"And I guess that’s why I hate AI in the classroom as much as I do. Students are afraid to fail, and AI presents itself as a savior. But what we learn from history is that progress requires failure. It requires reflection."

Attention #sblaar25 #aarsbl25

Until a few days ago, my plan was to go to #aarsbl25 as an attendee only. Now, I’m somehow workshopping an article on Friday AND presiding over a session on Saturday. 😅 See y’all soon! #sblaar25

As someone who's been doing conferences for 29 years, my all-purpose rules (which others have mentioned) are: 1. Comfortable shoes. 2. Eat what you can when you can – don't think in terms of normal meal schedules. Carry snacks/water as backup. 3. Do your best to experience the city you're in.

So-called traditional man: "Gender is NOT a performance. Gender is something you're BORN WITH." Also that same guy: "If you drink pumpkin spice lattes, you're not a man."

It's not a foolproof plan but every political debate from now on should be a Normal Guy competition. Ask them to describe grocery shopping in detail. Talk about what it's like to have a friend

just learned we won an award for our blog post about Tom Holland and stormwater management. remember, when you see an article about stormwater management, you repost it. i don’t make the rules.

I just finished registering for my last semester of coursework ever(!) this spring. Exciting, surreal, scary.

It has always been so obvious that the backlash to MeToo isn’t about whether the abuse is happening but whether people are allowed to want it to stop

We’re glad to share a new product: The Booklet of Common Prayer! It’s a passport-sized collection of prayers to take with you — fitting in your pocket, it has everything for daily prayer, seven days a week. Take the BCP (at least some of it) with you! shop.forwardmovement.org/product/2700 📕

Massive institution run by men gets run into the ground in some profound way ➡️ figurehead resigns so people will stop yelling at him ➡️ First Woman Figurehead is appointed to the impossible task of uniting and cleaning up an institution whose wounds have been left to fester for decades/ centuries.

the specific language of “break bread with” and “visit him in prison” is so striking to me, used in condemnation this way

“AI” isn’t a tool or technology or even a cluster of technologies with a misleading name. It’s the infrastructure at the foundation of a form of capitalism dependent on data brokering. We should be teaching our students about this and not teaching them about “responsible” use.

Starting next Thursday at 5:30pm BST (9:30am PST), the Badè Museum will kick off it's new Lecture Series. Co-sponsored by the Archaeological Research Facility @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social, the Series will explore Disability in the Ancient Middle East and Mediterranean. (1/4)

Please enjoy this ceiling tile from the 3rd century CE synagogue found at Dura-Europos. Apparently this is just what Capricorn looks like. But since I didn’t know that, I’m choosing to continue calling this a mer-antelope in my head.

for all people mock it wikipedia is genuinely one of the wonders of the modern world

Ah, yes. Full support! As @ewg118.bsky.social and I have said for almost a decade. www.forbes.com/sites/drsara...

Welcome to New Haven, CT where every new building is a chance for the local university to further diminish the city’s property tax base.

On Thursday, I get to play with this (not currently displayed) Roman gemstone ring at the art gallery, then immediately head an Eli Clare reading/lecture on his new book, Unfurl: Survivals, Sorrows, and Dreaming. I feel like this diptych nearly perfectly encapsulates my current research interests.

I'm currently reading Virginia Woolf for the first time (I know, I'm sorry), and yeah. I definitely see what the hype is about. This woman is brilliant.

I recently went out to eat with a friend, who ordered a Coke, and the server said, “Is Pepsi ok?” My friend said: “No. But bring it anyway, and I’ll drink it.” This lives rent-free in my head because it’s the exact answer I’ve always wanted to give, but I didn’t know it was allowed.

Ironically they're inadvertently performing the real function of damnatio memoriae, which doesn't erase the memory of what they perceived as negative, but reinforces it. Spaces left when an emperor's name or image is blotted out of an inscription or artwork remind us even more of what was there.

In my experience, courage is usually the product of love and/or solidarity. When we are deeply invested in each other, we are more likely to take risks that we wouldn't take out of mere principle, or for the sake of people we feel disconnected from. Our alienation mass produces cowardice.

if you’re an isolated, angsty, strange young man, please know that you can become a Kierkegaard scholar instead of joining fringe online communities

This is so profoundly disturbing that I can’t form a complete thought in response to it.

On 9/11/2001 and its first dozen anniversaries, it was impossible to imagine that anything else could ever capture public attention in the U.S. on this day.

I’ve been thinking about how the white moderate think about free speech. Where calling for violence and the dehumanization of entire groups of people is merely supposed to be pluralism at work rather than an a threat to that pluralism.

Anyone who has spent a single cursory hour reviewing the literature knows that gender is a spectrum and different cultures at different moments in history have displayed a wide array of different gender identities. The people doing "gender ideology" are the ones ideologically insisting on a binary.

This scruffy dog(?) caught my eye this afternoon. She’s in the 3rd-century CE Mithraeum at the Yale Dura-Europos exhibit, and I love her.

under no circumstances can the legitimacy of a desire to see appropriate reforms made to our gun laws become an excuse to equivocate regarding any attempt to categorically deny trans people rights - *any* rights - that others retain

I refuse to give em dashes to the AI

Happy Labor Day. What a timely reminder of the long lasting impact of collective action.

yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Lord give me the grace to forgive those who are genuinely trying to do better, the courage to defy those who aren't but pretending otherwise, and the wisdom to tell the difference.

Let's take a moment to imagine a party that worked the way people expect social media to work, shall we? Thread.

Newly obsessed with this 15th-century terracotta panel from Florence. His tiny hand on her breast (and her hand on his tiny foot) make this one of the most-true-feeling depictions of “Virgin and Child” I’ve seen in person.

We need a film depicting the process where the historian uses Google Scholar, clicks on the desired article, finds that it is paywalled, goes to uni library website, logs in, goes back to article page again, downloads PDF into a folder with 500 other unread PDFs, and repeats the process for 120 min.

Today I started my final year of coursework for my PhD. There is something astounding about the dogged hopefulness of a room full of strangers who are excited to learn from each other. Today, that earnestness felt positively countercultural.

Art: "Christ Breaks the Rifle," Otto Pankok #ottopankok #christbreakstherifle #sacredart

“A celebrity talk show has kept me company on walks, but it has never shocked me out of hazy malaise and made me feel more curious about the world, less alone, or in awe.” Beautiful Anonymous, Ologies, Maintenance Phase, Dear Hank and John, Heavyweight, Ear Hustle, My Dad Wrote a Porno

Everyone is posting about consumer and luxury goods. Ok but… this is also Very Very Bad for the millions of people like me whose daily, lifesaving medication comes from India. You will be ok without your expensive skin care products. I… will not be ok without my medication…

Any diagnosis of the problem that doesn’t clearly see the “lecturers” doing the grunt work as the *colleagues* whose research careers are already being sacrificed on the altar of Capital isn’t going to identify a path forward for the future of the academic humanities /5

This is kidnapping and sexual assault. It is also the direct result of anti-trans rhetoric, including the concern-trolling, 'just asking questions' bullshit engaged in by the NY Times. If you aren't explicitly pro trans rights at this point, this is what you are supporting.

As someone who has lived my whole adult life in cities deemed “dangerous”—NYC, NOLA, and SF—I think a lot about how dense cities require patience, calm, and tolerance in the midst of social difference, which are of course exactly the civic virtues that the right resents being told to cultivate.

Homelessness is a policy failure, not a personal one.

Furthest I’ve been North: Abisko, Sweden South: Phillip Island, Australia East: Sydney, Australia West: San Francisco, CA