iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 26/09/2024

Working through editorial feedback for a book review for a Classics journal (not something I do often) and golly Classics is the only discipline I work with where comments about how a book helps redirect the field get read as an attack. *So* much defensive gatekeeping

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Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 24/05/2024

I once wrote an article about the parable of the Good Samaritan that people apparently read. So far, 80k people have watched this collab with Religion for Breakfast which breaks it down - so if you want to see how this all translates to public scholarship, have a peek www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Yy...

youtube.com

The Most Misunderstood Parable of Jesus

Compare news coverage. Spot media bias. Avoid algorithms. Try Ground News today and get 40% off your subscription by going to https://ground.news/religionfor...

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Nick Kapur @nickkapur.bsky.social · 17/02/2024

I did not realize that West Virginia University's plans to cut its entire world languages and literature department is yet another example of supposedly "data-driven" admins eliminating a humanities program that their own data shows is a profit center: www.languagemagazine.com/2023/08/15/w...

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Andrew Tobolowsky @andytobo.bsky.social · 23/01/2024

This is 100% true in academia, too. So many of the things that administrators do work much worse than what was being done before but make sense when you realize administrators need stuff on their CVs

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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 23/01/2024

Business culture and American society in general needs less management and more leadership. That sounds kind of trite and dumb but management culture in my experience is really geared around *making the manager look good to their bosses* which is actually cancer to the overall organization.

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Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 23/01/2024

“The second issue, but the more important one…is that RCM/ IBB has been a soft coup that steals power at the university away from the faculty.” University budgets are bad and should feel bad From me & @lollardfish.bsky.social FREE TO READ & SHARE (but please subscribe)

buttondown.email

University budgets are moral documents

Universities are creating a(n intentional) recursive doom loop for the Humanities

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Kim Weeden @weedenkim.bsky.social · 17/01/2024

The "butts in seats" budget model of universities contributes to, or at least doesn't help, many seemingly unrelated problems: - administrative bloat - grade inflation & dumbed-down courses - adjunctification - alienation & social isolation of students - inter-unit competition vs. cooperation More:

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Janet D. Stemwedel @docfreeride.bsky.social · 17/01/2024

As we’re fighting for pay increases that even come close to the rate of inflation, our class sizes increase & assigned time for service work is clawed back. Our buying power is eroding, and it impacts conditions for student learning.

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Tim Lubin @timlubin.bsky.social · 16/01/2024

"Status between Law and Religion," our seminar issue of the Journal of Law and Religion is accessible w no paywall for a short while, so get it while it's hot! www.cambridge.org/core/journal... @mjchalmers.bsky.social #Mishnah #Samaritans #Hindu #gods #religiousminorities

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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 16/01/2024

But because budgets are allocated by number of students, fewer instructors would mean fewer students thus justifying more cuts thus meaning fewer instructors this meaning fewer students thus justifying more cuts thus meaning fewer instructors this meaning fewer students thus justifying more cuts /4

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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 16/01/2024

It is my pre-existing belief (so you might want to be wary of my analysis )that models of revenue sharing, shifting core curriculum requirements, and the establishment of undergraduate business majors lie at the heart of the destruction of the modern university. Today's case: U Chicago. /1

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Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 15/01/2024

on reflection, I should not be surprised that an ethics centre headed by conservative senior faculty understands the avoidance of moral judgement as a general good but depressing, nevertheless

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Dr. Paula R. Curtis @paularcurtis.bsky.social · 11/01/2024

70% of academic positions are now contingent, but this team of senior scholars recommends that you accept shitty colleagues and working conditions, be enthusiastic as fuck, don't hang in there longer than four years, and don't stop applying to job openings. www.chronicle.com/article/dos-...

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Andrew Tobolowsky @andytobo.bsky.social · 15/01/2024

I think the main reason we talk about these op eds so much is that a decent society requires consequences for antisocial behavior. It's not like that needs to be the media's job but they shouldn't work hard to insure the opposite, which is their thing

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Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 15/01/2024

Q. What do a police officer, a victim of racism, a domestic violence survivor, and an NRA member have in common? A. They are people who, according to a new initiative by the ethics centre(!) at one college I work at, we need to "unjudge". The horrid, moral emptiness of identity capitalism

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Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 08/01/2024

As the semester kicks off, the inevitable emails about how cool AI is ooze down from management. Here's a thread about how, regardless of AI being a good tool or not, it's not clear it's *ethical* atm Two main points: environmental strain and labour 1/n

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Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 17/12/2023

I do not understand why we still ask for multiple customized documents plus three letters of recommendation for 1-year visiting positions* We really should just lift some of that unnecessary burden from junior and precarious colleagues *also unnecessary for tenure-stream positions, as an aside

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Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 24/11/2023

Our new open-access article: without attention to non-European premodernity, can you properly understand minority status? (Co-authoring is fun - you can collate knowledge to throw some punches) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 14/11/2023

an awful lot of the time, the conditions for cuts in higher ed are just like this one invented out of thin air for reasons that management either (1) use cynically or (2) train themselves to then consider to be vital

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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 13/11/2023

When we bemoan how "things have changed" in academia, we can and should center the ongoing devastating toll of the pandemic on so many of us. If we're disengaged, at least for many of us, its because we're genuinely struggling to cope. And department "climate" or socializing is not a priority.

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Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 13/11/2023

"people just realized how much of their lives were being taken up by stuff they weren't getting paid for" is the nail-on-head explanation for 90% of management headscratchers in higher ed cheap free cookies aren't going to get extra attendance at faculty meetings and that's not surprising

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 12/11/2023

Several years ago I did a thread on different types of “it’s complicated” claims, and I think I should bring it over here. The histories of Palestine and Israel, its’ peoples’ claims re: the land, etc. are all legitimately complicated. Whether it’s acceptable to bomb civilians is emphatically not.

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Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 13/11/2023

Two factors at least, imo First, there's still COVID, lots of folks are careful about it, and few places are taking precautions Second, faculty morale is v low, and rightly so. It's hard to commit extra for a job that wants to be a community but doesn't (or can't) do the necessary legwork

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Andrew Tobolowsky @andytobo.bsky.social · 25/10/2023

They just do both - nobody doing the actual work of education makes any money, tuition never stops going up, and yet somehow, massive financial crisis

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Andrew Tobolowsky @andytobo.bsky.social · 25/10/2023

This is part of what's so amazing about this stuff. These desecrations are always justified by the need to cut costs - but they never have to explain why replacing lots of permanent employees w/ ppl being paid 3k a class didn't cut costs

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Daniel Yacob @ethiopic.bsky.social · 23/10/2023

An early bird special, fonts.geez.org is ready for public viewing and now includes a link to download an archive of 169 free-to-use-and-share Ethiopic fonts (131 of which are OpenSource). My thanks to the typeface designers who helped contribute to the archive! #ethiopic

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Andrew Tobolowsky @andytobo.bsky.social · 14/10/2023

It's so dumb but so true that padding admin CVs is a big reason things are the way they are. Nobody ever does "we paid em a little more and made their jobs a little easier," just "we created a new center for doling out back pats"

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Lauren Eriks Cline @lerikscline.bsky.social · 14/10/2023

Among the things you might expect in a sector where upper admins have tons of mobility and workers have little to none: a relentless cycle of new programs, cuts to programs, threats of additional cuts to create urgency for even newer programs - with most value accruing to the C.V.s of upper admin.

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Mark A. Latham @markalatham.bsky.social · 12/10/2023

Me, aged 14, in history class: "Wartime propaganda was so obvious though. How could anyone fall for that?" Me, aged 44, opening Twitter: "Oh."

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Bex is WEAK on crime @bextraordinary.bsky.social · 12/10/2023

I am all aboard with best teaching practices, but I also wish more folks would acknowledge the labor involved at a time when faculty are asked to do a lot more with a lot less. Student success is tied to faculty (especially non-TT) working conditions. I don't think they are separable. #AcademicSky

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Andrew Tobolowsky @andytobo.bsky.social · 11/10/2023

I think the obvious point to make about this stuff is university presidents no longer spend nearly enough time with professors or, more broadly, the basic educational mission that is the justification for the university's existence but

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collin cornell @collincornell.bsky.social · 06/10/2023

“while Japan’s colonisation of Manchuria was unfolding, there was reluctance to condemn Japan by Western scholars. This confusion helps illuminate why other similar settler colonial projects unfolding in the Global South have received little condemnation today” aeon.co/essays/settl...

aeon.co

Settler colonialism is not distinctly Western or European | Aeon Essays

Displacing and destroying peoples by colonisation is not just a historical Western evil but a global and contemporary one

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Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 05/10/2023

one of the things that makes me happy about my History of Christianity course is that we don't read the (canonical) Gospel of Matthew but we do read Pseudo-Matthew (reason: to reflect on the popularity of massive, creative, expansions on bible-as-written) (also dragons)

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Matt Chalmers @mjchalmers.bsky.social · 01/10/2023

partly facetious, and with apologies to Rabbinicists, but I feel like if people want to read critical reviews they should dip their toes into Rabbinics sometime and then think about how much they want their field to look that way

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Andrew Tobolowsky @andytobo.bsky.social · 30/09/2023

We should destroy AI even IF it's useful for some things. Humans very obviously can't be trusted with it

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Rebecca Colesworthy @rcolesworthy.bsky.social · 28/09/2023

Excited—& a bit nervous—to have this essay in the world. It started as an MLA talk—which I described at the time as the political unconscious of the usual How To Publish Your Book fare—& became much more thanks to the wonderful team at Public Books. Solidarity! www.publicbooks.org/publishers-a...

publicbooks.org

Publishers and Scholars, Unite!

Universities have disinvested from their presses just as much as their humanities departments and libraries. Will working together stop it?

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Kelly Holob @kholob.bsky.social · 27/09/2023

Are there /any/ early Christian figures considered martyrs who were killed extrajudicially? I’m struggling to think of anyone before Cyprian starts applying it to some living people (who were still condemned, just not to death). (I know the term is problematic; just work with me here.)

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And-Boo 👻 Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 26/09/2023

I promise I'm not going to go back and rehashtag all my posts but... #GospelThrillers

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Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop @soraaad.bsky.social · 25/09/2023

So, see also the plan for Higher Ed, the path cleared for this by adjunctification. #AI h/t @jackiantonovich.bsky.social

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Elizabeth Sampat @twoscooters.bsky.social · 24/09/2023

This is the whole point of AI. It’s not to actually replace humans. It’s to change your title from “head writer” to “assistant AI technician,” not credit you, and pay you half of what you were paid before

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Greg Given @greggiven.bsky.social · 24/09/2023

“The issue is not just servility, however, but a hubris that can superficially look like servility’s opposite, as when academics tell themselves that they are only humouring management while actually pursuing their own, subtly subversive agendas.“

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alice @alicebennett.bsky.social · 21/09/2023

answering the question, what is an academic and why are they like that? newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

Academics, it seems, are like the acquaintance who Dorothy Parker said ‘speaks 18 languages and can’t say “no” in any of them.’ The issue is not just servility, however, but a hubris that can superficially look like servility’s opposite, as when academics tell themselves that they are only humouring management while actually pursuing their own, subtly subversive agendas. But management, academics often forget, are generally indifferent to mockery or critique, however finely-crafted and devastating. They are happy enough to let us tire ourselves out. One of their favourite tactics, in fact, is to set academics onerous, pointless tasks to keep us busy. Could we gather some evidence to support our claims that the new policy is having a detrimental effect? Could we present the case for why we really need to have such things as offices? Could we fill in this consultation? Academics exhaust themselves writing meticulously argued treatises against the latest deleterious thing management wants

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