Michael Stausberg

Friedrich Merz in der Siegerpose. Zur Einordnung: die CDU hat bescheidene 3,6 Prozent hinzugewonnen. Sein Ergebnis ist fast 4 Prozent schlechter als Merkels 2017.

Cannot believe our luck

Courtesy D. Hansor

I tried. Can you help?

What is your definition of playful scholarship?

Personally I think I would find it much more difficult to research music I don't enjoy than religious or political ideologies that I don't endorse. What is your take?

Isn't that call for amnesia precisely an example of "politics of scholarship"?

Fascinating read

Transcript: Paul Krugman on Trump Voters Getting “Brutally Scammed” An interview with economist Paul Krugman, who explains how Trump's plans are already threatening to wreck the good economy he's inheriting—and why his voters will be the big losers.

"It seems that actually knowing what you’re talking about is disqualifying for this government."
Paul Krugman on Trump Voters Getting “Brutally Scammed” newrepublic.com/article/1901... via @newrepublic.com

To the extent that there are replies at all

Differences in misinformation sharing can lead to politically asymmetric sanctions - Nature We find that conservatives tend to share more low-quality news through social media than liberals, and so even if technology companies enact politically neutral anti-misinformation policies, political...

🚨In Nature🚨
Meta is dropping fact-checking to avoid anti-conservative bias- but is there actually evidence of bias?
We this test empirically & find that conservatives
* ARE suspended more
* BUT share more misinfo
So suspension isn't necessarily evidence of bias www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Spread word!

Peter Van Nuffelen is recruiting two postdocs for his ERC Advanced Grant project 'New Polities. Political Thought in the First Millennium'. The candidates should have experience with Hebrew, Middle-Persian or Arabic sources.

Ghent and its university come highly recommended.

Religionswissenschaft In 27 anschaulich geschriebenen und allgemein zugänglichen Kapiteln vermitteln Religionswissenschaftler:innen aus Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz in diesem Band einen einzigartigen Einstieg in...

www.degruyter.com/document/isb... Mai 2025

*_The End of an Era: India Post Abolishes Book Post Service_*
_~ Manish Modi_

...India Post has abruptly discontinued its Book Post service, a facility that has been in operation since the inception of the postal service in India...

On December 11th, #ParastooAhmadi held a conceptual concert in a Tehran *caravanserai. It was broadcast live on YouTube. (Link below) December 12th, the Judiciary filed cases against her and her team, alleging violations of "legal and religious standards."
About the concert she said,

The world population grew fast over the last 60 years, but farmers grew fruits and vegetables even faster For almost all of human history, food was scarce for nearly everyone. The reason for this perpetual scarcity was that whenever food production increased, it did not lead to more food per capita but to...

ourworldindata.org/data-insight...

So the title really should be Religion in 500 minutes...

"il 20,9% degli italiani asserisce che gli ebrei dominano il mondo tramite la finanza" Dal capitolo «La società italiana al 2024» del 58° Rapporto Censis sulla situazione sociale del Paese.

"49,7% degli italiani non sa indicare correttamente l’anno della Rivoluzione francese, il 30,3% non sa chi è Giuseppe Mazzini (per il 19,3% è stato un politico della prima Repubblica)."

Sindrome italiana 6 Dicembre 2024 La sindrome italiana è la continuità nella medietà, in cui restiamo intrappolati: né capitomboli rovinosi nelle fasi recessive, né scalate eroiche nei cicli positivi. Ma nasconde una i...

www.censis.it/rapporto-ann...
"il 38,3% degli italiani si sente minacciato dall’ingresso nel Paese dei migranti, il 29,3% prova ostilità per chi è portatore di una concezione della famiglia divergente da quella tradizionale, il 21,8% vede il nemico in chi professa una religione diversa."

"Gli studenti quindicenni italiani sono quelli che in Europa dedicano più tempo ai compiti a casa: una media di 2,3 ore al giorno. Anche il tempo della frequenza scolastica è tra i più elevati: in media 27,2 ore alla settimana." Dal Rapporto Censis sulla situazione sociale del Paese/2024

Il capitolo «Processi formativi» del 58° Rapporto Censis sulla situazione sociale del Paese/2024 6 Dicembre 2024 Roma, 6 dicembre 2024 – I compiti a casa sono un valore aggiunto? Gli studenti quindicenni italiani sono quelli che in Europa dedicano più tempo ai compiti a casa: una media di 2,3 ore...

www.censis.it/formazione/i... Gli italiani che parlano una lingua straniera abbastanza bene da partecipare a una conversazione sono il 44% della popolazione, meno della media Ue: 59%. Nel 2012 erano però solo il 38%, sono quindi aumentati di 6 punti percentuali.

Whenever I booked a ticket there was a strike, or the train got cancelled

21st Century Theories of Religion What is religion and how does it originate? What are its functions and how does it work? These are some of the key questions addressed by theories of religion. Far from being a past concern, a series ...

Just out www.routledge.com/21st-Century...

The Indian Supreme Court Thursday upheld a Madras High Court order which said that salaries paid to Catholic nuns and priests working as teachers in aided schools run by the church are subject to income tax.

Friends attending this year's #aarsbl did you hear any aha-experience paper?

The new Bonhoeffer movie isn’t just bad. It’s dangerous. By egregiously misreading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s moral crisis, it primes viewers for...

www.christiancentury.org/features/new...
Worth the read. "The film whitewashes the real Bonhoeffer’s crushing sense of uselessness, offering instead a Bonhoeffer who promises that violence can make us pure."