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Cait Mongrain

@caitmongrain.bsky.social
643 followers 653 following 35 posts

Classics PhD @Princeton, MA, BA @Texas Tech | Flavian cultural history, occasional baking, sundry animal rescue | she/her

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Reposted by Cait Mongrain
shaunt @shaunvids.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
the republicans are wide open on several fronts, historically unpopular president, unpopular war, record high gas. any dem throwing trans people under the bus at this moment is doing it because they want to. not like they need to, do they. even if it worked as a vote winner, which it doesn't
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I have a cousin who was constantly putting me on game with ways that I could get out of my J-O-B and not do all that “smart shit cuz.” I finally explained to them that I LIKE all the smart shit, did in fact choose to do it for a living, and I am very good at it. They never really believed me.
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Lauren Donovan Ginsberg @laurenginsberg.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
This encapsulates well the frustration when people not trained in history/historical fields suddenly claim AI can do the work of historians. It shows how few know what it means to do that work.
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I didn't pick up on that! Very avant-garde approach, but I respect it
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
My ability to join in the discourse was sabotaged by the film reel spluttering and dying as soon as Odysseus reached Ithaca
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Deva Woodly @devawo.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Seizing people’s ill gotten gains is entirely consistent with abolition and I do think it’s a bigger deterrent than the threat of prison. It also arguably accords more with justice as the scale & breadth of corruption-for-thievery taking place is almost unfathomable.
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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
"The nobles abused their victory to gratify their passions; they put many men out of the way by sword or banishment ...It's this spirit which has commonly ruined great nations, when one party desires to triumph over another by any & every means & avenge itself ... w/excess cruelty"––Sallust, Jug. 42
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
To be a historian is to speak ill of the dead and the rest of you should take more history classes and join us.
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Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 10/07/2026
Academic freedom isn't abstract. It's what lets us teach what we know. Read more: www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
Headline: Texas AAUP sues Texas Tech University system.

Photo: the Will Rogers on horseback statue in front of campus, wrapped in black by a fine arts PhD student and titled "Death of Academic Freedom".
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Athenian man pulling out an ostrakon:
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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I have always found James Uden’s work a pleasure to read—especially his Juvenal stuff. & I’m really enjoying his economic turn in his new, open access article on “Love in a time of bankruptcy: Catullus and the literature of debt” 💸 The ubiquity of debt in the everyday lives of Romans seems…relatable
cambridge.org
Love in a time of bankruptcy: Catullus and the literature of debt | The Journal of Roman Studies | Cambridge Core
Love in a time of bankruptcy: Catullus and the literature of debt
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Joel @sentantiq.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
more self-flagellation. this is the equivalent of "if we only recycled more individually and changed our light bulbs we could fight climate change" Opinion | Social Justice Was the Humanities' Bid for Relevance. It Failed. www.chronicle.com/article/soci...
chronicle.com
Opinion | Social Justice Was the Humanities’ Bid for Relevance. It Failed.
The problem isn’t politicization. The problem is that the old topics stopped mattering to the public.
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Happy Vespasian Declared Emperor day to all who celebrate
Marble fragment with Latin text from the Acts of the Arval Brothers, describing the sacrifices offered to the gods in honor of Vespasian entering the city of Rome as emperor
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Anise K. Strong @anisekstrong.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Only a few generations after Caracalla gave universal citizenship to everyone in the Roman Empire, new categories of citizens were invented- the honestiores or more righteous folks and humiliores or more humble citizens who could now be tortured or denied trials.
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Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
even if it was good policy, this shit is completely ancillary to the goal of actually limiting the power of big tech. Elon Musk has a trillion dollars and is trying to start a global race war, your response to that can’t be “kids should be on their phones less”
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
At the end of the term I asked my college creative wriing students to submit anonymous thoughts on AI. No real surprises: Mood ranges from resignation to despair, capitulation from embittered erosion of standards to total, feelings of betrayal from deep to furious. 1/
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Gabrielle Hecht 🇵🇷 • she/elle/ella/cis⚔️ • AOC 4USpresident @gabriellehecht.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
“Advance compliance by universities facilitated the fascist takeover of higher education.”
publicbooks.org
Resistance Disguised as a History Lesson: Fascism and the University - Public Books
Her student—a former Nazi stormtrooper—was proof that no one was lost to the new regime, that every person might choose to refuse.
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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
This is exactly it. The work is the point.
When I assign analysis, I am not trying to extract a polished product; I am trying to put the student’s mind through resistance in order to make it stronger. Offloading the struggle to a chatbot does not “free students up for higher-order work.” It deprives them of building the strength to do any substantial cognitive work at all.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
This is the reality. Any politics or politician or movement that isn’t saying this plainly is a false god, inviting you to your own destruction. America Broke Something When It Gave Trump a Second Chance www.nytimes.com/2026/06/03/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | America Broke Something When It Gave Trump a Second Chance
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Hannah Čulík-Baird @opietasanimi.com · 29/05/2026
to say the quiet part out loud: most PhD programs fund grad students with a mix of fellowships and teaching, but mostly through teaching. if TAs are replaced by AI, most PhD programs will cease to exist
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Lauren Donovan Ginsberg @laurenginsberg.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Super excited to have so many people interested in Roman royal portraiture from my last thread. While I have you, let’s keep talking about Nero’s portraits and modern people who want them to be Polaroids. /1
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(Self) Regulators, mount up! @bankuei.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
I have two thoughts when I see "regret" posts about dystopian shit like this. 1) The fact they always start by declaring allegiance and framing it as a methodology problem, not a wrong goal to start 2) Never do they go back and re-examine their stance through the light of the people who warned.
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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Interesting framing from two members of Harvard faculty conflating their intramural angst about the challenge of ranking and sorting the spectacularly excellent with the entirety of education. Hubris much?
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Erik Hane @erikhane.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
When Minneapolis felt under heavy siege, people from everywhere helped and reached out and it was really heartening and made a difference. Memphis deserves that too, all the more so because there appears to be a concerted effort to keep their occupation out of the news
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Lauren Donovan Ginsberg @laurenginsberg.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
It's not 1536, but Anne Boleyn has taken over the news. Recently a team of computer scientists, electrical engineers and a historical novelist think they have discovered the “true face” of Anne (& her mother) by applying AI-based computational facial recognition to Holbein sketches. The catch? /1
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/15/o... So sick of the case for A.I. being "it's inevitable!" A great read from @tressiemcphd.bsky.social
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
At BEST you’re playing Russian Roulette with information when you’re asking an AI to tell you something, but many people—including smart people, including people you respect and love—already view it as something with more authority than an *expert*. It’s like conservatism on steroids
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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app · 07/05/2026
absolute heater from @jamellebouie.net one of those pieces where I find myself saying MMHMM repeatedly while reading www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | John Roberts Believes in an America That Doesn’t Exist
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Deva Woodly @devawo.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
This makes me sad. It’s hubris, not strategy.The desire to play in the space where they perceive the heavy hitters are rather than building a party base in mayorships, state legislatures & governorships that would actually make them heavy hitters. Everybody wants to be famous, but fame is not power.
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Shepherd @neolithicsheep.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
That would not have solved the problem of SCOTUS gutting the VRA repeatedly. What we have here is the Union once again failing at carrying through on Reconstruction because people are racist all over the country.
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(Mar)Chella Ward @luxmea.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
Oh look another great reason to avoid the billionaire’s playthings that are destroying the world and most of us. Honestly thinking for yourself is SO good. And uses precisely 0 carbon.
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
This breaks my heart. Texas Tech was my academic home for 8 years, the place where I learned to research, teach, and become part of a scholarly community. It was a place of opportunity and new experiences and perspectives, and now they're gutting it in an ideological purge.
texastribune.org
Texas Tech System cancels programs focused on gender, orientation
Chancellor Brandon Creighton directed provosts to phase out the programs and ordered universities to recognize only “two human sexes.”
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Aaron Cynic @aaroncynic.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Thread. I'm begging people to realize how much we've already given in just the past 25 years. I'm old enough to remember when surveillance wasn't ubiquitous and before ICE or the TSA existed. There was even a time when the average cop wasn't kitted out for full on urban warfare.
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
In honor of Mr. Rogers’ birthday, here’s your regularly scheduled reminder that the quote of his you keep sharing, that in times of crisis we should look for the helpers, was for his audience of children. We’re adults now. We’re supposed to *be* the helpers.
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Brad Lander @bradlander.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
We need better Democrats. Not a single dollar more for Trump’s illegal war.
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Texas Observer @texasobserver.org · 13/01/2026
The smartphone monitoring software "Tangles" joins a growing law enforcement surveillance arsenal in Texas, including a fleet of drones, and its use has little oversight. Our latest from @francescadnunz.bsky.social is presented with support from @pulitzercenter.org.
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Lauren Donovan Ginsberg @laurenginsberg.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Education is, has been, and must remain about a lot more than any current or future demands of industry. If anything, education is as much about *challenging* the interests of industry as it is about meeting them.
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Robyn the Velocirobter @velocirobter.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
Randall Munroe once noted that more Californians than Texans voted for Trump and more Texans than New Yorkers voted for Harris.
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prince egregious, heir apparent @sonofahurricane.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
For Prison Banned Books Week, I want to say: it is worse than maybe it ever has been regarding censorship in prisons. It is worse than five years ago. It is worse than 50 years ago.
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Looking forward to reading this!
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
A friend gave it to me, and I couldn't be more delighted! www.etsy.com/listing/4312...
etsy.com
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
It's official! #PhDone
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Kelly Lynne D’Angelo ✨ @kellylynnedang.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Wrote this piece for Harpers Bazaar about the life, legacy, and hate-induced murder of Jonathan Joss through the eyes of being a Two-Spirit Native person this Pride. I hope you take a read. For Him. For all of us. 🪶
harpersbazaar.com
We All Need to Be Talking About the Murder of Jonathan Joss This Pride and Beyond
The actor, who was Comanche and White Mountain Apache, was shot in a targeted hate crime while protecting his husband.
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
many such cases
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Howdy Politics @howdypolitics.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
We did it!!! SB 2880, an extreme anti-abortion bill that would have had nationwide impact, and SB 16, Texas’ version of the SAVE Act, are dead. We ran the clock out. They won’t even get a vote in the House. That’s a HUGE fucking win! #txlege
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Jonathan Blitzer @jonathanblitzer.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
www.texastribune.org/2025/05/14/o... via @lomikriel.bsky.social and @micarosenberg.bsky.social
texastribune.org
An agency tasked with protecting immigrant children is becoming an enforcement arm, current and former staffers say
The Office of Refugee Resettlement’s welfare mission appears to be undergoing a stark transformation as President Donald Trump seeks to ramp up deportation numbers, current and former officials told T...
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
Classics Bake: Baccalaureate Edition
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Cait Mongrain @caitmongrain.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Delighted to announce that this fall I will be joining the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Richmond as a Visiting Assistant Professor. Pictured here: Nebula, blissfully unaware of the looming move
Grey tabby cat lying on a table with her paw possessively draped across my laptop
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