"this could have been slop, but it's not" is rapidly becoming a surefire signifier of premium-ness

I think we need a mega thread of everyone's craziest archive stories.

Let me share some obscure Michigander knowledge with you, and get ready, I don't think this is known in other parts of the US: Canadians? They drink.

I don’t design my coursework with different ethics and principles than those I expect from myself. Deep reading, sincere effort, meticulous citations, a willingness to acknowledge mistakes, honesty and humility are all things I want from students AND myself. And that shapes how I see gAI.

We made it to the bottom, friends---new light and a new year ahead!

I would like to conduct an oral history of everyone involved

I feel like "academic hiring" discourse is always kind of downstream of the fact that in the 50s we started building a giant public system to make a college education almost universally available and in the 80s and 90s we started taking it apart to go back to the only-the-rich model

It’s so common to see places staged with mannequins or other outrageous props to try to make a listing viral that I rarely look anymore. But I looked at this. I couldn’t look away. Sweet cheezits, some rich fool clearly lived like that. On purpose. Luckily, there’s one man who can fix this property.

Folks, there's viewings today at noon. Who's going to take one for the team

I know disciplinary standards differ, but I've been at this for decades and I've never cited a paper I didn't read. Didn't like, sure; didn't understand, often; kind of drifted off in the middle there, it happens. But didn't read at all? Nah. Come on.

I've never lived so close to a What Are We Even Doing Here real estate listing, and I am here, gifting you this experience, make sure to open the pictures www.redfin.com/MI/Ann-Arbor...

Anybody currently on here got a copy of Bartelink, SC400 (Life of Antony) nearby? I need to get an accurate section-of-work and page-of-edition pair for an example footnote

There's really interesting social science on how white people significantly overestimate the number of people of color in a room or in a picture. A room with, like, 20% POC will be perceived as majority POC.

How do you know when an academic has boring work on her desk? She'll be here on the sky with no filter, commenting on everything she sees and telling tales

my contribution to the discourse: you really want to know whether one group or another is being slighted in some process? get a spreadsheet, fill it out with data from the last ten years, and then---crucial---do not squint when you look at the results look right at em and don't kid yourself

Some thoughts on academic meritocracy--an issue rightly raised for renewed discussion. The narrative of those who wanted Gay removed as Harvard president--largely echoed in coverage NYT &c + even many who defended her--holds that "merit" prevailed prior to recent diversification of the academy +

In honor of me being mad on the internet, and also needing to feel like other people share my values: Tell me about the class you didn't want to take in college that ended up bending your mind or being otherwise "useful" in your development as a person

i was especially struck by these paragraphs, which rang very true to me. libs who grew up around conservatives aren't embarrassed to be liberals--or confused about what conservatives want. there's a certain kind of elite media man, on the other hand--

Sorry, one more: 5) stop weighing female athletes Fuck it, actually, stop weighing women *period*

"Oh, you want to protect female athletes, name three who competed last year in the sport you're going on about" remains undefeated as a discerning device because truly all these people **do not give two shits about women's sports**

Okay, this one's just for the early Christian studies people: I'm updating the JECS list of preferred standard abbreviations, and a lot of journals have appeared or become more used in the field since the list got generated. I'm adding SLA, JLA, JOCS, EC (1868-7032), JECH, and ZAC. What else?

It may be delusional but seeing the coming failures and general bankruptcy---of thinking, of caring, of even valuing those things in the first place---I cannot help but anticipate how wildly creative and generative the next step is going to be, and I am holding on to that for dear life

My book, _An Exotic Apocalypse: Revelation and the Appropriation of Judaism in the Roman Empire_, is officially forthcoming with Penn State University Press. It'll be the inaugural book in their _Religions in the Ancient Mediterranean_ series.

I am very excited about this, which arrived on my doorstep today. (YAY) @vox-magica.bsky.social

Coming soon! We are excited to share our first issue in just a few months. We are also accepting submissions for issue 2 onwards! Feel free to send any questions or ideas to @calthalas.bsky.social @sihonglin.bsky.social or me on here, or with the editors via email tinyurl.com/tph5wvmd

Home again home again!

Dennis Trout is sadly no longer with us, but I’m glad we got to say goodbye to him this way in the last review he wrote for the Journal of Early Christian Studies.

I mean, just jawdropping

This is the entire thing

The redwoods are *enormous*

These people don't want women in the workplace.

i think a (perhaps underappreciated) aspect of this whole situation is the extent to which every elite profession is filled with people who excel at drawing attention and want to be famous more than they want to do the actual job

Out in SF for a couple days hiking with the big trees, and yowza, the percentage of billboards and ads about AI on the city drive north from the airport? Off the charts biiiiig boom energy

My mother-in-law is hilarious and awesome, and today I'm reminded of a great gift she gave me, and I want to share it with you:

In early 2024, I got to speak to Deans from up & down the West Coast of the US & Canada about "AI". I told them that the only value of ChatGPT for university administrators is as a contrast-dye test to show where resources are lacking.

My reflections on Patristics in Canada - just out in SR! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

When did Roman women stop having to have legal guardians? An open access article by Antii Arjava argues: “This article combines legal and papyrological sources to show that we can in fact establish the time when tutela was abolished in the reign of Constantine.” I do love late Roman legal history 🔖

An extremely important article. Small colleges serve students who are not well served by larger institutions and they are huge drivers of social mobility and economic activity in their regions

NASSCAL, AELAC, and Beyond Canon are collaborating on a conference/workshop to take place in Regensburg, 8-10 July 2025. The theme is "Early Christian Apocalypticism (II-V saec.): Contours, Contexts, and Social Functions." If you are interested in taking part contact [email protected].

all the Best First Article Prize details are here: www.patristics.org/grants-and-p... NB: the piece does not have to have been published in JECS to be considered!

📣Did you read someone's great first article from either 2024 or 2025? Is the author a NAPS member? Would they like cash money? Nominate them by sending a PDF of their piece to [email protected] by January 31, 2026 Best First Article prize and a cool $250 awarded at the NAPS annual meeting!

OU @aaup.org statement

Going through old NAPS board minutes to make a list of past winners of first article prize, and shocker, we have had the same three issues for the last thirty years: 1) Should our conference be strict or inclusive of papers? 2) Money, what do we do with it/how do we get it? 3) What's our name?

"Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea." can make me weep at the drop of a hat

Current* conditions near Manistee, MI:

I don't think people realize how absolutely weird it is to have IU winning football games, like records playing backwards weird To be winning games against Ohio State---like, am I on mushrooms? What world is this???

I'm an "alum" of this prize and being recognized this way really had a deep impact on me!

all the Best First Article Prize details are here: www.patristics.org/grants-and-p... NB: the piece does not have to have been published in JECS to be considered!