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Dr. Rachel Schine

@rachelschine.bsky.social
12K followers 2.4K following 16K posts

Picks books up and puts them down. Will work 4 دبس وطحينة. Professes Arabic and History @ UMD Hears selectively. Reads voraciously.

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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 17h
But David, with what time?!
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I guess there's some sort of "somebody logs onto the internet for the first time every day" sorta thing going on here, but how are people not so _bored_ of constantly pretending to be mad about this stuff? On some level to Permanently Furious Nerd Boys just strike me, ironically, as hobbyless.
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
There’s a legend in the 9th-C text Kitab al-Tijan that the first outbreak of rabies in Yemen traces to the military campaigns of a particular ancient ruler. People had really strong mythic associations with it, for obvious reasons.
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Nick (derogatory) 🎃 @slothropsmap.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
“I find that my relationship to cucumbers is entirely context dependent.” “Tweet that. Tweet that now.”
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Keegan Lannon @keeganlannon.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
If it’s Lectures on Tap, they also bring out loads of humanists. I’ve done 8 for them this year, and I have at least two more scheduled. I’ve done talks on comics, Game of Thrones, rhetoric and persuasion, and empathy and reading. It’s a lot of fun.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It called Lectures on Tap and it started in NYC. There are different variations of this happening too. The Center on Brooklyn History has Sips and Scholars which is the same theme.
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Dana El Kurd @danaelkurd.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Any suggestions for middle grade books with arab protagonists? My kid just said they dont like being arab because "we're always the bad guys."
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I’ve figured out a(nother) negative side of becoming a morning runner. If I don’t get my endorphin hit first thing now, it puts me in a crap mood for the rest of the day. As if the quad-shot latte addiction weren’t already doing me in.
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Mary G. @maryguiden.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Grad students at Colorado State U created Science on Tap years ago. Joe Palca was a guest speaker when he came to town. www.facebook.com/SoTFoCo/
facebook.com
Facebook
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I *need* to hear this lecture
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Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Damn.
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 03/10/2026
It’s weird to see so many higher education leaders beat their chests about “the decline of trust” from the public while refusing to acknowledge the conservative movement organizing to destroy it. Imagine someone stabbing you repeatedly while you complain about not having enough blood to bleed out.
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lowtax speedrun enjoyer @rickywlmsbong.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
sitting in the vatican, full outfit, bottle of malort, yelling about the natives about their trash pizza
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Adrianna Tan @skinnylatte.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026
The world’s largest collection of bhuta sculptures at National Crafts Museum, New Delhi. Bhuta is sculpture made from jackfruit timbre in coastal Karnataka, and can take the form of deity, spirits or animals #India #Delhi #Art #Karnataka
A photo of the bhuta gallery. A selection of various animal and deity sculptures of different sizes including two very tall ones that look like they’re standing guard
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Zeb Larson @zeblarson.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Ohio Humanities Council has/had a whole speakers bureau and paid you $400 if an org was willing to host you. I gave a couple of talks that way and other orgs occasionally found me that way as well. (Sadly the budget got fucked by DOGE).
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I was gonna delete this on learning it’s a Thing far and wide but people keep publicizing their cool versions of it so imma leave my ignorance to stand.
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Juan José Ponce Vázquez @jjponcevazquez.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Two of my colleagues have created a company just like this to bring specialists of all fields to bars and do interesting talks about their specialty. My first talk about Caribbean pirates in history and pop culture was for them. www.discoursebham.com
discoursebham.com
Home | Discourse
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Uncivil Servant @noahreday.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The field of political science no longer does outreach, rallies, lectures, speeches, or events of any kind in beer halls. Besides, do you have any idea how much work it is hanging a Sword of Damocles in a public eating establishment?
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
So apparently there’s a company that runs events where profs (mostly STEM) do “fun” topical lectures in bars and it’s a way of enticing burnt out gen-Z folks who want to escape brainrot and I love this and feel like we humanists could significantly undercut them…
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Samantha Katz Seal @samanthalkseal.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
We have a problem in British history if an article like this can be written/published without mentioning Edward’s expulsion of Jews from England in 1290 or the coin-clipping persecutions of the 1280s. Anglo-Jewish history IS English history. If your history books don’t reflect that, rewrite them.
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Dr. Karen Carr @quatrus.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I used to have a rule on my website that if eg. Edward's expulsion of Jews was important enough to mention on the page on medieval Judaism, then it had to also be on Edward's page. This rule really changed the tone of a lot of pages, I think very much for the better.
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Anthony Edwards @edwardsanthonyb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Breaking news: The Earth is getting rounder agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
INBOX:
Earth’s poles are rising by 0.5 to 1 millimeters per year, slowly un-squashing our planet’s slightly flattened, jelly-donut-like shape, according to a new study. Linking satellite measurements of changing altitude across Earth’s surface from 1997 to 2015 to the planet’s shape, researchers found that the rounding effect also seems to be accelerating over time, with the poles rising an extra 0.4 millimeters per year faster every decade. Though our planet seems solid, the Earth’s interior acts more like an extremely slow-flowing liquid, warping over time under forces like the weight of ice sheets and oceans. Currently, our planet bulges out a little around the equator. But as ice sheets melt and reduce the force acting on the Earth at the poles, the equator is gradually cinching in as the poles push upwards, molding our planet into a more spherical shape. [JGR Solid Earth study]

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2026JB034224
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I love this because it’s step one on a much longer journey… “Mom, so I heard the Arabian Nights is actually a collection of stories that grew over centuries from a Middle Persian base and was supplemented heavily in the 18th century by a Syrian Christian who fell in with its French translator?”
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Been sitting on a revision of an article whose argument I keep second-guessing for months how should I reward myself if I manage to pull the plug by the end of today?
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Adina M. Yoffie @adinayoffie.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Another thing most people don’t get: it was fairly common in early modern Europe for non-Jews, incl. Jewish converts from Christianity, to have printed compendia of salacious things they had (or claimed they had) found in the Talmud. Online antisemites have returned to the politics of 1475. Yay.
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Should not have agreed to give three different talks on three different topics in the span of months because now I have to *write* them. Ooooopsies.
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Rurouni_Phoenix @rurouniphoenix.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Post advertising iShamela, An app containing a digital library of Islamic texts on AcademicQuran the source for all things pertaining to Islamic studies, the Quran, early Islam and Islamic history: www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQu...
reddit.com
https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/s/TOrIwXLHLW
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This phrase, säbʾa sägäl , refers to the three Magi in Ge'ez, with the s-g-l root relating to augury, divination, or astrology--which, like the word "Magi" itself (related to, y'know, magic) initially connoted not general wisdom but the wisdom garnered through such arts and practices. Love that.
the phrase meaning "the Magi" in a Ge'ez manuscript
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Gooseberry (ready for Spring 🌷) @eisforenkidu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Mamdanides
Mayor Zohran Mamdani: The Talmud teaches *cuts off*
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“Azizam” was playing in the pharmacy today when I was there. Of all the things to make some Farsi go mainstream. 🤷🏻‍♀️
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"excluding Spain" *and* "global interconnections"... @merleeisenberg.bsky.social, it's all of your findings in one ad! networks.h-net.org/jobs/70469/u...
networks.h-net.org
The University of Texas at Austin - Assistant Professor of Medieval History | H-Net
To apply, upload a statement of interest, teaching statement, CV, three letters of recommendation, two relevant syllabi, and writing sample. Additional materials may be requested after initial review of applications.
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Kitteh’s motto is لا غالب إلا الله
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Matthew J Kuiper @matthewjkuiper.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Islamic Studies peeps, @armando-salvatore.bsky.social is here and has been added to the starter pack below
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Agates from Mexico @agatesfrommexico.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Deep red and burnt orange fortification banding wraps a central druzy quartz cavity. Tight concentric layers shift from crimson to cream at the outer rind. Raw matrix edges intact. 🔴
Red Velve
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
it’s officially “sorry I can’t today I have to go eat in an intentionally badly-made tent and shake an overpriced warty lemon and a bouquet made only of leaves around“ season, girlies. Chag sameach.
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Now that I’ve converted into a morning runner having been an evening runner my entire life, I’m doing bonkers things like completing a 10K before 7:30 AM, lingering over coffee, and reading before I start my day. But I have no way to ritually *end* my daily toil. Champagne problem indeed.
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Having too much fun noodling around in the Digital Archive for the Study of pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions this afternoon: dasi.cnr.it
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Began experimenting with oil pastels for the first time since high school earlier this week. Amateurish but fun?
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I need to generate a list of ~80 books for my university library to purchase in the next few weeks and the most obvious thing is to tell them "Brill baby, Brill." But if anyone involved with Near Eastern Studies has other ideas for difficult-to-acquire and necessary texts, holler.
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Nika B @nika7k.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
To paraphrase - chicken or the egg - i think that curiosity is the best reason to become a scientist :-) I actually think of being a scientist is something I was born with - like any kind of orientation
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I'm fighting the urge to just up and learn Ancient South Arabian because I've already got the two most helpful feeder languages (Arabic and Ge'ez) in hand, for the simple reason that I figure once you're learning a language we only know from rocks you might as well become an archaeologist too. 🤷‍♀️
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The Medieval Academy of America @medievalacademy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Call for Papers - Medieval History Seminar Medieval History Seminar 6–8 October 2027 The German Historical Institutes in London and Washington, D.C., www.themedievalacademyblog.org/call…
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Isaac Samuel @rhaplord.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Two centuries before the formal abolition of Slavery, an African prince from the kingdom of Ndongo (modern Angola) spearheaded an international legal case against Spain, Portugal, and Italy, accusing them of committing crimes against humanity www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-africa...
africanhistoryextra.com
The African origins of Abolition: African Anti-Slavery Laws in the Atlantic World.
Abolitionism succeeded thanks to the struggles of many movements, some of which were global, while others were local and emerged from pre-existing Anti-slavery laws in pre-colonial Africa that sought ...
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Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 23/09/2026
please to see that my latest academic article is out now: "Ghost in the Machine. Crusade Medievalisms in the 21st-century United States" I take on the ghost of Samuel Huntington and some right-wing tropes in scholarship open access so free to read --> www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
As it is written, so it shall be.
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
If it’s going to be 60*, dark, muddy, and rainy I should at least be in a place with the medieval architecture to match—as Hollywood continuously promises me.
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I feel for op ed writers tbh. Thinking a novel yet craven thought each day is so hard. Most craven thoughts have already been thought millions of times over.
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Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hey medievalists! Drop some scholarship on medieval perspectives on Kol Nidre pweeze? 🥺
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