I'm posting this twice. It's these "financial managers" who are driving the restructuring of U.S. higher ed. Their data & analysis leads to closures of Middle East, Jewish, Islamic, and religious studies programs and departments. And, now they're bemoaning "geopolitics." bsky.app/profile/yeom...

So too, bravo to all the courageous universities that are defunding, “merging”, or cutting altogether Middle East and other Area Studies programs, along with languages, Religious Studies, History, etc. Very strategic.

Protests in Pakistan have resulted in a call by the Pakistani gov't for a curfew. Participants in those protests include Pakistani Shi'i communities responding in protest to Khamenei's killing in Iran. www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/...

Now, I'm just a professor trained in religious and Islamic studies, but if my (checks notes) funds manager at a large global hedge fund w/ a presence in Dubai demonstrated this egregious a capacity for evaluating risk, I'd move my money elsewhere. But, I'm a scholar in the late humanities era.

In case you're wondering how some sectors of the Christian right are seeing Trump's war in Iran, I've just read several articles seeing a prophetic meaning in a coincidence of Trump's strikes, the assassination of Khameni, and a blood moon occurring on Purim (tomorrow).

There is so much AI-driven slop on that “other website” right now. Armchair experts posting long-form drivel on weapons systems, ideologies, and politics that they don’t understand. Glad to see a lot of smart folks on here noting that there’s not much to know. Epistemic humility is a virtue.

Lots of speculation about the status of Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran. Many analysts are missing that if Khamenei is killed, there isn’t just an effect on Iranian politics. Khamenei is held by some Shi’a across the world as a “marja-e taqlid,” a source of religious authority and emulation.

Absolutely true. Officer candidates, veterans, reservists, and active duty personnel have always commanded the respect and appreciation of their professors at my institution, regardless of the professor’s political stances.

Ironic that one of the legacies of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a presidency that can initiate wars on whim, without even the pretense of building a case to the American people first.

Oman's FM Badr Albusaidi, who has been mediating the recent rounds of indirect talks between the US and Iran, has reacted to today's attacks by the US and Israel on Iran. 🔴 LIVE updates: aje.news/x068qe

I haven't seen a single major news outlet observe that the US and Israeli-led war against Iran is occurring during the month of Ramadan.

On Tuesday, I had on the syllabus to lecture on 1979 in my course on Jihadi-Salafism — the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I think I’ll be adding the 2026 US-Israeli-Iranian war.

Reminds of the time I tried to help Caitlin Flanagan of the Atlantic understand that Khomeini and Khamenei were two separate supreme leaders and she absolutely refused to accept it and then blocked me

The heartening thing of signing onto Bluesky today, having been a faculty member tasked with closing a department and ending a major, is to see just how widespread the logic, metrics, and instruments of closure are across the academy. Why? It's good to see the commonality of a shared absurdity.

Max Weber rises from the grave, screaming, "Science as a Vocation!"

In Ohio, we are receiving direct legislative mandates to the curriculum, removal of “controversial subjects,” AND all of the veneer of neoliberal rationality as we face metrics at the divisional, departmental, and professional level. The heart of it all!

I’ve flown on enough planes, driven across enough bridges, and witnessed the practice of medicine enough to know that “memorizing things to perform a task well” is actually a fairly important part of life-saving and life-affirming labor.

With all of the pushes toward STEM and professional majors, society created for itself a massive "humanities" debt. The debt is collecting interest, and probably at an ever more unsustainable rate.

> 71 percent said their professors create a classroom environment that supports both students who express unpopular opinions and those who may be upset by such views. Good job everyone. And I mean this sincerely. It is hard out there and we are doing a good job.

Mike Tirico: “Nothing brings Americans together like sports and it brings us together unlike anything else.” US Men’s Olympic Hockey: “Hold my beer.”

Not a bad way to start a Sunday.

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Exactly. Basically people are just inputting the Konami code at this point.

“Technofeudal” in my field is “Islamofascism”

England, 1776 — The King: I am the law. USA, 1776 — No man is above the law. England, 2026 — The King: My brother’s arrest shows that no one is above the law. USA, 2026 — Well, the President is probably above the law and can’t be held criminally liable while conducting the duties of office.

When asked to differentiate white and black identities, he immediately pivots to the “white church” and “black church.” Hire religion reporters, ya’ll. Hire ‘em. And hire religion professors. Stop closing our departments. Hire us.

"Philosopher working at Anthropic." "Researchers working for tobacco companies tell us that cigarettes aren't harmful." "Researchers working for petroleum industries tell us that the contributions of carbon to the changing climate are far over-blown."

US military averaged just under one air strike per day in Somalia in the first month of 2026. The highest or second-highest monthly Somalia strike numbers ever, rivaled only by Dec 2025. 2025, the highest year for Somalia strikes yet, had 140+ strikes (10-15 most months).

English-as-an-only-language audiences when Bad Bunny said “San Francisco” during the halftime show at the Super Bowl

Noticed this in the fatwas written by Turki Bin’Ali as well. He would cite text after text in a rapid-fire way — far, far more than even other jurists on Maqdisi’s Minbar. Then, of course he left the Minbar and kept citing his way while a partisan for ISIS

“Education is for the student’s benefit, not for the benefit of their future employer…students go to school not merely to acquire skills but to develop an entire social and intellectual life: to have something good and to have it forever” @thepointmag.bsky.social thepointmag.com/examined-lif...

Every professor preparing to teach John Locke and private property rights is very excited right now.

Along with everything else happening in the world, today is the National March for Life and because I've become obsessed with the consistent life ethic, I decided to write about American public opinion across several "pro-life" policies: prri.org/spotlight/un...

Have a larger story on this coming, but I’ve been embedded with this group, and this story from yesterday is part of what they’ve been doing in the city: religionnews.com/2026/01/22/h...

More and more, scholars are saying it.

Just spotted a typo in an assignment, spelling Emile Durkheim's name as "Drunkenhime." First, a great way to ensure I know that A.I. usage was a probably kept to a minimum. Second, that's immediately going into the REL 101 course notes. Fantastic stuff.

Want to report on everything? Report on religion. Trust me: It's a wild ride.

🧵In my expert opinion as a researcher of vehicle ramming attacks, what has been publicly described in the video evidence does not support the claim that Renee Nicole Good was attempting a deliberate ramming attack when she was shot in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026. 1/7

Martin Peterson's creative response to being banned from teaching Plato (shared with his permission).

“He described (Renee Good) as a devoted Christian who took part in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland when she was younger.” www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

Semester ended.

Somehow it’s completely wrong and yet carefully calculated to infuriate both the “Deus Vult” crowd AND jihadists.

Hard part about this is that increasingly universities don’t value peer review in workload calculations. It’s often unrecognized work now that we’ll do as some sort of beneficent contribution to the field. I mean, yes do them — I do! — but that’s a real problem moving forward.

Rather stunned at the noticeable lack of the Melian Dialogue in the Discourse (tm) right now. Did they all just give up on Thucydides?

There’s probably a Foreign Affairs or Atlantic essay to be written comparing the destruction of the White House’s East Wing and Trump’s hypothetical billionaire-funded ballroom and the destruction of Maduro’s presidency and Trump’s hypothetical billionaire-funded New Venezuela.

Disappointed to read on LinkedIn that the Library of Arabic Literature (@libraryarablit.bsky.social) is ceasing publication with the new year due to the end of grant funding from NYUAD

Each year in my Religion 101 course, I ask students a few conversational questions. Since before the pandemic, the overwhelming majority of students will report having *no* problems dating someone of another religion but will *not* date someone of differing political views.

Are there any essays that look at how user experiences with LLMs like ChatGPT change if they interact with it as “it” or as an object rather than a “you”? Why, yes, I have been reading Martin Buber, why do you ask?

Make a Bond movie academic: “Dean No”