iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Geoffrey Hughes @geofffhughes.bsky.social · 1h

The cover:

Cover of Social Media Tribes, featuring mobile phone cases decorated by a Jordanian artist

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Joumana Medlej @majnouna.com · 4h

I think this copyist likes this ink… "It's the best of the best. I've made it for myself as described, and I haven’t found better, may God reward with goodness the one who pointed to it. Even if I store it a whole year in a jar, it doesn’t change, doesn’t thicken, and doesn’t separate, mashallah."

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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 21h

I love this thread. 🐾

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Br. Dr. Ken Homan, SJ @kenhomansj.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

When I taught at an all-boys prep school, we'd do an activity where I had them list every sexual term they could think of. They'd often laugh, as many were absurd things meant for Urban Dictionary. We'd then go through how many terms were violent (~85%) and how many were male-dominant (~90%).

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Representative Becca Balint @balint.house.gov · 29/09/2026

It’s almost as if there are more ways to measure the value of work than just the amount of money it makes people.  A country with fewer social workers and teaching aides, with less study of the arts and history, is a country that’s not investing in its own future.

newrepublic.com

Trump Moves to Cut Off Student Loans for Tons of Degrees

Under a new rule, if your degree doesn’t make enough money, you won’t be able to get a student loan.

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The IASA @iasarabia.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

New post on our website! Ahlam Alshammari's full report on Fieldwork on the Development of Defensive Forts in Central Arabia, undertaken with the support of an IASA Grant iasarabia.org/research/fie...

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Matthew J Kuiper @matthewjkuiper.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Islamic Studies peeps, @armando-salvatore.bsky.social is here and has been added to the starter pack below

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Andrew Simon @simongandrew.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

A forthcoming book on “care's material and moral complexities” from a leading scholar of Egypt.

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Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Expect significant acceleration in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank after the Israeli election (27 Oct), especially if it looks like Netanyahu will be forced out of office.

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James Ryan @jdryan08.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The combined undergraduate and graduate student populations of all Ivy League schools is about 140,000 students. The CUNY system alone is 250,000.

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Arc Humanities Press @archumanities.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

{New book} Carolingian Ecological Sovereignty: Theology, Empire, and Nature by Noah Blan www.arc-humanities.org/978180270283... During the early Middle Ages, the ecological was political—as it is today. For the Carolingians, the governance of nature was integral to the making of empire,

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

everyone who's ever joined in an online pile on should read this.

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Andrew Simon @simongandrew.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A book I will absolutely be reading. "Reconstructing patient histories, Beth Baron traces how medical knowledge was created through women's bodies and by those treating them. The result is a new understanding of the body, medicine, and colonialism in Egypt."

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Decades and decades of a national policy and zeitgeist that amounts to 'nobody needs to care about social studies' and we're now in an unwinnable war with a foreign country whose culture and leadership we did not understand based around geography we ignored. 🤷‍♂️

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Al-MONITOR @almonitor.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Israel, Morocco agree to exchange ambassadors, open embassies The move will mark the first time Morocco and Israel have exchanged ambassadors. www.al-monitor.com/originals/20...

al-monitor.com

Israel, Morocco agree to exchange ambassadors, open embassies

The move will mark the first time Morocco and Israel have exchanged ambassadors.

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Brian Ulrich @brianjulrich.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

New open access book on #Ottoman #railways #trains Infrastructured Landscapes Spatial Histories of Early Ottoman Railways brill.com/display/titl...

brill.com

Infrastructured Landscapes

"Infrastructured Landscapes" published on 20 Jul 2026 by Brill.

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S.J. Pearce @homophonous.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

So this is one of the assignments I introduced this year as scaffolding for the short-answer quizzes. We'll see how it goes. 2/2

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Will Smiley @will-smiley.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Just published: my thoughts on Mustafa Aksakal's new book "The War that Made the Middle East," about WW1 and the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. The book can be seen as a story about disillusionment with law--constitutional and international--and the rise of authoritarianism.

legalhist.jotwell.com

War, Empire, and Authoritarianism in the Middle East - Legal History

Mustafa Aksakal, The War That Made the Middle East: World War I and the End of the Ottoman Empire (2026).William SmileyMustafa Aksakal’s new book, The War that Made the Middle East, offers a pointed a...

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Kate Elliott @kateelliottsff.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I just started reading this book about infrastructure, and it's so well written and so smart and appealing about what infrastructure is and what it means and how it connects us in ways people don't always think about on a daily basis.

Book cover shows a close-up of pavement with some yellow and pink spray-painted signs on it. Title: how infrastructure works: inside the systems that shape our world. Author: Deb Chachra

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Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Famous authors asking you out

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Nancy Um @nancyum.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

And there is much more to say in my book, The Merchant Houses of Mocha, which covers the 17th and 18th C heyday of that port city uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...

uwapress.uw.edu

The Merchant Houses of Mocha

Gaining prominence as a seaport under the Ottomans in the mid-1500s, the city of Mocha on the Red Sea coast of Yemen pulsed with maritime commerce. Its very ...

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Liora Halperin @lioracle.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Is your university unit putting on academic events/lectures *on zoom/virtually* about Palestine and/or Israel between Oct 1 and early dec this year? I’d like to provide links to my “History of Modern Israel/Palestine” students for extra credit opportunities. Please share links.

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Brian Ulrich @brianjulrich.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The 9/11 attacks are a huge factor in the past 25 years of history both globally and within the United States, yet I am not sure how well we teach students about the emotion of the day and how it landed that helps explain the American reaction and what followed

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AGSI @gulfstatesinst.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Bahrain’s long maritime history is reflected in dishes such as machboos samak and murabyan. At the same time, decades of trade and migration from India, Iran, Iraq, the Levant, and beyond have helped shape the flavors of Bahraini cooking. – Shaistha Khan buff.ly/FMoRY72

agsi.org

A New Generation Is Putting Bahraini Cuisine on the Map - AGSI

Chefs Suman Ali Sayed and Dona Murad are introducing Bahraini cuisine to eateries abroad, attracting international diners increasingly interested in distinct food cultures and histories.

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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 09/09/2026

"We are not a 'school.' We are a hospital system with a football team. We collect grants from the federal government, payouts from insurance companies, and licensing revenue from television networks. That is our raison d’être." buff.ly/DUbh42r

mcsweeneys.net

We Are Not a “School”—We Are a Hospital System with a Football Team

“At our core, we are devoted to learning. Specifically, we want to learn how to extract as much value as possible from everyone and everything we interact wi...

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Irene Soto Marín @irenin.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

My book has a face! 🥹📚 So excited to finally share the cover of The Nile Flows with Gold. Forthcoming, Spring 2027 with Princeton University Press.

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Brian Ulrich @brianjulrich.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This is a really thorough discussion and analysis of the Netanyahu warning story I linked to the Times of #Israel version of below #Hamas

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Matthew J Kuiper @matthewjkuiper.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Actual literacy (historical, cultural, religious, scientific, basic reading/writing), *is & will always be* many orders of magnitude more important than so-called AI literacy. My classroom, office, study/research space are for the former not the latter, no matter what the shills claim.

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Brian Ulrich @brianjulrich.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

The Economist often had headline questions to which it answers "no": "She may never live like common people, but why should that bar her from trying to help them? Doesn’t it beat the alternative, a chocolate heiress in a $400 sweater who is indifferent to the plight of less fortunate Americans?"

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George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

“‘The emir hoped that despite his reserved response, Netanyahu would take the message seriously and take action,’ the adviser says. None of them imagined that the prime minister would hear the message but wouldn't brief the heads of the defense establishment. ...

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Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

in my "saints and superheroes" class today we spent some time digging into students' associations with "saints" and then plotted some common motifs of superhero stories that will also guide our reading of saints' lives!

cluster of terms around saint: intellectuall, dead, self-sacrifice, live for God, flaglellants, revered, hooded, starved, old, women & men, relics, white clothes, god-given powers, miracles, holy, exemplary, martyred, exceptional, rebel, icon, Catholicism, religious-devoted, philanthropic, hall of fame, Vatican, Rome, middle east, earth, connected to divine, church, ordinary origins

(superhero motifs): superpowers, unwavering/temptation, selflessness, saving people, costumes, responsibility, detachment from status, variety of powers, secret identity-origin stories, villains, fame

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The IASA @iasarabia.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Recent open access article! Evidence for catastrophe at the time of the Plague of Justinian on Bahrain: right time, different disaster by Judith Littleton, Caitlin Bonham Smith, Lisa Bailey in Royal Society Open Science, 1 May 2026; 13 (5): 252411. royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Minor gripe of the day: I don't like the word 'popularizer' as a term for a scholar who communicates with the public. It sometimes isn't badly meant, but I've heard it said with venom (often with the word 'mere') too many times and it downplays the work that goes into actually doing it.

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Brian Ulrich @brianjulrich.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

A good read for Labor Day weekend

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Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists @alusuralwusta.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

New article alert! Let’s start w/ a personal manuscript from 9/15th cent., including a letter from Cairo’s chief judge & a list of books for sale from Mamluk Baalbek. This article challenges the divide btw documentary & manuscript studies through a fresh look at texts, material & social practice

Arabic manuscript. Letter from Taqī al-Dīn al-Akhnāʾī to ʿAlam al-Dīn al-Akhnāʾī in Damascus. Damascus, National Library of Syria, MS 2969, fol. 163r.

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Merle Eisenberg @merleeisenberg.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Great new plague article by David Gyllenhaal just dropped. Find it: online.ucpress.edu/SLA/article/.... Abstract below and it is open-access. But it's a brilliant explanation of why plague is prominent in early Islam and why it remains central to Islamic thought before the Black Death

This article attempts to explain why the Muslims of the first two hijri centuries came to view as martyrs those who died of a mysterious illness that they called the Stabber (al-ṭāʿūn). It finds the answer to that question at the intersection of the unique social pressures attendant on the Arab conquests, the presence of endemic Yersinia pestis in Greater Syria, the prior inheritance of Jewish and Christian ideas about the meaning of disease, and the distinctive view of salvation history found in the Qurʾan. Early Muslims simultaneously affirmed the ancient Jewish and Christian theory of epidemic disease as divine punishment and gave it a separate meaning for their own community, as a martyrdom and a mercy, which set the conquering minority of Muhajirun apart in death as well as in life. In illuminating this process, the article writes a new cultural history of epidemic disease in the late antique world and revisits some of our fundamental assumptions about retrospective diagnosis and the discourse of disease in premodern culture. Its findings should be relevant to scholars of Christianity and Islam, to Syriacists, scholars of premodern disease, and to anyone invested in the current conversation about Yersinia pestis, epidemic disease, and environmental history in Late Antiquity.

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Matthew Teller @matthewteller.com · 06/09/2026

The Raja Shehadeh Archive, a vital record of Palestinian history & culture, has been preserved against destruction. Now we need support to open it up for the public by cataloguing and making these thousands of pages accessible. Please consider donating or sharing www.gofundme.com/the-raja-she...

gofundme.com

Donate to The Raja Shehadeh Archive, organized by Matthew Teller

PALESTINIAN ARCHIVE SAVED —But Hard Work Begins Now! An important Palestinian literary, cul… Matthew Teller needs your support for The Raja Shehadeh Archive

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Brian Ulrich @brianjulrich.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

There is a similar discount on the US Amazon site

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Brian Ulrich @brianjulrich.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Agreed - Turkey has a great intercity bus system (as does Mexico)

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Trevon Logan @trevondlogan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

I can’t wait for the 18 part series in the Atlantic about “The Crisis at Business Schools” which will detail of every instance of academic fraud at the nation’s top business schools, the coverups, lack of accountability, and their implications for business ethics and academic standards at B schools.

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Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.northsky.social · 05/09/2026

This is possibly the oldest surviving work by the 9th-century polymath, Abu Uthman al-Jahiz. It's a copy of his satirical essay "On Squaring and Circling," written in a gorgeous (probably North African) Arabic hand. Al-Jahiz (lit. 'the bug-eyed one') was renowned for his unique prose and sharp wit.

Badly torn fragment of yellowish-brown parchment featuring about 20 lines (divided into 2 paragraphs) of highly executed Arabic calligraphy in brown ink. Some portions of text are lost to tears, rubbing, and holes in the parchment. The fragment sits on a blue background next to a yellow label that reads: T-S Ar.38.75 (https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TS-AR-00038-00075/1)

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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

For my part, I find it comforting that these complicated, contradictory, flawed and fallible people made so much progress in the past, if for no other reason than because that’s the only kind of people we have available now.

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Dalia Dassa Kaye @dassakaye.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

There's no question this war has been a strategic disaster for the US and we'll be living with the consequences for some time. But it's unclear Iran is any better at reading US domestic politics than the US has been at understanding political dynamics within Iran. They can also miscalculate.

nytimes.com

A More Confident Iran Emerges After Six Months of War With the U.S.

New intelligence reports have assessed that Iran now has a far better understanding of its capabilities and the limits of U.S. power.

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