My video from earlier.

This is just sad. A futility elegy indeed. iowastartingline.com/news/politic...

Genuinely amazing work.

I've been on a bit of an Etruscans kick since seeing the San Casciano Bronzes in September, so I may have to make it to San Francisco once more this year. They have the Liber Linteus!

In my recent conversation with Politico on my new coauthored book, Auditing AI, I discuss why AI audits matter, why accountability can’t be left only to computer scientists, and how we can evaluate systems for real-world harms. www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Since the “Boston accent” Odysseus has now entered the discourse, let me remind you: this is a ridiculous and colonial debate.

A dozen female Palestinians are working to save and preserve medieval and early modern manuscripts 📕 from the Al-Omari mosque’s library. Hang this picture in the Louvre (and the Met). www.newarab.com/features/ins...

ACLS / MLA / AHA / Authors Guild won the NEH case against the mass termination of grants.

There will be more to say - and this is far from over - but this is one giant step toward justice for our grantees at the National Endowment for the Humanities. #NEH staff have awaited this day for more than a year - for you, and for us. 🙏✊

Nika! Now this is why you support the @acls1919.bsky.social, @historians.org and MLA! Hell yeah. Judgement (all 143 pages) here: www.acls.org/wp-content/u...

Last class of the semester today. We spent our hour debating the utility of historical analogy between past & present—& exploring why historians live in the grey area between the two. My final reminder was, as usual: ἱστορία (Historia) is about always asking questions, even if there isn’t an answer.

Lest we doubt the power of classical allegory in the 19th century, here is Karl Marx as Prometheus, tortured by the eagle of Prussian censorship (1843).

This Times story doesn't mention it, so I will: When Ron DeSantis briefly taught high school in his 20s, some students "questioned the focus, and sometimes the accuracy, of his lessons," and mocked "his takes on the Civil War" in a satirical video...for the video yearbook.

I wish this were an opportunity for professors & lit critics to be invited to, say, stream a book review w/those reading these celebrity books, but the fact is: By the time they're chosen by Reese, Oprah, et al. the celebrities only want affirmation of their choice rather than any negative feedback.

Two Roman era babies buried at York (late 3rd or early 4th centuries CE) were wrapped in Tyrian purple. It’s less about the cost than the fact that, for me, this makes the assertion that high infant mortality=babies weren’t loved as much as today, even more ridiculous. www.york.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

A New Cambridge Element, _Language and Script in Achaemenid and Hellenistic Central Asia_, by Rachel Mairs, is out now! Read for free for the next 2 weeks: cup.org/4u3Ykaz

Ag secretary confirming 1 in 4 US farmers has no fertilizer secured, American Farm Bureau survey says up to 70% can’t afford enough fertilizer for the season under the spiked costs Honestly shocked this isn’t bigger news. 25% of farms are just not planting at all this season. Farm bankruptcy up 46%

I am not generally a paranoid woman, but I never believe a survey is anonymous.

Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Vol. 50, No. 1 (2026) www.cambridge.org/core/journal... @cambup-archaeology.cambridge.org @hlamers.bsky.social @krithemp.bsky.social

horrible. this country’s turn away from science based medicine in the name of “wellness” is killing children and will kill a lot more. www.propublica.org/article/more...

“Cannabis was a core crop in ancient China, ranking alongside rice, millet, barley and soybean as one of the “five grains” fundamental to the development of early agricultural societies, according to new archaeological research.“

Sigh. I never relate to Cleopatra VII more than when I see that fresco of her from the House of M. Fabius Rufius in Pompeii. She is depicted as the gilded statue of herself as Venus unveiled by Caesar in 46 BCE—all while Caesarion tugs on her face for attention. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ve...

Always get emotional when I see the Grave Stele of Melisto (Attic, c.340 BCE, Harvard Art Museums). As they note, “Melisto's portrait offers reminders of life as well as death.” Makes me think of Palestine & how all museums should be pushing us to think about the travesty of children dying too soon.

Truly the best use of the Baths of Caracalla since the third century CE: “On Sunday, the place provided a different sort of decompression to a group of Palestinian children and their families who had been evacuated from Gaza for medical care, thanks to Italy’s program of “humanitarian corridors.” 🇵🇸

The Met Gala is the new Bradley-Martin Ball of 1897. In the midst of Gilded Age, workers faced poverty & unemployment. New York elites held a lavish costume party, spending $400,000 (=9 million) to dress as kings and queens. I hope Mamdani also raises taxes as happened in the wake of that ball.

And, @sentantiq.bsky.social with our summer Classics motto.

One of the fissures on Bluesky is the Met Gala loving left and the anti-wealth left. The former thinks its artistic messaging qualifies as the latter. It doesn’t.

The Met Gala is the new Bradley-Martin Ball of 1897. In the midst of Gilded Age, workers faced poverty & unemployment. New York elites held a lavish costume party, spending $400,000 (=9 million) to dress as kings and queens. I hope Mamdani also raises taxes as happened in the wake of that ball.

A survivor of the Kent State Massacre rings the bell on campus today, May 4, at exactly 12:20, the moment his classmates fell, 56 years ago.

Submitted a 47-page article I have been working on for 3 years into a journal. Immediately found a typo after hitting send. The medieval typo demon known as Titivillus continues to thrive, my friends.

What’s so brazen is that the subhead literally spells out the travesty. It says that tech industry lobbyists have convinced congress to pay for their products to be made a compulsory part of public education so that when the industry wreaks havoc on American workers it can be blamed on educators.

For May 4th? An important reception of the Laocoön. Quartus vobiscum, y’all.

Yes, what happens when we run out of “barbarians” to use as scapegoats for problems of our own making?

The PIR is for Roman imperial prosopography, but if you need a database of Republican era Romans and their prosopographical entries, you need the DPRR. romanrepublic.ac.uk/person/ Hurray for prosopography! And soon, we will have the PLRE fully digitized and searchable too.

Italian ceramics artist Clara Holt, who decorates her work with images of ancient myths #WomensArt

A new study of Sasanian brass dictates that artisans working with the metal at late antique Merv and Nineveh were experimenting with brass for military use. TL; DR: Have some respect for this allot & it’s craftspeople! It’s not all about bronze and iron, y’all. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Pretty sure this is how Eleanor of Aquitaine got her job too. 👑

Pretty sure this is how Eleanor of Aquitaine got her job too. 👑

Honestly wish that all fortune cookies 🥠 delivered to the White House just contained the Delphic oracle’s responses. Just want to see Trump ruminate over: “Love of money and nothing else will ruin Sparta."

Really chuffed to find that Saint Anthony was tempted by lobsters 🦞. Honestly, this is the most relatable thing about Saint Anthony (British Library, Yates Thompson 49 vol. 1, fol. 34v). searcharchives.bl.uk/catalog/040-...

In 2020 @yaelrice.bsky.social and I authored this article to dispute this kind of pseudo-scientific research, which regularly gets press attention, precisely so that others don't have to cope with the tedium of refuting it. Here's the refutation you need! hyperallergic.com/how-scientis...

Really chuffed to find that Saint Anthony was tempted by lobsters 🦞. Honestly, this is the most relatable thing about Saint Anthony (British Library, Yates Thompson 49 vol. 1, fol. 34v). searcharchives.bl.uk/catalog/040-...

Lol.

Good morning only to female professors who were told by a student that it’s fun to take their classes because it sounds like Kristen Schaal is narrating an audiobook to them about Roman History.

To celebrate the 1st of May here is @sarahebond.bsky.social’s Strike freshly arrived last week at Erfurt University Library!

⚡️✊ GIVEAWAY! ✊⚡️ To celebrate International Workers’ Day, what could be better than a giveaway of @sarahebond.bsky.social’s study of workers, labour and resistance, STRIKE? Well, how about three copies? Just reply to this with “SOLIDARITY” and your name will go in the draw. Ts&Cs below 👇🏻

May 1 is International Workers' Day (May Day). 🛠️ It commemorates the American workers striking for the provision of a 8 hour workday and the Chicago Haymarket affair in 1886. For me? I will be celebrating by returning to @camhawkins.bsky.social’s book today. www.cambridge.org/core/books/r...

BREAKING: 615 workers for Hachette Book Group are unionizing with @cwaunion.bsky.social @newsguild.org @wbng.org.

We’ve some gorgeous tree peonies blooming in the yard. While they are beautiful, I’m always reminded that Greeks & Romans used them for epilepsy—Galen said to tie the flowers 🌺 around the necks of children who suffered from seizures. Paeon was also the physician to the Olympian Gods—hence the name.