Indeed we are! ✊

When we have proposed an Academic Freedom article for our union contract—now three times, first two rejected outright—the representatives of the Harvard administration have repeatedly asked us:

“Is this a real problem for workers in your unit?”

The sick thing is: we who teach expos do all writing exam reading and subsequent expos advising in August. Usually, the big pitch to students recommended for Studio 10—they get to decide whether or not to follow our rec—is that there’s only 10 students, so much more individualized instruction…

Harvard Plans to Increase Introductory Writing Course Sizes, Drawing Union Objections | News | The Harvard Crimson Harvard plans to increase class sizes in a subset of its introductory writing courses, a move that union leaders said would improperly raise instructors’ workloads during ongoing contract negotiations...

Continued tales in the Harvard administration's commitment to undergraduate education

Strange paragraphs to write:
"In JRL Syr. 10, in the left margin of fol. 304r, aligned to the top of the column, there is a transfer-sticker representing an anthropomorphic green frog dressed as a medieval soldier with breastplate, sword, and chainmail head protection, topped by a feathered hat. 1/

One of the biggest labor battles in the US is happening right now in Los Angeles, at USC, where our faculty-union campaign with majority support is being met by nasty, corporate-grade administrative resistance, and national press won't cover it.

The irony of Hampshire College closing now is that its pedagogical model, independent projects, oral exams, and collaborative research, is precisely what is needed to stem the tide of AI slop and cognitive offloading.

Guggenheim had about a 4% funding rate this cycle; ACLS had roughly a 3% funding rate; & the Trump NEH is ideologically distorted. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

They key I emphasize is that the PhD has to be a worth it to them as the end in itself, not a means to a hoped-for career on the other side. If the experience of earning the PhD is worth the time/resources/energy that they are going to pour into it—often better part of a decade—go for it. 2/2

I'm usually in a much less formal advising relationship w/prospective grad students but, still, follow mostly the same approach. 1/2

damnit.

Coptic in Manchester .

We've launched the website for our 'Coptic in Manchester: Connecting Manuscripts and Communities' UKRI-funded project ('26–28) with @thejohnrylands.bsky.social !

Please share!

sites.google.com/view/coptici...

Tweet from Masoud Pezeshkian, president of Iran: "His Holiness Pope Leo XIV ( @Pontifex ), I condemn the insult to Your Excellency on behalf of the great nation of Iran, and declare that the desecration of Jesus, the prophet of peace and brotherhood, is not acceptable to any free person. I wish you glory by Allah."

Really does not feel like this is the moment in history to be cutting Religious Studies education.

As my undergrad advisor put it when imparting a valuable lesson about how academia works, "Those who have, get."

A flyer for three events: An interview of Martin Paul Eve by Matthew Kirschenbaum about “Digital-Textual Histories” on Tuesday, July 7 @ 1pm UTC A conversation about Early Modern Writing and Publishing chaired by Andie Silva and featuring Ruth Ahnert, Sebastian E. Ahnert, Andreas Patrick Bassett, Stephanie A. Leitch, and Geoffrey Turnovsky on Wednesday, July 8 at 3pm UTC; And a joint keynote address by Mark Lester and Mark Letteney on “Ancient Book History: What We Can Learn by Studying Material Transmission and Transformation in the Ancient Mediterranean" on Wednesday, July 8 @ 7:30pm UTC

Are you looking for an online global book history festival that features work on ancient through contemporary textual cultures? Look no further! Registration is open now!

events.zoom.us/ev/Ap9iEZwmC...

It was such a joy to participate last May in this panel on Virginia Burrus's book Earthquakes and Gardens. You'll be able to read all the papers at the AJR forum this week.

Move slow and fix things

incredible score

Keep an eye out for Dr. Hanna Tervanotko’s new book, Signs and Meanings: Divination and the Production of Knowledge in Jewish Antiquity, which comes out later this year with University of California Press!

www.ucpress.edu/books/signs-...

bilbo looking down at ring with smile, then serious grimace showing resolve to keep it, hesitance to give it up

shitty little sentence that makes no sense but i just like the sound of it

I, for one, would love to see Gordon Gee get the "not like us" treatment

university admins are like

I do think our commentator here is correct that, ideally, folks in a teaching+advising role would just be faculty. But in 2026 U.S.A., a "staff" classification is like a jedi mind trick for getting university admins to grant an academic wildly better pay and stability. Y'all's model is just savvy.

We've been arguing at the bargaining table for well over a year that this program of individualized advising for first- and second-year students is work that must be paid. They'd rather eliminate it altogether than pay people to do it. Harvard showing how interested it is in undergrad instruction.

Calling all Professors of Religion! Do you teach an intro to the study of religion course? If so, would you be willing to share your syllabus? Collecting for research purposes.

WE DID IT!

Our illegal union @uam-umd.bsky.social is a lot less illegal today. 12,000 contingent faculty in MD just won the right to collectively bargain. Life-changing win for teachers and students. Only happened bc thousands of people worked together to beat our bosses in the statehouse.

Once again, the national average pay for adjunct professors with PhDs is a flat fee of $3900 per course.

I love all of your footnotes. I’m reading all of them! No footnotes left behind.

And hearing a sixth-grader incant lines from industry press releases about the utility of chatbots is, and I’m sorry kiddo it’s not your fault, horror show terrifying.

appreciate the rec!