Readers of Pharos will recognize many of the white nationalists who receive laudatory treatment on Elon Musk's new Grokipedia 1/

More publication news: "Abusing Antiquity? Classics and the Contemporary Far Right," edited by @drhelenroche.bsky.social and @denisemccoskey.bsky.social, is now available for pre-order from @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social. www.bloomsbury.com/us/abusing-a...

Alice Wong spoke at Vassar two years ago. Amazing, galvanizing woman

Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me

This is the same Megyn Kelly who, when she claimed that America has become as degenerate as the Roman Empire, gave as an example that Americans are trying to "normalize pedophilia." pharos.vassarspaces.net/2025/11/12/m...

A lot of ancient sources blame the fall of Rome on things like sexual deviance and erosion of traditional morals. Those same sources were written by ideologues trying to scare people for political gain. Sound familiar? My latest for Pharos: pharos.vassarspaces.net/2025/11/12/m...

UK Readers! (and Europe) @yalebooks.bsky.social will have "The White Pedestal" ready to ship in February 2026! yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

Thanks to @mmfa.bsky.social for highlighting more "Fall of Rome" fear mongering -- this time in a transphobic segment -- on the podcast of a major right wing media figure. I wrote about it on Pharos pharos.vassarspaces.net/2025/11/12/m...

I have a chapter on white nationalism in this but the volume's real impact will be demonstrating the relevance of "race" for the study of the ancient past. W/ @katherineharloe.bsky.social @kataplexis.bsky.social @platanoclassics.bsky.social @twhittermarsh.bsky.social @aerl.bsky.social & many others

This is from 10 days ago but it's great to see Rome used for laughs instead of fascism.

Does anyone want an out of date hot take about womens professional cycling? I'm just obsessing over this for some reason. I finally watched Stage 1 of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes. Ferrand-Prévot broke away maybe 500m from the finish. It looked like she would win but then she started fading. 1/

"'Critics say' is the tell...if you have enough money to get somebody to produce a white paper for you...[then,] no matter how unhinged the position you’ve taken...that opinion will, by virtue of such provenance, possess all needed evidentiary gravity for the Times." lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...

Bannon must have been excited to get an award with a Latin name (Bellator) from a right wing org that uses a classical helmet as its symbol and that offers fellowships to train "public policy warriors" with Latin names like "Magnus" "Intrepidus" and "Legatum". pharos.vassarspaces.net/2022/12/19/s...

Musk — at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives — is still on about the "suicidal empathy" of "Western Civilization," talking points reminiscent of those of notorious antisemites, race pseudo-scientists, and white supremacists pharos.vassarspaces.net/2025/04/25/e...

Don't Forget the Roman Empire! pharos.vassarspaces.net/2018/02/02/f...

We consulted a (print) dictionary on a point of pronunciation and, my pronunciation having been deemed more regular, my 10yo asked "but isn't the dictionary's determination only the judgement of the maker of the dictionary?" and at first I was proud and then I wondered if this is why we have Trump

This was true in the local elections here: conditions were bad for republican incumbents, yes, but also we had better people running than in many past years

I care so much! Keep posting these stories!

Don't forget the little people: huge night for Dems in NY's Dutchess County, including crushing a terrible incumbent county court judge and flipping the county legislature. Love to see these downballot wins from across the nation! midhudsonnews.com/2025/11/05/d...

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that if one forgets to check the rotation direction of a bike tire when replacing it, they must put it on the wrong way even though you would think they had a 50/50 chance of doing it right

"The report has no answer to the media ownership problem. It doesn’t even raise it as a question. It includes pages upon pages bemoaning the Democratic Party’s messaging woes, without ever considering that the problem might be that its opponents have access to much larger megaphones."

When they say "difference divides people" like it's a fact, recognize it instead as an argument, which they are making because they are afraid of what would happen if people collaborated and showed solidarity across difference

This was a no-brainer to pre-order for me. Tara is such a perceptive reader of ancient culture with such an acute sense of why it all matters. Gonna be 🔥. And of course this topic matters more than ever in an age of restriction, censorship, and violence around reproduction

I might say, the best preserved and most studied parts of Greco-Roman antiquity were largely reactionary and authoritarian (which is why they are the best preserved and most studied)

Thanks to @emilyhanscam.bsky.social for the invitation to review "Classical Controversies" for @traj-journal.bsky.social. I took the opportunity to reflect on how, reviewing in 2025, some themes/emphases resound differently from when the book came out in 2022. traj.openlibhums.org/article/id/2...

This Friday, conference in Valencia Spain on Antiquity and the Extreme Right in Europe and the US in the 21st century, hosted by @anihoproject.bsky.social

Today I'm speaking at @birthingthenation.bsky.social about how mass murderers use GrecoRoman antiquity to ennoble their violence. Part of the picture is that ancient violence is so sanitized/idealized in mainstream representations of it. This book tells part of the story of how that came to be.

I spoke recently on Greco-Roman women in white nationalist thought and a smart grad student pointed out they admire only on ideal/unreal women, because that's how misogyny works. So this conference on "subversive motherhood" is welcome, w/ several papers on historical women tinyurl.com/4bhbyw4r

"In the two years since the state started charging a 4% surtax on incomes over $1 million, the effort has created a $5.7 billion windfall, with the surplus being used to fund bridge repairs, bolster literacy programs and address the transportation system’s budget deficit." Taxing the rich works!

I'm fanboying a lot lately, first @shaneburley.bsky.social blurbs my book on white nationalism and classics (see pins), then @wendling.bsky.social calls to talk about Western Civilization, now I see I'm on a panel with @areidross.bsky.social at the @birthingthenation.bsky.social conference this week

@wendling.bsky.social made a "Mini-Guide" to discourse about "Western Civilization" out of conversations he had with me and others for an episode of the BBC's AntiSocial about far right backlash against an art exhibition at Canterbury Cathedral

My book "The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate" is now available for pre-order. Use promo code WIN26 to get 30% off. Coming January 6th 2026! yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Last week I got to talk to @wendling.bsky.social, a journalist I've admired for a long time, about the appeal of "Western Civilization" to far right politics as part of a BBC show on backlash against Canterbury Cathedral's current art exhibition. www.bbc.com/audio/play/m...

Roman Gravestone Inscription that was recorded in CIL turns up in New Orleans back yard. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

Is the popularity of the admonition to children "use your words" the apotheosis of Lacanian psychoanalysis or what

TIL there's a play that combines Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and the life of Malcolm X. Such a cool/intriguing idea. At the @folger.edu now www.folger.edu/whats-on/jul...

Critical Ethnic Studies cfp for a special issue on Caste, Empire, and Race, including "The imbrication of caste and race across geographies and histories." My guess is they'd welcome a submission on the ancient world www.criticalethnicstudiesjournal.org/submissions

Decarbonize electricity. (this) problem solved

Latests PI includes Jennifer Roberts on Thucydides: "A whole book could easily be written on the use and abuse of Thucydides in the United States alone over the past hundred years." I hope someone will take this up!

I wrote about Latin on state flags & colonial violence for Pharos. I intended to publish on Flag Day but then a terrorist assassinated a MN State Rep and we start w MNs new flag. Monday after July 4th is another good time for thinking about nationalist symbols pharos.vassarspaces.net/2025/07/07/l...

Musk, regretting the world he brought about, says he's now all about empathy, which he recently said was "the fundamental weakness of Western Civilization." I wrote about how that view dovetails well with white nationalist thought about Greco-Roman antiquity: pharos.vassarspaces.net/2025/04/25/e...

Those of us trying to do critical work in Classics are sometimes told we are risking too much in a hostile higher ed climate and guess what, they were coming for us anyway no matter what we did

Wow this is a steal

Here we have a prominent political commentator and white house advisor promoting the white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory. The man who gave it that name began his analysis with a discussion of a Platonic dialogue. 1/ pharos.vassarspaces.net/2019/10/07/g...

How long have I been doing this and only today learned that Goebbels had a doctorate in philology

The terrorist in MN who murdered Melissa and Mark Hortman named his security company "Praetorian Guard Security Services." It's just a small piece of the picture, but when so many representations of ancient Rome idealize violence, a certain number of people are going to take that to heart

Since 2008 I've taught a course on Classical Rhetoric and the Presidential Campaign. We always learn a ton, and we never just focused on speeches, but this article speaks to what has haunted me every time, that what we're looking at just doesn't matter

New hat from @archive.org for an age of censorship and erasure of history. Get yours at store.archive.org/internet-arc... They threw in a free sticker too!

Just came back from intl conference in Spain (European dictatorships/classics). Almost every European I met had studied in the US. Some at Ivies but many at middle-US public universities. And they will tell you they now work at prominent institutions in their home countries bc of that experience

I haven't been writing about it as long as @eyesontheright.bsky.social but when I wrote about Greco-Roman antiquity and the white genocide conspiracy theory in 2019 it was still a pretty fringe idea, or so it seemed to me as a novice researcher 1/ pharos.vassarspaces.net/2019/03/29/c...