Read Nabataean!

Well, our tiny open-access, non-profit publishing house finally shelled for a website that doesn't look like I made it in five minutes on wordpress: pixeliapublishing.org

I sometimes co-edit Latin texts with students. Students write the commentary on the Latin text (which I then edit), and I write the volume intro (which the students then edit). Tbh, reading their feedback is always my favorite parts of the project.

Map discovered in my kitchen. Includes "ork fortris."

Just spreading the word on a new open-access publication: a book on Basinio da Parma and the humanists at the court of Sigismondo Malatesta. www.lysapublishers.com/book/lamore-...

One more week to submit nominations! The J.P. Gumbert Dissertation Award honours the best PhD thesis on any aspect of manuscript studies defended in 2025. The winner receives 5,000 EUR and a fellowship at the CSMC

Is it just me, or is stylistic analysis (as a means of determining authorship) basically a pseudo-science? Are there any convincing cases affirming (or denying) authorship based on style?

Ooo, this is a good one.

2026 Ceræ Call For Papers We are pleased to announce that the theme for Volume 13 of Ceræ, as well as for our 3rd annual online Conference, is Fame and Fortune. We invite submissions to both the conference and the journal on this theme. Fame and fortune are slippery things. They can be welcome or…

👀

Homan seems much more amenable to public opinion. Esp if the public can find 50k to stuff into a Cava bag.

Things that will cause snow (according to my kids): 1 Put a white crayon in the freezer 2 Wear pajamas inside out 3 Flush an ice cube down the toilet 4 Fluff pillow; put spoon under it 5 Scream "Let it snow!" into the freezer

You know what you don't often get? Interesting bibliography on NORTH Picene.

Latin terms that should be used more often: "nudius tertius"

CFP EXTENDED: Teaching with Ovid, an online pedagogy symposium. The new deadline for submissions is February 16th. To all those who have submitted abstracts for the original deadline: many thanks, and we will be in touch soon!

Interested to work on our collections? The Call for applications of the LECTIO – KU Leuven Visiting Fellowships 2026–2027 is now open. As in previous years, Special Collections offers a joint fellowship. We will be happy to welcome you!

Mulling cover images for the next volume in our series of student editions of Latin texts written by women:

Question for anyone who knows: "his face (τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ) was going to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:53). Saying that someone's "face" is going somewhere feels weird. Is this riffing on something from the Septuagint (stylistically, if not as a direct ref)?

(rubbing my greedy little hands together)

Childcare question (to settle spousal disagreement): You're walking by a construction site (house being built) on a weekend. There is a bulldozer. Do you let your child get on and pretend to drive it?

That's an intense cover!

I used to volunteer for an after-school program here. Every day I still find it hard to wrap my mind around the kind of country we've become, and how fast it happened.

A curiosity: a 1908 critical edition of Egeria that has an introduction written...in a vernacular?

Join me @rarebookschool.bsky.social for an intensive week of Latin Paleography, June 1-5 in Charlottesville. Paleography doesn't have to be scary. Trust me...we'll have a blast! Application portal is now open. rarebookschool.org/courses/manu...

Came across "per valle ipsa media" in Egeria, so I've been looking for examples of "per + abl." No luck in Pinkster's Latin Syntax or Adams' Social Variation. But thanks be to the gods of philology (that is to say, to the lexicographers), the TLL has finished P.

And here's the link: ianls.com/wp-content/u...

People who went to the SCS/AIA: What did I miss?

Trying to order a book from an Italian publisher. They say, "Fine, but we're not shipping it until after Epiphany." I truly love Italy.

Resolution: Find an orderly place on my shelves for the books I acquired in 2025. (Currently there's a pile on my nightstand, a pile on the floor next to my desk, and an unknown number of books scattered around the house left in whatever places I was reading them.)

New acquisition.

Happy to announce that the Fall 2025 issue of the New England Classical Journal (52.2) is now published! Featuring an article on felicitas in late antiquity, two book reviews, and an in memoriam for Gil Lawall. Check it out at the link! crossworks.holycross.edu/necj/ AncientBlueSky ClassicsBlueSky

For anyone who happens to know: what's the earliest surviving epistolary collection of a pope? Damasus?

Me, yesterday: Susie Wiles sure has managed to keep a low profile.

Another lost work I long for: a copy of Seneca's Apocolocyntosis written in Claudian letters. Come on, you know there had to be one.

More on the lost works I wish had survived: the plays in (presumably?) Oscan performed in Rome during the time of Augustus (Suet. Div. Aug. 43):

Thinking more about the injustices of which ancient works survive. Seriously, we have about 20,000 pages of Galen (snooze!) but only precious fragments of Suetonius's "On Famous Courtesans," like the one where he tells about Omphale, the sex-worker who liked to dress Hercules up as a woman

Spring '26 syllabus coming after me:

My top 5 (leaving aside those already named): -Cornelia (mater gracchorum), complete correspondence -Suetonius, "On Famous Courtesans" -Suetonius, "On Greek Swear Words" -Sulpicia Lepidina (Vindolanda), the complete correspondence -Cicero's joke book, 3 vol.

Prometheus Bound: Aeschylus?

Happy “Learn a New Language” month! Sign up for Introduction to Ge’ez, a #Language and #Paleography course held in partnership with @dumbartonoaks.bsky.social#Language#Paleographyfrom July 5 to August 1, 2026, at HMML in Collegeville, Minnesota. Deadline is February 23. Learn more: hmml.org/programs/intro-ge-ez

SNLS Call for Papers! The Society for Neo-Latin Studies is organising an online event for PhD students and ECR colleagues. See flyer for more details! #NeoLatin #AncientGreek

My end of semester energy:

📣Did you read someone's great first article from either 2024 or 2025? Is the author a NAPS member? Would they like cash money? Nominate them by sending a PDF of their piece to [email protected] by January 31, 2026 Best First Article prize and a cool $250 awarded at the NAPS annual meeting!

MLA prize for scholarly edition goes to: a book collaboratively edited by a high school teacher and a class of 16 students. (Let that sink in for a moment.) 1/3

"Once-ler declares thneeds to be sustainable."

"And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath." That's right, like a Christmas wreath but it's smoke, because Santa's got a long night, and sometimes he'll just have a smoke break. In your living room.

some fantastic antiquity/premodern stuff on here, starting with two (2) offerings from @chancebonar.bsky.social!

If you're looking to NOT buy something today, might I recommend instead downloading free PDFs from Pixelia Publishing? Open-Access editions of several Latin (and English) texts. Most recent edition is the Latin poetry of Elizabeth Jane Weston: pixeliapublishing.org

New post on Hermes, by Dries Nijs (PhD researcher @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social), on a unique early modern poem he found in the archives of @unileiden.bsky.social, entitled "A Woman Writing New Ancient Greek Poetry for a Leiden Disputation (1686)" Enjoy! earlymodernhellenism.org/2025/12/01/a...

1. Feeling unduly proud of myself. 2. If there is any substance more disgusting than what you find when cleaning out a slow-draining sink, I DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT