Among the many delights in this preview is a reminder of the lovely days I got to spend in Naples. If anyone would like me to return to Naples to talk about literally anything, I shall gratefully accept your invitation.

My colleague @rhcraig.bsky.social is in the next issue of JAAR with a fascinating comparative study of Early Christian preaching manuals, African-American homiletics, and early Buddhist preaching: academic.oup.com/jaar/article...

An amazing review essay of Scheidel’s What is Ancient History and Padilla Peralta’s Classicisms and Other Phobias. planudes.medium.com/the-chains-t...

"H was approached about early retirement shortly after. He then requested a centennial professorship, which comes with an endowment used at the prof’s discretion...and a salary of $250k through 2012, at which point he would retire and drop legal claims against UT." thedailytexan.com/2026/02/10/f...

I feel...hope? about...our field?? What a boon for Biblical Interpretation.

The parents of a 7 year old, all of whom are in the process of applying for asylum, took their daughter to the ER when her nose wouldn't stop bleeding. ICE picked them up near the hospital and they are now in detention in Texas, presumably awaiting deportation. www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...

Here’s the report from KARE. The boy is five-year-old Liam Ramos.

I'll confess that I actually really enjoy peer review, despite the significant time investment it takes to do it well. For me (someone with stable employment at a SLAC), it's both a responsibility and a real opportunity to engage with the field.

happy publication day, @curtisdozier.bsky.social !

Of the endless possible topics for their final papers in my course, "The Bible and the Body: Gender, Race, Disability, Affect," a surprising number of my students chose to write about Paul. Where did I go wrong?? WHo will rescue me from this Canvas marathon of death?

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.

Academics, I'd appreciate feedback on this: For a scholarly monograph, which should an author prioritize? a) Footnotes with full bibliographic entries on first use + "select bibliography" at the end of the book OR b) short citations in all the footnotes + full bibliography at the end of the book.

Amid the atmospheric river of academic austerity nonsense lately, I must admit that students presenting their final papers and excitedly discussing them with one another remains such a source of joy.

New issue of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament - Vol. 48, No. 2 (2025) journals.sagepub.com/toc/jnta/48/2 @sagepub.com @jaxhidalgo.bsky.social @ntright.bsky.social @clarissabreu.bsky.social @lhuber.bsky.social The Future of Revelation and Gender Studies

After reading Ignatius to the ROmans and Perpetua & Felicity this week, my class discussed the logics of ancient martyrdom. Students were ...uh... quite enthusiastic about contemporary parallels. The first time I think I've ever replied "no comment" to a student's question.

Proofs day for my chapter in _Listen to the Sibyl: The History, Poetics, and Reception of the Sibylline Oracles_ (ed. Olivia Stewart Lester et al)! The volume should be out in February via JSJSupp: brill.com/display/titl...

I swear I am incapable of remembering how many words I can read aloud per minute.

It’s an exercise in infantilization to do everything you can to prevent a student from taking a shortcut. Let them develop their own agency if they want to. Use your time as an educator to come up with assignments that are good on their own merits & not bc they flummox a probability machine.

Is cultural bankruptcy a term yet? www.thedailybeast.com/the-no-1-cou...

Disturbing news out of Auburn University, where the admin is pressuring professors to sign a statement saying they're complying with an "anti-DEI" law and TPUSA is holding a rally and trying to record classes. I hear faculty are terrified to sign, worried this is a pretense for mass firings.

"We seek early career scholars with a specialization in Religion and Health. The fellow may specialize in any contemporary religious or secular tradition and any methodological approach"

"a status as patron saints to middle-aged men with emotional impairments" well hey now who are we calling midle aged?

it’s officially book promo time! so, hey, i wrote this book; it comes out in a week! would you mind signal boosting and asking your library to buy it? if you’d like a copy, the code AUFLY30 will get you 30%off.

In a cautionary rebuke to the governing establishment, Ireland elects a leftist president who campaigned on economic justice at home and fury over the plight of Palestinians in Gaza abroad. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

Dan-el Padilla Peralta already said this in his blurb but Maia's book really transformed me. Give yourself over to its lyrical powers!

As a student, professor, and colleague, I have often wanted this website. Eric has done us all a tremendous kindness by compiling into one place all the (often elusive or opaque) information needed to learn or teach several ancient languages using braille and describing the process with clarity.

Please reskeet: CFP is open for the North American Patristics Society meeting, May 21-23, 2026 in Chicago Submit abstracts either for the general call or to a pre-arranged theme, or you can submit a whole planned session! Deadline is Nov 19th, details at link: www.patristics.org/annual-meeti...

🚨 Postdoc at UT Austin Religious Studies in Religion, Healing, and Magic in Late Antiquity (2 years)! utaustin.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UTstaf...

ACLS statement against White House “compact”: THIS IS SOVIET SHIT

According to eyewitnesses, armed ICE agents dragged kids out of their beds in the middle of the night, zip tied them and put them in rented vans while raiding an * entire apartment building* on the South Side of Chicago. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOXO...

my book_smoke & mirrors_ is out on oxford scholarship online. i have many feelings, mostly good! this was a difficult write for many reasons. so i hope you find something useful in it if you read it.

Five weeks into the semester, and I would like an orchestra of the world's smallest violins to perform for me as I reflect on how difficult it has become to sustain critical thought on anything other than the most immediate task in front of me.

Got my covid/flu twofer yesterday to avoid turning my post-SBLAAR Thanksgiving plans into a superspreader event.

CHOTINER: And you didn’t know this person - what did you call him again? CELEBRIMBOR GREATEST OF THE ELVEN SMITHS: Right, his name was Annatar but CHOTINER: And you taught him to create a ring harnessing all his malice and cruelty? CELEBRIMBOR: Well I mean I was deceived CHOTINER: So you’ve said

6 years POSTOC in Biblical Studies - Wissenschaftliche*r Mitarbeiter*in (m/w/d) at Humboldt University Berlin More details here: haushalt-und-personal.hu-berlin.de/de/personal/...

The digital version of God, Slavery, and Early Christianity is officially out! If you're interested in ancient Mediterranean slavery's effects on Christian thought and practice, this is for you. www.cambridge.org/core/books/g...

Duke UP has put the Introduction to my book online! See here: bit.ly/42yhObv

This review takes a rather...hostile turn, admonishing *checks notes* Judith Butler for furthering binaries, and concluding with a quote from MLK. What a field I work in.

SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in a college applicant's file is blatantly unconstitutional ALSO SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in targeting whom to detain and deport is cool cool cool

beautiful symposium for a beautiful book don't miss @postrafelite.bsky.social's cartoon about creation - a beautifully meditative way to start the morning

There's a new issue of the Journal of Ancient Judaism, in which I discuss palm trees, Smyrna, and the discursive deployments of Judea in the Roman Empire: brill.com/view/journal...

“Chicago has long helped to keep alive tiny fields & esoteric areas of humanistic study... Without the univ’s support, & the continued training of grad students who can keep these bodies of kn going, entire spheres of human learning might eventually blink out.” www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

The latest issue of Bible and Critical Theory is out: bibleandcriticaltheory.com/issues/volum...

The women's and gender studies program at Sonoma State University in northern California has been shut down, blamed on budget trouble. Tenured faculty lost jobs. If gender studies would be secure anywhere in the country, surely it would be in northern CA. And yet.

This is an URGENT issue of university governance...

The cover for After Transformation. The @dukepress.bsky.social designers are just so great. dukeupress.edu/after-transf... #ancientbluesky #byzantinebluesky #classicsbluesky

There are two prominent scholars of New Testament and Early Christianity in the Religion department at the University of Oregon, one hired just two years ago. Among many very bad things, this is particularly awful. I very much hope Dean reverses course.

Wonderful people have written brilliant things and have given it to you for free:

Many of us in the humanities are going to have to get clear for ourselves on why, outside of institutional rationales, what we do is vital. And many of us will have to let go of the lure of institutional reward in order to do the kind of work that matters. chicagomaroon.com/48215/news/u...