Got my TDAP booster today. Cheers to another decade of immunity from nineteenth century diseases! 💉😷

There isn't a sigh hard enough for these dumbass headlines. Warriors were a SOCIAL GROUP, and later a legal classification. Gender was not relevant to whether one was part of a warrior group/family/etc. You might as well write: THIS JUST IN: WOMEN EXISTED! www.the-independent.com/asia/japan/b...

SAUCE CALL! Someone gifted me a yuzu ponzu sauce (!) and it got me thinking, maybe I'm not bored with food, maybe I'm just not punching it up enough with dope sauces. Do you have a sauce that's killer? Smother everything in it? A chimichurri you'd smack on a donut? Tell us us (me) your secrets! 👀

Me: Did you miss me? Him: Did you miss ME??????

It's that time of year! Since 2020, when we all started saying "I didn't have that on my bingo board!" I have been collecting the most brain-breaking, exasperating, and otherwise unexpected news throughout the year. But this year felt kind of special, didn't it? Who could keep up? This felt right.

One argument I used to make to my students about why it was important to learn history (and historical thinking) is that someone was always going to be trying to tell you things were natural or had always been this way and that you needed to be able to see that as an exercise of power.

As course evaluations open, don't forget the importance of telling students *why* evals matter. I like to explain their use for TT faculty vs. contingent faculty and how students contribute to ed processes through them. I also explain biases, with this helpful viz: benschmidt.org/profGender/#...

"He and other teachers hand-picked students who looked like they might be isolated, or might be into darker art and music — kids who might be potential metalheads. More than fifty students initially enrolled. By the end of the first semester, kids were sneaking out of other classes to join."

That Roman database of roads that's been in the news: treat with some caution.

Did not expect one of the best paragraphs I’d read about baseball would come from an Irish newspaper www.irishexaminer.com/sport-column...

Some incredible news: yesterday's AMA with r/PritzkerPosting raised over $1,000 for the NIJC! Thank you to all who came out and participated! www.reddit.com/r/PritzkerPo...

This slaps🤘🏻

Today for my materiality class we read a chapter in Karen Gerhart's book The Material Culture of Death in Medieval Japan, and based on her fastidious work I created a competitive "set up the medieval death scene" game. 💀 My students competed to set up the corpse with the correct trappings.

This is great too lol

I love this.

Important: “What unites these professionals is their expertise in designing and delivering on the academic mission of the university, with special emphasis on student success…In essence, they do academic work, but without academic protections.”

COVER REVEAL AND PREORDER: The Public Scholar - A Practical Handbook. "Perry focuses on the practical details of how to approach public scholarship. How do you pitch a piece to an editor? When should you follow or ignore the rules of the genre? And what happens once your piece is out in the world?"

All-day wildcard baseball and a series-concluding W matchup this evening featuring a supremely gutsy Fever team and on the other side the league MVP makes for quite a day of consequential sports viewing.

Blood and thunder!

The W is where it’s at!

Well, at least we know with certainty that the bears are not a serious team. Changes my commitments for the season probably for the betterment of my mental health 🙃

It absolutely matters here that Pritzker was effective at sounding the alarm and plainly stating this would be unconstitutional in a profoundly radical and fundamental way, and showing he could rally practical popular opposition, which then gets spun as backing out over "legal headaches."

This book looks fantastic!

ANDOR creator Tony Gilroy likes the idea of a Kleya and Vel ‘Nazi hunters’ spin-off series in which the duo hunt after former Imperials following the fall of the Empire with the assistance of Dedra Meero in a Hannibal Lector-esque role. (Source: youtu.be/mGBXFWvPRsE?...)

the turf at Soldier Field does not look great

Nostalgia is corrosive. It dwells on remembrances of the past at the expense of the present or future possibilities. Memory is imperfect. We tend to privilege what makes us feel better. Related, I for one look forward to the Chicago Bears at Arlington Heights and the end of the “Bear weather” myth.

Oooo we got a Sunday night classic on our hands!

The great khan has spoken

An all-NFC North matchup on CBS feels very 80s.

🤭

End of 3rd quarter. This game feels like it’s been on for 3 days. Anyway, Go…Blue.

We are excited to share that online registration for our upcoming symposium is open! Anyone interested in premodern Japanese law and/or the law from a Global Middle Ages perspective should check it out! Abstracts all online! ⤵️

248 pages. 80,000+ words. 10 years in the making. It’s out of my hands (for) now. 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Working on final edits to the book manuscript and keeping myself sane with memes and jokes over here.

It doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

no touch ears makes me laugh every time

This is really good. And super depressing.

🫡🫡🫡

Eeeeee

I have to be honest, I already kinda forgot what JD Vance looks like and I only see meme JD in my minds eye

when they close it all up, I do believe this will go down as the funniest video on the internet

Getting ready to teach my medieval manuscripts class this semester. First week of class we learn...the beautiful, condensed language of catalogue entries. I made this annotated graphic of one to show everything we learn from this brief entry.

I'm reading Moby-Dick now (it's #BigBookSummer after all), and — surprise! — the writing is often so delicious I can't stand it. E.g., below are the last few paragraphs of Chapter 6: The Street, in which Melville describes the wealth of New Bedford accumulated from the whale trade.

Currently reading @adapalmer.bsky.social ‘s book Inventing the Renaissance and I adore it so much. Seamlessly integrating historiography, politics, LOADS OF HISTORY, and brilliant descriptions of what we do as historians in the “history lab” leavened with humor and wit throughout. A masterpiece. 🙏🏻

If there is one lesson to draw from the history of fascism in the interwar period in Europe, it is this: Democracy falls if and when mainstream conservatives and centrist/center-right elites decide to make common cause with extremists because they consider the “radical Left” the more acute threat.

Wishcasting I think my next first-year studies course (fall 2026) will be *just* on Hildegard of Bingen bc why not she’s an absolute legend. Visionary. Abbess. Composer. Prophet.

Moving is exhausting, or so Star seems to be saying here. #caturday

New favorite yard sign