iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

It's so fun when I'm reviewing proofs, come across a line that I wrote, and have a moment of "damn, I love that."

“Hysteria” has long been a term that associates femaleness with disorder, and specifically emotional disorder. (Nor are these gendered associations limited to the past; consider the difference between a “seminal scholar” and a “hysterical scholar.”)

Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

A wise man recently told me that hope is not an optimistic prediction that the future will be better; it is the fierce, flaring determination that things MUST change for the better. So anyway, I made a hat this weekend, and I put the pattern online here: www.ravelry.com/patterns/lib... Fuck ICE.

A crocheted blue beanie hat with white bunny ears, eyes, mouth, and two dangling paws/pompoms. It is a replica of the hat worn by Liam Ramos, a five-year-old taken by ICE.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

I’m at #sblaar25, and so is our book!! Ping me if you want to meet up.

A white woman with curly hair in a gray blazer holds up a pink book titled Unruly Books.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

This stanza from a 1937 Polish poem really spoke to me in these times.

Transcription:

How dare you have written about roses,
When history burned like woods in summer heat?
In today’s libraries the custodian dusts history volumes,
And outside the window – returning with spring,
Sappho sings a nightingale,
How her heart dictates.

Róże dla Safony (Roses for Sappho),
By Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska,
Trans. Aleksandra Gajowy

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

So honored that the inimitable @qgpennyworth.com used a poem that I wrote as part of a mini-zine/pop card! Check it out and share it if you like.

A 19th-century drawing of a woman sitting in an armchair and reading. Accompanying it is a poem by Esther Brownsmith:

"What was it like to live in those times?", they will ask.

Well, I will say,
there was a lot of compulsively refreshing social media,
a lot of bracing myself every time I pulled up the news,
a lot of telling my friends that I loved them,
because I couldn't tell them that things would be okay.

And once,
my therapist told me to take a spa day.
So I sat in the hot water,
and I tried not to think about Gaza or Ukraine or Roe or ICE or—
and the water jets timed out.

I looked down at my own body;
I saw a diaphanous blanket of pinprick bubbles,
each one clinging to a hair so faint and fine
I'd forgotten they existed.

A cocoon of air,
stubbornly refusing to float from my skin.

(The bubbles are not a metaphor
for grace, or resilience, or hope.
They simply startled me
into seeing my flesh anew.)

That is what it is like.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Tl;dr: Not all scripture uses the mode of fanfic, but some of it does—and recognizing those parallels helps us to understand the goals of the biblical authors better.

A blonde white woman says "We have the same bedazzled Bible!"

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Is the Bible fan fiction? A thread. 📜

A "Fleabag" screencap that depicts a white brunette woman in the bathtub, reading a Bible. She looks aghast at the camera with a hand over her mouth.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

I know that celebrating anything these days seems tone deaf. I know. But: if you've been waiting to read my book, I am so pleased to share that it is now officially available free to read in Open Access. So check it out and share widely! bit.ly/thedevouringmetaphor

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Check out the Trans Biblical Podcast for a new episode where I talk about my work on Mordecai as a non-binary character, and why this kind of biblical work is so necessary these days. Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n... Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/7qU3... Youtube: youtu.be/SA9k-T-LvOA

An advertising banner for "The Trans Biblical Podcast Episode 2," featuring "Nonbinary Characters in the Bible: Mordecai" with Dr. Esther Brownsmith. The images include a picture of the book and of Dr. Brownsmith

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Our article about reading scripture as an interfaith group is out in Crosscultural Studies of Religion and Theology! Check out the whole issue to get a glimpse of what our Jewish-Christian Young Scholars Network has been doing. eplus.uni-salzburg.at/csrt/periodi...

An excerpt of text reading, Neither interfaith dialogue nor biblical exegesis can succeed when entered into from a perspective of single-minded and unshakeable superiority. Only through the process of engaging with other people and other ideas, in a context where they feel safe to express those ideas, can new insights emerge. This process, which requires patience and humility in abundance, is neither straightforward nor predictable, but it recognizes a deep truth reflected in the etymology of “philology”: that love, a profound connection between multiple entities, lies at the heart of the philological pursuit.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Today marks the publication of Unruly Books: Rethinking Ancient and Academic Imaginations of Religious Texts, edited by myself, Liv Ingeborg Lied, and Marianne Bjelland Kartzow! We delve into "unruly books" of antiquity and what they tell us about how people have understood books—then and now.

The book cover, front and back, for "Unruly Books: Rethinking Ancient and Academic Imaginations of Religious Texts," edited by Esther Brownsmith, Liv Ingeborg Lied, and Marianne Bjelland Kartzow

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

I finished mounting the mandala that I crocheted with hand spun Patagonian wool yarn that I bought from a lovely lady in Punta Arenas. It’s textured and symmetrical and cozy, over two feet across, with an eight-pointed Inanna star in gold, and I can’t wait to display it. (Terrible pic, sorry.)

A crochet mandala in gold and navy yarn fastened to a black hoop.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Today I am thinking about kintsugi—the art of mending broken pottery with precious metals. Things are broken right now. A lot of people are suffering, and a lot more will suffer in the days to come. I am especially holding space in my heart for trans and immigrant friends today. (1/2)

A shiny brown ceramic bowl mended with gold.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 08/11/2024

Some words for this week from Nayyirah Waheed's collection "Salt."

A photo of a page of poetry that reads:

fall apart.
please
just, fall apart.
open your mouth.
and
hurt. hurt the size of everything it is

— dam

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 31/10/2024

In honor of Veilguard releasing today, I made Frilly Orlesian Cakes! (Chocolate cake infused with apricot brandy, layered with apricot preserves, topped with dark chocolate ganache and a physalis berry.) H/t to @trickweekes.bsky.social for the recipe inspiration.

Four small chocolate cakes on lacy white paper.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 08/10/2024

Great news: my latest article is live in Religion Compass! Check out "Metaphors Realized in Narrative: A New Direction for Biblical Metaphor" for an introduction to realized metaphor, the exciting central theoretical advance of my first book. Link: compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Realized metaphor in the Bible still “has not received the attention it deserves.” Not only does it represent a productive approach for analyzing narrative passages, it also offers the possibility of examining the power dynamics that lie below the surface of the text.
Metaphors represent, reify, and reinforce existing beliefs in a society.
They are intelligible because they draw on preexisting assumptions and widespread experiences, but they concretize those assumptions and experiences into the narrative text, forcing the reader to accept them (if only provisionally) to understand the text's rhetorical force.

— Esther Brownsmith, “Metaphors Realized in Narrative: A New Direction for Biblical Metaphor,” Religion Compass, Oct. 2024

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 23/09/2024

Proofs day is best day! This one's been in the pipeline for a while, so I'm very excited to see it nearing release.

A screenshot of a Wiley editorial screen for an article titled "Metaphors Realized in Narrative: A New Direction for Biblical Metaphor," due to be published in Religion Compass.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 08/09/2024

Working on my Fancy Orlesian Cakes, inspired by @trickweekes.bsky.social ‘s description. The current round is a butter chocolate cake, apricot preserves, dark chocolate ganache flavored with Antivan liqueur (Cuarenta Y Tres), and a fresh raspberry. Need to add frilly papers and gold dust. #dragonage

A photo of two cake squares on a blue plate. The cakes are layered chocolate, topped with a fresh raspberry.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 02/09/2024

There's something really wonderful about going through proofs and thinking, you know, these ideas are actually pretty darn good. Past-Esther might just have been onto something. (Less obliquely: preorder our Unruly Books volume today! www.bloomsbury.com/us/unruly-bo...)

A page of text from an Introduction. It begins:

“Unruly.” The word conjures images of rowdy students, of hair flying in every direction, of things that stubbornly refuse to submit to order. It is not a word that is ordinarily applied to staid, reliable books. But the books discussed in this volume are no ordinary books. Some of them do not exist in any extant form; we may not even know whether they ever existed. Others exist, but in unstable fashion, slippery zephyrs that resist a single form. Yet others are tainted by association: written by voices outside the mainstream, transformed by their links to marginal figures. They are, in short, unruly.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 20/08/2024

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy.

A monochrome letterblock print of two flowers with a quote in between. The quote says, “to be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing — Raymond Williams.”

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 08/07/2024

Check out my latest article, available open access at @jibs-journal.bsky.social !

On the left, an oil painting depicts a beardless Black man in "oriental" clothing holding up a jeweled box. The right side is the following text: Eunuchs are precisely those who have a missing or defunct “hand”—specifically, a “hand” that is unable to procreate and produce offspring. This is no coincidence. Through its focus on the active hands of eunuchs, the book of Esther is making an argument about the royal world of its setting. ... In the book of Esther, power reproduces queerly, outside lines of biological lineage.
—Esther Brownsmith, “Queer Futures and Phallic Humour in the Book of Esther” (access at bit.ly/jibs52)

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 07/06/2024

Coming this winter to an online academic bookseller near you!

A book cover by t&t clark. The title is "Unruly Books: Rethinking Ancient and Academic Imaginations of Religious Texts," edited by Esther Brownsmith, Liv Ingeborg Lied, and Marianne Bjelland Kartzow. The color scheme is salmon, with an image of a palimpsest wall mural, with various ancient Christian images overlapping and fragmenting.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 02/04/2024

It's heeeere! Join me on Zoom for the launch party on April 17, 4:30pm EST; register at bit.ly/BrownsmithBo....

A cardboard box with bubble wrap surrounding books with a green patterned cover and the title "Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative: The Devouring Metaphor," by Esther Brownsmith.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 24/03/2024

More hype for my upcoming book! The hybrid event will be on April 17 at 4:30pm EST, and registration for Zoom is now open at bit.ly/BrownsmithBo... . Please join me to chat about how metaphors of food underlie some of the Bible's grimmest stories.

A poster advertising a hybrid book launch for "Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative: The Devouring Metaphor," by Esther Brownsmith, on April 17 at 4:30pm EST. Zoom registration is at https://bit.ly/BrownsmithBookLaunch

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 19/03/2024

Today’s realization: Tamar Biala’s wonderful modern midrash, “And Where Was Sarah,” is more or less literally an example of the Five Things fanfic trope. I might have to use it this fall. (Did I mention that I’m teaching “Bible as Fan Fiction” this fall at U Dayton? Here’s the flyer.)

A flyer advertising the class “Bible as Fan Fiction,” with Dr. Esther Brownsmith, taught in fall 2024.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 25/01/2024

I'm proud to be featured in the Dayton Daily News today, and sad that it was necessary to speak up against Ohio's transphobic regulations. Please share, and please contact the Department of Health by February 5.

A newspaper column in the Ideas & Voices section. The title is "Gender-affirming care bill based on unethical religious bias." The text of the article is online at https://www.daytondailynews.com/ideas-voices/voices-as-an-ohioan-and-a-christian-i-want-all-to-have-right-to-flourish-in-their-own-gender-identity/Z7CD3IBZCBABPDJBPW24PTVDCI/

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 23/01/2024

Save the Date: "Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative: The Devouring Metaphor" is coming out in April! I'm having a hybrid launch party on April 17, and you're all invited. Stay tuned for more details.

On the right is a book cover titled "Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative: The Devouring Metaphor." On the left is text: "Save the Date: Book Launch. April 14, 2024, 4:30pm EST. Dayton, OH and on Zoom. Featured Respondents: Meghan Henning (University of Dayton), Julianna Smith (Earlham College). Dr. Esther Brownsmith, University of Dayton, @brownsmith.bsky.social. https://bitly/devouringmetaphor"

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 25/12/2023

It’s proofs day! Happy proofs day to all who celebrate it!

A title page for “Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative: The Devouring Metaphor, by Esther Brownsmith.

A Contents page for a book. The main chapters are Amuse-Bouche, Stocking the Pantry, The Woman in the Refrigerator: Consumption and Objectification in Judges 19, and Forbidden Fruit: Food and/as Consumption in 2 Samuel 13.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 20/12/2023

Another beautiful ancient woman: this mid-3rd-century CE gold glass portrait of Marcia Otacilia Severa, currently housed in Turin at the Palazzo Madama.

A circular portrait of a serene woman in sepia/gold, against a background of blue-black glass.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 20/12/2023

I really like this Fayum mummy portrait of a woman (1st–4th century CE), currently held in the Pushkin Museum. She looks like she's sipping a latte and peeking past a curtain.

An ancient painting of an olive-skinned woman with large eyes, curly hair, and elaborate jewelry. She wears a red dress and holds an item that looks like a latte cup (perhaps a bottle?). Half her face is missing where the wood has broken off vertically.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 16/11/2023

This is Orchid. On Saturday, she Helped with my crocheting. Today, she is Helping with my #SBLAAR2023 paper. #catcafelife

A sleepy cat relaxes on a lacy crochet blanket while a white woman pets her.

A cat sprawls over the keyboard of a laptop.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 26/10/2023

TFW you really love your SBL abstract, but you just really wish you could go and listen to that paper instead of having to write it.

Esther's Ephemeral Archive: Uneasy Memory in Esther 9

Jack Halberstam begins his book on the "queer art of failure" with a crucial tenet: "resist memorialization." Why? "Because memorialization has a tendency to tidy up disorderly histories" (Halberstam 2011, 15). The penultimate chapter of the book of Esther seems to exemplify this tendency. The book's convoluted plot, which hinged on the unexpected influence of the disempowered, has been tidied up into Mordecai's rise in power and the subsequent victory of the Jews over their enemies. Formal memorialization in the holiday of Purim is the result. Yet this simple summary glosses over the simultaneously talismanic and ephemeral role of writing in Esther 9. Over and over, the chapter stresses that its messages were written (כתב) in documents (סְפָרִים). At the same time, unlike the letter-heavy archive of Ezra-Nehemiah, the Hebrew book of Esther contains virtually none of the texts it cites. (See full text in SBL Program Book.)

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 04/09/2023

I know I'm supposed to "kill my babies," but sometimes I like what I wrote too much to delete it entirely. So I'm preserving this snippet here.

EB: As I was writing part of this paper, I was sitting in an outdoor café, the morning sun warm on the back of my neck. A colleague working across the table asked if I could see my laptop screen well enough. I responded yes: “I’m reading by the shadow of my own head.” Then, a moment later, I added, “There’s a metaphor in that: I can only read through what my own body makes visible.”

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 29/08/2023

I’m not saying that I picked my new IKEA flowerpot because it looks like counting in cuneiform, but I’m not NOT saying it.

A photo of a beige flowerpot with an orchid plant rising out of it. The pot is inscribed with lots of little wedges that look rather like cuneiform (albeit half of them upside down).

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 15/08/2023

Thoughts on the phrasing of this question from a First Day Questionnaire for a religion class?

4) Is there anything about you that I should know right away, such as a disability, preferred learning style, specific triggers, history of religious trauma, or other relevant personal history? (I will not share this with the class. If you are more comfortable waiting and discussing this in person, that’s fine too.)

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 12/08/2023

I have been celebrating Caturday by visiting the local cat cafe to crochet and cuddle every Saturday. So lucky to live near one now! (Don’t worry, I’m extremely careful with the yarn.)

A gray and white cat sprawls across a table, accompanied by a small purse and a blue crochet project in progress.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 02/08/2023

After a lot of thinking, research, and discussion, this is where I'm at with an AI/#ChatGPT policy. (It follows a more general academic honesty policy in the syllabus.) What do the rest of you think?

About AI:
AI writing is a “brave new world” for all of us. In order for me to understand how it’s being used, this classroom has an AI full disclosure policy: at the end of any assignment where you used AI (ChatGPT, Grammarly, etc.), please tell me what you used it to do. You will not be penalized just for using AI. I simply want to understand where and how it’s helpful for students like you.
• If your AI use appears to entail plagiarizing, I will contact you directly to talk about how to use AI in an acceptable way. You might have to redo the assignment in some cases, but you won’t be in trouble unless you repeat the behavior.
• ChatGPT is a great resource for brainstorming ideas; I use it too! But it’s really bad at providing citations. Always check any quotations or citations against their original source.
• If you are uncertain about whether a particular use of AI is acceptable, just ask me.

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