There is so much pent up demand for joy and to believe in the future.

Let me hit you with that Critical stuff. Jacob Stewart-Halevy on Joyce Suechun Cheng’s “The Persistence of Masks: Surrealism and the Ethnography of the Subject.”

No War on Iran

If the social whole exceeds any single analytical grasp, historians can still speak with precision about specific domains of social life and across different temporal registers. We can attend to structural longue durée processes…

The supporters of Reza Pahlavi continue to threaten, harass, and attack anyone who does not bend the knee and accept the quisling “prince” as their own. In doing so, it’s clear they are drawing inspiration from the Pahlavis themselves

You’d have expected the principal antagonists in the fascist takeover to be less sleepy and geriatric.

There is no “revival.” We should do more work to caution church-going people against the concept of “revivals” more generally. The Spirit is not a clanging gong (1 Cor. 13:1) and the Spirit’s work yields lives transformed for the work of service. Collective effervescence is not a gift of the Spirit.

"Race, as we historians understand it, is therefore something which is made and unmade."

Looking for conversation partners/historians doing contemporary history, broadly defined. I’m especially interested in discussing methodology now as I just finished rereading William H. Sewell Jr.‘s “Logics of History.” What does it mean (empirically) to do source work in 2026?

In a different case of coerced soldiering--the president of Chad is accused of forced military recruitment and deploying said recruits in neighboring Sudan.

“So grave is the scale, nature, systematic character, and transnational reach of these atrocities against women and girls, that a number of them may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity.”

Lent asks us to remember what is true about us, about our limits and about the places we have tried to hide. But Lent also teaches us where to stand while we remember. We stand inside God’s mercy. Repentance for us is an event. God acts. God opens the mouth that was shut.

“The best teachers provide some linear direction as well as images as they recognize the needs of both kinds of learning styles. […] The best guides help us find our way on the journey by providing maps and landmarks and will not settle for one or the other.” – Marc Nelesen

Gaza's local authorities massively underreported deaths, says international research team

A lot of people seem to think Trump chickened out of attacking Iran in January but most reports seem to indicate that he decided against it at the time because there weren't enough resources in the region for the kind of campaign he wanted, and now there are

BREAKING: The Department of Education has ended its directive that attempted to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools nationwide. This is a victory for academic freedom and education equity.

Cardinal Cupich: “Today is a day that speaks to all those who live in the shadows and in secret. Our immigrant friends know what it is like to live in the shadows, fearing a knock at their door…God does not need papers to see who you are.”

To everyone observing Ash Wednesday: God bless you.    In a city of such staggering inequality, let this be a season of reflection, repair, and service.   May you have a meaningful Lenten season of prayer, fasting, and spiritual renewal.

Foucault, the unlikely saint.

Ecumenical Ash Wednesday Service at First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor.

I think they destroyed themselves.

Corruption at the scale currently unfolding in the U.S. government *should* be recognized as a legitimacy crisis. That revelations of systematic institutional corruption have been absorbed into the ordinary churn of news and political controversy is a profound social pathology.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

some of you are looksmaxxing when you need to be booksmaxxing

BREAKING: Our campaign raised $2.5 million in 24 hours after the FCC banned our Colbert interview.

@chuckweatherby.bsky.social knows me too well.

Started physical therapy today to treat my lower back pain (again). It feels nice to have some significant pain relief. You don’t realize how tense you’ve been until you’re finally able to relax, even for a few moments.

New thoughts by me for @religiondispatches.org, responding to a NYT piece that (I think really wrongly) characterizes the Trump administration as doing "pagan," pre-Christian, or un-Christian activities religiondispatches.org/2026/02/18/b...

No classroom is complete without a yard stick for me to twirl with one hand while tossing a pen into the air and catching it with the other

Scripture participates in both the old age’s enclosure and the new age’s anticipation, and these cannot be harmonized into a single developmental narrative. The scripture witnesses to apocalyptic rupture rather than continuity. The scripture is not a redemptive-historical curriculum.

Martyn’s translation of Galatians 3:5 “When God even now supplies the Spirit to you, and when he works wonders in the midst of your communities, is he doing those things because you observe the Law, or is he doing them through the proclamation that elicits your faith?“

“As I have said before, I say now once again, if someone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you originally received, let him stand under God’s curse.” – Galatians 1:9 (Martyn) Christian nationalism is anti-Christ.

Check out this special feature that I co-edited with brilliant @nahir.bsky.social: Introduction to “Race, Racialization, and Whiteness before and after The Invention of Race” | PMLA | Cambridge Core - bit.ly/4anHgVM .

“If genocide is indeed the dream of modern powers, this is not because of a recent return of the ancient right to kill; it is because power is situated and exercised at the level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of population.” – Foucault, HoS v. I

Belgian deputy prime minister (who is also the foreign minister) confirms today in a rebuke of the Israeli foreign minister that the Kingdom of Belgium has suspended all consular services to Belgian citizens who have chosen to live in occupied Palestinian territory as settlers.

Ubi cáritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Where there is love and charity, God is there.

The AHA sent a letter to Governor Kevin Stitt urging him to rescind an executive order encouraging the Oklahoma State Regents of Higher Education to gut existing tenure protections at state research universities and eliminate tenure outright at regional universities and community colleges. 🗃️

Et si tu n’existais pas Je crois que je l’aurais trouvé Le secret de la vie, le pourquoi Simplement pour te créer Et pour te regarder

This man is a disgrace to Jews, to his party, to his government, and to his God. To my Muslim friends and colleagues, please know this does not represent the feelings of the vast majority of Jews I know.

It’s finally done. Absolutely thrilled to have submitted THE SHAH'S GREAT TOUR – my global microhistory of the epic royal journeys of Persia's monarchs to Imperial Europe – for production. May it reshape our understanding of monarchy and the world order in the imperial age.

😱

The new Charli album is good.

“You bring humble folk to safety, but humiliate those who look so high and mighty.” – 2 Samuel 22:28 (REB)

Political violence in Lyon.

You can’t “reform” this. You rescue the children. You prosecute *all* the collaborators. People must be held to account. ICE thugs want us to forget about these letters. I hope we won’t.

Teaching this topic is really difficult. Thinking through the Tlatelolco massacre—the Mexican government's violent suppression of a student demonstration at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Mexico City on October 2, 1968, where military and police forces opened fire on thousands of protesters.

From “Lean Against This Late Hour” by Garous Abdolmalekian.

Calvin’s biblical theology is lacking. I should clarify: Calvin’s own theology of how the Bible “works” needs revision. The low-resolution impression people have of his simplistic fundamentalism is historically inaccurate. Calvin thought the Bible functions as corrective spectacles to help…