“I really believe that if I didn’t have [my] birth certificate, I would be somewhere in a facility,” one resident said, recalling that one of the armed federal agents who stopped him on the street aggressively asked if he was from Ethiopia or Ghana. With @mlk50.com

Communism or barbarism quite literally

AAA and AAR panels on THE DREAD HEIGHTS coming up next week, organized by milad and ali

If you’ll be at the AAR meeting in Boston this month: Please come see Salih Sayilgan of Georgetown University give the International Institute of Islamic Thought’s Al Faruqi Memorial Lecture in celebration of his recent @fortresspress.bsky.social book on the Prophet Muhammad iiit.org/en/iiit-al-f...

We’re constantly told these are the experienced ones who know how to do politics correctly. And they always do this

Pretty telling that a speech that brought me (and I’m sure many others) to tears at several points evokes _this_ response from the WaPo’s editorial board

Current University of Minnesota policy bars “academic departments and other centers on campus, [from] ‘addressing matters of public concern or public interest.’”

If you’ll be at the AAR meeting in Boston this month: Please come see Salih Sayilgan of Georgetown University give the International Institute of Islamic Thought’s Al Faruqi Memorial Lecture in celebration of his recent @fortresspress.bsky.social book on the Prophet Muhammad iiit.org/en/iiit-al-f...

Good chapter in here on why that is … not true

How is this real

Admittedly I’m reading this with the present moment constantly in the middle distance of my imagination, but this history seems like the better point of comparison for us than the one that more often tends to be used

Just a little benevolent Orientalism to celebrate

🧵(1) Why do we preserve photographic images of manuscripts? Cultural losses continue to beset communities around the world, especially in areas subject to armed conflict. The loss can manifest in multiple ways: destruction and damage, dispossession, the displacement of individuals, and other forms.

Heading to #AARSBL2025 in Boston? Our editorial team would love to meet with you! If you’re working on a book proposal or curious about publishing opportunities, let’s connect and discuss your ideas. Reach out to schedule a time to chat: www.fortresspress.com/aar-sbl/#edi...

But there are also those fighting the darkness 🙂

Woof

Doesn’t even feel nice that he’s gone. We live in the world he helped create. He won.

Have heard the same through the grapevine. People who have worked with him really do not like him. Seems not ideal

"The U.S. Marshals Service told MLK50 and ProPublica that the task force does not track the number of stops law enforcement agencies have made since they surged into the city or how many of those stops resulted in citations or arrests." Seems not great! www.propublica.org/article/memp...

Extremely good book cover

Really is striking how many of the Trump administration’s worst excesses are grounded in expansions of Obama and Bush-era policies. Sadly vindicating for those who argued at the time that these were creating dangerous precedents.

That’s right

📯🏺🏛️ Our @universitypress.cambridge.org book "Senses, Cognition and Ritual Experience in the Roman World" is #OPENACCESS ! 👇 www.cambridge.org/core/books/s... #archaeology #sensoryarchaeology #senses #cognition #cognitivescienceofreligion #ritual #religion #classics #ancienthistory #romanhistory

No I don’t think so

So now we’re moving into the Threatening Local Governments with Federal Preemption phase of data center construction

Vindicated

IT’S ALIVE! today i received my advance copies of 𝘗𝘢𝘶𝘭 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘮 ahead of publication next month. it just dawned on me last week that people might actually buy and read this book. which is mildly terrifying. yay?

Great interview of Dr. Charles Häberl on Mandaïc and other forms of Aramaïc and his work on them. youtu.be/UJLZBMGxjZ4?...

Summaries of summaries of summaries

The pizza place has some topical periodicals on the newsstand

Do you need a new book to read specifically on May 12, 2026? Yes? Oh cool, then you should pre-order the book @deandettloff.bsky.social and I wrote. Here’s the link: tinyurl.com/MagnificastP...

I was admiring someone’s book in the green room. Took a pic. I ordered the book a week ago! Yay me. Come to find out the book is for me! And author Greg Jarrell popped over for my keynote today. Thanks Greg. This one is a family read and we are very excited for it.

I don’t understand how this research can be legally allowable

the joy of tik tok

People think the first thing Gutenberg printed was the Bible. This is false. The first things he printed were a political prophecy, propaganda about the Turks’ threat to Christendom, & a popular school text. If you want a parallel to AI, that’s it: making $ from conspiracies, racism, & school slop.

Um, ICE just coldly shot an unarmed PRIEST in the head w a pepper ball when he (and everyone around him) clearly posed no threat. For the crime of … complaining about government policy. Core 1A speech. With cameras rolling, they’re sniping priests for sport.

What a lovely message from @bookshop.org. Glad to see them growing and growing. We CAN claim back what has been taken from us by these monstrous corporations, and it starts with things like this. Grab some books these next couple days!

Begins Oct. 27 2025 [+ Part 2 Offered early January 2026]

This is of niche industry interest, but here goes: The digital catalog platform most independent bookstores use to peruse and order new books for their stores (called Edelweiss) has jacked up their prices on publishers to catalog new titles 200-300%. Why does this matter?

In Driven to Their Knees, Roxanne Euben takes readers from conflicts in the Arabic-speaking world to America’s divided public square, advancing a theory of humiliation rooted in the ways people articulate and enact it. Out now. Explore a free sample: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

Now that’s an endnote

I fully understand how difficult it is to remain focused on any one particular atrocity but this really ought to be a serious scandal and people need to pay heavy prices for this

I think the Trump admin assumed no one would try to find out who the people on the boats they blew up really were

Here is the image with alt text

'a barely Soviet hedgehog' could be a don bluth movie

One of the most interesting books I’ve read in a while. Conceptions of property in Soviet economics, from micro and macro lenses, but fun! Like this lil glass hedgehog, for example.