of Classics-related #podcasts? Asking for a friend 😏😁

4th workshop on Women in the Archaeology of Greece CfP (31.12.2025) - Women Archaeologists and War Organized by @efathenes.bsky.social and @britschoolathens.bsky.social on 9 & 10 March 2026 www.bsa.ac.uk/events/call-... Shared for reference; opinions not my own. #MMARe #MSCA #HistoryOfArchaeology

🌟 proofs day 🌟 for “Victim Blaming and Slut Shaming in Exegesis on the Soul” with Harvard Theological Review!

They don’t pay you to teach, they pay you to grade.

Calling all scholars working in Turkey on Byzantine, Armenian, Georgian, and Syriac Studies! Apply now for a virtual, four-session program focused on professional development.

Del Toro Frankenstein was pretty neat.

I want to do a boast. I finished my MA in Classics and I just found out this week that I got a distinction. I am very very proud of myself. My dissertation was on women in Ancient Rome who wore the toga. Ask me anything. Really anything (about my subject, or I'll try more broadly in Classics).

SNLS Call for Papers! The Society for Neo-Latin Studies is organising an online event for PhD students and ECR colleagues. See flyer for more details! #NeoLatin #AncientGreek

Back in August, 100 total MSU freshmen signed up for two sections of an IAH (Integrative Arts & Humanities) course, not yet knowing that its specific topic would be “Heavy Metal Music & The Premodern World.” Most of these students were not metalheads or even casual/occasional listeners.

Country #90 of my Cooking Round the World challenge is KUWAIT 🇰🇼 Chicken Majboos is oven-roasted chicken over rice cooked in a broth of sautéed onions garlic, & tomato sauce spiced with cinnamon sticks, dried limes, cardamom pods, bay leaves, & allspice. Garnished with toasted almonds & raisins.

Country #90 of my Cooking Round the World challenge is KUWAIT 🇰🇼 Chicken Majboos is oven-roasted chicken over rice cooked in a broth of sautéed onions garlic, & tomato sauce spiced with cinnamon sticks, dried limes, cardamom pods, bay leaves, & allspice. Garnished with toasted almonds & raisins.

Matthew Larsen and Mark Letteney's Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration is in the @newyorker.com! www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Classical reception is hot.

It's that giving time of year again, so this is a reminder that no matter how they try to dress it up, the Salvation Army is not a charity.

I find the seemingly standard public education/reenactor phrase, "every Roman soldier was a [combat] engineer" more than a bit frustrating. Every Roman soldier could be a *laborer.* The legions also had much higher status specialist engineers, the praefectus fabrum or architectus. Different jobs!

This is such brilliant archaeology. There's a bit of a persistent story that Britain was somehow culturally separate from europe in the Roman empire when it was so intertwined and connected by people and goods travelling. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...