Jeremy Simmons

End of an era in American Jewish history.

Happy start to the autumn quarter to all who celebrate!

This is much more comprehensive than my own list, and reassuringly familiar from my experience of marking. I’ll be sharing the list with my students, both to think about writing for different audiences (encyclopaedia articles) and being aware of the weakness of LLM generated text.

How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."

me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

AAH Annual Conference 2026 | The University of Iowa The 2026 AAH Annual Meeting will take place in person at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA from April 16-18, 2026. We invite abstracts for papers of 15-20 minutes in length. Please submit anonym...

The Association of Ancient Historians meeting will be in Iowa City from April 16-18, 2026. For those new to the AAH, we have preset panel themes; you pick 1 to apply to. The theme overall is Ancient Exchanges in a Global Antiquity. See CFP: abstracts are due by December 1. aah.conference.uiowa.edu

Classical Art and Ancient India Proceedings of the Workshop Held in Oxford, 21-22 March 2023 Edited by Peter Stewart

Interested in a global antiquity? There is a new, open access vol. _Classical Art and Ancient India_edited by Peter Stewart. 🌏

“This volume explores India's connections with the Med. and Western Asia during Graeco-Roman history, highlighting artistic exchanges” www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...

An Open Letter to Our Students: Universities Do Not Deserve You At the start of the school year, two professors provide some hard truths about the state of academia and what you should fight for.

really dig this piece in the nation today www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Another important review

An important review

After the Roman Republic fell in 27 BC, the Roman Empire flourished for another 450 years. Could the same thing happen here?

I did it the other way

Among college graduates ages 22 to 27, computer science and computer engineering majors are facing some of the highest unemployment rates, 6.1 percent and 7.5 percent respectively, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That is more than double the unemployment rate among recent biology and art history graduates, which is just 3 percent.

Considering getting this passage from the NYT article printed on totes for our art history majors. Too much?

Thanks! And yes, gemstones and other beads appear throughout

Congratulations!

So, if humanities produce good job outcomes, humanities have a secure ROI that bring in more than they cost, and STEM now has an even lower ROI due to grant cuts…. shouldn’t we invest more in humanities where less $$ goes a longer way? Apparently not. We should ask why not. /9

as someone who doesn't have to imagine, let me tell you that it's ass

Looking forward to reading this!

Decades of mechanistic talk about university degrees as if they were bundles of 'skills' and 'prep' are about to be proved completely wrong (obviously). Want to get a real boost? Do History or English.

A lovely ram on a tendril, Oplontis

A lovely painted pattern on columns, Oplontis

A lovely peacock with theater mask and architectural background, Oplontis

Lavish architectural fresco, Oplontis

Oplontis, by contrast, was deserted, which always shocks me given the richness of the site and its proximity to Pompeii. Simply stunning paintings and plasters—and the space to appreciate them fully

A fresco of a young girl holding a bird, Pompeii

Venus on a clam shell, Pompeii

Fresco of Silenus, Pompeii

A lovely little screen in the wall of an insula, Pompeii

We certainly did *not* have Pompeii to ourselves—hot, crowded, and too much touching (had to tell off someone reaching for plastered human remains in the antiquarium!). But we managed to see some old and new favorites, as well as a friend who is excavating there

A view of the Capua arena

The substructure of the Capua arena

Marble decoration from the Capua arena.

Mannequins playing gladiators.

And, finally, the imperial amphitheater at Capua. Something for everyone: romps in cryptoportici and substructure; adjacent Samnite tombs; wonderful sculpture. There was even an exhibit for those who come just for the gladiators

A fascinating clay vessel with etching meanders and inset bronze disks, Capua Museum

A lovely piece of bucchero, Capua Museum

Some pretty wild bronze fibulae with wild spirals and anthro-/zoomorphic figures. Still don’t know how these work!

A lovely terracotta head, Capua Museum

Then the archaeological museum in Capua, with its weird and wonderful finds, especially from before the Punic Wars. Such a mix of materials and influences: pottery with inset bronze, wild fibulae, imitative bucchero nero, and lots of terracotta

A lavishly decorated Hellenistic hypogeum, with painted walls, funerary couches (including pillows), and Medusa head. Also a lovely red cocciopesto floor.

Details of painted “legs” of funerary couches, imitating inlaid ivory of the real thing, and a rich yellow for the crossbeam of the couch

Faded details along the pediment of the upper level of a hypogeum, sporting masks

Part of a painted kline and painted base of a candelabra. The bases of two actual modern lamps stand right next to the trompe l'oeil candelabra.

We (amazingly) had a lot of ancient stuff all to ourselves today. First, a series of *spectacular* hypogea, tombs in (re)use from the fourth c. BCE on. Such amazing details preserved on the walls and funerary couches. I got a kick out of the modern lamp bases next to the ancient painted candelabra

A mushroom in the sea

View of Casamicciola harbor, Ischia

Trellises of the Villa Arbusto, Pithecusae Museum, Ischia

Took the afternoon to beat the heat on Ischia—just gorgeous!

A gorgeous pair of fish on a proto-geometric vessel, Pithecusae Museum, Ischia

The ancient city walls of Neapolis, sunken beneath the eateries of Piazza Bellini

Nestor’s cup, boasting the oldest known inscription using the Greek alphabet, Pithecusae Museum, Ischia (teared up when I saw it)

Pizza Napoli 😋

Had a bit of a time getting here (a wild flight delay), but started strong with some treats in Naples and on Ischia

We’re off to the Bay of Naples for some much needed R&R—with plenty of ancient sites and delectable eats @heintgestae.bsky.social

Congrats to the newly minted Dr. @heintgestae.bsky.social! So proud of her 😊

The linked article lists Classical Studies as one of the departments at Indiana University that "could lose its main offerings."

This is a major US university with a distinguished tradition in Classics.

Dire news.

In my book on the polis, I argue that despite of nativist ideology, the realities of citizenship, based on communal acceptance & successful performance of duties, meant a certain porosity. I.e. precisely not the maximalist cruelty of Miller's immigration policy, carried bout by ICE thugs.