Although this page has several illuminations identified as St. John, the animal in the top margin appears to be a ram. Definitely not an eagle (which is the animal that John is associated with). This is is Ms. Codex 724 f. 326v, a 13th c. illuminated Bible. #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/4deNkzU

The Internet is disappearing before our very eyes and it’s why we should all support that absolutely critical work of @archive.org

A friendly reminder to anyone attending #NAPS2026: Krista Dalton, Emanuel Fiano, and I are editing a new book series with Fordham Press. If you'd like to learn more about the series or pitch a project, I'd be happy to meet up during the conference! fordhampress.com/theoria

Added to e-Clavis: Manuscripta apocryphorum ~ London, British Library, Or. 678 (15 c.) feat. the Egyptian collection of apocryphal acts. www.nasscal.com/manuscripta-...

Had a wonderful conversation with Hasia Diner about Jews, Catholics and higher ed in the early 20th century. Her recent book on the Irish and Jews in America includes a discussion of small Catholic schools, incl. Providence College, that welcomed Jews. Honored that she drew on my research on this.

Canadian Society for Patristic Studies Annual Meeting is May 26-28, is fully hybrid, and a virtual registration is just $25 Canadian---what's not to love? cspsacep.ca/reunion-meet...

Open access article on “An Independent Śiva Purāṇa and Śiva’s Reverence to the Man-Lion” by Benjamin Fleming www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/17...

Historical research does not need to be done faster or in greater volume for any social or intellectual purpose whatever; if anything, it needs to be done more slowly and deliberately than at present, by people allowed the training, time, space, and resources to do it that way.

42 new pages 📖 of the 6th century MS known as Codex H (GA 015, Codex Coislinianus), which contains Paul’s Letters, have now been recovered. codexh.arts.gla.ac.uk#/the-manuscr... Nice! you can read a pic of the multispectral images next to the Greek transcription codexh.arts.gla.ac.uk#/the-greek-e...

Another late-breaking postdoc in Humanities Leadership at Yale's Whitney Humanities Center. The person in charge has said they will begin reviewing applications June 13 (which means the deadlines on this posting are to be ignored)

*laughs in archivist* It always amuses me at how little historical material is actually not only digitized but also made available online compared to what lay people think.

Justice Alito relied on misleading data to support his claim that “Black voters now participate in elections at similar rates as the rest of the electorate." Using the DOJ’s data, Alito omitted the fact that the racial voter gap is actually widening. trib.al/QIDuIYb

A very long but essential listen if you have anything to do with higher education in the age of AI. Sobering and illuminating in equal part. (And if your marking is currently immobilised on Canvas, also deeply pertinent). Many thanks to @benpatrickwill.bsky.social for highlighting it.

Efficiency is not effectiveness. “Speed and efficiency are not educational values…When it comes to learning, what matters is the learning. We have to be careful not to fall into the trap of privileging speedier outcomes.”

What I wish for everybody to remember when Canvas comes back online: The reason OUR data can be held for ransom is because Instructure, their owners (KKR private equity & Dragoneer venture capital), & our own employers (see ASU Atomic) monetize it. It's Canvas that hacked education & stole our IP.

school administrators implementing canvas for every use case

We are going to have to fight for a world where a broadly humanistic education still matters. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/u...

Fascinating (and free!) article from newest JHI: “An Ethiopian Lucretius? Giusto da Urbino and the Origins of the Ḥatäta Zärʾa Yaʿɘqob Controversy” by Lea Cantor and Jonathan Egid muse.jhu.edu/article/989311

"The humanities are not a luxury. They are how a democracy understands itself." www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/a...

😬

On May 3, 2026, the AAR Board of Directors sent a letter to the leaders at the University of Denver, urging them to reconsider their plans to eliminate the Department of Religious Studies. Read the letter here: aarweb.org/news/letter-...

“Once you call students consumers, you have already restructured every relationship on which the university depends.” hyperallergic.com/the-death-of...

including @isaactsoon.bsky.social on the Satanic Partridge! muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

Religious studies folks! Check out this late-breaking postdoc (start date: mid-August 2026) at Columbia's Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life www.ircpl.columbia.edu/postdoctoral...

coming soon from @adeler.bsky.social! www.cambridge.org/core/element...

It’s the UC Press 40% Spring Sale! Visit ucpress.edu and use promo code SPRING40 to enjoy 40% off any UC Press book. ⁠

A somewhat predictable result of the administrative bloat and consumerist turn of the American university, embracing AI as a solution to the "problem" of how to deliver teaching-as-product to student/consumers apart from (the cost of) faculty. Still creepy though. www.chronicle.com/article/a-un...

had a reason to go back and peek at this piece again and friends I don't hate it works.hcommons.org/records/zgqx...

deep end nerds (I have the Mishnah one and it's deep end nerd gud shit)

K. Merinda Simmons on “Thinking Structurally and Inventively about the Changing Same” in new *Bulletin for the Study of Religion* doi.org/10.1558/bsor...

Bremer-McCollum, Adam. 2025. The Pearlsong (Texts & Translations of Transcendence and Transformation). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. This book, by @acbm.bsky.social, is available open-access.

Added to e-Clavis: Manuscripta apocryphorum ~ Cambridge, Trinity College, R. 13. 49 (16th cent.) featuring 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, Apoc. Paul, and others. www.nasscal.com/manuscripta-...

Open access Enochica in HTR! Kirsten Macfarlane on “A principio fuit canonicus”: The Controversy over 1 Enoch in Seventeenth-Century Europe” www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

When people talk about self-censorship, they often focus on campus events or classroom discussions. But self-censorship of research is different and more impt. Big difference btw "I don't want to offend others" to "I don't want to speak truth to power" www.chronicle.com/article/near...

75% of 1980s video games tracked by the LGBTQ Video Game Archive are preserved & accessible in some form. 25% are still at risk or unavailable. Preservation isn’t automatic. 📚 Read VANISHING CULTURE 📖 Download: archive.org/details/vani... 🛒 Purchase: www.betterworldbooks.com/product/deta...

The United States now has the most government restrictions on academic freedom of any high-income country. www.chemistryworld.com/news/academi... Raw data from @vdeminstitute.bsky.social —> academic-freedom-index.net/research/Aca...

I don’t know the local situation but feels telling of our times to end 40+ majors & frame as celebratory that “Penn State has hired consulting firm McKinsey & Company as part of a sweeping review of operational & academic functions… to capitalize on areas for growth” 👀 radio.wpsu.org/2026-04-21/p...

I write in Times New Roman, 12pt, 0.2 expanded, and then while editing switch to Arial 10.5

Join us Friday May 1 for a special First Fridays Workshop featuring two presentations (by Tony Burke and Cecilia Antonelli) as part of the New Research on Apocryphal Christian Literature conference at UVA. Free to attend as always; see the poster below for details.

If you see this, QP something pink 💕

🧵 The web is disappearing 🕳️ From Pew: 26% of pages from 2013-2023 are ☠️ A new study in VANISHING CULTURE gives hope: 16% have been restored through the Wayback Machine. 56% are preserved before they disappear. 📚 Read VANISHING CULTURE free from Internet Archive: archive.org/details/vani... ⬇️

The problem is not that older faculty are sticking around - it’s that they are not being replaced. The argument of this piece is quite pernicious as it substitutes a class war btw workers and a neoliberal administration w an age war btw different ranks of workers

“Religion depts should be on par w/other depts, & [yet] our popularity as teachers is so often judged by # of majors we’re able to collect…. & the typical college president hasn’t more than extremely foggy notion of what qualifications are necessary for a good teacher of Religion.” Guess the date!

"Professors here must exercise a responsibility not for what [students] think but how they think... It is my hope tht we shall always have liberals & conservatives as part of Harvard student body, but... [w/]flexibility of mind & openness of spirit." Said of Harvard Divinity School--guess the date.

Anyway, our public libraries deserve more support. Let's fight to ensure they receive what they need to pay library workers fairly, to do the necessary capital repairs/upgrades, and to afford lots of books and other resources, and to offer programming. Good night everyone. #NationalLibraryWeek

Boston-area friends: come hear Prof. Alex Jassen's talk about the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls (4/22 5pm) @cjsharvard.bsky.social + also check out my mini-exhibit of related materials at HDS special collections! On the latter = humanhistoriesofkn.substack.com/p/the-dead-s... @hdslibrary.bsky.social

The Jedwabne pogrom of 1941 was one of the most brutal acts in the entire Shoah, committed by Poles against Polish Jews, not by the occupying Germans. Now the local government and people are denying that Poles committed this act. www.timesofisrael.com/polish-towns...

“…astronomical tuition costs are not going to teaching or ensuring a stable & skilled professoriate. Instead, they’re empowering consultants & academic executives… who are further consolidating, cutting, & de-skilling the work faculty & staff provide to students.” lareviewofbooks.org/article/disa...