Finally the @sentantiq.bsky.social review... hyperallergic.com/a-homerist-r...

Michael Blanding's The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby brentnongbri.com/2026/07/19/m...

Congratulations Sabrina, this looks great! @jeremiahcoogan.bsky.social you know you have really made it when scholars put your concepts in the titles of their books!

Classics programs being closed across the globe. Meanwhile poised to be the year's biggest blockbuster:

Reading: Tamara Lewit, "“Not Just a Housekeeper: A New Look at the Work of the Roman Vilica.” Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2026, 1–37 (open access) doi.org/10.1017/S104... Adding this to my ancient slavery reading list.

People seem to think Odysseus was a tortured hero. The truth is quite different. Check out my latest on Joel Christensen @sentantiq.bsky.social 's new book. Comments from @profarumpark.bsky.social, @sarahebond.bsky.social, @eleanormartin.bsky.social www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...

Now that he has seen the Odyssey movie can someone do a wellness check on @sentantiq.bsky.social ?

Me, suddenly supportive of my husband's comic book collection...

An important paper about protecting science from political interference. Europe needs to defend its science against the kind of attacks unfurling in the US. By Martin McKee, Christina Pagel & Tiago Correia in the European Journal of Public Health: academic.oup.com/eurpub/artic...

A game board from the forum of Timgad (Algeria) is a more Roman spin on the trite ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ sign. Replacing hunting w/cheese & and I am in, y’all. ‘venari lavari / ludere ridere / (h)oc{c} est / vivere’: ‘to hunt, to bath, to play, to laugh — This is to live!’ (CIL VIII, 17938). 🛁

The Barbie and the Bible volume by Christopher B Hays and Meghan Henning is here! I got to write the foreword which is a rare excuse to write about Perpetual again!

My latest for National Geographic's Stones and Bones is on new research the Amarna letters www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti... @unibirmingham.bsky.social

You guys an Augustinian Pope is facing off against rigorists ordaining their own bishops. It's the Donatist Schism all over again. apnews.com/article/vati...

June 29 is the feast of Saints Peter & Paul—patron saints of Rome. It’s an amazing day in Roma (fireworks), but it’s also a good day to read about the construction of martyrdom (esp. whether the Neronian persecution happened) by Dr. @candidamoss.bsky.social: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300... 📕

THIS

Apparently today's the day all my reviews drop, ha Fantastic forum on a fantastic book!

LIVESTREAM later today at 5pm UK/noon EDT "Everything you know about Odysseus is WRONG" with Dr Joel Christensen @sentantiq.bsky.social Link: www.youtube.com/live/5MSY1FS...

Sign this petition to help safe the humanities and the jobs of brilliant faculty at the University of Exeter: c.org/xKTXtzxzQm

I wouldn't even have a PhD much less an academic career if it were not for the public scholarship, the guidance & the friendship of Prof. Francesca Stavrakopoulou, but she's bafflingly at risk of redundancy because of cuts at @exeter.ac.uk. The world needs her work now more than ever.

How did cats take over the world? #CatWorldDominationDay 😼 Domestic cats' common ancestor is the Near Eastern wildcat. Tamed around 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, they spread west with the help of the Greeks, Romans, Vikings & more! 🔗 from 2022 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

If you asked me, off the top of my head, to name a non-Oxbridge university in England synonymous with excellence in the Humanities - I would probably think of Exeter first. This feels like a very deliberate, targeted and ideological Bonfire of the Humanities

The University of Exeter houses one of the best Theology/Religion departments in the UK. It will be a huge loss for the field if the department is decimated. It is one of many humanities departments under threat and like similar moves at US institutions should be a concern to everyone in academia.

new Element in Religion in Late Antiquity coming your way in August from the one and only Virginia Burrus! www.cambridge.org/core/element...

National Geographic has a new archeology related newsletter that I contribute to. My first piece is on archeology and the Nag Hammadi Library. Featureing work by Brent Nongbri, @tonyburke.bsky.social, Nicola Denzey Lewis, Mark Goodacre, and others www.nationalgeographic.com/newsletters/...

Proofs day for the published version of my 2024 Hans Lietzmann lecture on Marcion as Slave Trader.

I know archaeology is small potatoes, but if you are an American archaeologist with a foreign project, it is 1) unethical to work without local collaborators and 2) often required that you have them in order to receive a permit. Of course, they're getting rid of NEH and NSF SBE next year, too, so 😬🤷🏻‍♂️

"The authors wisely advise scholars to ignore historical photographs of professors hunched over the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Codices with cigarettes dangling from their lips or fingers" lol great review, @ctschroeder.bsky.social!

‘One notable innovation concerned the status of enslaved women who bore their master’s children: these women, known as 𝘶𝘮𝘮 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘥 – “mother of the child” – were not allowed to be sold.’ @youssefbens.bsky.social on a new account of slavery in the Islamic world. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

@drewjakeprof.bsky.social talking about conversion at Blake Fest at Notre Dame yesterday

Our AJR #forum about Elizabeth Castelli's Martyrdom and Memory draws to a close with a response from the author

Christian persecution complex The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-... #BookSky #History of #Religion #Racism Did Jesus's followers really die for their faith? | @candidamoss.bsky.social QijNYM7V3JM

Since today is National Barbecue Day, 🔥 remember to give a nod to the patron saint of Barbequers, Saint Lawrence, who—when being persecuted on a hot gridiron under Valerian in 258 CE—noted: “Assum est, versa et manduca.” “This side is done, turn (me) over & eat.” csla.history.ox.ac.uk

A very early start this morning to talk to @cbsnews.com about expectations about the Pope's new encyclical www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xSk... @unibirmingham.bsky.social

Added to e-Clavis: Manuscripta apocryphorum ~ Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, gr. 1539 (10/11 c.) feat. Acts Andrew and Matthias and Martyrdom of Andrew. www.nasscal.com/manuscripta-...

When at Centrale Montemartini, I stop to read the poem on the funerary altar for Q. Sulpicius Maximus. Really enjoying @twhittermarsh.bsky.social’s new article on the poem inscribed on it, written when he was 11 for Domitian’s games. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... (photo by @chapps.bsky.social).

Job Alert! One year post teaching Greek History at Cambridge to cover Ben Gray's Leverhulme Mid-Career leave. I can recommend the colleagues. www.classics.cam.ac.uk/news/teachin...

Happy Mother's Day, especially to those for whom today is complicated. To celebrate here's the unpaywalled version of a piece I wrote about the history of stepmothers www.yahoo.com/entertainmen...

"It's no big deal that your loved ones died of COVID. In fact, if you think about it, it was sort of their fault that they died."

Many thanks to @cbzeichmann.bsky.social for this glowing review of God's Ghostwriters for JECS muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl... I am especially glad that he mentioned the website with the notes (candidamoss.com/gods-ghostwr...)

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...

Featuring a piece on field schools for high school students by Max Foa.

25th April is the feast of St Mark the Evangelist who is here depicted with his symbol in a Gospel book assigned to the abbacy of Fridugisus at Tours (807-834). BL Add MS 11848; Gospels; c 820-c 830 CE; France (Tours); f.74v @blmedieval.bsky.social

print copy of @monikaamsler.bsky.social's Element has joined the rest of the growing family!

Congratulations to the bumper crop of new AAA&S members in Religion! Honored to have voted for these remarkable scholars and researchers. www.amacad.org/new-members-...

You might wanna know that you can get @sarahebond.bsky.social's phenomenal Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire in hardcover for 72% off ($9.95) by clicking this link. amzn.to/4vYTYmC

Congratulations to this year's Rome Prize winners, especially to those in Ancient Studies, and more especially (if I may be permitted to cheer) to Berkeley's Cesca LaPasta! I also note that the RP winners across fields come from a wide range of institutions—not at all "the usual suspects." BRAVO.

Happy National Garlic 🧄 Day! Greeks & Romans loved garlic—but Mesopotamians loved it 1000s of years before them. The Greek ἄγλις (Latin alium) is an Akkadian loan word. At Pompeii, there was even a garlic seller (aliarii) workshop ( 📸 by @pompei79.bsky.social): pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpic...

So proud of @sarahebond.bsky.social for her amazing commentary on Trump’s arch for @nytimes.com and @cnn.com