iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Amazing opportunities for @pittprovost.bsky.social undergraduates in New York abd London.

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Thank you for this learned response to the season but more importantly-- how can I watch it in the US?

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I am going to have to work this into my seminar on religion and the book next time. From today's Corriere della Serra:

article and photo from Corriere della Sera with headline "Prevost,una torta di compleanno a forma di libro" showing the Pope in front of birthday cake in the form of a book.

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Hebraic Collections at the Library of Congress: An Online Orientation for New Researchers • September 17, 2026 • 12 PM EDT – 12:45 PM EDT • Zoom Register at: loc.zoomgov.com/.../WN_qcwLD...

loc.zoomgov.com

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Looks great. Maybe Oxford is the promised land so yuntif ends Saturday night. :)

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Great opportunity for @pittprovost.bsky.social undergraduates to spend next summer in NYC, free housing, to do original research on any topic in #Jewishstudies using @columbiauniversity.bsky.social libraries and other collections. Use QR code to sign up info session. @mmargolis.bsky.social

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Let me stress again what an amazing opportunity this is for students who want to serious research on just about any Jewish topic (and live in NYC for a summer). And you get to work with one of the best Judaica librarians in the world @mmargolis.bsky.social

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

#Pitt students & people who know them: A new program that will fund undergraduate research on Jewish topics in New York City in summer 2027. Yes, fully funded opportunity to engage with Columbia U Libraries and other relevant collections. #jewishstudies www.asundergrad.pitt.edu/.../new-york....

asundergrad.pitt.edu

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

This might be one of my most niche posts. but I am curious if others relate.

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Maybe because I am gen X and maybe because I type slowly in Hebrew, but I find the combo of Bibliography of the Hebrew Book (online) with my hardcopy of Cowley's Catalogue of Hebrew Printed Books in the Bodleian Library to be much easier than using BHB alone. #bookhistory #Jewishstudies

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Do you have an idea for a case study on early Hebrew printed books that connects with the Footprints project? Apply to be part of a collaborative research and writing project. drive.google.com/file/d/1jG8h... #JewishStudies #Bookhistory

drive.google.com

CFA Footprints Collaborative Research Project.pdf

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

"Jazz in a Muslim Key" by my colleague Yasmin Flodin-Ali. #ReligiousStudies www.undergods.org/1948?fbclid=...

undergods.org

Jazz in a Muslim Key | Under Gods

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Reposted by Adam Shear

Center for the Study of Religion & American Culture @csraac.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Welcome to the 2026 YSAR Cohort! Yasmine Flodin-Ali is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Religious Studies. She works on the history of Muslims in the United States, Islam and American Empire, race and religion, and Islamic theological diversity.

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

7/ Addendum-- I found Uffenbach's account and his source. Will post more when I have some time.

By the way, Macray's Annals of the Bodleian has so many stories: the early 18C version of "Good Will Hunting"-- a tailor from Norwich is recommended for position of janitor which he doesn't get but since he knows 9 languages, he gets a part-time job working with the Oriental Mss. (p.194)

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6/ Anyone with knowledge of other antisemitic conspiracy theories where Jews try to buy up churches or Christian libraries, let me know. #bookhistory #Jewishstudies

5/ Oates p. 480: "He [Uffenbach in 1710] was puzzled to find that non-one at Cambridge would admit to knowing, what was well-known in Germany, that Cromwell had tried to sell the [Cambridge University] Library’s contents to certain Asiatic Jews..."

4/ Weren't the Jews interested in Cambridge, you wonder? Well, according to the German traveller Zacharias von Uffenbach report of his trip to England in 1710, they were! I don't have Uffenbach's travelogue at hand but let's go to paraphrase by J.C.T. Oates, Cambridge University Library: A History.

3/ Macray reports (p.107 n.1) that there is an article on this in the Jewish Chronicle, 2 November 1883, citing W.S. Simpson, History of St. Paul's. Simpson's conclusion: "not a particle of real evidence."

2/ What do they want the library for? "to a little commercial business." Sure-- this is a few years before Selden's collection of Hebrew books and nearly 2 centuries before Oppenheim's massive Hebraica library enter the Bodleian. (Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library, 1890, pp.106-107).

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Early modern antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jews and English libraries. In a London "News-letter" of 1649, there is a report that "the Jews" were offering 600,000 pounds to buy St. Paul's to turn into a synagogue and another 200,000 for the "Oxford Library." 1/ #BookHistory #JewishStudies

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Which Weston chairs are you objecting to? I quite like the rounded ones (dominant on the 5th floor) which seem a better height than the ones where the backs lean back a bit (which seem dominant on the 1st floor).

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

I don't know Liora, maybe you are committing the no true pedestrian fallacy.

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

alas no sound. But the slides are interesting

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Lecture on Katrin Kogman-Appel and Ilona Steimann project on Ashkenazi Book Collections in Italy about to start in Cologne and on zoom: uni-koeln.zoom.us/j/9822559713...

uni-koeln.zoom.us

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting

Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Changing the name for the reason you said is wrong, but you do realize that "Arts and Sciences" has been pretty standard nomenclature for schools/faculties that encompass humanities and social sciences along with natural sciences for a long time at many American universities.

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Not a critique of Dorot trustees who have every right to set priorities--and I remain incredibly grateful for support I received directly and indirectly from them at an early stage of my career. Sad that state of the (Jewish) world makes long-term investments less pressing than immediate concerns.

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Dorot Foundation is winding down endowment over next 8 years to deal with pressing, urgent issues. Already shifted focus from academic Jewish studies and culture but still supporting a few institutions in these areas. So another loss of a funding source for research/culture. #JewishStudies

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Any chance of zoom/virtual for those of us who can't be in Cologne?

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

I think Vance and the Pope are having a theological argument not a historical one. Theologians can theologize about the nature of a true Christian (Scotsman), n'est-ce pas?

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

even crazier, 4 other colleges would get together and start that college together.

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I think it is mainly a real estate arrangement (lease or owning part of the land and the building). Someone should correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think the Yiddish Book Center is formally part of Hampshire. (Still sad news for higher ed.)

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

If a targeted search, fine, but keep to the minimal listings (college site, local paper, whatever your internal policy/legal requirements ask); if not a targeted search and you really want a national pool, explain in the ads why the positions are based in those cities. 2/2

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

the UK case (Theology and Religious Studies intertwined and structure of undergrad studies) seems worrisome but not directly relevant to the US-Canada situation.

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

This is great to hear but definitely downplayed in AHA communications.

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

E-journals as the default for prof org membership is fine. But the lack of an easy-to-skim version not so fine. AHA--please let me read AHR on my ipad w/o having to download each article/review 1 by 1 from OUP's website. Let me browse the range of scholarship in the discipline. @historians.org

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Association for #JewishStudies members-- please read the email from the president of the organization today and vote/proxy vote yes.

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

On Oprah and Ozempic: Weight-Loss Medications in Contemporary Culture April 9 | 11:00 am–1:00 pm University of Pittsburgh Posvar Hall, Room 5603 (in person) Register with QR code

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Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Would that emoji have come into existence without 18th-century coffeehouses?

Adam Shear @adamshear.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Ancient AI? Looking forward to this talk next week at the University of Pittsburgh. #ReligiousStudies #Pitt

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I "heart" this in appreciate of your comment not expressing love for the situation. You and your colleagues did good work with the limited funds and that makes all this more tragic.

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US support for humanities research, #8. Limiting to American history & the fictional construct of "Western civ" doesn't mean that there isn't good, critical, non-partisan, non-cheerleading scholarship going on that is eligible for these grants. Will they be funded? Ah, who know?

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US support for humanities research, #7. A community of researchers working together/in tandem on interesting research problems that require resources & time. Say, what NIH/NSF fund. NEH not likely to grow--even if it does, currently all directed at pet hobbyhorses of the lunatic right.

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