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David Defries

@ddefries.bsky.social

277 followers 314 following 249 posts

Early medievalist studying collective memory, hagiography and Flanders. Working on a collaboration to look at early medieval Flanders from a global perspective.

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David Defries @ddefries.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

PIMS, Toronto: The Leonard E. Boyle, O.P. Toronto-Rome Diploma Programme in Manuscript Studies

Information about applying to a palaeography programme featuring 4 core courses for 2026-2027. $2000 tuition with scholarships available.

Descriptions of 2 courses offered in Toronto in 2026 (that will be followed by 2 courses in Rome in 2027)

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David Defries @ddefries.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

1) The article does not mention it, but many commentators on the Left would say that it was neoliberal deregulation that led to the "enrollment cliff" currently threatening US higher education. Before the Keynesian regulation of 1940-1970, capitalism produced regular boom and bust cycles of roughly 8-10 years in duration. The cycles essentially stopped in the democratically organized economy of the mid 20th century. They reappeared after neoliberal deregulation. Before the last crash caused by capitalist handling of the COVID pandemic, there was the big crash in 2008, which occurred when financiers' gambling with mortgages destroyed the world economy. The crash prompted people to have fewer children. This smaller population is now graduating high school, and it means that universities have critically less money coming in because they are more dependent on tuition rather than state subsidies for public education.

2) The president of Albright offers only privatized solutions rather than public solutions to the woes besetting the institution. She insults people who object to her solutions as "naive" (i.e., stupid) rather than considering them as smart people with a different vision. Neoliberalism is thus not a philosophy that prioritizes wealthy elites and their property interests, which we can debate, but a natural system with no alternatives.

3) The president of Albright says that she is focusing on the majors that students want, pretending that it is student interests that generate their choices. She almost entirely neglects to mention that the consumers of college degrees in her system are really employers whose capitalist market signals students listen to, allowing employers to determine the course of their students' lives long before even hiring some of them. We know that students chose much different majors when the public subsidized education and research (with a booming economy). This is how wealth determines our choices in a capitalist market.

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David Defries @ddefries.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Wrong pull quote. This is about corporations sucking more subsidies from university students.

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David Defries @ddefries.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Well, he did do a better job than Louis V! That's a real achievement for this administration.

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David Defries @ddefries.bsky.social · 19/03/2024

This is thoroughly scientific! Haven't you seen the medieval illustrations?

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David Defries @ddefries.bsky.social · 01/12/2023

I am going to Leeds!

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