iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Esther Brownsmith, PhD

Maya Evan MacGregor / Eamhair MacGriogair @maigheach.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

It’s Non-binary Day, so hello from your friendly neighbourhood agender void who writes fantasy books full of folk like me We’ve got YA Gaelic fantasy romance! We’ve got urban fantasy! We’ve got epic fantasy! We’ve got spicy epic fantasy romance! We’ve got gothic why-choose dystopian fantasy!

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

For yesterday's book launch of Esther Keeps the Score, by @alexianafry.bsky.social, I wrote a piece of fiction that embodied her book’s brilliant insights about Queen Esther as a character shaped by cPTSD and the “fawn” trauma response. Check out the story here: archiveofourown.org/works/82743236

archiveofourown.org

Fawn - mostlydeadlanguages - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

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Reposted by Esther Brownsmith, PhD

Alexiana Fry @alexianafry.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Just a teeny-tiny reminder that my book launch party is TOMORROW (with @brownsmith.bsky.social, Sarah Emanuel, and Katherine Gwyther)! See you there? www.eventbrite.com/e/esther-kee...

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Part of what excites me about this is that Christians too often treat the Hebrew Bible as something that needs to be read through the lens of the New Testament. Whereas I’m going to be reading Paul through the lens of Genesis—and arguing that it helps make his theology more expansive/inclusive.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

As an undergrad, Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling was the single most (trans)formative book I read. This year, the last Sunday of Pride Month has the Binding of Isaac as its lectionary reading. Guess who is going to be giving a sermon about Kierkegaard and the sacredness of queer love?

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Some of the biblical prophets do something similar, portraying prophecy as giving birth—most evident in Isaiah 21:3 (“Therefore I am filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pain of a woman in labor.”) but also there in the Hebrew of Jeremiah 4:19.

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Reposted by Esther Brownsmith, PhD

Lawrence Harding (she/her) 🏳️‍⚧️ @lhardingwrites.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

I know I keep circling back to this, but I don't think k a lot of well-meaning people realise how much it rankles when the response to Harry Potter funding trans genocide is a focus on "what to read instead to be a Good Person" rather than, I dunno, more directly helping combat the trans genocide.

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T Ash @crewgrrl.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Inspired by @bethrevis.bsky.social’s post on Threads looking for pre-assembled Doctor Who scarf kits, I present screenshots from the late, lamented ThinkGeek’s product page for their Tom Baker scarf. The person that wrote this either was a knitter, lived with one, or loved one very dearly.

Man wearing a fedora, brown coat, and very long multicolored scarf. Next to him is the following text:

NO KNITTING REQUIRED!
• Twelve feet of scarfy warfy
• For being Tom Baker (or every day)
• Knitters will thank you for not asking them

NO KNITTING REQUIRED!
When a Whovian discovers a friend is a knitter, it is very, very tempting to ask them to make you a Doctor Who scarf. On behalf of most knitters out there, we say, please don't. We love Doctor Who as much as you and you might notice that we don't even have a Doctor Who scarf for ourselves. There's a reason: it takes forever and it's all knit stitches, so it's pretty boring. In fact, when made in worsted weight yarn, a 12 foot long Tom Baker scarf contains 56,448 knit stitches. That means someone is cursing you 56,448 times while holding pointy sticks. Catch our drift?
Embrace laziness and keep your knitter friends by picking up the Doctor Who Deluxe 12' Scarf. Use it to complete your Tom Baker costume for convention season or wear it as your regular scarf in chilly weather. It's long enough to wrap at least twice around the average neck, with plenty of dangle to spare. Just don't get it caught in the TARDIS door, okay?
Product Specifications
• Tom Baker scarf for fans of Doctor Who
• 12 feet loooooooooonnnng
• Officially licensed Doctor Who collectible
• Materials: 100% polyester
• Love your scarf: Hand wash, please.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

You should come to this, because: 1) I’ve read the book, and it’s WONDERFUL, and 2) Alexiana invited us to do something more creative than the usual standard book launch response, and I will be taking her up on that challenge. *mysterious smile*

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Reposted by Esther Brownsmith, PhD

Alexiana Fry @alexianafry.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

You are invited! Join me and these lovely biblical scholars - Sarah Emanuel, @brownsmith.bsky.social, and Katherine Gwyther - on Tuesday, April 7th, to celebrate my forthcoming book. www.eventbrite.com/e/esther-kee...

With a mustard yellow background and maroon/purple text it says "book launch party"
underneath that, it says "join us in celebrating the release of Esther Keeps the Score! Our time includes a reading from the book, commentary from biblical scholars who specialize in Esther, time for Q&A, and a special book discount for attendees!"
Under this, there are four names and four pictures - Alexiana Fry is first, then Esther Brownsmith, Sarah Emanuel, and Katherine Gwyther.

With a mustard background and maroon/purple text it says "book launch party" - there is a cream colored cloud in the middle with a QR code in the middle of that cloud in mustard and purple. All over the image are a bunch of random sized and positioned book covers.

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SBL Press @sblpress.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Named and unnamed women appear throughout the Bible, yet they are often understudied or easily missed by casual readers. Bible Odyssey has a new collection of articles that explore the fascinating and complex roles women play in the Bible. buff.ly/IiA3bep #WomensHistorySBL26

Image of Women in the Bible collection webpage, including articles on Thecla, Berenice, the Levite's concubine, Phoebe, Salome, Oholah and Ohlibah, the strange woman of Proverbs, Lydia, the woman of Endor, Junia, RIzpah, and Anna.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

I don’t know your email, so could you drop me one?

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

I’d be incredibly grateful!! Esther.Brownsmith on Gmail.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Who do I know who could beta/edit a short story about Queen Esther and cPTSD? @rikibeth.bsky.social says I should ask @crewgrrl.bsky.social, whom I don’t know but seems awesome.

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

Yup, I avoid it too. “Foundational” is often an alternative.

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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.”)

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

This is a large part of why I learned nålbinding.

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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 · 30/12/2025

This script is baffling me. Definitely not Neo-Assyrian, Old Persian, or Ugaritic, and I'm not able to pin it down to any other cuneiform system that I can identify. (For instance, the second sign on the second line is just not one that gets used.) Any ideas, Assyriologists?

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

ACADEMIC JOB ALERT: UD is hiring a tenure-track position in "transitional justice and human rights". They are looking for expertise in "human rights/global peacebuilding with an openness or knowledge about Christian social traditions." Come be my colleague! employment.udayton.edu/en-us/job/50...

employment.udayton.edu

Employment Opportunities : University of Dayton, Ohio

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Eek, I never announced my new book over here! Well, friends, I am very happy to share that “Sacred Unhappiness: Reading the Bible with Feminist Killjoys” is coming out with @eerdmansbooks.bsky.social. It’ll be an accessible volume that you can share with undergrads, book clubs, and congregations.

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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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Reposted by Esther Brownsmith, PhD

Dr Tom de Bruin @tdbiii.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Very much looking forward to the book review panel of my book at 4pm today! It’s S22-336 if anyone’s interested. With superstars @drmjcwarren.bsky.social @brownsmith.bsky.social and Acacia Chan. #aarsbl25 #sblaar25

Photo of my book Fan Fiction and Early Christian Writings

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

I am beyond excited to share that I am receiving this year’s Brooten Award from the Society of Biblical Literature for my paper, “The Monster at the End of This Essay: Incestuous Whores, Trans Monstrosity, and Genesis 38.” www.sbl-site.org/news/announc...

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

While I studied reconstruction of Akkadian pronunciation in grad school, I’m not an expert in it myself. I can connect OP with Assyriologists who are, if need be.

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Reposted by Esther Brownsmith, PhD

Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

If you think antifascists are bad, it just might be because you’re a fascist

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

So go out and do some damage, friends. Empathize radically and deeply. Love your neighbor as yourself. Sow wildflowers in the dung of his legacy. Water them with your tears, whether of sorrow or relief. Tend the rainbow blossoms as they grow.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

A man who ruled an empire of hate died today. He once said that empathy was “a made-up, New Age term” that “does a lot of damage.” (1/2)

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

Aww, thank you so much! That means a lot.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

The new issue of Religious Studies Review is live, featuring responses to Lee Edelman and the Queer Study of Religion that include my own essay, "'She Laughs at the Future' (Prov. 31:24b): Reading Sarah's Queer Jouissance." It's available open access here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

“She Laughs at the Future” (Prov. 31:24b): Reading Sarah's Queer Jouissance

Click on the article title to read more.

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Reposted by Esther Brownsmith, PhD

Jonathan M. Katz @katz.theracket.news · 27/08/2025

A 1955 writer casually dropping a “Germans tended to go along with Nazis just like your all-American wife goes along with segregation” is both the answer and the question for “how we got here”

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Reposted by Esther Brownsmith, PhD

Kevin Solez @kevinsolez.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Cool stuff!

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

On the one hand: I do not need to be writing a new article. Also, am not Assyriologist. On the other hand: I found an Akkadian passage that offers a fascinating new possibility for the Sotah laws of Numbers 5. Ugh, decisions.

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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 · 07/06/2025

WHAT. MY FANDOMS ARE COLLIDING. ::goes back to comb through banter::

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

I've written elsewhere about fanfic and the book of Esther! The first article is the most accessible; the others are more academic. theconversation.com/purims-origi... bibleandcriticaltheory.com/vol-19-no-1-... www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-ch...

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

Curious? @tdbiii.bsky.social writes brilliantly on fanfic and early Christian writings, and @annapwilson.bsky.social does amazing work on fanfic and premodern writing. podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/i... journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/tw...

podcasts.apple.com

Episode 70: Fan Fiction and Early Christian Writings with Tom de Bruin

Podcastaflevering · It Means What It Means · 23-04-2025 · 1u 17m

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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

Reading these texts through the lens of fanfic helps us understand how emotional attachment, entertainment, and the desire to "fix" canon all motivated ancient authors and readers of scripture, just like they motivate modern fanfic authors and readers.

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

Sometimes, the texts that made it into the Bible seem firmly rooted in the mode of fan fiction! Examples include the books of Esther (which seems to reimagine the goddess Ishtar as a nice Jewish girl) and Ruth (which tells the untold story of King David's immigrant ancestress).

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

Less simple: what is fanfic? It's a modern phenomenon, a genre, an exchange of gifts—but for our purposes, it's a mode. Fanfic is a mode of writing fictional texts that respond to preexisting texts, a mode that really emphasizes inspiration, passion, creativity, and community.

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

Let's start simple: what is the Bible? It's a library: a set of conversations preserved in dozens of texts that respond to each other and build upon each other. (And it's just one fragment of the broader conversations that took place in the ancient world.)

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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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Hadassah Brandeis Institute HBI @hadassahbrandeis.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Congratulations to Esther Brownsmith @brownsmith.bsky.social, Ph.D., 2020 HBI Scholar in Residence & @universityofdayton.bsky.social Asst. Prof., on the publication of GENDERED VIOLENCE IN BIBLICAL NARRATIVE, THE DEVOURING METAPHOR, now available in Open Access. 1/ www.routledge.com/Gendered-Vio...

Book cover with text Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative, The Devouring Metaphor, Esther Brownsmith

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

… While it certainly hooks onto the fascination/frustration model, I wonder if there’s a specific parallel to the way that slash imagines “what if these characters, but with an erotic aspect to their bond.” Something connected to an erotics of devotion to Jesus. Idk, just spitballing.

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

I’m halfway through, and this is such a delight! (Also apparently I’ve been mispronouncing your name and I am so sorry. I’ll do better.) One specific thought: I was really struck by your comments about the texts that say “we love this story, but we’d like to see it with more love for Jesus.” …

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

It’s working! Just responded via DM.

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