New JJRS issue (52) just dropped! Read new research about Oda Nobunaga's relationship to religions, medieval/early modern ritual prayers & origin stories, student protests at Meiji Buddhist universities, & esoteric Buddhism, & reviews. Online & open access. nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/is...

I grew up watching and singing along to this every year with my mother and grandmother. A classic.

Ack, I should have spelled it out. Let's try this again... The latest issue (52) of the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies @jjrs-nirc.bsky.social has been published! 🥳 nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/is... Read more about the individual articles below 👇

New JJRS issue (52) just dropped! Read new research about Oda Nobunaga's relationship to religions, medieval/early modern ritual prayers & origin stories, student protests at Meiji Buddhist universities, & esoteric Buddhism, & reviews. Online & open access. nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/journal/6/is...

Co-signed. AI is the worst thing to ever happen to HistoryTube; even as much as an AI-generated thumbnail or narrator and I'm muting your channel. You have a fucking duty to relate the truth of history as best as you're able, and if you're using ehn-good-enough AI to do it, I don't want hear it.

The Center for Digital Play (digitalplay.itu.dk) has a YouTube channel, and we've just published a ton of content! Seth Giddings (@sethgiddings.bsky.social) on Postdigital Playthings: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAjE...

Tomorrow is my last day at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture @jjrs-nirc.bsky.social after a bit less than 3 years. These are all the works we’ve published since I started as Associate Editor (minus the Bible), plus another full issue of the JJRS coming soon. Not too shabby!

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AI automation =/= AI generation. the scripts to automatically transcribe voice to text or whether your party character prioritizes Attack or Defense isn't the same as algorithms generating randomized results out of an amalgamation of existing data. conflating them is intentionally misleading.

Moving back to the US from Japan & figuring out what on earth to do w/ things I can't relocate and how best to navigate so many recycling categories, schedules, and boundaries has shown me even more the stereotype of minimalism/tidiness in Japan. Ofc most ppl try to b neat in public. But then... 1/3

Begging folks to not assign nicknames to professionals in cold emails. No thank youuuu 🙅‍♀️ Do guys get this too, or is it a level of familiarity that men more easily assume with women? 🤔

Marie Kondo is back, back, back, back again! This time with a new book sharing her thoughts on many aspects of her life in Japan. I was interviewed by Caroline Bologna about the spiritual roots of New Years cleaning rituals for @huffpost.com. Needless to say, I have thoughts. 😅⛩️🧹✨

Marie Kondo is back, back, back, back again! This time with a new book sharing her thoughts on many aspects of her life in Japan. I was interviewed by Caroline Bologna about the spiritual roots of New Years cleaning rituals for @huffpost.com. Needless to say, I have thoughts. 😅⛩️🧹✨

TIL while updating some info from my article "Do Kentucky Kami Drink Bourbon" that not only does San Marino Shrine on the Italian peninsula offer olive branches as sacred boughs, but also there r olive shrines (& offerings of olives) IN Japan! This one on Shōdoshima took my breath away. #Shinto

Very much looking forward to this event. Great presenters, and @samuelmoore.org's book is maybe the best thing I've ever read about Open Access publishing.

TIL while updating some info from my article "Do Kentucky Kami Drink Bourbon" that not only does San Marino Shrine on the Italian peninsula offer olive branches as sacred boughs, but also there r olive shrines (& offerings of olives) IN Japan! This one on Shōdoshima took my breath away. #Shinto

Had a blast speaking at High Point University yesterday abt Shinto and video games, thanks to the support of Matt Mitchell, several debts, & the @asianstudies.org NEAC Distinguished Speakers Bureau! 🎮 On my way to #AAR2025, looking forward to seeing folks there & talking EVEN MORE about games! ✈️

Quick question: what the fuck is anyone talking about anymore

Even if you're not attending #aarsbl2025 or can't make my session, you can buy the book and others in @nyupress.bsky.social's great line of religious studies book at 30% off. nyupress.org/american-aca...

SAT 11/22 at 12:30pm | Hynes Convention Center Ballroom A I'm grateful the special session on my book at the upcoming #aarsbl2025 meeting and excited to be in conversation with Danielle N. Boaz, Jamil Drake, Terence D Keel, and Wangui Muigai. papers.aarweb.org/roundtable-s...

Reclining your seat back on a flight when the person behind you is working on their laptop should be illegal. 💀

I have a Zoom interview at the late hour of 11pm that I gotta stay awake for. 😴 At least by then the sound cars shouldn't be blaring jingles around my neighborhood like they are right now? How to explain to folks who don't live in Japan... 😬

A new #torii in NY to add to the global map! Looks like such a pretty location ⛩️🍁

Shrinemaxxing in Nagoya 😆 Is this… #ShrineSunday? 🦋 The theme is animal shrines! First is: Sheep 🐏 Hitsuji Jinja 羊神社 is supposedly one of only two sheep shrines in all of Japan! (the other is in Gunma Pref according to the priest).

Is this… a #torii? 🦋🤣

Shrinemaxxing in Nagoya 😆 Is this… #ShrineSunday? 🦋 The theme is animal shrines! First is: Sheep 🐏 Hitsuji Jinja 羊神社 is supposedly one of only two sheep shrines in all of Japan! (the other is in Gunma Pref according to the priest).

How AI saves time and increases productivity.

This short docu on Pokémon and nature was released a month ago but I just spotted @kaitlynugoretz.bsky.social in it 🥳

Rodney Taylor still needs our help! He’s still locked in an ICE camp. He’s still going without his new prosthetic legs. He’s still facing deportation to Liberia. He’s still having necessary disability accommodations ignored. Please keep sharing his story. Public pressure works!

This entire thread explains one of the REAL reasons I'm so pissed about this whole Bluesky CEO Waffles mess. I liked that meme. That was a good meme. The waffles tweet from years ago was a *good tweet*, and they are DRASTICALLY misusing it and turning it into a freakin' dogwhistle for their ingroup

I picked up several great-looking comics from this, loads to choose from!

brb asking my publisher for an edition of Because Internet that makes the dialup screech as you open it, like a novelty birthday card, and gradually heats up the longer you read it

Please kindly vote for your favorite library card design for the @pbs.org kids library card design contest 😁 And leave your graphic novel recommendations for myself and @arthurpbs.bsky.social’s Marc Brown! 🤩

There have been two hosts in the history of Reading Rainbow. The Legend of Literacy, LeVar Burton! And... me, Mychal Threets, a librarian 🥹🤯 I am a reader, a librarian because LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow made us believe and see we belong in books, we belong everywhere ✨ youtu.be/e7es7qdWVnU

I’m mega tired (it’s almost 1am in Japan) & didnt properly hype this. Posting again bc it deserves it: Beloved kid’s literacy show #ReadingRainbow is back w the always kind & awesome Mychal the Librarian @mychal3ts.bsky.social as the new host, w prev host LeVar Burton’s blessing!! Truly good news 🥹

I'm sure this isn't a novel insight but everything happening with tech platforms must, to some degree, be driven by their managers and developers actively hating their users and rueing that they have any autonomy as human beings other than being manipulable data points for behavioral experimentation

Some truly good news 🥹 youtu.be/e7es7qdWVnU

One of my 1st jobs in Hollywood was as a file clerk for a dept of Disney called “Pooh Licensing” *pause for snickering*. PL’s job was to go after ANYONE who used Winnie the Pooh w/o paying for the right. They sued folks from bootleggers to school teachers who hung Pooh on a classroom door. CUT TO:

This is an excellent point I need to digest how it might reshape the recc's Doctorow proposes if we took the initial white-logic of platforms seriously as part of the development of their exploitative character...

Faculty, alums, students and staff at universities across the country. Time to stand up. Your presidents and trustees need to hear from you. Stiffen their spines. Just say no to extortion.

really enjoying all the people trying to explain the bible to the pope today

Tfw you’re absolutely too swamped to play Ghost of Yotei on launch day even though you preordered 😭💀

Yes I’m stress cooking chili at 11pm, why do you ask? 🫠

Clearly, Hokusai was a man of culture (in case we needed more proof) 😂⛩️

As bad as sooo many things feel, nothing is quite like getting ready for bed and realizing you have a Zoom Meeting in 15 minutes 🫠

How exciting! 👀⛩️

Now is the time to contact your employers and rally to protect vulnerable colleagues. The administration is demanding that any valid H1-B visa holders outside the U.S. (or their employers) pay $100,000 for them to reenter the country, as of Sunday. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

This has got absolutely ridiculous. I have just deleted my account