#WebinAAR | Gender and religious studies are under attack in U.S.universities and colleges. Join us for a webinAAR where panelists in the field will discuss the current situation and all of its complexities in a roundtable discussion. Register now for February 20 at 12 PM: aarweb.org/event/religi...

it's like our entire sense of morality has been filtered through the act of consumption, and the highest good we can imagine is feeling good and clean and pure as individuals, unpolluted by the obvious evil are around us meanwhile, real change requires the kind of work you need a drink after

starting to feel like there's a direct relationship between the growing obsession with lifestyle hygeine (no drinking, no caffeine, no sex, obsessive working out and looksmaxxing) and the inability to meaningful moral stands on issues of actual import

wait wait wait ... TUMBLR. THE PORN BAN GUY FROM TUMBLR IS GOING TO RUN THE WASHINGTON POST. Look I've been pushing back on the idea that Bezos is intentionally sabotaging the paper but COME ON this is a man who thought he could just take the boobs and dicks off of *Tumblr.*

Well, let's give it a shot again and see what we get.

Context: this speech is from SIR THOMAS MORE, a history written, as near as scholars can tell, in the early 1600s by 6 or 7 people including Dekker, Heywood, Chettle, Shakespeare, and Munday. It was never performed, because Jacobean England was a police state and it was banned by the censor.

Some years ago, I was chatting with a Retropolis reader, a young history student, and I mentioned there were several dozen people enslaved in New Jersey up until the day the 13th Amendment kicked in in December 1865. Y’all. He identified every one of them. njs.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/nj...

very excited to have my response included in the latest Boston Review forum against Democratic moderation! here it is, my best argument for why Dems shouldn't "moderate" on transgender rights & LGBTQ issues more generally (as they are inextricably linked): www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...

Snowstorms are more than just an inconvenience for wheelchair users. Inadequate snow clean-ups means a loss of autonomy for many. New for me at @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

If you’ve visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, I don’t think you can look at this and not immediately think of the wall of children’s drawings from Theresienstadt

stop using AI to do your research. it hallucinates too often. if you want an answer to something, post something arrogant on the appropriate subreddit. something like: "this item performs 10% better than everything else. only idiots deny this." this will bait nerds into doing your research for you.

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

Just started doing new data analysis and I know I keep saying this, but: I really, really don't think people appreciate how much this moral panic was a deliberate and extremely expensive invention.

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

In solidarity with all those standing up for our communities against the brutality of immigrant detention and ICE occupation, we're offering free ebooks of three crucial books about migrant justice and border abolition. We’ve also added a list of additional recommended reading:

someone in a nail polish subreddit created a shade that matches the one in this photo and is selling it on etsy so she can afford to buy her boyfriend a bulletproof vest to wear while doing ICE watch at home depot. we live in hell but we are going to fucking win.

lots of things I don’t like about today, but reading Stephanie Burt on Richard Siken was not one of them. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Start-of-semester desk selfie! Cautionary cross-stitch by @arlierman.bsky.social, my beloved

Hope is the beloved dog of Amanda Graham & her family. Hope has surgery scheduled on January 29th at Pendleton Veterinary Clinic. She has tumors which will be removed and biopsied. Please call 541-276-3141 to donate over the phone and say your donation is for Hope Graham💗 #dogs

Today's pigeon is from a photo @musicologyduck.bsky.social took, of a pigeon eating an entire human size portion of spaghetti off the ground

'It found that using AI in education can "undermine children's foundational development" and that "the damages it has already caused are daunting," though "fixable."' I hope @rweingarten.bsky.social and the AFT are paying attention. AI in education does NOT serve students.

if your pedagogical philosophy is “actually, learning, thinking, and being intellectually challenged is fun and can be life-giving,” grades are like a pebble in your shoe.

@jamellebouie.net has smart things to say on this topic in his most recent video. It is dangerous to laugh at “a piss baby,” to use Bouie’s excellent term, who is addled with insecurity and engorged with state power, but much less so when we all do it, and refuse to stop. bsky.app/profile/jame...

The people who mock gender studies are perversely the most compelling case for studying it

this is why teaching history feels so important to me right now.

The only reasonable position is zero tolerance: the AI industry must end sooner rather than later. It is culturally, socially, environmentally, and economically destructive, and all the Silicon Valley marketing in the world isn't going to make it otherwise.

Happy new year to all my homies:

We talked about running these numbers at UM soc when it became so obvious that women TAs got more complaints for the same classes. Glad someone tested it formally.

If you’re wondering why your friends in academia are a little on edge right now, it’s because an eighteen-year-old who hasn’t done the reading, doesn’t look at the assignment, and has does no critical thinking skills more complex than “because I think it’s in the Bible” can literally end your career

That is not dead which can eternal lie, Like Tiny Tim, who did NOT die

Check out this author discussion I did on @religiondispatches.org with @niac.bsky.social about her gender transition memoir, I Hardly Knew Me. Very timely stuff here 👇🏻 religiondispatches.org/the-trees-do...

If you are reading the NAR article at the NYT please listen to this as soon as you finish. The NAR is a violent movement bent on destroying democracy. @matthewdtaylor.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

I covered this in my premium last week, it’s laughable! www.wheresyoured.at/ai-mythbuste...

Up to date info on affirmative care for adolescents. substack.com/@transcousin...

I think I should get an award for the number of times my Religion in America students independently used the words "George Washington and Abraham Lincoln yaoi" in their final reflections.

Come work with me! The Philosophy side of my department is hiring for an open-rank TT line in biomedical ethics. Absolute freaks encouraged to apply. Ask me if you have any questions. Tell your weirdest friends. jobs.rowan.edu/en-us/job/50...

I showed these to my husband last night and he made me laugh with this one: "He looks like he's in a lover's spat with the lamp and the lamp is winning." bsky.app/profile/astr...

very grimly ironic that our government run by podcasters sucks at true crime

A cool result of everything having AI in it now is there are a bunch of buttons on every application that I have to be careful to never push, and everything takes five more seconds to load during which there's an animation of bonzi buddy thinking really hard

I overheard someone saying that they used ChatGPT to write a letter of recommendation, and I swear right now before God and all of you that every letter of recommendation I will EVER compose will be so unhinged and specific that no scrap of shitty code could ever have made it.

All a teacher does is stand in front of the class and talk at them, right? So easy to eliminate that role and just use ChatGPT, I am very smart please give me $1B for this idea.

Misfit candidates and longshots absolutely encouraged to apply. I cannot stress enough that this is the department that houses ME, agent of chaos and nonsense, and not only do they tolerate me, they love me. Please do not make me work with someone boring.

Come work with me! The Philosophy side of my department is hiring for an open-rank TT line in biomedical ethics. Absolute freaks encouraged to apply. Ask me if you have any questions. Tell your weirdest friends. jobs.rowan.edu/en-us/job/50...

This is actually a good example of why the customer model is wrong. I wouldn't have chosen poetry writing, but UNC made me take a class. And it absolutely made me become a much better writer, with an eye to concision and an ear now trained to the rhythm of words. I'm a better historian as a result.

We got Weird Al out here singing Killing In The Name, the time for moderation is over

loudon, rufus, martha, and lucy wainwright cover merle haggard's if we make it through december

christmas has gotten so far from its religious roots, wish we could celebrate our holidays like medieval christians (cross-dressing, being told by the bishop to stop cross-dressing, resolutely refusing to stop cross-dressing, threatening the bishop in defense of cross-dressing)

Nine hours left to support Rowan’s Gender Affirming Wardrobe! Help us outfit our beautiful students!