Robert H.N. Ho has passed away. His foundation helped the field of Buddhist Studies in the USA survive and thrive during a time of tough headwinds in the academy. Forever grateful for the fellowship that established my position at Skidmore College. www.rhfamilyfoundationglobal.org/media/pdf/ob...

Fifty different problems in the world just locked into one big uniform piece like a Rubik's cube in my head.

Data Workers’ Inquiry continues its excellent project of amplifying voices of the human labor too often overlooked in debates about genAI. This latest report from Michael Geoffrey Asia is an essential read.

Reading Olivelle’s translation of the Yājñavalkya Dharmaśāstra, I find myself genuinely curious whether, if these rules were ever taken seriously, the combination of verse 1.68 & verses 1.78-79 mean that the wife having sex with a brother-in-law completely slathered in ghee was nearly inevitable.

My employer, Dartmouth College, today boasts it's 1st Ivy "to launch AI at an institutional scale." It is doing this by partnering--"more than a collaboration"--with Anthropic, a company that stole the books of many faculty, me included, which many of us are suing.

Abu’l-Fazl trying real hard to flatter the idiot Mughal emperor Akbar in the _Akbarnama_. No real gamer would ever say Parcheesi “contains much wisdom.”

Elsa Marty on Bitcoin faith as ritual imagining of freedom and dignity. #aarsbl25

@smhedgecock.bsky.social with a super smart talk on prayer closets as contemporary evangelical gendered practice. #aarsbl25

There’s a certain irony to the fact that in order to make it to the Sheraton for this wonderful talk, I had to leave dirty breakfast dishes in the sink. #aarsbl25

Today’s #aarsbl25 was so good. Buddhism unit panel on teaching Buddhism in a fascist regime, followed by two panels excavating fascist roots and fascist æsthetics in the academic study of religion.

Here’s my super secret #aarsbl25 lifehack. Instead of waiting in long lines to get shitty Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks, order a 4-pack of canned cold brew from Treehouse Brewing for pickup in the Prudential Center. Share a can with friends for extra social capital! treehousebrew.com/visiting-pru...

Wondering if Princeton University Press pays royalties to their author “The Buddha,” writer of the books _How to Lose Yourself_ and _How to Feel_. #aarsbl25

On the train to #aarsbl25 watching this video to fortify myself for the coming onslaught of tasteful shawls and scarves www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLNW...

Starting #aarsbl25 off right with curry pan using proper Hokkaidō flour at Komugi, a lovely new Japanese bakery in Union Square bakerycafekomugi.com

Q. Who aligns the aligners? A. alignmentalignment.ai Today I’m humbled to announce an epoch-defining event: the launch of the 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀.

You'll never guess who funds Hallow, the prayer app recommended by the White House. (It's Peter Thiel and JD Vance).

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

JAOS 145.3 is out: doi.org/10.7817/jaos..., articles on: autobiog of becoming, Ming women's anger, an old term for foreigners in China, cuneiform word lists, neo-Babylonian chronicles, the epic of Aqhat, Tabari's poetic license, bustling Buddhist monasteries, the aims of Sanskrit doxography, & more!

As we boot up the semester, here’s a useful link for your syllabi statements on the use of LLMs. anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...

Darian Donovan Thomas’ new album _A Room with Many Doors: Day_ just dropped today. Go get it! It’s ridiculously gorgeous. ddt93.bandcamp.com/album/a-room...

JOB POSTING Assistant Professor, Buddhist Studies Religious Studies Program, University of Minnesota Area, time period, and discipline are open and it's a great place to work!

Goodbye Frankfurt, hello Boston! After getting bumped from flight yesterday, it’s good to finally be back home.

15 year-old me will never recover from the fact that I’m taking Flight 420 from Gate 69.

Heidelberg —> Mannheim —> Frankfurt —> Boston via streetcar, S-Bahn, high speed rail, and airplane. As much as Germans complain about the Deutsche Bahn and its increasingly frequent delays, I keep telling them how amazing it must feel to have transportation infrastructure worth complaining about.

As we approach Fall, my annotated genAI bibliography continues to grow. Hope this can be of some use to AI-critical scholars as they watch their deans, colleagues, and administrators falling prey to the Sales Guy snake oil. Feel free to request additions or corrections! codeberg.org/overbey/genA...

teachers! excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone. take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE against-a-i.com

Post-IABS decompressing in Heidelberg is the best way to end this summer break. pixelfed.social/p/overbey/86...

Leipzig —> Mannheim—> Heidelberg. #IABS2025 was a blast. See y’all in Vancouver in 2028!

Leipziger Lerche, a nut and jam pastry created as a substitute for roasted meadowlark after the Saxon king banned meadowlark hunting. A fitting Aśoka-esque detail to ring in the IABS!

Train day! Hall in Tirol —> Jenbach —> München —> Leipzig. Looking forward to hearing Germans complain every time the Deutsche Bahn is 3 minutes late.

Last full day in Austria before heading to the IABS in Leipzig. It wss 90 degrees here, so a good day to hike and swim the Achensee! Gonna really miss hanging out in Tirol. What a redtorative month. pixelfed.social/p/overbey/85...

I do think this is indicative of the sheer absurdity of what we're living through. OpenAI is allegedly worth $500 billion - more than Netflix - and this is their brand new product that is meant to be super powerful. Does this really make a billion dollars a month? This thing? ChatGPT?

Friends! Hope to see you in Leipzig, where I’ll present on how I confirmed that the Consecration Scripture was indeed edited by a single person or team. I promise that during my talk I will use the phrase “vibes-based argument” at least twice! conference.uni-leipzig.de/iabs2025/aca...

Got queasy at the graf where working group had to evaluate whether “partnerships with corporations or other organizations” can substitute for real language instruction. Note to administrators: Duolingo is snake oil. Language instruction requires expertise, human community, and care, not AI slop.

yuniya edi kwon and amazingly talented friends performing the world premiere of _silver through the grass like nothing_, a meditation on illness, bardo, and Buddhist śarīra, at the Monheim Triennale.

What a joy to see Darian Donovan Thomas ddt93.bandcamp.com perform in the Kapelle zur Schmerzhaften Mutter, at the Monheim Triennale.

Day 1 of the Monheim Triennale. So psyched to be back in Germany for this!

Fellow scholars of religion: y’all should be reading @karenhao.bsky.social’s _Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI_. I think it pairs especially well with @lhulseth.bsky.social ‘s _Capitalist Humanitarianism_. Both about what it means for companies to claim good intentions.

End of an era! @profirmf.bsky.social and @mpgphd.bsky.social have done so much to advance public understanding of Religious Studies with this work. Their podcast and book will continue to be a staple of my gateway course at Skidmore. Forever grateful for this tremendous gift to our students.

applying for jobs again

Finally got around to organizing and adding snarky annotations to this growing critical bibliography on genAI. Pull requests welcome! codeberg.org/overbey/genA...

This is such a cool use of classical Chinese poetry! www.cell.com/current-biol...

I wonder if ICE has figured out how to train an idea-sniffing dog. Would be a huge breakthrough!

Reading Thackston’s translation of the History of Akbar and just deeply impressed with how the author Abu’l Fazl tries to work around the fact that Akbar was a useless idiot who spent all his time hunting and playing with elephants. Did sarcasm exist in late 16th century Mughal literary culture?

This semester I’ve been team-teaching a science literacy course on LLMs and generative AI. Along the way we’ve compiled a critical bibliography. It’s partial and incomplete in so many ways, but nevertheless may be useful to some folks. Pull requests welcome! codeberg.org/overbey/genA...

Everyone should go read this fabulous article, a concrete demonstration of how valuable the comparativist perspective is for understanding These Times.

Getting prepped for teaching and excited about all the films we’re going to watch in my intro-level Understanding Religions course. letterboxd.com/overbey/list...

This is a grievous loss of archival material — the Theosophical Society was tremendously influential both for the development of modern religions and for the academic study of religion.

Scenes from my first ever Moby Dick Marathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. We stuck it out through the end. The vibes were immaculate— a college slumber party for nerds that charmingly transcended generational divides. #mdm25

Looking forward to indulging in this winter break diversion: Ireland and Kronic’s _Cute Accelerationism_.