Mutual aid a Lifeline for the million people Israel Displaced in Lebanon Food, clothing and shelter provided by mutual aid efforts in Lebanon are vital as Israel’s war triggers a growing humanitarian crisis

Mutual aid a Lifeline for the million people Israel Displaced in Lebanon

What if we just went back to reading a bunch of books and thinking about them together, and that was the class? With syllabi no longer than three pages.

Proton adds a secure video conferencing service called Meet to its toolbox Proton continues to build up its suite of apps to take on Microsoft and Google.

👀

Yesterday I found out a student at my institution penned an open letter to the Board of Trustees complaining about a professor using AI to run their class. The student argued they're being denied the professor's expertise.

Another instance that makes me think that the term for academics rushing into AI is “scabs.” I know many feel no ill intentions. They think they’re forward looking. But they’re failing to look around *right now,* & thus betraying colleagues & those who never got to be colleagues.

NYU Center for Religion and New Media
April 8, 2026 at 6pm EST on Zoom

Editors from Religion Dispatches (Megan Goodwin), Arc: Religion, Politics, Etc. (Mark Oppenheimer), and The Revealer (Brett Krutzsch), will discuss how to publish articles
about religion for broad readerships.

AI job losses free up time for unemployed mobs to burn down tech CEO‘s houses PALO ALTO, CA - With Silicon Valley boasting that artificial intelligence could replace millions of jobs around the world, currently laid-off workers have reported having more free time to form angry ...

AI job losses free up time for unemployed mobs to burn down tech CEO‘s houses

Postdoc on American Religion at Indiana University

www.aarsbl.org/listing/amer... #aarsbl #religiousstudies

Announcement for AAS 2026 keynote by Hyun Mee Kim on feminist democracy in South Korea, March 12 at VCC Ballroom C.

In 30 minutes, please join us in Ballroom C of the Vancouver Convention Centre for our #AAS2026 Opening Ceremony and Keynote Address by Professor Hyun Mee Kim of Yonsei University. Many thanks to Harvard-Yenching Institute for sponsoring Professor Kim's talk!

"We see a future where intelligence is a utility like electricity or water and people buy it from us on a meter and use it for whatever they want to use it for. The demand that we see for that..." - Sam Altman

These bros are not okay.

Another tough day for team “there’s no point in complaining about AI, just accept it.”

Grammarly Is Facing a Class Action Lawsuit Over Its AI ‘Expert Review’ Feature The feature, which Grammarly shut down Wednesday, presented editing suggestions as if they came from established authors and academics—without their consent.

I'm suing Grammarly over its paid AI feature that presented editing suggestions as if they came from me - and many other writers and journalists - without consent.

State law requires consent before someone's name can be used for commercial purposes.

www.wired.com/story/gramma...

Lots of folks asking how to join the class. My lawyers' emails and contact-form here. As well as the complaint if you want to take a look.

prf-law.com/current-case...

The original starter pack we created a few months ago for those looking to find more movie thoughts/words/writers in their feed...

On Tuesday, March 3 at 12 PM ET, join us for “Representing Religion in Museums,” the second webinAAR in our “Religion and America at 250” series that engages central questions around the intersection of religion, America, and the 250th anniversary of the United States: aarweb.org/event/repres...

Coming up on Friday, I'll be speaking at Harvard about my recent work on religion/politics intersections in Japan. If you're in Boston/Cambridge, come on down:

rijs.fas.harvard.edu/ja/node/1423

New: A federal court declined to approve a settlement between the Dept of Ed and the State of Missouri. This means that the SAVE plan is immediately and fully effective.

We're calling on the DOE to retroactively apply credits to debtors and immediately process cancellation.

Join us for the book talk by Dr. Ting Guo (Assistant Professor of Language Studies, University of Toronto) on 𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑆𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑚, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐿𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑃𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑀𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑛 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎 (2025).

📆 Tuesday 10 March
⏰ 2:00-2:45pm
🎞️ Auditorium, Asian Centre, UBC
Registration: hksi.ubc.ca/events/event...

Sign the Petition Keep the Classical Languages Major at the University of Iowa

Hi friends. As I previously noted, the U. of Iowa is planning to get rid of African American studies; Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, & the Classical Languages major—along with others. If you wish, please sign the classics petition: www.change.org/p/keep-the-c.... I will add more as I find out.

How to opt out: Lessons from 14 years of evading surveillance capitalism Please join us for this talk with sociologist of science and technology Janet Vertesi. Additional details to come.

Also at Berkeley, on Wednesday, catch me talking about my 14 years of experience in Opting Out of Big Tech, and why the world needs more of this right now!

besi.berkeley.edu/event/how-to...

Visiting Assistant Professor of Visual Studies (One-Year Appointment) Haverford College Seeks a Visiting Assistant Professor of Visual Studies (One-Year Appointment).

1-year VAP in visual studies starting in fall, Haverford College.

*Enemies of the Future: As part of the 2026 AAR theme of Future/s, explorations of Luddism, anti-tech, anti-AI, intentionally low-tech, and anti-modern religion (e.g., Anabaptism). *Techno-futures: As part of the AAR 2026 presidential theme of Future/s, considerations of the transformative role of technology in creating new material forms, new scientific horizons, and new religious iterations. Does the science/religion dynamic change as technology changes? *Funding Structures, Funding Collapse: Studies of the transformed landscape of funding for science in the second Trump presidency and its implications for religion as well as how science and religion funding have built the field. *Prediction and Uncertainty: Considerations of science and prediction, of unpredictability, divination, prophecy, the affects of certainty/uncertainty, despair and hope, optimism/pessimism, and speculation. *Revisiting When Prophecy Fails and Cognitive Dissonance: Considerations of new research emerging in the past decade challenging or reframing Festinger et al.’s influential 1956 book *When Prophecy Fails* and Festinger’s follow-up volume *Cognitive Dissonance.* *Genealogies of Science and Religion (for a possible cosponsored session between the Science, Technology, and Religion and Cultural History of the Study of Religion units): Where does science and religion—as a subfield—come from? What are the origin points, lineages, inflections, institutional politics, and material conditions of knowledge production that have led to the current field? Proposals may consider the Pitts Digital Collection repository of “American Academy of Religion Program Books” and/or explore the history of the STR unit (founded as “Theology and Science” in 1987) and related subdivisions of AAR/SBL. We welcome proposals from all scholarly ranks including graduate, contingent, and early-career scholars. AI-generated proposals will not be considered.

AAR/SBL folks: We're very excited about our CFP for the Science, Technology, and Religion unit this year! Have a look and consider submitting something by the March 6 deadline!

@aarweb.bsky.social @sblsite.bsky.social

By the way, if you're in TV or film, have pitched Warner or Paramount or really any studio, & believe that the Warner-Paramount deal will harm your ability to work or diminish your pay, go to this website and share your story. That's the evidence needed for a state AG case:
blockthemerger.com

Virtual book launch: Religion and Nonreligion in Same-Sex Marriage Debates: Emerging Imaginaries (edited by Juan Marco Vaggione, Paula Montero & Lori G. Beaman; De Gruyter, 2026). @nonreligioncf.bsky.social
Date: March 9, 2026
Time: 1:00 pm ET
Register here: uottawa-ca.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Meta’s Internal Research Shows Its Platforms Are Addictive and Harmful, Still It Targets Teens - The HighWire Meta’s executives continue to deny its platforms are addictive despite its own internal research that concludes otherwise.

thehighwire.com/news/metas-i...

Gen Z is reviving DVDs and Blu-rays, with local video rental shops reporting record months and membership numbers as young people embrace physical media.

Read more: www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

This App Warns You if Someone Is Wearing Smart Glasses Nearby The creator of Nearby Glasses made the app after reading 404 Media's coverage of how people are using Meta's Ray-Bans smartglasses to film people without their knowledge or consent. “I consider it to ...

NEW: A hobbyist has created Nearby Glasses, an app that warns you if someone close by is wearing smart glasses. 404 Media spoke to the creator who said he was inspired by our coverage that uncovers how men are wearing Meta's Ray-Bans to covertly film massage parlor workers.

Advert for assistant editor post

Gothic Studies is recruiting! We seek a new assistant editor 🧛‍♂️

Bombing keeps Sama'a's young daughters up most nights. They have known more death and fear at their tender age than many of us will know in our entire lives. Please give what you can to help.

chuffed.org/project/157569