@dukepress.bsky.social is running a new book promotion, and Archival Irruptions is 30% off!

With a new book coming out, I finally got around to updating my website. I'm thrilled with the new design - plus, my bio now includes the accurate number of children! (Last edit to my previous website was 7 years ago...) Check it out! www.katharinegerbner.com

Nothing quite like opening an unexpected package and finding your own book inside! The official pub date isn't until mid-Oct, but Archival Irruptions @dukepress.bsky.social is now real and in 3D!

In "Archival Irruptions," @ktgerbs.bsky.social traces how British colonial authorities in Jamaica criminalized Obeah, a religious practice held by enslaved Africans. Read the introduction for free now. buff.ly/3JlgBEt

Come be my colleague at the University of Minnesota -- we are hiring! @umn-rels.bsky.social The Religious Studies program at UMN is searching for a new TT position in Buddhist Studies. Please circulate widely!

I'm excited to share that my new book ARCHIVAL IRRUPTIONS: Constructing Religion and Criminalizing Obeah in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica is coming out with @dukepress.bsky.social in October!

@ktgerbs.bsky.social provides an essential link in understanding the creation of racialized slavery. She demonstrates how Christians—intentionally & not—tied bondage to status as a Christian and, ultimately, how this tied assumptions about the heathen to enslaved Black people. 2/

My thoughts on @tomtweed.bsky.social's fascinating new book that retells American religious history through the lens of ecologies and technologies.

Now with explosion of AI: LLMs draw upon existing cultural texts. They do not generate original ideas, but rather recycle old ones. How do inherent biases of these systems interact with the dynamics above? What might that mean for individuals and society?

This comments section is the first time I've felt even a shred of hope in eight days.

We are excited to announce our 2025 Roetzel Family Lecture! See the following poster for more details

Though I hear people say they may be over them, might be a good day to share 2 Starter Packs for #VastEarlyAmerica #VastEarlyAmericas! 1/ go.bsky.app/RDvzxbj

✍️Slavery and Freedom in Black Thought in the Early Spanish Atlantic 💭 An intellectual history exploring how free & enslaved Black people in the early Atlantic conceptualized & contested ideas about slavery & freedom 🕰️Out on Dec 5th '24 🤫 already available online: www.cambridge.org/core/books/s...

I just made an end-of-year donation to Free Press, a leading media reform organization at the forefront of critically important policy battles, from revitalizing public service journalism to defending a democratic internet. Their invaluable advocacy will be even more essential in the years ahead.

Thanks for highlighting this! The backstory: during my research for Christian Slavery (2018), I noticed that every time there was an enslaved uprising in early America or the Caribbean, there was an immediate backlash against Black religious gatherings-whether Christian, Muslim, or African religions

Evan Haefeli and Patricia Bonomi have both written about the Dutch churches and slavery in an Atlantic context. There is also an ongoing joint project on Church and Slavery in the Dutch Empire that looks at Reformed Protestantism and slavery. www.pthu.nl/en/news-and-...

Thanks for the ref! I also wrote a bibliographic essay on "Church and Slavery" that points to several other important works of scholarship on this topic. Happy to share the PDF for anyone who is paywalled. www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/docu...

Highly recommend reading through this entire thread.

I'm teaching "Theory and Method in Religious Studies" for the first time next semester. For those who have taught a version of this course before, curious to hear: what readings would you recommend? What worked well? #ReligiousStudies #StudyOfReligion #Amrel

If you work on the African diaspora, migration, transnationalism, racialisation and the experience of Black people and people of African descent, consider submitting your research for publication in our journal. #africandiaspora #transnationalism Submit here: www.tandfonline.com/journals/rab...

Picking up on @lollardfish.bsky.social's points about the promotion of new books on social media, here is a 🧵 of some advice that has worked for me: Start early: Don't wait for your book to appear to begin promotion. It should start months in advance. Cultivate your audience with teasers.

This is such a generous thing to have done for the early modern scholarly community. Wow!

Sharing this again now that I know how feeds work. But my department is hiring a tenure track #PublicHistory position with a preference for someone who specialized in US Indigenous or Latine history. 🗃️ Happy to answer any questions. Please share widely! www.careers.luc.edu/postings/29664

Interested in learning more about Commonplace? Are you wondering how to navigate the site, its history, and how it works under the hood? I recently spoke about these issues and more at the OI Coffeehouse. Check out the discussion and an interesting Q and A session. 🗃️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=60g8...

An important perspective/reminder regarding blocking, visibility and that there is no private mode here on Bsky. 🧵 - by @chanda.bsky.social

I made a feed for #SBL and #AAR discussion ahead of the annual meeting next week. It grabs a bunch of related tags and gives us all one place to look. Check it out and share it! Tags are not case-sensitive, including: #sbl #aar #aarsbl #sblaar #aarsbl24 #sblaar24

For those of you who are (like me) trying to find relevant starter packs to connect with others, BlueSky allows you to search to find relevant starter packs here: blueskydirectory.com/starter-pack...

exactly how i feel. I think it's crucial to be aware of how a particular technology/social media affects our emotional state. That and knowing/understanding how our content is monetized

yes!!

I've been thinking a lot lately about how modern media since the advent of the radio has always been both a means of (often cynically and self-interestedly) influencing AND (ideally) informing people. It's often hard to tell the difference, tho, between cynical influencers and good faith informers.

this is fascinating. Also, I love this line from the article, describing the move from Twitter/X to Bluesky as "swapping stilettos for trainers: initially you worry about wimping out, then you wonder why you ever put up with crippled feet for so long." LOL yes.

Great thread by @publiusorperish.bsky.social on some of the digital histories being produced by Dr. Taylor and others @ Colonial Williamsburg. #VastEarlyAmerica

My department is running a tenure track search in Public History for someone who focuses on Latine or Indigenous History. PLEASE share widely; and reach out with questions. I'm more than happy to sell the benefits of joining our really vibrant program. www.careers.luc.edu/postings/29664

Hello new followers from that bleak gray place! Reposting my first post on this site: a cyanometer, the instrument Alexander von Humboldt (among others) used to determine how blue any sky actually was

For the afternoon crowd: I mad an attempt at a Scholars of American Religion starter pack, which has been greatly benefited by y’all’s additions. Please let me know who else to add. go.bsky.app/5qBDaNp

love this idea

Thought I’d make my first post both positive and useful-so here’s a list of all of the free-to-view titles now available on the British Newspaper Archive: blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2024/09/19/a...

If you haven't seen #BadCatholicsGoodTrouble def check it out!

You can try the sky bridge extension for chrome and Firefox that lets you find connections from the other site. And there are starter packs for different topics. I added you to this one. go.bsky.app/SfC4goV

same question! I am loving the starter packs. if there are other methods, please share

I've been off socials for a few years, hoping this space is better that previous iterations. Glad to see some great ppl on here!