Wounded Knee. Tulsa. My Lai. Abu Ghraib And now, Minab We need to talk about the horror when 180 little schoolgirls, boys and teachers were obliterated by U.S. Tomahawk missiles last week. And tell Congress: Not one more dime for these war crimes My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/iran...

CFP deadline Mar 31, & registration at link. I am a plenary speaker along with Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, Mark Elliott, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Joshua Ralston, Hanna Reichel, Michelle Sanchez, J. Ross Wagner tinyurl.com/548h6u5x

With the SBL deadline for proposals extended, consider submitting!!

Good thing some US colleges are closing their Religious Studies departments—definitively not “useful” at all or an area of expertise that might be relevant for understanding our present…

Two calls for papers for SBL 2026 from the units I co-chair: Bible in America and Minoritized Criticism & Biblical Interpretation. Please consider submitting an abstract on either of these urgent topics!

I'm happy to announce the publication of my article about a curious early episode in the U.S.-Afghan relationship: the Inland oil concession. In 1936, the Afghan government offered the Inland Exploration Company – the local arm of a mid-sized domestic U.S. firm – an exclusive concession across 🇦🇫.

I’m looking forward to the talk! Your book is excellent.

I'd watch a muppet show movie where the muppets infiltrate an academic conference.

Concentration camps: stories of as many as 50 people to a cell — men and women in some cases — with no windows and limited airflow, a single camera-monitored toilet, aluminum blankets, no showers and poor quality food.

Former Washington Post journalists have launched a GoFundMe to help repatriate fired staff members who are effectively stranded in foreign countries. One of the richest men in the world fired them from the paper and didn’t even pay to ensure they got home. Abolish the billionaire class:

I will be giving the Harshbarger Lecture at Penn State on Feb. 25, on a topic that is increasingly terrible. Link below, also streaming. Register here: events.la.psu.edu/event/harshb...

Children screaming and crying can be heard as a possible uprising is underway at the ICE Children's Concentration Camp in Dilley, TX (1/24/26).

Also, may I say that I don’t agree with people saying ICE and CBP need “more training.” They’re doing exactly what this administration has trained them to—impose a reign of fear in blue cities. They don’t need more training. They need to be ripped up root and branch.

In October, ICE grabbed Maher Tarabishi. He was a 24/7 caregiver for his disabled son Wael. At the time of Maher’s detention, disability advocates warned that taking away Wael’s caregiver put his life at risk. Wael died on Friday at age 30. ICE caused his death. They didn’t get to say goodbye.

Tomorrow’s front page of the Minnesota Star Tribune: Jan. 23, 2026

The State Department says it will suspend the processing of immigrant visas for citizens of 75 countries whose nationals are deemed likely to require public assistance while living in the United States. n.pr/49BDR41

NEW: President Trump is expanding the previous 19-country travel ban to a whopping 39 countries (plus the Palestinian Authority), and appears to expand a block on legal immigration to now include spouses, children, and parents of U.S. citizens, who were previously exempted.

I take Wikipedia for granted. Reading this Jimmy Wales interview reminded me in our Fantasyland age what a remarkable and important creation it is. True pillar of civilization. Runs on only $200 million a year. Requires our support. So I’m finally donating. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/m...

30% off at Yale Press, including my book, Immigration + Apocalypse

Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage

I'm featured in Publisher's Weekly in the ramp-up to the #AARSBL book panel. If you're in Boston for the annual meeting, please come by.

Two important and timely panels at #AARSBL co-sponsored by Poverty in the Biblical World with Minoritized Criticism & Biblical Interpretation and Latino/a/e & Latin American Biblical Interpretation respectively: The Bible, Poverty, & Minoritized Peoples and Engaging the Legacies of Gustavo Gutiérrez

Come to my book review panel at #AARSBL2025 ! A cross-organization, interdisciplinary joint session, Sat. Nov 22 @ 1-3:30 Hynes Convention Center 201 -- if not for me, then to hear one of these fabulous panelists! @jaxhidalgo.bsky.social @elprofebarba.bsky.social

you fucked around and now the Episcopalians are doing memes. are you happy now. are you

Something I’ve written about: how cuteness, silliness, and humor strengthen protest. theconversation.com/pikachu-prot...

wizard frog is insane

Mario Guevara, an Emmy-award winning reporter, was deported to El Salvador — a nation he fled more than two decades ago. He was arrested while covering a protest of the Trump administration in a case that has alarmed free speech groups.

It's important to name the tools of authoritarianism so we can identify and condemn them with precision. I'm glad we now have a term for ICE's openly racist, degrading immigration arrests: Kavanaugh stops. slate.com/news-and-pol...

I have a few interpretations...

From The Guardian www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Whether they're blaming vaccines and Tylenol, or selling dubious "remedies," what they're really doing is promoting the perception that families (and especially mothers) can prevent and treat Autism. And thus also the perception that people with Autism and their families don't need social support.

“The specific date came from Joshua Mhlakela, a South African pastor who claims that he saw Jesus in a vision, returning to the world on Rosh Hashanah (New Year in Judaism).”

As US state censorship, disappeared peoples, & horrors increase, let’s *not* keep saying things like “America is becoming like those Asian/African/South American nations” because this is homegrown _right here_. Robust democracies actually do and have existed in the Global South, thank you very much.

New video on Eric Schmitt's White nationalist speech at NatCon. With what happened last week, it was largely overlooked, but it can't go unnoticed. youtu.be/HY4quehYBmc?...

“The State Department indicated it would review the legal status of immigrants ‘praising, rationalizing, or making light’ of Charlie Kirk's fatal shooting.”

Who could possibly have foreseen this? Shortly after Trump tells South Korean leader on camera, to his face, that ROK has to get over the WWII 'comfort women' issue.

The MSNBC commentator saying that most political violence has historically come from the left just once again showed how we suffer from failing to learn history. Lynching, pogroms, race riots, the political violence that ended Reconstruction, and against the Civil Rights Movement. Come on.

"How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor?" A Dramatic Reading of The Recent New York Times Dispatch from the Hamptons. Presented by The Gilded Age's Morgan Spector.

Justice Sotomayor, not mincing words, also says that today's decision will lead to the "creation of [] a second-class citizenship status" for Latinos, who now will have the burden to "carry enough documentation to prove that they deserve to walk freely."

To put this into context, the judicial warrant for the search at the Hyundai plant named just four people. Relying on that warrant, ICE detained nearly 500 people. DHS admitted that included U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and people lawfully here on visas.

But of course they start with Revelation.

This is an actual exchange from a VP who took an oath to defend the constitution and, as a citizen, is expected to abide by the law. May we one day have accountability for the grotesque lawlessness of this regime.

The Onion News Network truck is currently stationed outside the Broadview ICE Detention facility just outside of Chicago.

restarting my chip thread over here because twitter doesn’t deserve it: sweet and sour chicken Lays are exactly as good as you’d imagine

Why do we live in a world where vaccines need more research and AI needs faster deployment

Watched Ponyo dubbed with Liam Neeson voicing Ponyo’s dad, and all I could think was: this is another Taken movie.

Look who’s speaking on the Antichrist.

University of Oregon is planning to close dept and lay off faculty—incl many *tenured* faculty—& among those impacted are Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, and Holocaust Studies. Here is a link to a petition asking the president to reconsider actionnetwork.org/petitions/fi...