Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonNicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Greatest trick AI leaders have pulled is convincing many people—especially influential people in govt, media, and business—that their software is intelligent, independent, yet never culpable. Humans build it, humans deploy it, but no one bears responsibility for the things that happen when they do. 421664465
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonFaine Greenwood @faineg.com · 19/09/2026Innocent civilians are being murdered with dirt-cheap and essentially impossible to ban tiny flying robots at shocking numbers globally (read our piece below). We have REAL, CURRENT cyberpunk horrors to deal with right now, and we don’t need to waste our time on hypothetical AI basilisks. 7962302
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Last week, someone wrote “Kill Amalek” at the bus stop closest to the bench commemorating Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi on the UW campus. It got painted over, so they came back this week and wrote ”Exterminate Amalek” 000
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonAmy Stanley @astanley711.bsky.social · 03/09/2026What is the point of trying so hard to maintain your academic freedom if you’re going to abandon the entire educational enterprise, sacrifice the undergrads to the tech companies, and then light your reputation on fire?thecrimson.comHarvard Humanities Faculty Push Back on Deming’s Call for AI Use in Writing Courses | The Harvard CrimsonHarvard faculty in the humanities and social sciences expressed broad concern over an email Harvard College Dean David J. Deming sent students Wednesday suggesting that artificial intelligence be inte... 213146
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonStacy Fahrenthold @sfahrenthold.bsky.social · 26/08/2026The American Historical Association hired a lobbying firm to help silence member advocacy on Palestine. In this essay, Adam Rzepka covers @historians.org's relationship w/ Thorn Run Partners, its deep ethical conflicts, & the advocacy crisis AHA has thrust upon us. www.chronicle.com/article/a-sc...chronicle.comOpinion | A Scholarly Association’s Secret Washington PlaybookDid the American Historical Association ask a corporate lobbying firm for advice on how to silence its members? 11332196
Reposted by Arbella Bet-Shlimon 🍉نرمين @nerminelsherif.bsky.social · 15/08/2026If you’re curious about how queen Elizabeth appears as a food blogger ranking Cairo’s best Koshari carts, or how Al-share’ beats Bashar Al-assad à la WWE style, check my latest article on AI Slop and the Precarious Politics of Digital Kitsch with @merip.bsky.social www.merip.org/2026/08/the-...merip.orgArab AI Slop and the Precarious Politics of Digital KitschAs Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the subsequent regional war reshape the Arab internet, AI-generated slop has emerged as a new form of digital kitsch and political fantasy fueled by precarious labor. 145
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonSholto David @sholtodavid.bsky.social · 06/08/2026A tool used to rephrase plagiarised text changed "final solution" to "mass killing of an ethnic group" in a chemistry paper. Now retracted thanks to a PubPeer user who spotted this. pubpeer.com/publications... 271037404
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 02/08/2026Mariam and I talked about why it’s important (and hard) to write about genocide denial in the academy, how Assyrian issues are treated by our fields, and more. It’s on YouTube now for anyone who wants to watch: youtu.be/T6mNxrS0w20?...youtu.beIn Conversation with Dr. Arbella Bet-ShlimonYouTube video by Assyrian Studies Association 141
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 01/08/2026Something I haven’t seen discussed much is how some people are drawn to LLMs—if they’re ”anti-AI,” they see them as a temptation to be resisted—while others (me) find them repulsive and wouldn’t use them even if personal and professional norms allowed or encouraged it 160
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonElizabeth Alsop @elizabethalsop.bsky.social · 30/07/2026when cuts like this happen at Harvard of all places it at least clarifies that the motives are ideological not financial — not that it’s any consolation 213453
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonJames Ryan @jdryan08.bsky.social · 20/07/2026I was happy to contribute a couple comments to UW’s student newspaper on the zombie-Title VI NRC competition that is now underway after the administration of the funds moved from ED to State. www.dailyuw.com/article/jack...dailyuw.comJackson School reapplies for federal funding after $2.5 million worth of allocated funds were withheld last yearJackson School reapplies for federal funding after $2.5 million worth of allocated funds were withheld last year 134
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonKevin Gannon (now a Moo Deng fan account) @thetattooedprof.bsky.social · 20/07/2026*These* are the higher education stories that matter, not some half-assed report farted out by a group of faculty cranks at ivy and ivy-adjacent universities 3447164
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 18/07/2026Iraq is a site of contested sovereignties and a barometer for global crises. I’m excited to have contributed to this forthcoming volume (Edinburgh, 2026) that theorizes from Iraq to understand land, law, politics, and to imagine something better 🧿 edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-living-...edinburghuniversitypress.comLiving IraqLiving Iraq 173
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 17/07/2026Well, I’m going to talk in public about my latest article—why it’s important to write critiques like this, the challenges, what editors tell us to leave out—with the great Mariam Georgis. Register here if you’re interested 🙏🏽 us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi... 183
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonLaleh Khalili @lalehkhalili.bsky.social · 24/06/2026Friends of Exeter, former students and alumni, can you please sign the petition below: www.change.org/p/stop-redun...change.orgSign the PetitionStop Redundancies at the University of Exeter 03027
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 28/06/2026I love how every recipe with spinach in it is like “You need 1 assload of spinach. If you do not own a donkey, take a wheelbarrow to the grocery store. Back home, divide into 17 giant bunches and sauté each one at a time until wilted. After sautéing you will have 1.5 cups [225 g]” 100
Reposted by Arbella Bet-Shlimonelia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 19/06/2026Mona Khalil, Lebanon’s most well-known sea turtle conservationist, died of her wounds today after being injured by an Israeli strike I feel sick 1743872328
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonLocal Observer 🇮🇶🇵🇸🍉 @observer46664.bsky.social · 15/06/2026One thing that will never be not terrifying to me as a woman is how quickly and decisively things can deteriorate in terms of human rights and democracy and basic human decency. Like with women's rights, all it took is a VERY right-wing parliament and now it's legal to marry female children in Iraq. 0252
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonStacy Fahrenthold @sfahrenthold.bsky.social · 27/05/2026Reading now: Arbella Bet-Shlimon's necessary challenge to one of Middle East studies' most enduring forms of racism: the disparagement of Assyrians. The piece traces the genealogy of atrocity denial and how scholarly practices reify racism. Will be assigning this! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...cambridge.org“Propaganda of the Victims”: Atrocity Denial, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Disparagement of Assyrians in Middle East Studies | Review of Middle East Studies | Cambridge Core“Propaganda of the Victims”: Atrocity Denial, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Disparagement of Assyrians in Middle East Studies 2114
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonDaniel Beekman @dbeekman.bsky.social · 17/05/2026Her UW voice teacher said Blessing was caring and funny, with a dry sense of humor. She could sing “pretty much anything,” from Mozart to musical theater, and was dedicated to her music studies even while pursuing a scientific dream of researching hurricanes. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...seattletimes.comUW student Juniper Blessing, 19, remembered as ‘full of life’Those who knew Juniper Blessing, the 19-year-old trans woman killed in her off-campus housing building, said she had a powerful, moving voice. 074
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonAsheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 17/05/2026Trump has destroyed America’s knowledge infrastructure. This is an opportunity for knowledge workers across disciplines-natural science, social science, humanities-to see their interests in rebuilding this infrastructure on democratic grounds as connected. 518259
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonMichelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 08/05/2026personally I think it's a very big deal that the Canada bureau chief for the @nytimes.com — certainly one of the highest-paid journalists in the country — asked an unspecified "AI tool" what Poilievre said & published its AI-hallucinated quotes in her reporting. 11160611822
Reposted by Arbella Bet-Shlimonali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 06/05/2026we're getting pretty closereddit.comFrom the rutgers community on RedditExplore this post and more from the rutgers community 041
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 01/05/2026The steering committee of the Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network writes in defense of Mosab Abu Toha, a writer from Gaza who has been smeared absurdly by the president of a university for describing a genocide as a genocide drive.google.com/file/d/101OZ...drive.google.comLe Moyne letter 4-29-26.pdf 1157
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonJuan Cole @jricole.bsky.social · 01/05/2026Protesting U of Washington’s firing of Prof. Aria Fani as Middle East Center Directordlvr.itProtesting U of Washington’s firing of Prof. Aria Fani as Middle East Center DirectorHe described the war on Iran as a war on the Global Majority and the rules-based international order, and called Zionism a cancer 197
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 24/04/2026April 24th is remembrance day for the Ottoman Empire’s WWI genocide of Armenians and Assyrians—which, for decades, was routinely denied by academic historians. My new article in Review of Middle East Studies documents and explains one of the legacies of that denial www.cambridge.org/core/journal...cambridge.org“Propaganda of the Victims”: Atrocity Denial, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Disparagement of Assyrians in Middle East Studies | Review of Middle East Studies | Cambridge Core“Propaganda of the Victims”: Atrocity Denial, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Disparagement of Assyrians in Middle East Studies 3156
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 15/04/2026“Given the lack of any explanation for Fani’s dismissal or even an initial acknowledgement, we are left to conclude that what was presented as a procedural intervention was in fact an act of academic censorship motivated by ideological objection to Fani’s statements.” www.dailyuw.com/article/on-t...dailyuw.comOn the Termination of Aria Fani from the University of Washington Middle East Center DirectorshipOn the Termination of Aria Fani from the University of Washington Middle East Center Directorship 020
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 14/04/2026“I want students to be resilient. It's a very difficult time right now to have hope. But we must exercise our agency. We can't just be passive and let warmongers destroy everything on our planet. We must fight back. This is an existential fight.“ www.dailyuw.com/article/remo...dailyuw.comRemoved Jackson School Middle East Center director speaks outRemoved Jackson School Middle East Center director speaks out 042
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonAndy Carvin @acarv.in · 09/04/2026“There was a 90-year-old who I just left a bit ago. He passed away from his wounds … There was nothing we could do...These are civilians who, without any warning, their whole apartment building was flattened. So you can imagine the severity of injuries that we’re getting.”theguardian.comThe deadliest 10 minutes in decades: Lebanese reel from Israeli strikes that killed hundredsBeirut residents and officials say civilians were main casualties in operation that bombed 100-plus targets in 10 minutes 16047
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonQoboe - 3d comms open @qoboe.bsky.social · 07/04/2026Don't taco Tuesday this shit. Millions of people spent the day wondering if they would get vaporized, and no one in our government stood up to him. Nothing cutesy about it. 311153093434
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonWOR$T GIRL IN ACADEMIA @medievaliste.bsky.social · 31/03/2026It’s actually not okay to pay someone with a PhD $2500 to teach a college course 432700402
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 27/03/2026So well deserved! I assigned chapter 4 of EMPIRE OF AI to my history honors students in the fall—about, among other things, the history of the concept of AI—and they really connected with it. The whole book is great. 011
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonTravis @someforeignfield.bsky.social · 24/03/2026It's never mentioned in Western media, but Iran has types of people other than "bearded mullah" and "media-friendly feminist activist" like there's also regular municipal workers, and it's a crime to murder them too. Idk what their politics are, but they don't deserve to be murdered by anyone. 133391
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonDemocracy Now! @democracynow.org · 22/03/2026Professor of Gulf studies @lalehkhalili.bsky.social lays out the global economic implications of the effective closing of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s “major choke points for oil.”democracynow.orgThe End of the Petrodollar? How Iran War Is Reshaping the Global Economy: Author Laleh KhaliliIran’s Revolutionary Guards have warned a “new stage of war” has begun after Israel bombed Iran’s South Pars gas field — the largest known natural gas reserve in the world. This comes as the price of ... 27927
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 16/03/2026Thinking about the My Lai massacre this March 16th. Specifically, thinking about how Iraqi nationalist historian Khaldun Sati al-Husry compared it to the Simele massacre of Assyrians in 1933—by way of dismissing it as a tragic but normal occurrence 160
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonArbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 16/03/2025Thinking of My Lai and Halabja, as I do every March 16th Years ago I wrote a Twitter thread about revisionist takes on Halabja on the antiwar left. I re-did it for Mastodon two years ago, and it’s still there to read #Iraq #Vietnam spore.social/@abshlimon/1...spore.socialArbella Bet-Shlimon (@abshlimon@spore.social)Attached: 1 image [THREAD 1/16] #histodons @histodons@a.gup.pe Thirty-five years ago today—16 March 1988—Saddam Hussein’s regime in @iraq@a.gup.pe dropped chemical bombs on the town of #Halabja, mu... 044
Arbella Bet-Shlimon @abshlimon.bsky.social · 13/03/2026In Google Docs, go to Tools > Preferences > uncheck Show Smart Compose suggestions. You’re welcome 010
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonSasha Senderovich 🌻 @returnstosender.bsky.social · 09/03/2026There is a direct reference to my & Harriet Murav’s “In the Shadow of the Holocaust” project in the summary judgment filed by @acls1919.bsky.social against the National Endowment for the Humanities for canceling pretty much all the grants a year ago. www.historians.org/wp-content/u... (see p.8) 1/3historians.org 1196
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonJesse @requiemarm.bsky.social · 08/03/2026“you need to go to school to learn how to use AI critically” is the academic version of “ICE agents just need better training” 0102
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonFascist Dem Tracker @fascistdemtracker.bsky.social · 05/03/2026157 Democratic members of the House just voted yea for a resolution that confirms they agree with the Trump administration's reasoning for starting with a war with Iran. It passes 372-53-2 80962366
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonAlejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 04/03/2026Polymarket has created a betting market on the use of nuclear weapons. Everyone involved in this should be put in prison for life. 25480422368
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonRima I Anabtawi @rimaanabtawi.bsky.social · 02/03/2026Heartbreaking. Infuriating. Intolerable. Yanar Mohammed runs a secret network of safe houses for women fleeing violence in Iraq www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/w...nytimes.comFinding a Path Back to Iraq, and Toward Securing Women’s Freedom (Published 2015) 02313
Reposted by Arbella Bet-ShlimonThe New Arab @thenewarab.bsky.social · 02/03/2026Yanar Mohammed is one of Iraq’s most prominent women’s rights activists and established the country’s first shelters for survivors of domestic violence and trafficking. She was assassinated outside her Baghdad home when two gunmen on motorcycles opened fire in the morning. 45152