I heard the spiel on Monday and it's def gonna be good, folks

Ramadan Kareem, everybody

Good afternoon and major props to this 8th century CE woman breastfeeding as she rides a Bactrian camel along the Silk Roads 🐫 art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/3254...

There’s a formula that readers of the siras use when they sign renters’ notes. They refer to themselves as العبد الفقير الحقير and ask for God’s forgiveness and I think the idea that you’re so humble and unworthy you’ve gotta inscribe it in every book you read is weirdly beautiful.

Olympic highlight in this house.

The #MLA Global Hispanophone Forum is organizing a guaranteed panel on anti-authoritarianism. Abstracts are due March 15! We invite proposals on literary and cultural responses to authoritarianism across Spanish-speaking peripheries mla.confex.com/mla/2027/web...

This GOOD BOY ran onto the course during the Women’s Cross-Country Skiing Team Sprint event, crossing the finish line and being automatically recorded by OMEGA’s photofinish camera 😆

“What’s today?” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes. “Today?” replied the boy. “Why, it’s Paperback Book Release Day sir!” RING SHOUT paperback w/foreword by author| Tor Nightfire | 10•14•25 Out Today! #Bookrelease #horror “Adam in the garden…”

#noussommesNazgul www.npr.org/2026/02/18/n...

MRO has been posting all kinds of antisemitic nonsense and conspiracies mixed in with her less objectionable activism for a while now, but this feels well beyond plausible deniability

I can’t believe you lefty Luddites hate tech so much that you embrace mRNA vaccines, heat pumps, electric bikes, hybrid work, renewable power (and awesome advancements in storage), space telescopes, and hot/cold running water but reject the planet destroying plagiarism enrich the worst people bots!

new episode Wednesday! This week we talk about AMERICAN HOLY WAR with @tlecaque.bsky.social. how do the medieval "crusades" relate to colonial American - in a lot of ways, it turns out! also both were really worried about the end of the world... have a listen #medievalsky --> pca.st/c5go3lb1

Karaman Carpet with Blue Medallion on Red Ground https://www.slam.org/collection/objects/33036/

Ramaḍān karīm

ooooooh...

Ramadan starts tonight, so wishing all my friends and colleagues ṣawm maqbūl and Ramadan karim!

Cracked a tough section of my new book project today! Ok, you may now continue blowing up my notifications over insipidity.

Jackson's role in gradually shifting the left-liberal consensus on Palestine is pretty underrated.

Jesse Jackson, the civil-rights activist and political leader, has died at 84. He was the first Black man to wage a nationwide presidential campaign. 🔗 on.wsj.com/4aAgYhD

@lollardfish.bsky.social is better on feudalism than I am, but in general I'd say your instinct is right, that what we're taught to think of as a rigid & codified legal system was a set of overlapping powers, inequalities & unfreedoms, some legal, some customary, some old, new ones always arising.

So lemme tell you about @adapalmer.bsky.social's Inventing the Renaissance, which came out last year and absolutely blew me away. I'd replace half the 1st-year curriculum with this book. Reading it made me a better historian, and also the kind of person who underlines books. Plus, it's hilarious.

I love that the birds and the elephants are similar sizes 🥰 can you imagine?

People are such fuckin' weirdos in the quotes about this. She's not unnamable, she's an ex-ac medievalist named Mary Rambaran-Olm and she spends seemingly 85% of her free time talking about "'zios' eating babies," spreading conspiracies, and pleasantly interacting w people who say we run the banks.

A child dying of cancer spent her final days fighting to free her wrongfully detained father from ICE custody.   This comes just weeks after a mother from Maryland was denied the right to be at her son’s side as he died from cancer.   Not one dime for this cruelty. www.cbsnews.com/amp/chicago/...

Petag' Tabriz Carpet, Northwest Persia. ca 1920 the design based on 16th cent Safavid 'Vase' carpets, on an unusual green ground

The drunk uncle theory. You don’t argue with the casually homophobic uncle at Thanksgiving dinner to change his mind; you argue so that the closeted cousin at the kids table knows there’s safe people and better possibilities out there

‘We like lists because we don’t want to die’, said Umberto Eco. What drives our deep fascination with lists? PhD researcher Michael Hensley explores the meaning of Ethiopian and Eritrean book lists, offering glimpses into communities that would otherwise be lost: uhh.de/csmc-hensley

There is a fab new book out about the 2022 polychromy exhibition at the Met. It underscores 38 scholars who are the 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 experts in polychromy today. Coming out of polychromy retirement to review _Chroma: Sculpture in Color from Antiquity to Today_ for @hyperallergic.com (edited by Natalie Haddad).

one of the things i'm learning about doing the @americanmedieval.bsky.social podcast is that I kind of record with guests in a fugue state and by the time I have to listen to the edit, i honestly have no idea what happened in the episode so I get to experience everything like a new listener

new episode alert! in this one @profgabriele.com talks with @anotheraspirin.bsky.social about St. Nicholas! basically he became the folk hero (eventually Santa Claus) because he was a rich guy who was nice to people and helped them with his $.... CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT HAPPENING??? pca.st/9sueq4cp

Obviously not ancient aliens, but I would love it if there were a good interpretation of these figurative stele like that object the second figure is holding in his right hand, or why his face is partitioned It may help shine some light on the pre-Christian religions of Ethiopia

Rhetorical question of the moment: "Why should I bother to read something someone else couldn't be bothered to write? futurism.com/artificial-i...

I'm at the airport on my way to the east coast for series of events for Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century! Weds, 2/18: Princeton's McGraw Center Thurs, 2/19: Rutgers English Fri, 2/20: CUNY Grad Center Details and RSVP info threaded below -- hope to see some of you!

they say deaths come in threes, and my family had our third this weekend. fuck cancer, send some thoughts to a kid now without a dad, and if you’re of the inclination, toss a penny to www.cysticfibrosis.org.uk in honour of my cousin.

This is a continuation of certain factions of the United States claiming that this is a Christian nation founded by European Christians (because only Christians exist/have existed in Europe, obviously 🤫). I don't understand why we continue to be surprised by what anyone in this administration says.

Excited for this one 😊

“stuff I don't understand, and more!” should be a more regular thing in headlines and abstracts for many scholars. I love it. #academicchatter

More South Asian epigraphy in Egypt!

I’m still angry that an entire semester on Paradise Lost did not fit my schedule in college. This sounds like the absolute height of intellectual luxury. (I took the entire fall to get through The Brothers Karamazov, but that was not for a class. Still, it was nice to have the time)

Rainy and 45 F (7 C) tonight. Perfect weather for the spotted salamanders to emerge from their burrows in our backyard and cross the lane towards their breeding pool. #herps 1/4

a neighbor set up this werewolf for halloween and instead of taking it down they just update it with seasonal outfit changes. now it’s dressed for valentine’s day and holding a sign with a picture of bad bunny and his super bowl slogan. i love him.

The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe is now available in paperback. Plus take advantage of @stanfordpress.bsky.social Valentine’s Day Sale for a few more days. www.sup.org/books/histor... 🗃️ #menasky #ottoman #bosniaandherzegovina #bosnia #muslims #austriahungary

I'd like at add a few things to this. (1) humanists have not been able to convince any political party that curiosity-driven humanities research is a public good that should be funded using tax dollars. Republicans don't believe this, but neither do Democrats.

Megalithic Landscapes of Ethiopia from Prehistory to the Modern Era www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/megalithic...

I have been *waiting* since this past summer to rave about this book, which I read for the HBA Book Prize, so now that the announcement of the winners has gone out, I can tell everyone...go read Iris Moon's _Melancholy Wedgwood_! mitpress.mit.edu/978026254634...

This one! It’s very good 😊

The pet peeve no one wishes to hear is that midwestern towns have got to stop calling one stage in a field an “amphitheater.” Unless it is two theaters pushed together in a large circle in the round, sir, it is a theater.

you should avoid the "cannibal" stuff because it's deeply antisemitic, but it's absolutely worth keeping in mind that it absolutely does also imply that systematic sex trafficking isn't gross enough for you!

A Black-capped Chickadee showcasing winter fashion by donning a snowflake accessory.