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Jessie Starling

@jstarling.bsky.social
283 followers 61 following 17 posts

Chair of Religious Studies at Lewis & Clark | Author of Guardians of the Buddha's Home | Research interests: being a Buddhist laywoman in modern Japan; ethics and emotions in religious volunteerism; religion in public in contemporary Japan

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Reposted by Jessie Starling
Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Whatever else was wrong with the United States, we truly did have a higher education system that was the envy of the world. Now we’re lighting it on fire because some people are bored and racist.
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Some exciting postdoctoral research opportunities in East Asian religions at University of Oslo, where you can work with the excellent Aike Rots! www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...
jobbnorge.no
Two Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in East Asian Religions (303894) | University of Oslo
Job title: Two Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in East Asian Religions (303894), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Monday, August 31, 2026
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Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
"More New Yorkers are borrowing books from the New York Public Library today than 15 years ago; borrowing is up 27 percent since 2010." www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Make America Read Again
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
It's okay to hate AI, actually. www.thehandbasket.co/p/hating-ai-...
thehandbasket.co
Hating AI is good, actually
LinkedIn may be awash with boosters, but shunning AI is the human choice.
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Another successful "Religious Studies Cake-Off" on the books at Lewis & Clark!
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Excited to be returning this weekend to my graduate alma mater, the University of Virginia, to participate in the East Asia Center's 50th anniversary conference! eastasiacenter.as.virginia.edu/east-asia-ce...
eastasiacenter.as.virginia.edu
East Asia Center 50th Anniversary
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Rachit Dubey @rachitdubey.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
🚨New preprint and our results are rather concerning.. We find the "boiling frog" equivalent of AI use. Using large-scale RCTs, we provide *casual* evidence that AI assistance reduces persistence and hurts independent performance. And these effects emerge after just 10–15 minutes of AI use! 1/
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Looking forward to hosting @vox-magica.bsky.social at Lewis & Clark next week!
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Zachary Levenson @grundrza.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Yesterday, those who teach Intro to Sociology at Florida colleges (as opposed to universities) received a ready-made curriculum from the state and were ordered to teach it. Yes, you read that correctly. The *state* is enforcing a curriculum on college profs, complete w/ the following restrictions:
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 01/02/2026
Epstein’s economic power among academics was made possible by a capitalist system that makes higher education dependent on the charity economy rather than a public good supported by taxing the rich
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Paulina (Paula) Kolata @paulakolata.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Job Opportunity: Harvard Art Musuems are hiring for a position of Associate Curator for Asian Art, specialising in Japan. Please help us circulate widely! careers.harvard.edu/job/abby-ald...
careers.harvard.edu
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Associate Curator for Asian Art
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Alissa Azar @alissaazar.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Lots of teargas at ICE tonight in Portland. People were just standing and chanting.
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
There were lots of angry, red-eyed parents and grandparents out there today. Probably the first time they’ve ever been tear gassed by their government. I suspect it will be radicalizing.
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Princeton is hiring a one-year lecturer position in Asian Religions. Please spread the word: apply.interfolio.com/180148
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 06/01/2026
kind of darkly funny that "gender studies" is the stereotypical "useless degree" because gender studies will help you understand a large and important chunk of the current psychosis in american life
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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
Religious Studies friends, a question: I'm writing a response to the 2nd ed of Critical Terms for Religious Studies (2025). The first one was before my time, academically (1998), but some of its chapters--especially Smith (RRR) and Sharf (Experience)--cast long shadows on my grad school years -->
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Shane Anderson 🏳️‍🌈 @shaneanderson.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future." - @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit. Incredible words. Listen to all of it!
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John Carpenter’s Halloran @profhalloran.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
It’s useful to think about things like this in numbers of tenure track professors. $33M is 358 assistant professors. Or about fourteen percent of the total number of full-time faculty at Michigan State.
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Joe Fore @joefore.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Former UVA president Jim Ryan, who resigned over the summer due to pressure from the Trump Administration, just shared this 12-page letter with the Faculty Senate, detailing his experience with the Board of Visitors and DOJ. It's a surreal--and troubling--read. drive.google.com/file/d/1Is6x...
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Silky @silkyweineck.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
Universities must cut ties with OpenAI. And no, "cocaine is available on the streets, there's no reason we shouldn't dispense it in the dorms" is not a good argument. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | I Led Product Safety at OpenAI. Don’t Trust Its Claims About ‘Erotica.’
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
Join me at Lewis & Clark next year to teach 3-5 courses in Korean Studies! lewisandclark.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Faculty/job/...
lewisandclark.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com
Visiting Assistant Professor in Korean Studies
Lewis & Clark College of Arts & Sciences The College of Arts and Sciences at Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college with 2,000 undergraduates, located in the southwest hil...
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Your Internet Friend Tom Tomorrow @tomtomorrow.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
somewhere in portland, there's one person, or a small handful of people, who came up with the inflatable costume idea, and I feel like they deserve our immense respect for defining the obvious developing aesthetic of the contemporary battle against fascism
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Steven L. Johnson @stevenljohnson.org · 17/10/2025
UVA says no to the compact
To the University of Virginia community:

On Monday of last week, Rector Rachel Sheridan and I shared a message with the community regarding the proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. We were asked to provide comments on the proposal no later than October 20.

Today, I sent the letter below to the Secretary of Education and to White House officials. The letter confirms our core values and commitments while expressing our view that federal research funding should be based on merit.

I want to thank personally the Faculty Senate, Staff Senate, Student Council, and many other members of our community who expressed their opinions on the proposed Compact, through the online form we provided and other means. Your thoughtful feedback shows a profound care for the University and a strong commitment to its future.

We will continue to work to strengthen free expression and free inquiry, protect academic freedom, ensure affordability , promote intellectual pluralism, and maintain institutional neutrality in an increasingly polarized world. I am grateful for your continued dedication to the University and I look forward to working with you on these vital projects.

Paul Mahoney
Interim President
University of VirginiaOctober 17, 2025

The United States Department of Education
Washington, DC 20202

Dear Secretary McMahon, Ms. Mailman, and Mr. Haley,

Thank you for your letter inviting comment on the proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. We wholeheartedly agree that “American higher education is the envy of the world.” We also agree with many of the principles outlined in the Compact, including a fair and unbiased admissions process, an affordable and academically rigorous education, a thriving marketplace of ideas, institutional neutrality, and equal treatment of students, faculty, and staff in all aspects of university operations. Indeed, the University of Virginia leads in several of these areas and is committed to continuous improvement in all of them.

We seek no special treatment in exchange for our pursuit of those foundational goals. The integrity of science and other academic work requires merit-based assessment of research and scholarship. A contractual arrangement predicating assessment on anything other than merit will undermine the integrity of vital, sometimes lifesaving, research and further erode confidence in American higher education.

Higher education faces significant challenges and has not always lived up to its highest ideals. We believe that the best path toward real and durable progress lies in an open and collaborative conversation. We look forward to working together to develop alternative, lasting approaches to improving higher education.

Sincerely yours,

Paul Mahoney
Interim President
University of Virginia
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
DMing you
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Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
i am feeling, i am seeing, i am hearing, i am getting the vibes, that students this sem are better than they've been in years because learning offers a rare haven from authoritarianism, a place to convene, commune, think together, refuel for the fight
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
"This 'compact' is more like an invitation to borrow money from the mob, with substantial control and future penalties assured" - Siva Vaidhyanathan, media scholar at UVA newrepublic.com/article/2013...
newrepublic.com
Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down
How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 16/09/2025
under this language charlie kirk would not have been allowed to speak on clemson’s campus
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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
Opinion | I’ve dedicated my career to promoting free speech on college campuses. Here’s why the murder of a red state college dropout by another red state college dropout means it’s time to fire liberal professors in blue states.
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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Each Friday, I summarize what is happening to American science & higher ed. 🧪 This was Week 34: - UC Berkeley feeds the administration a list of targets - Dept of Ed rescinds $350M from minority serving institutions - faculty firings at Texas A&M & so (SO) much more buttondown.com/liminalcreat...
buttondown.com
Week 34
Sept 6-12, 2025 - the purpose of a parachute
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Denny Carter @dennycarter.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
The president plans to invade Chicago this week. Now to schedule the vet appointment and get the kids’ backpacks ready for school!
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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
The attack on core departments, tenured, and tenure track faculty is now accelerating in blue states, building upon the assault on NTT colleagues. Far from resisting Trump’s assault on higher ed, University admins in Democratic run states are spraying fuel on the fire to make it burn faster.
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
I found this website full of usable resources as well as "solidarity solace for educators who might find themselves inventing wheels alone while their administrators, trustees, and bosses unrelentingly hype AI and nakedly enthuse the negative consequences for educator labor."
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Halloween III: Season of the Ben @franzferdinand2.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
A fun reminder that a loss of 60,000 jobs in and around academia is ~50% more than all coal mining jobs in the entire country.
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 12/07/2025
I'm so sorry to hear about the troubles at my graduate alma mater. I hope the faculty will keep fighting the good fight, as they have been. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...
wsj.com
Essay | Paradise Lost at the University of Virginia
Teaching literature is an exercise in freedom. Now ideological demands from the right are putting it in danger.
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Lauren Groff @legroff.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Fellow authors, I love you, and I know it feels like we don’t have a choice, but B&N and Am*zon both scheduled sales this week to preempt Independent Bookstore Day, a hugely vital source of income for indie bookstores. Please don’t promote their sales; please promote your local indie this week.
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Come work with me for a year, and help make sure religion in the ancient world continues to be taught at Lewis & Clark! lewisandclark.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Facult...
lewisandclark.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com
Visiting Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and Classics
Lewis & Clark College of Arts & Sciences The College of Arts and Sciences at Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college with 2,000 undergraduates, located in the southwest hil...
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Nowhere in the story does it explain how the men were confirmed as being ICE agents. How can anyone know they're not just kidnappers if they don't have badges or ID? And why are they masked?
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
No indication here of why Dr. Jeon's visa was suddenly revoked. UH states: "We are aware that one University of Houston faculty member has been affected by the SEVIS visa terminations based on his recent status as a doctoral student at (Ohio State)."
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H-Net Job Guide @h-net-job-guide.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
New job: Postdoctoral Fellowship in Japanese Buddhism University of California - Berkeley www.h-net.org/jobs/job_displa...
h-net.org
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
Very happy to have been a part of this great volume that explores exciting new perspectives on Japan, religion, and Japanese religions. If you speak Japanese, have a look at this conversation between the editors of the OG and new Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions!
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Melody Joy Kramer @mkramer.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
Did You Work on a Terminated NIH Grant? ProPublica Wants to Hear From You. www.propublica.org/getinvolved/...
propublica.org
Did You Work on a Terminated NIH Grant? ProPublica Wants to Hear From You.
The National Institutes of Health is canceling grants that are seen as conflicting with the Trump administration’s priorities. We want to hear from researchers who have been affected.
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Natalia Mehlman Petrzela @nataliapetrzela.bsky.social · 16/03/2025
This is insane. “Everyone is welcome here” should be the principle guiding every classroom, not a banned phrase
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Diana Butler Bass @dianabutlerbass.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
When I was a teenager in an evangelical church in Arizona, my pastor would have used this as an illustration of the Antichrist.
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Jessie Starling @jstarling.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
The deadline for proposals for the 2025 American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Boston has been extended to March 10. Here is the CFP for the Japanese Religions Unit: papers.aarweb.org/group/14930
papers.aarweb.org
Japanese Religions Unit | AAR Annual Meeting
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 19/10/2024
"Our Arabic program is half a millennium old but couldn't withstand the corporatization of the contemporary university because it isn't nuclear engineering"
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 20/09/2024
Outstanding job opening in a legendary Buddhist Studies Department with an absolutely top-notch Japan Studies program as well. Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA is searching for a tenure stream assistant professor in Japanese Buddhism! recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF09824?fbc...
recruit.apo.ucla.edu
Assistant Professor in Japanese Buddhism
University of California, Los Angeles is hiring. Apply now!
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