Fishermen at Sea -JMW Turner (1796)

Grade inflation is like so many other problems in american society where people are unable to grapple with it as a practical problem instead of a moral problem, clear evidence of decline. I think the two main reasons it's so prevalent are course evals and grad admissions.

Current* conditions near Duluth, MN:

Postdoc opportunity! The Dictionary of Old English invites applications for two grant-funded postdoctoral fellowships. 1. Postdoctoral Fellow, Editorial, DOE - deadline June 12. 2. Postdoctoral Fellow, DEfOE / Ansund project - deadline June 19. www.medieval.utoronto.ca/news/postdoc...

Current* conditions near Saxon, WI:

Canvas is down, ye say? Aye lad hearken to me and I'll tell thee of a time when a man might say canvas was down! When the leviathan booms his bulk upon ye an' thy splintered masts surrender their sails to the foaming, merciless drink!! then, lad, ye say might say with some authority that can (1/135)

"scheduled maintenance"

🔥🔥🔥hottest summer read just dropped 🔥🔥🔥

I’m delighted to share that I’ve just accepted an offer to join the remarkable faculty in the Department of English and Creative Writing at @colgate.edu as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Medieval Literature! I’m so humbled by and grateful for this incredible opportunity!

Slightly diminish a book Sir Gawain and the Green Squire

Chaucer, Langland, Gower

"Scholars from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) uncovered the manuscript that contains Caedmon’s Hymn at the National Central Library of Rome." #MedievalSky #speirgorm #Spéirghorm www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

Shameless book promotion time! Why buy my book? + Missionary lumberjacks (St Boniface) 🪓 + A demon in an outhouse + Miltonic gloomy Satan + Jesus melting the gates of hell + A monastery built by a giant from hell manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526175038/

How about a short thread about the expression translated "know of a surety" here. The #Hebrew of Gen 15:13 reads יָדֹעַ תֵּדַע yāḏṓaʕ tēḏaʕ. This is the infinitive 'know' followed by an inflected 2m. sg. imperfect of the same verb, 'you will/should/must/can know'. Why the repetition? 1/6

To make a point about just how artful Tolkien is with his archaism, a student asked chatgpt to reword the witch king's speech to eowyn without any. Only a machine from Mordor could yield something so lifeless 💀💀💀

someone in a whatsapp group posted this with the year "1867" but i decided to fix it even further

Recently learned that the Joe Hill book "NOS4A2" was released in the UK as "NOS4R2," which is an extremely funny bit of accent translation

American Protestantism is really something else. The Pope is like “God doesn’t want us to invoke his name when we kill people” and Franklin Graham is like “God loves it when our powerful leaders hulk smash the evildoers you woke fool.”

I’ve started reading The Hobbit to my daughters and there’s no part of it they love more so far than the silly song the dwarves sing when they’re cleaning up their mess at Bilbo’s place—all this to say, Tolkien’s songs are in fact absolutely essential and must never be skipped

Another job rejection for the collection today, but on the bright side the peach trees and tulips have started to bloom.

Pop Leo asked if he should put on gloves to turn pages in the gorgeous Renaissance Bible and the librarian explained why it’s better to do so with bare hands. Glorious reaction. Every rare books librarian & archivist feeling very seen, I gather. www.instagram.com/reel/DUcpEBY... #BookHistory

I have a new article on Jorge Luis Borges and failure (the latter being a topic on which I am somewhat of an expert) up on early view at Critical Quarterly. The article is open access, and reads a bit better in the PDF version: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Pretty crazy how important the blockade of a trade route is right now

Wait. What the fuck?

Off to give Claude a fatal dose of House of Leaves

Five days until the deadline! Don’t you want to experience my inspirational leadership?

I feel like something that rarely gets brought up in Wuthering Heights discourse is that it’s the most beautifully written novel of the century. More like a prose poem with characters than any other novel of the period.

Jobs For Medievalists Teaching Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Program Coordinator of Medieval & Renaissance Studies - The Marco Institute, University of Tennessee, Knoxville The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the www.themedievalacademyblog.org/jobs-for-med...

RESOLVED: 2026 is the year where I read a bunch of excessively long novels that demand slow, sustained attention

my article on John Gower and late medieval archives is out as part of the new issue of Studies in the Age of Chaucer! muse.jhu.edu/pub/102/arti...

SKULL OF THOMAS AQUINAS: TAKE A LEFT NOW PRIEST: No, the GPS says we have to keep going— SKULL: I KNOW A SHORTCUT PRIEST: Do you remember the last ti— SKULL: FOR THOSE WITH FAITH, NO EVIDENCE IS NECESSARY; FOR THOSE WITHOUT IT, NO EVIDENCE WILL SUFFICE

'Skull of St. Thomas Aquinas being transported to Fossanova Abbey.' Photograph by Daniel Ibanez

Fascinating to see the entire educational apparatus of central Virginia brought to its knees by two inches of snow

Happy 76th Birthday, Tom Waits!

Having children and a long commute to their preschool has destroyed my Spotify wrapped

Babe, look, early Christian monasticism is back

fwiw this has not been my experience at all

85% of what I know about English grammar I learned in high school and college Latin. Glad to see it’s not just me!

The @rialibrary.bsky.social Book of Ballymote (MS 23 P 12) is a fantastic 14th-century compilation of biblical texts, saints’ lives, topographical works, and even a table of the Ogham alphabet! Love the fun initials and illustration possibly depicting Noah’s ark 📜🎉

Nobody: John McVie:

A friend who teaches theology shared with me a post about CS Lewis's Mere Christianity, which discusses foundational Christian logic across denominations. It reminded me of Dale's tweet below, and I wanted to share some thoughts here regarding modesty and respectability, which are often hot topics.

What an absolutely stunning opening statement the first two tracks are

Teaching post-doc position in UVa’s College, renewable for up to three years total. Apply!

Earliest Latin translation of 'Tao Te Ching' published news.cgtn.com/news/2025-11...

First 10k in three years, after a major foot injury and new baby together took me off of running for the long term. Was it on a treadmill and was my pace basically a crawl? Sure. I’ve a long way to go from here to get back to where I was, but it feels good to be on my way

All the scrolls in the Library at Alexandria could probably have fit on a 16 GB hard drive, how important could it have been, honestly

Mar Awa III, patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, also born in Chicago, gave Pope Leo a Cubs jersey.

This is such a tragedy. Danya was a once-in-a-generation teacher whose knowledge and passion helped make his sport accessible to everyone. I owe my love for chess in part to him, and will miss him terribly.

I don't think students should be asked to rhetorically analyze poetry in a class before they get practice experiencing poetry without imagining it as a rhetorical structure. Like, cooking is so much better if you begin by first developing a relationship to the pleasure of food.