Dr. Chance Bonar

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

Teaching students and the public the difference between the descriptive and the prescriptive/normative is another reason we need humanities (and robust education in general). To explain, to contextualize, even to sympathetically elucidate the insider logic of something is obviously not to endorse it

Sign the Petition Keep the Classical Languages Major at the University of Iowa

Hi friends. As I previously noted, the U. of Iowa is planning to get rid of African American studies; Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, & the Classical Languages major—along with others. If you wish, please sign the classics petition: www.change.org/p/keep-the-c.... I will add more as I find out.

Reminder that the last time the US had congressional approval to formally declare war was June 1942.

Every war in my and my parents’ lives—and every war my grandparents were forced to fight in—has been illegal according to Article I Section 8, but it’s never stopped our bloodthirsty politicians

Grateful to participate in an event in solidarity with Palestine this Ramadan, and to read an excerpt from my forthcoming book on ancient Gazan literature

"The Islamists oppose women getting an education," I mutter, as I aim my missile at the girls school

Crowd shot of protesters filling Times Square outside the U.S. military recruitment center.

Protester holds a hand-made sign that reads, "Bombing kids, genocide do not equal 'Self-Defense'"

Protester holds hand-lettered sign that reads, "U.S. out of Iran! U.S. out of Korea! U.S. out of everywhere!"

Protesters wearing keffiyeh next to an Iranian flag

Stop the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran!
Rally and march in Times Square, NYC
Feb. 28, 2026

Reports now that this has been revised up to 85 dead, with even more injured

A judge just tossed out Columbia University's disciplinary actions against 22 students over the 2024 Hamilton Hall occupation, finding the school relied on sealed arrest records and held individuals responsible for group actions, violating its own rules.

iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/Documen...

My Ethics of Work and Leisure course is over, so no more teaching until next academic year!

Next up is developing a course on ancient Mediterranean magic 🪄

Men studying a dragon

ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIP IN HISTORY OF SCIENCE
My home department at Uppsala University is advertising an endowed professorship in the history of science. This is the best position in the field in Sweden, and probably in all of Scandinavia. Apply before 30 April 2026. www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

not sure about listening to the whole thing? that's ok. have a little bit, as a treat. @profgabriele.com and @rachelschine.bsky.social get a bit shouty about why historians shouldn't blame shift but should tell the truth about the past! #medievalsky

youtube.com/shorts/XTGB6...

God damn @historianca.bsky.social is a good writer.

Thus starts a vicious cycle: at research universities, fields that teach “skills,” rather than “produce research” are targeted for cuts. Nevermind that “research” gets defined as “generating IP for corporations to use to get rich”

The Iowa case also shows how demands that curricula align with the goal of producing “high-demand jobs and [meeting] workforce needs” is code for “cut the humanities and/or turn them into service departments that teach ‘skills,’ not produce knowledge“

“Low enrollment“ is always a bad argument (tho one that many humanists buy into in worries about “declining” majors) but it’s a particular sham at a research university. These are vital, active research fields that produce important knowledge, which is why research universities must support them.

UI African American, Gender Studies faculty prepare for program closures University of Iowa faculty in African American Studies and Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies are preparing for closure of their programs following a review of "low-enrollment" degrees and majors ...

The closing of African American Studies and GWSS at Iowa is absolutely heartbreaking. It is such an important time to study these subjects. Words really cannot express how upsetting this decision is. www.thegazette.com/higher-educa...

Not satisfied until he’s non grata

The British Museum and Palestine: On Misinformation, Zionist Lobbying, Cultural Erasure, and Complicity in Genocide by Archaeologists Against Apartheid Cover Image: Gold plaque (pendant) representing the Canaanite goddess ‘Astarte’ (repoussé), and other gold and jewellery from Palestine ( 16th c. BCE…

🚨 NEW: The British Museum & Palestine: On Misinformation, Zionist Lobbying, Cultural Erasure & Complicity in Genocide by @archagainstaparth.bsky.social
Incl. a full timeline of the BM X Palestine saga + important connections btw this story & others everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2026/02/25/t...

Zociety for the Zstudy of Ze Zhristianity (Zzzz, to maintain the naps theme)

👀

NAPS draft program up!

t.e2ma.net/click/ywyjyj...

Good. But also? These headlines should be noted. Summers should be resigning. Not because of emails to Epstein, but what was IN those emails. He should be resigning for his racist fetishizing of an Asian protege. Of using his job to attempt to set up sexual encounters. Unprofessional behavior.

The answer of course is that the professors are too