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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 1h

If that’s the case, then the situation is worse since he’s probably hoping his volume of tweets gets Elon’s attention so he can amplify the misogyny torrent at Carson. Crap.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 1h

In related news, Carson is also an incredible historian of gender ideologies in ancient Mediterranean texts. Multiple of her publications are standard items on grad school reading lists. Thus guy’s sexism is sophomoric drivel compared to the stuff she’s engaged from ancient texts. Just saying.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 5h

What metrics does KenPom use to set these baselines, which by-definition will continue to shape later rankings after games start, right?

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 9h

When I first saw this piece and the main image for it, I thought the piece was going to critically parody Boomer type nostalgic whining about 'Kids these days who don't host anymore.' But no.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

CW: We await the recap of what exactly these Greek male heroes were questing. Spoiler: It was enslaving women for sex. That was literally the top “prize” that materially reflected “honor.” Fucking Nestor even gives a speech demanding that no Greek can return home without raping a Trojan woman.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Meanwhile, perhaps the most famous biblical story about someone staging a bigtime public execution in order to assert the political power they wanted was (checks notes) Haman in the book of Esther. And, of course, the biblical story famously has things going so well for Haman in the end... ❌

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

And of course, even if one could argue that some biblical texts normalize public executions (while others disrupt), we have this other issue... Who cares?! We shouldn't make public policy, laws, and norms based on what is or is not "biblical." And I say this as a Christian. Keep up the good work!

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Serious voice: We could do this all day with early Christian writings. The point is not that Christian authors were exceptionally more or less sexist. Rather, they thought-with the same sexist gendered hierarchies as most other writers because Christian writers were part of ancient literary cultures

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Evangelical Influencers: OMG y'all, Christianity is superior because it undermined all the evil sexism of its day and eventually Christianity led to women's rights! Early Christian writers...

Quotation from the early Christian writing, the Testimony of Silvanus, "Live in accordance with the mind. Don’t think about the things of the flesh. Get strength for yourself, because the mind is strong. If you fall from this virtue, you have become a feminine male. And if you cast out of yourself the substance of the mind, which is thought, you have cut off the male part and turned yourself to the female part alone."

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

But we were told this is radical Dem socialism that’s too extreme for “Kitchen Table Issues” voters. Hmm. Why not just run some anti-trans ads instead to try and attract all those voters who see bigotry and think it feels like home?

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Fine, but I reject your association of JDV with the word “nerd.” Please revise your diction here.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Not that I need to say this, but what a contrast with Obama's actual reaction to the 2010 midterm elections.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

We await the champions of "Western Civilization's virtues" in the current regime to actually read and think self-critically about some Greek/Roman political philosophy texts. Like, I've lost count of how many writings about rulers stress, "DO NOT F-ING SURROUND YOURSELF WITH FLATTERING SYCOPHANTS!"

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

And their (plus Greek) mythology too! Beyond the explicit autochthony propaganda, when we read the 'Apollodorus' version of mythology about Kadmos and Thebes, my students experiment on their own with ways it could have "No really, this is OUR land ... no other natives have claim to it!" energy.

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Reposted by Stephen L. Young

Anise K. Strong @anisekstrong.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

One.of the pts I made to my Roman History class yesterday was that the Romans were absolutely not "unapologetic" about their nationalism. We can be cynical and eyebrow-raising about it (and should), but the whole history is full of "The Carthaginians hit us first" and "we're just liberating Greece".

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

You and ‘Nique are basically my favorite NFL analysts, but I’m pumped as heck you both predicted this game wrong … granted, for entirely valid reasons!

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Speaking as a totally non-partisan Panthers fan who also takes great joy in the Cowboys losing, I'm desperately hoping that both you and 'Nique's predictions for this game turn out wrong. But these final two minutes...

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

But on the plus side, that's some good company there!

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Whoa! The Teachings of Silvanus getting a mention?! No no no, this violates whatever unwritten rules of SBLdom that have kept this text under wraps! Congrats.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Despite being a professional scholar of biblical literature and ancient Mediterranean religion, clearly I assigned all those papers about why Jesus claims he teaches in parables in the Gospel of Mark (spoiler: to confuse the fuck out of people!) because I needed 1st-year intro students to educate me

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

If I drive my bicycle up the mountain, it's a PR and KOM every single time!

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

And the classic theological term for someone conjuring a god who never disappoints and always fulfills their preconceived notions is ... checks notes ... Idolatry. Funny how the '18 days in heaven' idolatry promoted by Foxnews is catnip for the WE goTTa dISplAy tHE tEN cOMmANdMeNTs iN SChoOLz crowd.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Also heard the same thing from a colleague who teaches at a small college and finds, just as you’re saying, that a similar approach facilitates learning among college students too.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Fascinating thread! Fwiw, my partner is an early childhood educator and taught in a Montessori school before her current job as a public school first grade teacher. She said that a constant maxim among the childhood educators was “Do not expect what we do not inspect.”

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I’m old enough to remember when Wall Street billionaires doxxed college students so they’d struggle to find jobs … for the horrible crime of (checks notes) protesting genocide. So surely the same Wall Street dudes will doxx these guys who bragged about it raping in a group chat, right?!?

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This is legitimately one of the best books I have read in a while. Incredible historical expertise combined with some ethical activist history. As an ancient historian, it's fricken awesome to read a book on ancient history where I am also truly learning new stuff almost every page.

bookshop.org

A Womb of One's Own: Lost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome

A bold new history of women's health, brought to life through ancient women's stories of pregnancy and birth. In the well-trod history of the Roman Empire, a pivotal moment has long gone unnoticed: It...

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Thank you for writing this book. I am looking forward to reading it, and will see if some of my colleagues and friends who study pregnancy and childbirth in Mediterranean antiquity can review or write some public scholarship about it!

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

OMG, absolutely fucking not! We're talking MS Word here. Not even superhuman* (errr, plagiarism machine) AI can do that.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

At the risk of truly being 'pedantic', how much renowned "meticulous attention to detail in capturing a time period" does it take to have the folks in the movie just use, you know, the actual language Shakespeare wrote for the play? I'm just spitballing here...

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Sounds like that pastor and the entire worship team should be in the nursery for next weekend’s 2+ hour service so they can see what it’s like.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Whoa! How long was the service as a whole?

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

From my previous life in evangelical church world, there was a song called "Oceans" (?) that felt like worship teams turned into a competition to see how long they could make it go.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

In fairness, I opted to pay no attention to Taylor long ago. Perhaps it was my moron radar kicking in so preemptively that she didn't even get a chance to register...

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

But have you considered that the unqualified white male nepo babies and their un- or underqualified friends need jobs, need to hire their friendz, and need to hire (younger) women they plan to harass? Isn’t the world of post-“DEI” great?!? 🤮

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I’m old enough to remember when Trump claimed that if he wins the 2024 election, prices will drop “on day one!” Also, “no new wars.” Also, peace in Ukraine and Middle East “on day one.”

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

There are words coming out of my mouth now that I will not make public on social media … even if no one is really paying attention to us here. Ugh.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Oh fuck. He grew up here in Watauga County too?

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Reposted by Stephen L. Young

Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Some of my 9/11 memories are vivid. It was just a few weeks into my first year of college at UNC, and I was in my Tue/Thur 8:00-9:15 Ancient Greece class. I'd already started a practice that stuck with me for the rest of college: a 2-3 min break during 75 min classes to walk to a water fountain 1/

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

It is important for us to share memories of 9/11 and to un-erase what we can, esp the suffering of people whose voices were silenced or overlooked. And we must firmly disrupt when leaders whose policies, racism, and violence recreate a world of terror attempt to lie their way into heroic roles. 13/

theconversation.com

What we forget when we remember 9/11

There is a strange nostalgia in realizing that something once so immediate now belongs increasingly to people who know it only as the past.

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Here is something to remember about firefighters and Tuesday, September 11th 2001: 343 FDNY heroes were killed that day. Many of them when the towers collapsed because, unlike narcissist lying stolen-valor ghouls like Trump, they had run inside the burning melting buildings to rescue people. 12/

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

But here's the thing: Despite my mix of vivid memories and the blur of the day, there has literally never been a moment where I thought, "Yeah, I was at Ground Zero getting pulled out of the rubble and running with firefighters." That's not some memory that one gets confused about. That's lying! 11/

theguardian.com

Trump’s top six falsehoods about 9/11 as 25th anniversary nears

US president often brings up al-Qaida attack that struck his home town New York City almost 25 years ago

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

One friend did join the military after 9/11 and became a Ranger who deployed to Afghanistan (?). Another started what became 8 or so semesters of studying Arabic because he wanted to learn abt people and cultures 'over there' to further mutual human empathy. We all huddled together that Tuesday. 10/

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The rest of the day is a blur of sitting with new friends, crying, anger, folks pledging their lives to service or the military. But mostly confusion because none of us knew what was going on. We lacked social media and smart phones to give us the (misleading) feeling of confident connection. 9/

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

For some reason I knew my dad was traveling for work in the Northeast. I didn't have a cell phone, so another student lent me theirs and I called either my mom or my dad's office assistant (can't remember which I called first) and was quickly assured dad was ok, as was my aunt who lived in NYC. 8/

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

A haunting memory for me was watching these little dots live on TV falling from the tops of the Towers. Eventually a news camera with enough res zoomed in and we all realized the dots were people jumping to their deaths - to avoid getting burned alive? The camera cut away as the reporter gasped. 7/

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Class continued and finished at 9:15. It wasn't until I was walking across campus and saw more folks running than usual at 9am that any of us began to think something was up, but what? There was a crowd at the Student Union. The second plane had already hit. We watched the rest on big TVs there. 6/

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

As many folks have explained, we had no smart phones with cameras, so the news sites did not have pictures posted yet or videos from Ground Zero. Many students in my class didn't have cell phones either. There was no deluge of calls or texts in the class to let us know "OMG! We're under attack!" 5/

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Stephen L. Young @slyprofessor.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This is one vivid memory: When I saw the little hyperlink about the first plane hitting the WTC, I didn't think much about it at all. I assumed it meant a little Cessna had accidentally crashed into the building. So my thought was, "Well that really sucks for them," and then I went back to class. 4/

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