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Charlie McCrary

@mccraryc.bsky.social
279 followers 214 following 148 posts

I write and teach about US religion, secularism, religious freedom, spirituality, race, politics, etc. I work at Eckerd College. www.eckerd.edu/religious-studies/fa…

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Reposted by Charlie McCrary
Candace Lukasik @clukasik.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
My book, “Martyrs and Migrants” has received Best Work in the Study of Practices, Communities, or Lived Contexts from the @aarweb.bsky.social! Grateful to the committee for this recognition—I am absolutely thrilled! aarweb.org/news/2026-aa...
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Dustin A. Chacón @lingdustin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I've heard people make claims that AI would lead to a new Renaissance, but I didn't imagine it'd happen like this:
Screenshot of a Tweet from Pope Leo XIV. It reads: 

"In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgen to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 02/10/2026
Checking in on how things are going over at the Chronicle Against Higher Education:
Screenshot of Chronicle of Higher Education website showing featured articles: "Anthropology Has a Truth Problem"; "The Social Sciences Have a Politics Problem"; "Could AI Be Better at Peer Review Than Humans?"; "Colleges Should Take Linda McMahon's Call to Action Seriously."
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Mark E. Steiner @markesteiner.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Murray Rothbard, the anarcho-capitalist economist and advocate of right-wing populism, was cited in two 2026 opinions by Clarence Thomas. Rothbard figures prominently in recent work by @quinnslobodian.com and John Ganz @lioneltrolling.bsky.social Rothbard has never been cited before. 1/5
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It's kind of validating but also frustrating when I find a Reddit post where someone has the exact same tech issue I'm having and none of the suggested solutions worked for them either.
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Greenberg Center at Trinity College @trincollgreenberg.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Join us on Thurs. 10/8 at 12:15 in the 1823 Room for A Conversation on Landor, Religion, and Race in Prisons Panelists include Lucius Couloute (Sociology), Nadja Eisenberg-Guyot (Anthropology), Glenn Falk (Public Policy and Law), @mccraryc.bsky.social, and @smothurston.bsky.social.
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Johanna Winant @johannawinant.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
missing from this argument is the fact that Williams is an extraordinarily rich college with students who are overall very well-prepared for college—essentially none of this is generalizable even to a flagship university, much less any other higher education institution
nytimes.com
Opinion | I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think. (Gift Article)
If I do not treat writing as essential for achieving thought, it is not clear why I should force my students to.
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Scenes from Real America (Bradenton, FL): At a gas pump, a broad man in Oakleys and a "tactical" black t-shirt with his 13-year-old son, who is wearing a full baseball uniform. He says, "These prices hurt, but people forget what Biden did to us. Trump is a clown. This is bad. But people forget."
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Bridget Read @bridgetgillard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
My paperback is out on October 20 if you want to know why MLM-style scams run the country now :) No they literally run it www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/715421...
penguinrandomhouse.com
Little Bosses Everywhere by Bridget Read: 9780593443941 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
A “gripping” (The Washington Post) work of history and reportage that unveils the stranger-than-fiction world of multilevel marketing: a massive money-making scam and radical political conspiracy...
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Shout out to the student journalists at The Daily Iowan for reporting on the travesty that is Iowa's Center for Intellectual Freedom. With quotes from me dailyiowan.com/2026/09/15/u...
dailyiowan.com
Uncertainty in leadership, curriculum surrounds UI Center for Intellectual Freedom
In the barren walls of his Calvin Hall office, where the Center for Intellectual Freedom resides, interim director and University of Iowa economics professor Luciano de Castro shuffles a stack of pape...
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
also I have three reviews due this week, so there's no way to guess what I'm talking about, even if someday you figure out that I reviewed you. So this is OK to say on the Internet. #professionalethics
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Thinking about that (apocryphal? idk) Abraham Lincoln line about spiritualism, "Well, for those who like that sort of thing, I should think it is just about the sort of thing they would like," as I struggle through this peer review.
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I am desperate for politicians clear-minded enough to advance a proudly anti-scam agenda
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 13/09/2026
There are certainly things that are specifically bad about the AI takeover of higher ed but the basic logic of treating the campus as a captive audience for private corporate advertising & extraction is a very old one that we should maybe think about undoing.
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The disciplinary soul of AI: data annotation and the politics of religious erasure: tif.ssrc.org/2026/09/09/t...
tif.ssrc.org
The disciplinary soul of AI: data annotation and the politics of religious erasure
Before a machine can learn to understand the human soul, it must first be taught what it is required to […]
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Basically everyone here would crush him in a debate, tbh
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YouGov @yougov.co.uk · 10/09/2026
As the Bayeux Tapestry opens to the public at the British Museum, what impact do Britons think the Norman Conquest had on British history? Positive: 25% Neither: 25% Negative: 6% Don't know: 44% yougov.com/en-gb/daily-...
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Madeleine Baker @madeleineebaker.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The most joyous unboxing of my life! The paperback of Make Your Own Job is out today, with a very special new cover. You can find a copy wherever you like to buy your books.
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Micah Schwartzman @micahschwartzman.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
In the story below, First Liberty's GC argues that abortion exemptions weren't available historically. But that historical objection somehow disappears when he argues for vaccine exemptions, even though no court in U.S. history granted one before COVID. Cf. news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-a...
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Sonemic / Rate Your Music @sonemic.com · 08/09/2026
The charts have been updated. @chatpileband.bsky.social - 'Who Loves the Sun' debuts at #1 in the top albums of 2026. rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/a...
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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Interrupting myself to say that it is easy to despair about the state of letters when all that wafts across your field of vision is the Atlantic and the Chronicle, but my God there is a lot of excellent writing getting written. And it’s worth the print subscription. Every penny.
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Shout out to Nathanael Homewood for the great editorial work and the idea for the special issue. Check it out!
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
New issue of _Religious Studies Review_ has a large section on religious nationalisms. My piece is polemical, drawing from Susan Harding on "fundamentalism" to argue that "Christian nationalism" is not a useful analytical term for religious studies scholars. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/17480922...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Religious Studies Review: Vol 52, No 2
Click on the title to browse this issue
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Great piece on an amazing album, which I frequently listened to on a portable CD player, while delivering newspapers in the wee hours of the morning before going to high school.
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I've read a lot of great student writing and heard them say lots of smart and insightful things. But there is no line I think about more often than "she Hobby on my Lobby til I RFRA." That one has really stuck with me.
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
I’m teaching a 3-week intensive course for incoming first-years on Attention, and they loved the essay (and the ed. volume intro). Close reading was our first example of something worthwhile we could do with our attention. Thank you!
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Megan Robertson @robertsonma.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
I cannot overemphasize how important this is regarding close reading as teaching and learning.
In our work, we assumed - before anything else, before any evidence - that there was meaning, and that we were rational, and we decided that we treat texts, ourselves, and each other this way.
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
(I do think the policing instincts are subsiding a bit, but absolutely stop doing copshit that puts educators on the same side as surveillance tech.) 👇🏻
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
This only "becomes a political and moral crisis" if reactionary centrists relentlessly frame it as one. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Abdul El-Sayed’s Hasan Piker Problem
In Michigan, the Democratic Senate candidate’s alliance with a hard-left streamer has become a political and moral crisis.

By Jonathan Chait
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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I think the mainstream American political universe has not quite grasped how difficult it is about to become for Republicans to keep brain-poisoned Twitter Nazi freaks out of their campaigns. It's a solid 85% of their talent pool under 30.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 25/08/2026
A consistent pitch by the makers of ai wearables is that they solve the problem of getting to know your child. www.businessinsider.com/parents-brea...
Molly, who runs a startup to help parents book activities for kids, is willing to use AI for logistics, like meal planning or sorting through her email to surface the most important messages from their daughter's school. Sean, who works in tech sales, wants to go further. He has his eyes on Omi necklace, an AI wearable that listens in on your day and includes a feature called Parent Whisperer. It records and analyzes interactions between parent and child, logging things like school assignments and supplies to order. The device also picks up on tone, alerting parents when their kid may be unhappy — registering everything from "from toddler tantrums to teenage mood swings," per its ad copy — and offering "expert-backed guidance" on how to respond.
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
cognitive sabotage, you can ban it extra credit to U Chicago for bans on professional AND undergrad programs; smart SLACs are going to market AI free campuses soon chicagomaroon.com/53262/news/s...
chicagomaroon.com
Sosc Core to Institute AI Ban, Technology-Free Classrooms This Fall
All social science Core classes will transition to an “analog” approach for the upcoming academic year, restricting in-classroom technology use and banning AI-assisted writing and grading for students...
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 22/08/2026
The right wing dream is to create civic thought programs at universities around the country to hire humanities PhDs, like the Hamilton Center, but they have to be able to control the production, which they can’t do w/o grad students. Meanwhile, normal, research-driven grad students can’t get jobs.
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Madeleine Baker @madeleineebaker.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Our tiny team so appreciates all the support for this story here. The best way to help us to continue to correct the record of The Atlantic and other corporate media giants is to subscribe to the magazine: thedriftmag.com/subscribe
thedriftmag.com
Subscribe
Choose a combination print & digital subscription to receive issues in the mail, or continue reading us right here with a digital-only subscription. We publish three print issues per year…
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
if you tell me "A is a bully on social media(/in print, in whatever specific scenario) but very pleasant elsewhere" you are roughly 50x likelier to convince me that they have the additional vice of cowardice than you are to convince me that they have a hidden virtue of kindness
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aohsu @aohsusometimesy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Tyler University of Austin Harper’s letter
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
not a conspiracy and other researchers are documenting and developing www.theamericanvandal.com/p/against-te...
theamericanvandal.com
Against Technofeudal Education
Pillars For Protecting Our "Core Infrastructure" From OpenAI
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
its telling that the first quote that this article includes is from Jacob Rees-Mogg and it just goes downhill from there.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
bring back shame
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
predictably excellent from hollingshead, every word "Against the forces of antiintellectual fascists+AI tech lords, self-flagellating academics+immediacy fetishists alike, we need to champion the difficulties+pleasures of humanities scholarship with our whole chests." defector.com/humanists-ha...
defector.com
Humanists Have Done Nothing Wrong | Defector
For many years, I’ve held a pet theory that cultural consumers can be grouped into two broad categories: Primary Source People and Secondary Source People. The former are the book lovers, cinephiles, ...
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Ed Burmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
A fantastic book about living in the world (and the culture) 9/11 made was published a couple years ago and I felt fortunate to review it. And disappointed that the book didn’t get the attention it merited. newrepublic.com/article/1852...
newrepublic.com
The World That September 11 Made
Richard Beck’s “Homeland” traces the far-reaching aftereffects of the attacks and tries to recover the events of the day, as they happened.
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
The story itself isn't so similar, but it's about weird guys in an exceedingly seedy ecosystem becoming sort of heroes by taking down even weirder, seedier guys, but for perhaps not the "purest" of intentions, etc. The Internet most 15-year-olds experience calls for a "real rain," one could say.
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
this thought inspired by the latest TrueAnon, with Ezra Marcus, on this story - www.thecut.com/article/cam-...
thecut.com
The Porn Addicts Who Tried to Rescue the Camgirls
How a community of porn addicts tried to rescue the teenage camgirls they worshipped from the clutches of a violent webcam pimp.
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Idk if it's a good idea, but someone should try doing _Taxi Driver_ except set in 2026 and mostly on the Internet.
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
NYT wanted to write a story about "moderate Dems go to war with DSA," looked around, and the best they could find was a *proposal* by Third Way to spend $15M against left candidates. The story is not evidence that *Democrats* and the left hate each other... it's evidence that the NYT hates both.
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Jason Wilson @jasonaw.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
There’s an intense focus on other forms of discrimination throughout the English speaking world and no attention to no-holds-barred Islamophobia in right wing outlets, and casual Islamophobia in mainstream outlets
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
It's kind of like Anidjar's _The Jew, the Arab_ except with Muslims/Arabs in both roles.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Ben Shapiro probably does not know enough history to even know this, but the way he is talking about Muslims as a nation within the nation who can never be integrated is almost verbatim what European nationalists said about Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Tweet from Ben Shapiro: "It turns out that importing massive numbers of Muslims from third world countries is a bad idea. Not just because people get beaten in Dearborn for protesting or nearly stabbed in Ceuta for covering the news. But because radical Muslims create voting enclaves in Western countries, then build coalitions with radical Leftists who hate our civilization. Which is what’s about to happen in the Michigan Senate primary tonight.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/38vGLFQdRN2C5rP1ZjtCRF"
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Charlie McCrary @mccraryc.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I don't really know who Hank Green is, other than a "youtuber," but I have heard of him because he is the most (only?) famous Eckerd College graduate. And now I'm seeing news stories that he got AI psychosis. Disappointing for his first-year mentor, I'm sure, and bad for the brand. #GoTritons
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