Here's a link to the memo that identifies the cases in which the flowchart is to be followed: acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:... It isn't applicable to *every* syllabus, but it's still the beginning of the end.

Will the signatories on the "Letter on Justice and Openness" care to weigh in on this? After all, as they wrote in the document they signed, "if we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us." harpers.org/a-letter-on-...

Did the University of Oklahoma even *consult* with the faculty in its Department of Religious Studies before issuing this decision? You know, those *experts* whom they employ who understand first amendment issues and religious arguments better than anyone because they teach at a public university?

Unclear to what extent people out there have realised that university staff are running on empty

Anyone wishing to pontificate about changes in the demand for a college education should be forced to stare at this graph for a bit first

A friendly reminder that the author of the U.S. pledge of allegiance, Francis Bellamy, was many things -- but among them was that he identified as a Christian socialist. Chas. Monroe Sheldon, credited with popularizing "What would Jesus do?" Also a Christian socialist.

My department is hiring a tenure track assistant professor in in the visual arts, architecture, and/or material culture of the Islamic world. Please circulate! careers.umass.edu/amherst/en-u...

Not the only faculty member facing this. Lots of former students seeking a letter of recommendation for graduate school having been laid off from their USAID, State Dept, War Dept., and other positions. Demoralizing. Smart people in whom the US gov't invested with their careers derailed for what?

It's hilarious watching ChatGPT 5.1 absolutely faceplant on Arabic PDFs. When asked, I received the following responses (see below). What made me laugh is when it said that this "wasn't real Arabic text." Uh, it is. I'm working on a set of fatwas from the Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad. 1800, really.

Some of us love it enough to use it as a profile photo. Honestly, this Esquire cover is one of the most haunting baseball images I've ever seen: Joe DiMaggio hitting in a suit in an empty Yankee Stadium in 1960.

Acknowledging that NYC mayor elections are a Whole Thing, this is easily one of the most robust faith outreach operations I've ever seen for a mayoral race.

Me, a scholar studying jihadism, whenever I hear someone call a politician a Marxist jihadi: “Please use your theory of communist Islamist jihadism to explain this image.”

The #1 lesson from yesterday’s blowout: Humanities majors killed on the job market 1) Mamdani- Africana Studies 2) Spanberger -French 3) Sherill - Global History

Really interesting results here -- but a note on how this might be framed. The category "other" likely captures Muslim, Hindu voters -- definitely religious! Equally, "None" might include "spiritual, but not religious" and any form of non-institutional or anti-institutional practice.

It’s funny how many Americans think Trump will care about the Blue Jays winning the World Series.

No matter who wins, we all lose, really.

The narrative arc of this week on my bluesky threads.

“We want to build a university our football team can be proud of.” George L Cross, President, University of Oklahoma, responding to a state senator in the 1950s who asked, following Cross’ request for more funding, “that’s all well and good, but what kind of football team will we have this year?”

Quietly, many U.S. universities are shifting their evaluation of faculty research to align it with the Scopus database of Elsevier. Elsevier recently bought into the US News & World Report rankings used by students and their parents (and alumni, and *far* too many scholars). Why? In part, A.I. ...

Oxford graciously decided to move up the US publication date of America’s Middle East and you can now buy the Kindle edition, and hard copies should ship very soon! www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0FW...

Please repost: We're looking for an excellent writer/editor with strong data journalism skills to join the religion team at @pewresearch.org. pewtrusts.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Center...

Likely the sort of remarks that will be used as a primary source in courses on American Islam in the years ahead.

I'm beginning to get the feeling that A.I. usage is going to align along red / blue political splits in U.S. politics ... Now, I'm beginning to wonder how A.I. usage will filter or sort across the pluralities of U.S. religious identities (inclusive of atheists, spiritual-but-not-religious, etc.).

Following the availability of Chat GPT, et al., I asked students since they were willing use "wearables" for fitness (e.g., Apple watch) and wear "WWJD" religious bracelets, would they be willing to wear an AI "moral" guide to optimize their relations ... They said no. One said, "Hell no."

we're bringing it back, brothers and sisters in Christ

So, how have the contractors for this been vetted for clearance? Who has handled the screening? Can't help but think that foreign intelligence agencies are looking into ways of taking advantage of the demolition and construction in any number of ways.

Broadcaster voice: "Tech leaders promising that A.I. will revolutionize higher ed were met with heavy setbacks today after popular LMS, Canvas, went down due to the Amazon AWS outage." A note. Universities still taught. We managed without Canvas just fine. Learning occurred. Projects were planned.

Really grateful for the exchange between @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social and @eric-reinhart.com. The repetition of “invent[ing] new forms of shared meaning” and “reciprocal responsibility” in response to shame feel like the early sketch of a post-secular turn in shared liberal political life.

Item 1 — You should hire, not fire columnists and reporters right now. Especially religion reporters (if I may). Item 2 — If you must fire reporters and columnists, don’t do it during a religious observance. Somebody should’ve paid attention in their religion courses in college.

This reminds me of when @kevinjonheller.bsky.social wrote about the Obama administration’s killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and it apparently (allegedly) changed its argument midstream in response to his blogpost on Opinion Juris

Remembrances from colleagues of Brinkley Messick (1946-2025)

COVER REVEAL AND PREORDER: The Public Scholar - A Practical Handbook. "Perry focuses on the practical details of how to approach public scholarship. How do you pitch a piece to an editor? When should you follow or ignore the rules of the genre? And what happens once your piece is out in the world?"

Coming from @stanfordpress.bsky.social in the summer of 2026! @lisablaydes.bsky.social and I edited a book "Ba'thist Iraq through Archives" with a star studded list of contributors!

Every scholar of religion reading this: “Uh, which Christianity, exactly?”

More and more folks need to be talking about the fact that Elsevier has exerted remarkable control over the US News methodology in order to secure a future for its academic journal subscription model. Side effect? Complete erosion of humanities and social science scholarship.

The second law of the Global War on Terror-era is that the Global War on Terror never ends. It only transforms.

None of the most prominent people talking about universities have any real idea what does and doesn’t happen in classrooms.

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." Justice Robert Jackson, 1943

And, as @jackjenkins.me would agree, more religion and staffers dedicated to the study of religion and spirituality. These things all inter-relate.

In my experience as a scholar of religion, when a religious or spiritual community’s narratives & worldview are challenged by the “facts-on-the-ground,” they will turn to supernatural narratives — Satanic or demonic possession, for example, or simple disbelief — to make sense of what’s transpired.

I want to underline this point for everyone outside foreign policy, NatSec, and Middle East circles. Israel bombing a US partner (Qatar) is significantly different from bombing countries the US considers adversarial (Iran, Assad's Syria) or groups the US designates as terrorists (Hezbollah, Hamas).

Good read. Each year - for the last several - I’ve informally surveyed a few of my classes, on matters of religious & political beliefs. Completely anonymous. Students are amazed that so many students in the class are like them … but several note they chose their university hoping for that.

YES. Reading through articles covering religion department closures — seeing AAR tout the health of programs graduating 5 alumni per year — has been eye-opening. Five majors per year shuts down programs in some states, such as Ohio, as a matter of law. Our enrollments were 800+/yr before closure.

It’s not a very serious one, but a real, sometimes irksome, burden scholars of religion have to bear is the need to explain & re-explain that, no, we’re not glorified Sunday school teachers, but actual scholars (historians, sociologists, etc) engaged in the *academic* or critical study of religion.

Cool colleagues, ya’ll. Cool, cool colleagues.

FINALLY. Someone FINALLY covered this.

I mean … find the lie?

Getting caught up on today’s headlines and I’m of the general opinion that there is a non-zero chance they bring back leaded gasoline for health reasons.

This feels familiar. The number of times that legal arguments were still being drafted under the Bush and Obama administrations during the drone campaign in Yemen…

The section of my REL 101 syllabus dealing with "Religion & Public Life" keeps becoming more relevant.