remembering that “my friend richard pervo” stuff this AM. would be nice if our anger right now filters down to our guild. love to the women who have been fighting to make our spaces safer for years. 💜

so what conclusions should we come to when BMCR publishes a review of a scholar removed from his post for sexual harassment, followed by this review just days later?

Save 30% on #NewBook "After Transformation" by Maia Kotrosits @maiakotro.bsky.social, which offers a lyrical history of Christian late antiquity as it lives on in and with the present. #ReligiousStudies buff.ly/KJTRp60

friends, did you know that the annual Queer and Trans Studies in Religion conference, hosted by UC Riverside in mid-February, is still on? the deadline for submissions has been extended to November 25! Check out the CFP at this link: tinyurl.com/3pwjz5c2

News story on the book launch for /The Pearlsong/ a few weeks ago

I missed this a few weeks ago but grateful to revisit it today. We do have an opening to encourage opposition to deportation and borders per se, I think. While the kidnappings, detentions, and deportations are spectacles rather than hidden away in administrative bureaucracy.

If I could inject Zohran videos directly into my veins I would.

Come to my book review panel at #AARSBL2025 ! A cross-organization, interdisciplinary joint session, Sat. Nov 22 @ 1-3:30 Hynes Convention Center 201 -- if not for me, then to hear one of these fabulous panelists! @jaxhidalgo.bsky.social @elprofebarba.bsky.social

today’s the day!!

I’m bothered by the “this is what happens next in fascist regimes” genre of diagnosis. It’s not that fascism doesn’t have a regular repertoire of moves. It’s just that diagnosing a trajectory this way can actually cover for the reinventions of power/discipline/control happening as we speak.

We have a great lineup of new titles this month, such as "After Transformation" by @maiakotro.bsky.social. All are included in our 50%-off fall sale, running through Nov 9! buff.ly/KsghzeM

The first fruits of our co-authored research project on rhetorics of race in the Ciceronian corpus appeared in 2024: bsky.app/profile/opie...

We’ve so been looking forward to making this official. Mathias (@mhanses.bsky.social) and I have just signed a contract for our book, Cicero and the Rhetorics of Race, with Yale University Press (@yalepress.bsky.social)!

the password to the louvre surveillance server was "louvre" www.thesocialpost.it/2025/11/02/f...

Duke University Press fabulous 50% off fall sale is happening now! Get your own beautiful copies of QTR, or Susan Stryker’s award winning book, or brand new books from folks like M. Wolff and Maia Kotrosits now!! @susanstryker.bsky.social, @maiakotro.bsky.social, @dukepress.bsky.social

@philharland.bsky.social has an article out in MTSR. Putting the Persian Back in “Magic”: Problems with Ignoring Ancient Ethnographic Discourses brill.com/view/journal...

It's not too late to sign-up! Level 1 offered this fall and Level 2 offered in January. An affordable option for ancient language learners (and lovers)!

My article “Does an Arrow a Day Keep Satan Away? Late Antique Magical Subtexts in Babylonian Rabbinic Narratives” is now OA in HTR! It argues that a Talmudic story about a rabbi’s encounter with Satan adjudicates between competing incantations in late antique Iraq www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Applications are invited for a four-year Junior Research Fellowship in New Testament at Keble College, Oxford. @kebleoxford.bsky.social www.keble.ox.ac.uk/vacancies/

My book is now officially out - a little early! And what luck, you can now get it for 50% off (Or for 40% off after this sale ends with code E25KTRST) #ancientbluesky #classicsbluesky #byzantinebluesky

hi, cis folks in california! this headline leaves out that newsom has another 5 days to sign these bills into law. if you’d like to tell him he should do that to protect trans californians, you should to reach out. he also has a phone: (916) 445-2841 want to know what to say? next post! 🧵

NEW: Extraordinary scenes in Amsterdam this afternoon (Sunday, Oct 5). An estimated 250,000 bring the city to a standstill; people all wearing red to show solidarity with Palestine 🇵🇸 (🎥 Ahmed Zantac)

ICE admits that up to 50% of arrests in its Chicago raids are "collateral.” These aren't statistics. They are parents taken from their children, neighbors taken from our communities. When does a "collateral" U.S. citizen child's trauma matter? This isn't law enforcement; it's a campaign of terror.

Over 2 million people across Italy have rallied in more than 100 cities for a one-day general strike.

So much loafing is necessary to have a really good thought.

NEW: ICE is planning to hire a team of nearly 30 people to surveil social media 24/7, build dossiers on people, and flag them for arrest and deportation. @dell.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/ice-so...

I had the pleasure of a really fun interview with @lastbornpodcast.bsky.social podcast last week and Patrick offers us a preview of the interview! If you're not sure whether you want to pick up my book or not, this will give you a taste of things. Patrick is a fantastic discussion partner!

Of all the incredulous business-as-usual stuff going on, the one that blows my mind the most is probably the “Best Colleges and Universities in the US” listicles.

A brief inventory of some things I’m not allowed to say to my 14 year old. - The word “cool.” - The word “amazing.” - Calling him a “kid.” - Calling him “my offspring.” - Calling him an “adolescent.” - “Great job.”

Interested in learning Coptic? Check out my 8-week primer focused on Gospel of Thomas (Sahidic/Lycopolitan Mixed Dialect). Part 1 Starts Oct. 27 Asynchronous and Synchronous (Mondays 9am Atlanta, GA time) via The Religion Department Sign-up here: www.religiondepartment.com/learning-cop...

NEW: ICE agents violently arrested a man in a busy Hyattsville, MD intersection this week, at one point brandishing guns and pointing them at bystanders. I spoke to multiple witnesses—including a local priest whose church is a sanctuary for undocumented people: www.thehandbasket.co/p/ice-agents...

Rocky Horror was my first outlet and introduction into queer culture growing up in ultra-conservative Omaha, Nebraska. It was nothing short of a lifeline for so many of us at the time

Letter to NYT by Elizabeth Castelli & Hilary Callahan (via the former FB) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/o...

Out now: New issue of MTSR featuring a symposium on @feelingtheory.bsky.social's WILD EXPERIMENT, in which @maiakotro.bsky.social and I take the opportunity to fire off some long-simmering hot takes on how J. Z. Smith is used in discussions about comparison as a method. brill.com/view/journal...

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...

Gavin Newsom, Kristi Noem Nod Silently To Each Other In Plastic Surgeon’s Office

finally had time today to sit down w the summer issue of JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES and friends do not miss this piece by Christine Luckritz Marquis muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

white academics stop writing about power if you’re just going to cede yours at the slightest pressure challenge.

“The study found that about 7% of US adults have been present at the scene of a mass shooting in their lifetime, and more than 2% have been injured during one.”

I spoke with Amanda Heffernan, a nurse-midwife based in Seattle, about what's like to currently work with pregnant migrants in ICE custody. What she has witnessed in Washington state mirrors other recent cases of mistreatment in detention centers across the country: www.thecut.com/article/preg...

In After Transformation, @maiakotro.bsky.social offers a lyrical history of Christian late antiquity as it lives on in and with the present. Read the intro for free now. buff.ly/TNIwz7k

New pod! Mike interviews Tina Shepardson about A Memory of Violence: Syriac Christianity and the Radicalization of Religious Difference in Late Antiquity. Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n... Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0HyD...

The U.S. government is trying to deport Ohio children’s hospital chaplain Ayman Soliman, alleging tenuous connections to terrorism. If DHS succeeds, experts say it could hand the Trump admin. a “sledgehammer” to use on mass deportations. ➡️ Read the full story: www.propublica.org/article/ayma...

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

It’s often hard to see how the quiet world of academic thought-making figures in the wider one, so dominated by the loud, self-righteous proclamations and vicious threats that characterize the moment. But having spent a lot of time this year reading new, beautiful books and…1/2

“.. I can’t remember anyone ever telling me we can’t say anything critical about a civilian like this. He was not in our chain of command or anything,” the officer said. @nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...

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...

Twitter is owned by a neo-Nazi, the LA Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal are owned by pro-Trump billionaires, and CBS News will soon be run by a far-right Likud extremist. American media still has a liberal bias problem.

The new issue of Religious Studies Review is live, featuring responses to Lee Edelman and the Queer Study of Religion that include my own essay, "'She Laughs at the Future' (Prov. 31:24b): Reading Sarah's Queer Jouissance." It's available open access here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...