Mark Lycett

Do you think this is the first time Bartolome de las Casas has been labeled part of the "woke mob"?

The National Museum of Asian Art is returning three bronzes to the Indian government after extensive provenance research indicated that the objects were removed from their original sites illegally. https://wapo.st/4pY1tpr

I want to say a bit more about our initiative to hire scholars to 3yr Research Associate positions.

None of us know what the twinning of humanities research support and employment will look like in another 5(?) years. But we do know that we need it. As a matter of social and cultural health. 1/

Fantastic fellowship opportunity for Southeast Asian postdoctoral scholars from the @asianstudies.org! Details below --

STATEMENT REGARDING DETENTION OF STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE MEMBER IN MINNESOTA JANUARY 24, 2026 I was notified today, January 24, 2026, that a Standing Rock Sioux Tribe member has been detained by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the state of Minnesota. Tribal leadership is actively working to locate the individual, gather accurate information, and coordinate with the appropriate authorities to secure their release. At this time, details surrounding the detention remain limited. I urge the public to refrain from spreading unverified information while this matter is being reviewed. Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will continue to advocate for the protection of our citizen's rights and will provide updates as appropriate.

ICE has kidnapped another Indigenous person in Minneapolis. This is the fifth member of the Očhéthi Šakówinnto be taken this month.

Statement from Standing Rock:

Pick.
A.
Side.

If you turn away from what's happening and have ANY political power, you've made your choice.

You're supporting the killing and kidnapping of innocent people.

And people around the US -- and the world -- are bearing witness.

From this moment forward (and before, but clearly now):

-If you work for ICE.
-If you vote for money for ICE.

You are complicit. This is the gestapo. You're on the wrong side. You can't pretend not to know.

*POSTDOC ANNOUNCEMENT* @casipenn.bsky.social @upenn.edu

We invite recent PhDs in the social sciences, whose work focuses on contemporary India, to apply for a postdoctoral fellowship position for the 2026-2027 academic year. Review of applications begins Feb 2.

More at the link below 👇

Humanities Endowment Awarding Millions to Western Civilization Programs

This is suitably f’d up

[gift link]

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/a...

I've been mostly offline today and I saw Erik Von Daniken died. He was a virulent racist and bigot and a convicted felon, and his alien archaeology "theories"
did incalculable harm to the field of archaeology. Those are his legacies.

Some important new government policy that Native Americans might be interested in:

The Cherokee were forced out of Franklin, North Carolina, in the 19th century, setting off a spate of land ownership disputes. For generations, the mound was passed between non-Native private citizens and the town government.

Now, that’s changing. https://wapo.st/4swJitC

Golden rooftops of a Southeast Asian temple complex with a city skyline in the background promoting the Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellowship in Southeast Asian Studies.

A reminder to Southeast Asian Studies scholars that we are accepting applications to the Gosling-Lim postdoctoral fellowship—but *only* until February 2. Prepare and submit your application materials before then to be considered for this opportunity!

bit.ly/AASGL

Texas A&M Bans Plato - Daily Nous Drop the race and gender material from your course and the Plato readings, or teach a different course. You have a day to decide. That's a paraphrase of what Martin Peterson, professor of philosophy a...

"I’m going to pause here just to review: an institution that purports to be a university has told a philosophy professor he is forbidden from teaching Plato."

surreal times

dailynous.com/2026/01/06/t...

A stone bench in a very small 15th century temple. With a hat and a coffee cup and a thermos sitting on it.

Coffee Break, Brahmagiri, Karnataka, India 2025

Ricoh Gr1, Motipix 50d

#BelieveInFilm #Fieldwork

I'm glad that Congress isn't alive to see this

Cool 🫠

The White House is confirming U.S. military operations in Venezuela tonight. Let us be clear: these strikes are illegal. The President does not have the authority to declare war or undertake large-scale military operations without Congress. Congress must act to rein him in. Immediately.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury:

Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth looked every Senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change. I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress.

While the Senate is asking Trump why they started a war to kidnap a foreign leader perhaps they might also ask why Trump freed a former foreign leader convicted of the same kind of crimes.

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

- Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, Vol. 22, 30 Sept. 1946

The FIFA Peace Prize doesn't mean what it used to

Im seeing discussions about consultations with congress, authorizations of force etc. I have to say this transcends any of what I would call sub constitutional technicalities. The president has gone to war with a foreign power and, it seems, kidnapped a foreign head of state on the basis of nothing.

Federal Grants for Area Studies and Foreign Language at Risk Expected funding for National Resource Centers, which are dedicated to language and area studies education, never came through this summer. Experts worry this could spell disaster for the already-stru...

Flagging #HigherEd news that has gone under-reported: the axing of Title VI National Resource Centers. These provided instruction in rare-but-important languages (like Kreyòl!) and allowed scholars from different disciplines to collaborate on a shared area.

Huge loss for the whole research triangle.

Centers cut are the the Carolina Asia Center, the Institute for the Study of the Americas, and the centers for European Studies, African Studies, Middle East and Islamic Studies, and Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies

Total of 14 will be cut :(

Happy to announce that Gareth Nellis will be the incoming Director of @casipenn.bsky.social starting this July :)

www.sas.upenn.edu/news/gareth-...

Oh and on the subject of public schools trying to get out of educating special needs kids...

When my husband was a hospital social worker he had a patient whose family was being told by their school district that they should probably disenroll their kid and look for a specialized private school.

This means NSF dissertation improvement grants in the social sciences are simply...not happening.