Isabel Köster

In better news, I’ll never not be delighted to come across Æthelred the Unready in a text.

The New “Book Club” Scam Targeting Authors and How to Spot It A Public Service Post for Writers

I’ve had so much book club spam. Apparently other people have had, too, because this just same from the press marketing department as a general fyi to authors. Lovely.

Three anatomical votive ears placed in three columns, each with a different colour (red, yellow, green), all on a pink background. The title reads “Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World Call for Papers.”

Session #1: An open session for papers in any ancient area. We are particularly interested in new papers that engage new methods in the study of disability and healthcare in the ancient world, e.g. queer/trans histories.

Session #2: Joint session with the Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World unit on the material traces of disability and disenfranchisement, e.g., material religion, subjugation, exploitation, healthcare, agency, etc.

Session #3: Joint session with the Pauline Theology unit engaging any aspect of Pauline Theology through disability studies (e.g., embodiment, stigma, shame, resurrection, divine punishment, autobiography).

The Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World unit is welcoming papers in the following categories for this year's #SBL Annual Meeting: tinyurl.com/29ene8n6

Lego model of a freestanding light brown and gray building with a flat roof labeled "Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Café." It has a glass facade, some bikes are parked out front, and various people (a couple wearing cowboy hats) are mingling.

Frequent CU thought... I miss Innisfree! (The coffee shop that was basically the humanities faculty living room until the pandemic took it out at one of its first acts... here from the Lego model of campus, which also isn't a thing anymore)

I also like "Creative Belonging: The Limits of Ownership in Roman Law and Society."

Look at Mr. Murder Mittens hanging out in great company!

From the google community on Reddit Explore this post and more from the google community

I know there is much out there right now to be much angrier at. But GoogleBooks losing search functionality is super duper bad news bears for researchers in book fields. Like, it’s hard to even express how very very bad. www.reddit.com/r/google/s/O...

This “it’s raining, but it can’t get down to you because the air is too dry” weather phenomenon is on my list of weirdest nature things ever.

I still continue to have a critical view of AI. This does not make me a technophobe nor a caveman.

Visiting AP in Classics and Religious Studies at Hamilton College: Religions of Late Antiquity with the ability to teach Greek and/or Latin and New Testament (in translation).

Review of applications begins February 23, 2026.

CFP for the Digital Classics Association panel at SCS2027 in Boston next January now up on the SCS site—

"Experimental Contexts for Digital Classics"

Submit your abstracts by February 20

classicalstudies.org/annual-meeti...

#digiclass

UNSEEN AND UNHEARD: Lost Voices and Visages from the Ancient Mediterranean World

Further details www.colorado.edu/classics/202...

A projected poster… with a lot of text, so details here https://www.colorado.edu/classics/2025/12/09/unseen-and-unheard-lost-voices-and-visages-ancient-mediterranean-world

At our grad conference today.

Pliny haters?! Maybe college is different, but Pliny is probably my favorite author to teach.

For Boulder locals, sticker credit goes to Two Hands Paperie.

Mauve hard cover notebook with a black and white hand-drawn goat sticker lying on a wooden desk.

Fresh research notebook is GOAT.

For me grad school it was just methods/major scholarly works/intro to different subfields, which I found really useful (and it was for pass/fail credit). Regardless, getting to meet most of the department is also very beneficial.

Yes (sort of a language department), but we do it by rotating each week to a different faculty member to do their thing. It’s a mix of professional development stuff (eg, how to write a conference abstract) and methods/research tools/… No credit, but required.

Today on #tinyjoys: getting a Smith Tea chocolate peppermint pu-erh restock just before it gets totally nasty out. My ice cave has been optimized now.

Story of my zoom teaching.... (and in minute 40 of this 15-minute lecture...)

Calling all the PhDs I know to make monumental annoyances of themselves (and honestly, who better)

These are mostly quite recent (last 5 years), which makes this even weirder. I hope 1–2 of the books I just requested end up coming from that university so I can see if it was perhaps a donation (that's the other option here).

This is one of those "someone explain library acquisitions to me"... why does something called "Life Pacific University" have seemingly every German book on Greek religion I'm ILLing this morning? Like we're talking self-published dissertations etc.

Oh this is a fun thing to think about. I’d likely play with a language. Probably dive into Japanese full-time. Or get good at the other parts of French, not just the reading. But then there’s also wanting to learn a musical instrument properly…

Srsly, when I need help writing a professional email, it goes to someone I know with “HALP!”

Wait, listening to things at 3x speed is no longer good enough for kids these days? (Flashback to the first time a student told me they just watch the recordings because they can make them faster)

Starfleet Academy. It’s a little, um, rough, based on the first episode.

“The cafeteria is on level 6. Make sure to visit because sometimes hanger is the greatest enemy of all.” Let's see whether I make it through more than one episode of Star Trek College.

I once wanted to take a look at some Roman baths near Trier. I was informed by the tourist office that had them on their poster that no, absolutely not, "they're very unhygienic." I hadn't been planning on a swim, but ok. Looks like they were on to something (dirty Pompeian baths; in German only).

Man, I miss it!