Eric J. Harvey, Ph.D.

Less "too many people are using accommodations in school" and more "Universal Design Learning"

lol. My best friend had a 1982 Ford station wagon in high school and we saw a stat once that it was literally the least stolen car model in America. No one wanted one.

Thanks! Everyone should read Atrahasis all the time because it is awesome.

Book Release—Free to Read for Two Weeks! My new Element, Reading Creation Myths Economically in Ancient Mesopotamia and Israel, has now been released in the Cambridge Elements in Ancient and Premodern Economies series. Elements are short …

Curious about this text? Check out this blog post by @blindscholar.bsky.social, who covers the work in "Reading Creation Myths Economically in Ancient Mesopotamia and Israel"

www.blindscholar.com/2025/08/04/b...

We see similar discourse in Atra-hasis, a literary work from the 2nd millennium BCE that opens with a narrative of dissent between the ruling and the ruled. Humans have spent a long time thinking, writing, and conveying the difficulty of balancing political power and social liberties.

Best gift guide I've seen this year!

Krauss's book is very good. It's called The Fantasy Economy and it's about the economic myths that have pushed higher-ed reform in the direction of STEM career training and away from the humanities and broader goals of education, to the detriment of all.

Would 100% be sharing my Oracc Wrapped.

As Bess Williamson says, "access is excess" is a tried and true rhetorical strategy.

I think one of the reasons the Atlantic stirring up the pot with that accommodations are TOO MUCH article is timing. In the wake of effective attacks on affirmative action in higher ed, it’s REALLY difficult not to see all this discourse as attempts to shape opinion against accommodations/ADA.

ALL IMLS grants restored in every state & territory.

In response to a ruling from a federal judge in Rhode Island, the Institute of Museum and Library Services reinstated all previously canceled grants in every state and territory. It's a huge win for libraries and our communities.

"The reinstatement of all IMLS grants means that libraries across the country will be able to resume vital services for learning, imagination, and economic opportunity. We are breathing a sigh of relief, but the fight is not over." ALA President Sam Helmick. Show up for our libraries, American Library Association.

NEWS: The Institute of Museum & Library Services has restored ALL previously canceled federal grants to libraries, following a ruling by a federal judge in Rhode Island last month.

This is a massive win for libraries & communities in every state & territory!

Learn more: www.ala.org/news/2025/12...

I hereby resolve to read more books, eat more scones,,, and place no fewer than three (3) commas between the penultimate and ultimate items in any written list. Happiness, here I come!

This is a move toward justice for the Institute of Museum & Library Services. #IMLS

Now we await the same for the National Endowment for the Humanities. #NEH

Fun conversation today! Look for it in your pod feeds in a couple months!

Renita Weems writes, “if the Epstein scandal feels shocking, it shouldn’t. The Bible trained us to expect stories where powerful men turn women’s bodies into battlegrounds and metaphors for their own conflicts.”

In light of today’s conversation on academic accommodations, I’m going to revive a thread lost to time when I deleted my Twitter profile.

It’s about a bunch of academic accommodations that instructors can offer in lieu of an extension on an assignment. 🧵

Photo of a fragment of a clay tablet covered in cuneiform script. The tablet is a beige colour and broken at the top

Photo of a fragment of a clay tablet covered in cuneiform script. The tablet is a beige colour and broken at the top

In ancient Mesopotamia, astronomers needed to know the moon’s position, even on a cloudy night.

So they made records and calculations of the moon’s positions and velocity measured in degrees. This record from Uruk or Babylon from the Seleucid period covers 248 days.

📸 by Dr K. Wagensonner

I work in earlier periods but I can vouch Candace's work is great!

Today my screen reader is *almost* being very smart. Product titles are in all caps in the app I was using, so it was reading "750 ML" as "750 megaliters."

What I'm trying to say is, I might need this wine glass if that's not an error!

Has anyone done a study of Exodus-type miracles done by holy people across time? This is fascinating.

And St. Serf says "perhaps stop telling me my business, editor!"But also, is 700,000 any more plausible? Seems like a weird place to take a stand.

Whoa. Really trying to one-up the Exodus there, huh?

I'll wait until there's just one left and have that.

The World's Oldest Letters Podcast Episode · The Ancients · 11/27/2025 · 55m

I had fun doing this podcast episode for The Ancients about Old Babylonian letters! We discussed messengers, scribes, and even a certain copper trader of dubious repute! #eanasir #cuneiform #Mesopotamia
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

I won't stand for Mesopotamia catching strays like this

I always suggest that people think about what urban centres like New York or London were like 150 years ago — dangerous, unbelievably polluted air and water, desperately inequitable, few trees or green space.

And then imagine building the cities where we look back to *today* and see the same thing.

HAND POURED IN SAINT. LOUIS LOOK ON MY CANDLE, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR SCENTED CANDLE 1/8 > Ozymandias-Scented Candle $25.00 USD

“… ‘I am Ozymandias, Candle of Candles / Look on my wicks, ye Mighty, and despair!’…”
jdandkateindustries.com/products/ozy...

Telling that they're all named things like Palantir, Erebor, and Anduril, and not things like The Shire, Old Toby, or Bombadil Industries.

They should all be named Moria.Or Isildur.

I wrote a fun little book about how religion is always material and social, and so always economic, and how some ancient ritual economies were justified in myth!

Makes a great present for the nerdiest and second nerdiest person you know!

https://bookshop.org/a/115568/9781009559911

I guess I now have to do a thread on shoes in ancient Mesopotamia in response to this (which happens to be from one of my favourite accounts).

I’m not an archaeologist, nor do I really know anything about shoes, but let’s go on this journey together.