World Cup & Euro championships combined (2026): 🇩🇪 ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️ 🇪🇸 ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️ 🇮🇹 ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️ 🇫🇷 ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 ⚽️ 🇨🇿 ⚽️ 🇵🇹 ⚽️ 🇳🇱 ⚽️ 🇩🇰 ⚽️ 🇬🇷 ⚽️ See everyone at Euro 2028!

🇪🇸 ⚽️ (but actually ⚽️⚽️) 🇦🇷 🇪🇸 ⭐️⭐️ Justice.

Spain's overturned goal is exactly what I feared. Terrible.

I'm seeing too many confident predictions of an easy Spain victory. No. It's a toss-up. Argentina is very good and ferociously determined. Given my rooting interests, I'd prefer a quiet and boring game. That favors Spain (obv). But if it gets wild—a distinct possibility—then it gets dicey.

It used to be the case that the cost of purchasing, say, 8-10 paperback books for a typical history course—maybe something like $250 in today's dollars—was accepted as part of the expense of going to college (like room and board). No more. What happened? 1/3

Went to SFMOMA to check out Matisse's *Femme au chapeau*, displayed in a recreation of the gallery in which it first appeared (Salon d'Automne, Paris, 1905). But what grabbed me on today's visit was *256 Farben* by Gerhard Richter (1974-1984). Have seen it many times, but today it really hit!

In comparison with most other humanities disciplines in the US, Classics is (i) very small and (ii) very international. This "policy"—if actually implemented, sustained, and enforced—would be devastating.

URGENT Chaco Canyon is one of the most important archaeological sites for understanding the early Americas! To open it up to drilling and destruction is an abomination, even by the gutter standards of the Trump regime. Please follow link below to make a public comment on this nefarious proposal.

🇪🇸 vs. 🇦🇷 To be the champion, one must dethrone the champion. That's the only way. ⚽️ ¡Vamos La Furia Roja!

Ancient historians should resist "market" pressure to make our accounts of the deep past "relevant" to the world of the present. Sometimes, ancient history *does* have real explanatory power for the present. But sometimes it doesn't. And that's ok! Let us revel in the wild difference of the past!

📢 Polymarket has opened up bets on which movie will break @jeremydauber.bsky.social's will to continue and when. I placed $1000 on POLTERGEIST II (May 1986) and a separate $500 on the date: on or before Oct. 31, 2036. (but most of the early money is on him to complete the thread by Dec. 31, 2046)

where you can find me

Ranking the 5 stages of a vacation, best to worst: 1. anticipation of the vacation 2. memories of the vacation 3. the vacation 4. traveling to the vacation 5. traveling from the vacation

This sobering thread is in response to the implosion of asynchronous online courses in the age of AI, but it applies to traditional, in-person classes, too. My version of "pretend" is to imagine that SOME of the students do care and are interested, and to teach to them—and for that to be "enough."

🇪🇸 ⚽️⚽️ 🇧🇪 ⚽️ And now on to . . . 🇫🇷 (best World Cup team I've seen since Brazil 2002 😱) Phew

I suspect that many Classicists are going to judge Nolan's *Odyssey* on the narrow criterion of whether or not this cinematic interpretation happens to match their own, necessarily idiosyncratic reading of the story. But the story can mean so many different things—even to the same reader! 1/5

My fortune ("fortune") today. I will henceforth refer all of the haters to this document.

This is my Platner. (Samuel B. Platner, American classicist and archeologists, 1863-1921).

this game has some "varsity scrimmage against the jv" energy

🇪🇸 ⚽️ 🇵🇹 (😞) Spain escapes with a W on a day in which several key players were either non-factors (Lamine, Olmo, Cucurella), pretty bad (Oyarzabal), or genuinely terrible (Pedri). Gotta win games like that, though, if you want the trophy! 🇪🇸

Huge match today as the Celtiberi and Lusitani compete for the Oppidum Trophy in the 2026 Iron Age Iberia Invitational Cup. 🇪🇸 🇵🇹 ⚽️

Despite the vaguely culture-war framing of this editorial from the New York Times, I do agree that the University of California should reinstate the SAT as (NB) one part of a holistic admissions process (I am one of those 700 humanities/social sciences faculty signatories). Gift link.

THIS is the chaos we deserve

Mexico vs. England in a World Cup knockout match played on a stormy evening in the absolute cauldron of the Estadio Azteca? Are you kidding me? Listen. If you have friends who don't get why the World Cup is an endlessly entertaining spectacle, THIS is the match to have them watch. GO MEXICO 🇲🇽 ⚽️

This World Cup has showcased the very best of the human spirit, including Team Paraguay, which departs from the stage with a quiet nobility, having played with skill, style, and grace.

😂

San Francisco: Let's have a giant fireworks show from the Golden Gate Bridge to celebrate the 250th! Fun! Karl the Fog: Nope.

The reason why it is essential to read IN BULK when studying history is not simply to amass empirical knowledge—though that is important, too, of course—but because *interpretation* requires thick contextual awareness, and there is NO SHORTCUT for building that up that awareness.

🇪🇸 ⚽️⚽️⚽️ 🇦🇹 (😞) A clinical dismantling. Damn.

Huge match today as Spain and Austria compete for the Charles V Trophy in the 2026 Habsburg Invitational Cup. 🇪🇸 🇦🇹 ⚽️

Excellent material here—confirming my sense that the highest priority of the new "global antiquity" is to bring Africa much more fully into a conversation still dominated by an east-west Eurasian frame. I will have more to say about this soon...

My path to fantasy league glory is alive! 🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦

The elimination of Germany would normally fill me with glee, but I had them in my World Cup fantasy league (long story), and now my only path to victory is if Morocco wins the whole damn thing. GO MOROCCO 🇲🇦 ⚽️

World Cup Championships 🇧🇷 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🇩🇪 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🇮🇹 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🇦🇷 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🇺🇾 ⭐️⭐️ 🇫🇷 ⭐️⭐️ 🇪🇸 ⭐️ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 ⭐️ Will a new country crash the party in 2026, or will one of the above add another star? Italy hasn't really shown up (🤭). Argentina is a bit overrated, imho. Spain looks very shaky. And France looks simply unstoppable (oof).

🇪🇸 ⚽️ 🇺🇾 (😞) Uruguay punished by the soccer gods for putting those extra two stars on their jerseys?

Medium latte, please. Great. What's a good name for the coffee? THAT DEPENDS. Do you intend the question in a positive or normative sense? If the former, "medium latte" is fine. If the latter, it gets complicated, because our understanding of "the good" might derive from different 1st principles.

I still believe that the whole MAGA movement—from the J6ers up through Musk/Miller/Vought/Vance/Alito etc.—is the last, desperate gasp of the reactionary white patriarchy. I don't know how we get to the other side of this, but there are more of us, and I do think that will be decisive in the end.

Wow. This cup of coffee—straight from Costa Rica (from where my wife has just returned, after helping to chaperone 35 8th graders for 10 days 😱)— is like the nectar of the Olympian gods. It's *almost* enough to offset all of this morning's headlines. 🇨🇷 ☕️

Characteristically insightful thread by @ronitstahl.bsky.social

20 of the 48 countries participating in the 2026 World Cup include territories that were once part of the Roman Empire. 🌍 ⚽️ 🏟 🏛

The real Ronaldo—Ronaldo Nazário, R9—is the greatest pure scorer I have ever seen.

Classic June Gloom day in the Bay Area to mark the Summer Solstice (I love it)...

🇪🇸 ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️ 🇸🇦 (😞) Father's Day 2026 off to a hot start!

We should introduce pausas de hidratación to the Q&A sessions following academic papers.

I killed it at The Home Depot today. Charged right in there with a bit of an "attitude"—like I knew what the hell I was doing—and, miraculously, found everything I needed *without asking for help*. A dominant performance (never to be repeated, I'm quite certain).

*The Cheese and the Worms* had a revelatory impact on me not once but twice: when I first read it in an undergraduate honors seminar, and then again, 27 years later (!), when I taught it in a graduate seminar on historical method. 1/2

Downtown Atlanta, around the World Cup events, is a testament to what we could be. Everyone is having a good time (including the Spaniards!) A million different jerseys on the streets. Smiles and laughter. Dancing and celebrating by the Cape Verde contingent. Locals fully engaged. It's wonderful.

I encountered a little Spanish boy crying in the street. I explained to the poor kid that when Spain won the World Cup (2010), they actually *lost* their opening match. He was deeply unimpressed by this new knowledge. 🇪🇸 ⚽️

Walking around downtown Atlanta in my Spain jersey 😂