“Higher education, and the press that reports on it, both tend to look disproportionately at the Ivies for guidance and leadership. But the Ivies don’t represent the circumstances and conditions at the vast majority of institutions in this country….”

Josh Eyler@josheyler.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My op-ed about Harvard and its new grade cap is out today in The Hill. I’d love to hear what you think. thehill.com/opinion/educ...

Exciting update from our program, where @burnidge.bsky.social is going great work iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/05/26/u...

University of Northern Iowa to lead collaborative religious studies initiative • Iowa Capital Dispatch

UNI professor Cara Burnidge will lead a collaborative religious studies initiative with University of Iowa and Iowa State University faculty.

iowacapitaldispatch.com

Tomorrow (May 22) at 6:00 pm EDT, Judson Memorial Church welcomes @wmstell.bsky.social, author of Born Again Queer. He'll discuss his history of the rise and fall of evangelical gay activism, shining a light on this largely forgotten chapter in American evangelicalism. Learn more: buff.ly/GtWaEMm

It's not brainstorming if you don't use your brain to do it.

Rachael Nevins ❌👑@rachaelnevins.bsky.social · 3mo ago

“Use AI to brainstorm but not to write.” “Use AI to help you outline but not to write.” These are commonly proposed as “ethical” ways for undergrad students to use AI, but I’m sorry, brainstorming & outlining are just as integral to writing as the actual construction of sentences.

AND further evidence of confusion about what teaching (and even knowledge) actually is. Knowledge is NOT a synonym for information. Teaching is not just communicating information.

Dr. Damien P. Williams has to go the way his blood beats@wolven.blacksky.app · 3mo ago

Not only is this "Atomic" bullshit from ASU precisely and exactly the wrong way to go about using "AI" to develop course materials, it is in fact a culmination of many of my nightmare scenarios.

There has to be some interesting philosophy about how the Internet is both forever, and also a remarkably fragile storage medium for knowledge and history.

Kate Knibbs@knibbs.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Journalists know that losing the Wayback Machine would be a nightmare: www.wired.com/story/the-in...

Super weird that broad bipartisan support for violently crushing student protest was effective. Really makes you think

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · 4mo ago

As President Donald Trump’s unauthorized war on Iran with Israel entered into its second month, some Democratic officials were looking around and wondering: Where are the anti-war protests this time around? And why are college campuses so quiet? @lauren-egan.bsky.social takes a look.

Yes, and this pattern pre-dates MAGA by 200+ years religious liberty in the US has consistently made assumptions about “good” religion (deserving of religious freedom) & “bad” religion (those that aren’t bc they are perceived as “foreign,” coercive, or incompatible with democracy) We see that here

Adam "I Was Hoping We Could Keep It" Laats@adamlaats.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Is it possible that MAGA types really don't see the difference between: "I want more religion in public schools" -and- "I want more of MY religion in public schools." [gift link]

Girls be like “I needed this” and it’s @kkdumez.bsky.social historicizing white Christian women.

Kristin Du Mez@kkdumez.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Thrilled to finally be at this point—LIVE LAUGH LOVE releases in September and it’s now available for preorder! Live Laugh Love is about exactly what you think it is… open.substack.com/pub/kristind...

10 years. A love letter to diversity workers. And gratitude for my complaint collective. substack.com/@feministkil...

Sara Ahmed (@feministkilljoys)

Ten years ago this month, I resigned from my post and my profession in protest at the failure of my institution to deal with the problem of sexual harassment. It was a lot to give up. But it was neces...

substack.com

And this, my friends, is why we will always need to study the Humanities. The human condition don’t quit.

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 5mo ago

*sees a group of neighbors fighting ICE* “We are going to win!” Five minutes later. *sees someone post a disclaimer on Facebook that Meta doesn’t have permission to use their photos.* “Oh, yeah, no we gonna die.”

Almost as unpleasant as watching people newly interested in the phenomenon they didn’t see coming writing and being cited over the highly knowledgeable people who did.

Nicholas Grossman@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 5mo ago

“Who could’ve seen this coming?” is highly unpleasant when the answer is “most people who know anything about this big topic and they’ve been saying so for years.”

The danger to my job from AI isn't that AI can do my job, it's that my job is made even more precarious by the way AI is shaping ideas of the value of work. It can't do my job, but it can be part of convincing people (incorrectly) that my job isn't necessary.

It was only 20 years ago that specialists in the history of US foreign policy began to take religion seriously* in foreign relations. Before that the consensus was religion was at best a “side issue.” So if you’re now on board, don’t forget to cite who taught you what is “obvious” now *YMMV

Just like the goal for the elite is to accumulate wealth without labor (various forms of extraction and exploitation), the goal here is to accumulate “knowledge” without thinking (also various forms of extraction and exploitation)

404 Media@404media.co · 5mo ago

The creator of the AI agent “Einstein” wants to free humans from the burden of academic labor. Critics say that misses the point of education entirely.

“AI is the future” The future:

Christopher Mims@mims.bsky.social · 5mo ago

AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases www.newscientist.com/article/2516...

Seems like lots of people are discovering ideas about a “family” or “household” vote as a sign Christian nationalism. As w/much of CN discourse, historians of women’s history did the work 30+ years ago See Elna Green’s Southern Strategies (UNC 1997), uncpress.org/978080784641...

Southern Strategies

The biographies of more than 800 women form the basis for Elna Green’s study of the suffrage and the antisuffrage movements in the South. Green’s compreh...

uncpress.org

I’m also very much looking forward to visiting the @uvmvermont.bsky.social next week for a book talk on "Martyrs and Migrants" @nyupress.bsky.social. Here are the details: Date: Tuesday, March 3 Time: 3:30–5:00 PM Location: Lafayette 210 If you are in the area, I’d love to see you there.

“it is heartbreaking to report on this news knowing how impactful these classes can be for students not only in the major, but also students who have taken classes as general education requirements or electives.”

Kyla Wazana Tompkins@kwazana.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Another win for viewpoint diversity dailyiowan.com/2026/02/12/o...

Another win for viewpoint diversity dailyiowan.com/2026/02/12/o...

Opinion | Closing the African American Studies program is a gut wrenching loss to faculty and students

In the middle of January the UI Office of Strategic Communications put out a news release that the University of Iowa would conduct a review of low enrollment undergraduate majors to assess their dema...

dailyiowan.com

This “debate” about Claude’s selfhood just might be a reflection of how there actually isn’t consensus on “human” …a topic often explored in HUMANITIES classes

The New Yorker@newyorker.com · 6mo ago

Experiments conducted with the A.I. system Claude are producing fascinating results—and raising questions about the nature of selfhood. Gideon Lewis-Kraus reports from inside the company that designed it, Anthropic. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/rOfXjg

Age verification? I called a number I memorized to learn what the weather forecast was for the day.

The Sermon on the Mount, by Beryl Lewis, before 1965, 📸 by @ScottStrazzante

Bouie rightly compares Trump with Wilson but what we often overlook with both is that their racism (devotion to white superiority) is inseparable from their commitment to patriarchy. Beyond “men as leaders” patriarchy here means men as sovereigns— the legitimate political authority over all others

jamelle@jamellebouie.net · 6mo ago

"For years, a cottage industry of political observers has contorted itself to obscure and occlude the obvious. That regardless of what others see in him, Trump’s entire political career...cannot be understood outside the context of his bitter, deep-seated racism." (gift link)

Yes x 1000. I told my editors that all of the LLM drama came for romance (thanks to the Amazon marketplace) over a decade ago. Every iteration after that has been the same cycle over and over again. Can’t get serious people to treat it seriously, however, because it’s about women’s economic activity

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 6mo ago

“Whenever the publishing industry is rocked by a technological shift, it usually hits romance first.”

Patricia Matthew and her contributors already explained how all faculty don’t have the same job (Written/Unwritten [2016]), but it’s about to be more transparent based where you work (not just your title and rank)

Inside Higher Ed @insidehighered.com · 6mo ago

Tenure Eliminated at Oklahoma Colleges Regional and community colleges professors will no longer receive tenure; research university faculty are spared, with some exceptions. https://bit.ly/4tlEtUq #EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd

Thank you for contacting the void. How may we direct your scream?

you personally have the ability to secure elections for yourself and your neighbors.

There are at least 2 things here that humanities-based Religion scholars do well & can help students do too: 1. Analyze competing religious claims (Pope Leo vs Johnson’s Christianity) 2. Analyze Christian secularism(s) Poll data doesn’t help the public figure out what to do here

Jack Jenkins@jackjenkins.me · 6mo ago

Note: Speaker Johnson has since posted a lengthy theological argument on his Twitter feed about this (only part of it is below). He frames it as his response to the "insistence of the progressive Left" — but the impetus here is religious criticism of Trump's immigration policies from *Pope Leo.*