John Penniman

Davis Colloquium: Christianity and Healing We invite you to join us for the annual Don and Barbara Davis Colloquium on Christianity on Friday, October 24 in the OSU Thompson Library. This year's topic is "Christianity and Healing."Six speakers...

It has been an energizing day in the Davis Colloquium on Christianity and healing at the Center for the Study of Religion at Ohio State. I'm grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion and learn from the other panelists: religion.osu.edu/events/davis...

Check out the @ancientjewreview.bsky.social podcast!

AJR is kicking off its new leadership of Models of Piety with a happy hour meetup in Boston. Hope to see you there!

Reminder that my department is hiring in early Christianity. Our search last year was canceled in the hiring freeze but we're happy to be able to conduct the search this year at the assistant professor level. Deadline for applications is 9/30/2025.

Entering my Bartleby, the Scrivener era.

Mezcaletti Cocktail Recipe | PUNCH The ingredients of the Mezcaletti cocktail recipe are telegraphed in the name: mezcal and Amaro Meletti, built in a rocks glass over ice.

Good pairing with Oaxaca Old Fashioned is my current favorite cocktail: the Mezcaletti -- summery with the mezcal, but Manhattan-y with the Meletti. Simple to make and very satisfying. And then you also have a bottle of Meletti on hand for digestif'ing.

punchdrink.com/recipes/mezc...

My friend @thejeremybjones.bsky.social has a new memoir about an ancestor's encrypted diary and what he learned when he cracked the code. CIPHER offers an unflinching reckoning with a complex, hidden family history and how that history shapes Jeremy's own self-understanding. Highly recommend!

wttffffffff :/

Send Ancient Jew Review your pedagogy pitches! Or, really, any of your pitches!

The use of that song in SHREK really deflated its affective impact for me 😂

Attempting to channel the energy of this cafe placemat today.

May 2025

My review of Fredriksen's Ancient Christianities out now in @commonweal.bsky.social

More important topics covered in the issue: US deportation violences, the natural-birth movement, environmental justice

www.commonwealmagazine.org/issues/2025-...

Paywall free version here: drive.google.com/file/d/1sbW4...

Ok you KNOW I am here for this and am tickled to find that my research is converging with the Chatner.

People love Israel and its Heirs in Late Antiquity. They especially love Heirs.

Is your university suddenly talking A LOT about "talent optimization"? Asking for a colleague.

Thanks, Laurence! We were fortunate to be in the final months of the grant. Still a blow and a depressing way to conclude 4 years of work.

For sure. It was that office that informed me of the demand :/

My reply: "I would prefer not to."

It is wild. No one is going to read any of this!

DOGE is now demanding a full summary of our NEH-funded grant activities including an itemized expense report of how every dollar has been spent. They are giving a two-week turnaround. Of course, we faithfully submitted annual reports each year of the grant. So this is an absurd waste of time.

The Nominating Committee of the North American Patristics Society is still accepting nominations for positions on the board and other committees. Help shape the future of our society! Self-nominations welcome! #NAPS2025

So excited about this next chapter for y'all!

The NEH grant I am PI on got cancelled effective immediately as of yesterday. The letter was found in the spam box of our Office of Sponsored Projects email account. We were in the final 2 months, with four summer curriculum development grants just awarded last week. What an end to 4 years of work.

The tide upon which this viral post ebbs and flows is bewildering to me!

Poster advertising a lecture at Bucknell University by Prof. Ashley Shew of Virginia Tech. The Poster features an artistic rendering of Prof. Shew, with mobility devices arranged above her head. The text describes the content of the lecture: "Being a cyborg can be dangerous - with parts of your body owned, managed, maintained by companies. To be cyborg is to be tracked and surveilled, and to be misunderstood and misread. This talk centers disabled experiences of technology and care, looking at important real cases of cyborgs made more vulnerable by their participation in the "proper" systems of technology research and design, development, maintenance, health, and infrastructure. Technologies for disability are nearly always cast as life-changing (and sometimes they are), but there's a lot that is obscured by our typical narratives about technology and disability. We need more context of understanding to see the structural factors that guide disabled technology use, and shape our lives. Specific cases include a bionic-eye company gone belly-up, a life-changing brain-implant forcibly removed, state systems for attendant care, and more. We need this context and these cases to reimagine our systems of technology and care, and to arrive at a better understanding of disability and healthcare." The talk took place on Thursday, March 6th 2025.

It was such a pleasure to host @ashleyshoo.bsky.social this week at Bucknell. She engaged with a lit studies course, a computer science course, and gave a fantastic talk about Cyborgs in Corporate Care. The students and faculty of the Health Humanities program were grateful to engage with her!

Would LOVE to read this state-of-the-field essay.

💙

Most striking given today's news, the film features a respected newspaper that has been taken over by an oligarch who hopes to use it for his own political gain. It opens with a sequence where the emblem/motto of the paper is being chiseled off the building and replaced while staff are fired.

Last night, I happened to catch a screening of Frank Capra's MEET JOHN DOE (1941) at a local theatre. The movie is about how fascism uses populism to destroy democratic institutions. It's really well done, worth watching, but unsettlingly relevant in 2025.