Dr. Chance Bonar

The article also points to the corruption of the selection process for new NEH grants.

BREAKING: The US has bombed Tehran’s main refinery and burning oil is now flooding down the streets into the city’s sewers.

This is a vision from hell, unleashed by the US tonight.

(🎥 Vahid Online)

When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities

What we suspected is, of course, true.

“A Clear Account of the Codex Simonideios:” Ideological Infrastructures of Biblical Vulnerability in the Nineteenth Century In: Philological Encounters Author: Andrew S. Jacobs Online Publication Date: 24 Feb 2026 Abstract Metadata References Metrics Abstract Soon after Constantin Tischendorf (1815–74) publicized his “discovery” of the Codex Sinaiticus, notorious manuscript broker (and forger) Konstantinos Simonides stunned elite literary circles by announcing that Simonides himself had produced this biblical codex in his youth as a gift for the Russian tsar. Simonides claimed that his “Codex Simonideios” was illicitly being passed off as an ancient biblical codex after being mutilated and disfigured. I argue that this brief but explosive debate about manuscripts, forgeries, and “find” narratives produces a biblical text liable to revision and emendation, due to new discoveries or new methods, and so vulnerable to mischievous actors manipulating the possibilities of new discoveries and methods. The iterative process of attack and defense on display in this codicological debate has remained, in various guises, from collegial disagreement to scorched earth campaigns, an ideological component of critical biblical studies.

well helloooooo

brill.com/view/journal...

Not me, I’m only 32

Luckily, the important work of folks like @norbertnagy.bsky.social (also included in this volume) will be moving our field forward!

Plus, I was lucky enough to mentor the two scholars who wrote a contribution on fat studies & the historical Jesus for this volume

So excited to contribute a chapter on slavery and the historical Jesus to @mbrandonmassey.bsky.social and Wolfgang Grünstäudl’s forthcoming volume!

As I talk about here, slavery is conspicuously missing from most convos about the historical Jesus & really needs to be rectified

Pasts Imperfect (3.5.26) Across the world—from the United States to Canada to Australia—departments and museums within higher education are closing. This week, ancient historian Geoffrey Greatrex discusses the suspension of t...

The latest Pasts Imperfect is out, focused on the closing of humanities depts. & museums. @otavano.bsky.social discusses the U. of Ottawa, @mokersel.bsky.social on the DePaul Art Museum, @meirazk.bsky.social & @vox-magica.bsky.social on shuttering religious studies depts, & Justin Vorhis on U. Iowa.

Nominations are open now for this year's Cribiore Award, which recognizes outstanding translations from Ancient Greek or Latin by Society members. Review eligibility requirements: classicalstudies.org/awards-and-f... and apply here: apply.classicalstudies.org

CNN: More than 1,000 civilians killed in Iran since war began, rights group reports By Helen Regan More than 1,000 people, including children, have been killed in Iran since the war began on Saturday, according to US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). The rights group said as of Tuesday afternoon ET, at least 1,097 civilians had been killed, including 181 children. More than 5,400 civilians, including 100 children, have been injured, HRANA reported. The group said its report is preliminary and is veritying hundreds more reported deaths.

At least 1,097 civilians had been killed in Iran so far, including 181 children.

This includes the the entire city of Sour (Tyre), one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities, with a population of ~135,200 people

I'm a palestinian with the right to a homeland & self determination not because my ancestors crawled out of the sea in ancient times onto the beach in yaffa as fully formed Palestinians.

I have a right to a homeland and self determination because i'm a human being.

accommodations didn’t exist when i was in college in the early 00s. of course there’s a “spike.” that’s a good thing; it means we’re getting better at educating all students.

The SBL call for papers closes March 4. Consider submitting a proposal for the Christian apocrypha section.

Jeremiah Coogan, "Uses and Abuses of the Gospel(s) according to the Hebrews." Friday, March 6, 2026 at 12:00 EST. Register at nasscalworkshop@gmail.com.

Join us March 6 for the latest First Friday Christian Apocrypha Workshop with Jeremiah Coogan (Jesuit School of Theology).

for what it cost for our allies to shoot down three of our own planes by accident in a murderous illegal war we could have funded the NEH at 150% of its historic peak funding for a year

Thing is, I don't really believe that Israel forced the US's hand here, no matter what Rubio may say. The US just doesn't take actions it does not want to take. What is actually happening here is much darker - Rubio is using Israel as a scapegoat to avoid taking US responsibility for the war.

Screenshot of a 3hr old post from the GW Hatchet: “BREAKING: GW sold its Virginia campus to Amazon Data Services, an Amazon subsidiary that manages the company's data centers, for $427 million on Friday. The deed, obtained by The Hatchet, authorizes ADS to develop the campus into a data or information technology center. STORY TK”

GW‘s student newspaper appears to have broken the story that the institution has sold a satellite campus to Amazon to be turned into a data center, which is just about chef’s kiss for the state of American higher education rn

Kash Patel and other Justice Department officials shut down a civil rights investigation into Renee Good’s killing.

Unacceptable.

The truth must come out.

By Killing Khamenei, the West Created a Martyr – and Mainstream Media Is Ignoring the Muslim Backlash Ali Khamenei was not Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi. Killing him will have religious reverberations throughout the Muslim world for years to come.

"By killing [Khamenei], the US and Israel didn’t just strike Iran’s government. They struck a spiritual leader with transnational religious authority – and created exactly the kind of martyr that galvanizes movements for generations." - fascinating and important piece by Iran scholar Narges Bajoghli

Benjamin Netanyahu’s long career was built on conflict avoidance—then, October 7 transformed and radicalized him, @Yair_Rosenberg argues:

OMFG they think we are the dumbest people who ever lived.

The US embassy in Riyadh is on fire. Just like the rest of the region x.com/timourazhari...

Call for Papers. In recent decades, scholars have turned their attention toward the topics of: (1) environments, landscapes, and more-than-human relationships, and; (2) forced displacement, separation from kin or homeland, diasporic experiences, and the "social death" of enslavement. In the ancient world, where religious actors looked to earthquakes, floods, bird movements, tamines, and plagues as signs of divine will, more-than-human actors and the environment itself shaped how people imagined and performed violence-as well as now landscapes could do violence to them. Additionally, multiple populations in antiquity experienced real and imagined violence inflected by migration, displacement, enslavement, and loss of kin or land ties. For this open call, we are especially interested in paper submissions that explore some aspect of the environmental and ecological dimensions of religious violence and representations of violence in ancient Mediterranean and West Asian worlds, or that critically examine the historical realities and rhetoric of displacement, separation, and enslavement as violent mechanisms in ancient religious thought and practice. Beyond these specific topics, we are interested more generally in papers that use innovative methodological and theoretical approaches to explore the effects of violence on-and the causes of violence by-religious actors, as well as papers that offer analogical materials to bolster our analyses of religiously inflected violence in modernity.

One last push as well for the Violence and Representations of Violence unit that I co-chair for #SBLAAR2026!

Submit your papers and teach us about ancient violence

members.sbl-site.org/cfp-detail?z...

One more push: submit papers for the Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom unit at SBL before the Friday deadline!

The Department of Education has hung a massive banner honoring a racist college dropout who built a lucrative career out of targeting professors for harassment

I'm hiring! 🏛️

This is a VA-based, hybrid 3-year position for a historian working on digital projects related to religious history. We'll also be hiring a historian working on onsite programming and training related to religious history.

Feel free to reach out! www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/43...

Years ago our admin did a red and black report. It took salaries & how much $ each instructor made in tuition $ for classes we taught-you were in the red or black. They released numbers once & shut it down bc humanities were producing huge $ for uni & engineers, business and scientists were losing $

Reading student essays about RA work reminds me how extremely exploitative St. Olaf's RA/JC compensation package was when I did it.

$1500 for the year. No room/board remission. 10% of what many student RAs rightly get now for their residential work with undergrads.

What is an Academic Field? Some Positive Reflections Hello! I received my PhD in Medieval History in May 2025 and am using my expertise to educate interested people in the Middle Ages and the process of creating history. Subscribing as either a free or ...

Things in the academic world (and elsewhere) are pretty grim currently. I wanted to write something a bit more positive, and personal, about what an academic field can be. Partially inspired by a moment of existential terror when I opened a journal and didn't recognize any of the names. #medievalsky

Reminder to apply for our advising/teaching job and join us in Charlottesville