iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Really proud to see something that has been several years in the making come together like this. Honors education is at its best when it reaches across the university. news.fsu.edu/news/student...

news.fsu.edu

FSU Honors Program introduces new Graduate Teaching Fellowship

The University Honors Program has launched a new Graduate Teaching Fellowship, which allows advanced graduate students to design and teach unique honors

010

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Persians: Lay down your weapons Spartans: Come and take them Persians: Bet

000

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Let's ban all these pieces period. The risks are well known, people just delude themselves into believing that they will be the exception to the long odds. Also a special 'shut up' to those who have made 'escaping academia' consulting their cottage industry after writing one of these pieces. Shills.

030

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Literally all you needed to say was 'If you like the movie, the book is SO much better, here's where to find it'

020

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Certain people: We need to bring back the Classics and make people learn their virtues from the ancients. Make everyone read Plato! *Whips out Aristophanes' speech from Symposium* Those same people: OK. Wait. Not like that...

140

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Also, while I'm on a roll with being judgy, it is wild to me that there are still institutions with Classics chairs named for Basil Gildersleeve

030

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

YES. Are there uninformed opinions? Yeah. But any interest is good interest and if classicists can become more practiced and effective at talking about their field to the public because of this then that is only a good thing.

010

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Ok buckle up here is my review of the Odyssey coming from someone that is not as expert on the text itself as many of my fellow classicists who have reviewed it, but who asks his students to think a lot about how the ancient past is continually adapted and reshaped to suit modern audiences:

100

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Fulfilling my responsibility as a Classicist and going to see the Odyssey. No spoilers please I hope this Odysseus guy makes it home in the end.

030

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Loved getting to blab about the greatness of Thebes! Thank you for having me on!

131

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Idk 'What could make Yale think it speaks for higher ed' @chronicle.com it's not like 3 of the 6 pieces featured on this section of your website today are either about or in response to someone or something at Yale...

000

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

On this St Patrick's Day I would like to remind everyone that this glorious song exists youtu.be/DerVmiZeUDw?...

youtu.be

Corrigan Brothers - There's No One As Irish As Barack Obama

YouTube video by CorriganBrothersVEVO

001

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Calling the collective brainpower of Classics! I'm designing a scholarship critique assignment with clear examples where a scholar's personal biases drove their narrative of the past. Obvious examples to me: Basil Gildersleeve William Tarn Victor Davis Hanson Who else?? #ancientsky #classicssky

111

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

I think a good place to start is not even asking for recommendation letters until very late in the process. It introduces more bias and begs questions about status and prestige. It's so much wasted labor on everyone's part to require them up front

120

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Having run multiple faculty searches now I can say this with confidence: There is absolutely no reason you can't inform unsuccessful candidates in a timely manner after every stage of the search process. It takes about five minutes to write and send blanket rejections through your HR portal...

4131

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

This so much. It makes me so angry to hear jokes about this. What does it say about you and your relationship with your students that your position is essentially 'my students are lying to me until they prove they aren't.' Some basic humanity in this scenario costs you nothing.

020

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

The Emmys snubbing ALL the main actors in Andor is absolutely insane!

020

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Talk about ruining a valid issue with the wrong messenger. #Academicsky Whining about teaching 76 students a semester and then having the audacity to complain you don't make as much as a high school teacher with the same degree (but more credentials)? GTFO www.chronicle.com/article/my-u...

chronicle.com

My University Values Football More Than Education

At the University of Colorado at Boulder, athletics gets all the attention — and funding.

010

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

I guess Santa finally found a chimney he couldn't contort himself into...

000

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

80 years ago today my grandparents, a WAAF who spent months living in a subway tunnel while her city burned above her and a kid from the Bronx who lied above his age and landed in Normandy, celebrated what they thought was the defeat of fascism.

120

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Reading through the comments on the annual faculty poll and it's hilariously sad how petty some of them are. Like with so many things to talk about, you chose parking as the hill to die on??

040

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Exactly what I would want in upper administration. The inability to parse complex ideas into tangible positions and not giving enough of a shit about the crowning achievement of your students to sit your ass down and write a meaningful speech just for them to show you actually think about them.

020

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

To mark the occasion, I'm starting a series of posts called 'Give Me A (Spring) Break' Every day I will address some common practice that I have encountered in higher ed pedagogy and then explain why it sucks. First up: Not accepting late work because students need to 'prepare for the real world'

100

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

She's planning her retirement in advance? She should have tried that with the sequel trilogy. Talk about being handed the ingredients to Michelin star meal and making chicken nuggets out of it. www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...

hollywoodreporter.com

Lucasfilm Boss Kathleen Kennedy Expected to Retire This Year

The prolific producer has presided over the 'Star Wars' and 'Indiana Jones' franchises through ups and downs since 2012.

000

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Oh man am I going to have my Ph.D. in Ancient History revoked if I don't make a pedantic ragebait post about the pic of Matt Damon as Odysseus? It's a movie, not a documentary. Lighten up. Adaptation is art. If it gets people talking about or interested in the ancient world that's a good thing.

020

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Watching the new French adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo and it is SO...DAMN...GOOD

010

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

As a professor, nothing enrages me more than seeing this from my peers. 1. Who cares if it IS fake? Students have lives beyond your class. Life happens. Stop being so vain and self-important and maybe ask yourself why the student would feel they need to fake it? www.reddit.com/r/Professors...

reddit.com

From the Professors community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the Professors community

130

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

You know what's totally going to save the field of Classics? Whining about how no one attends the Plenary Session at the SCS Annual Meeting. These are the real issues holding back our field 🙄🙄🙄

010

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Academic Hot Take: Stop joking about 'how many grandparents die' every semester and trying to police students' lives. You sound like an insecure asshole whose only source of self-worth is asserting authority over 18 year olds. Also, requiring an obituary is fucking ghoulish and retraumatizing.

171

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

On the next episode of Ancient Aliens: Snow Pyramids. Where did they come from? Who built them? What are they trying to tell us? Could more be buried in Antarctica? We'll never know because never do any actual research and that seems hard

040

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Another reflection on the SCS/AIA that came up in the panel I was chairing. I know that the organizations ostensibly support the development of pedagogy and global Classics, but a great start for actually demonstrating that would be to not schedule all the panels with those topics at the same time

040

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

So this has been living rent free in my head since it happened. At the SCS/AIA last week I'm listening to a paper on using the 'Athens 403' Reacting to the Past scenario in an intro Greek Civ course. The game takes up the entire second half of the semester. This makes me raise a question:

140

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Happy to announce that my paper 'Tabletop Classics: Game Design as Pedagogy and Public History' has been accepted to the Association of Ancient Historians Annual Meeting as part of the Public History and History Pedagogy panel. See you in Cincinnati!

090

Michael Furman @profboeotia.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Finally made the jump over here, so hi! I'm an ancient historian with a specialty on Thebes and Boeotia in the fourth century BC. I have developed courses on Ancient History Through Gaming, Pseudoarchaeology and Ancient Aliens, Appropriating the Past to name a few

180