N. Olya

Smile it’s the weekend! A liitle blue hippo made by an Egyptian artisan around 4,000 years ago! 🦛 ❤️ Decorated with river plants and lotus flowers, blue faience hippos are associated with the life-giving Nile and rebirth. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek 📷 by me #Archaeology

Many faculty have been sounding the alarm about the problems generative AI poses for student learning. Strangely, some higher ed administrations seem have emerged as major AI boosters. Why? As I write in the latest @hedgehogreview.bsky.social it's a labor story: hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-f...

It’s hard to launch a campaign to “grow public trust in academia” when the campaign to erode public trust in academia has been so successful there’s barely anyone left to make the case.

The Taco Bell finger pointing is a psyop to redirect attention from the real culprit, the deregulation and lack of oversight in our food supply

Exciting things happening here!!! Our inaugural essay for Rhea Receptions is up, discussing how to engage students with ancient myth via 'book club' by Dr. Stephanie Kimmey! Receptions is a limited summer run of essays exploring the ancient world today and written for a general audience. Read on👇

Just in time for the fourteenth consecutive Most Important Election of Our Lifetime™, @ginnyhogan.bsky.social and @shadesofgreaves.bsky.social’s Obey in Advance: How to Survive (and Thrive) Under Authoritarianism. Coming to you from McSweeney’s books this fall. store.mcsweeneys.net/products/obe...

There is an obvious, deliberate campaign by the @nytimes.com, @theatlantic.com, & @newyorker.com to undermine and delegitimize the study of culture in American higher education. It began in the backlash to Black Lives Matter and accelerated after the encampments. Platforming Rufo is part of this.

Sorry I was absent from my job as the Baby Healthcare Slasher. I had depression for reasons that I’m sure are entirely unrelated to that. Anyways back to my job giving everyone infectious diseases and driving teenagers to suicide.

I hope that people are aware that one of the primary political objectives of this ascending right-wing effort to remake higher education through things like the Vanderbilt Report, the Chicago Principles, and the AEI Future of the American University project is to crush the academic labor movement.

tl,dr; Scientists no longer allowed to use federal funding to publish, attend meetings, or talk to the public. They cannot collaborate internationally. Grants can be cancelled for any reason, at any time, political appointees have a final say over what gets funded, and who gets funded.

As someone who still lurks on the bird app, I can report that since most Classicists departed, what remains of the discourse consists of chuds crying about reconstructions of ancient polychromy, the new Odyssey film's woke Marxist destruction of Western Heritage, and Emily Wilson's translations.

It’s remarkable in this day and age to hear a politician anywhere say the following: “Support for a diverse, rigorous and accessible body of historical scholarship should be a much greater priority for democratic governments even at a time of stretched budgets.“

A few from Chicago's Austin neighborhood

This is the current director of Pompeii. I could not be more furious and I believe he could not be more wrong. www.westernwheel.ca/weather-news...

Instead of asking chatgpt, why not ask a librarian? You'll get real answers and they won't tell you to kill yourself.

That's the stuff

Hugely important study on the (mal)distribution of resources in academia - must read. Perhaps no issue is more important right now, yet completely under-discussed 🗃️

The greatest indignity in this particular aspect of the neverending assault on the humanities is that the people leading the charge are incurious at best or in the case of this tool, aggressively stupid.

#ReliefWednesday - Sassanid relief depicting the triumph of Shapur I (r. AD 240-270) over Valerian at Naqsh-e Rostam, located 3 km north of Persepolis. It is the most impressive of eight Sassanid rock carvings cut into the cliff beneath the tombs of their Achaemenid predecessors.

DOCTOR Rümeysa Öztürk has earned her PhD!!

There is a fab new book out about the 2022 polychromy exhibition at the Met. It underscores 38 scholars who are the 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 experts in polychromy today. Coming out of polychromy retirement to review _Chroma: Sculpture in Color from Antiquity to Today_ for @hyperallergic.com (edited by Natalie Haddad).

My book, "The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate" is out! Promo Code WIN26 will get you 30% off at @yalepress.bsky.social. yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

"I’m going to pause here just to review: an institution that purports to be a university has told a philosophy professor he is forbidden from teaching Plato." surreal times dailynous.com/2026/01/06/t...

“You didn’t get a high paying job right after graduation because you got a Humanities degree instead of learning to code” Same people: “too bad, so sad, AI can do your job and no one cares about cultivating future leadership in the field.” Same people: www.yahoo.com/news/article...

I went to the Worcester Art Museum a few years ago when I was in town to give a lecture at Holy Cross. While I was primarily interested in seeing the Antioch mosaics there, I was pleasantly surprised that the collection is geographically and chronologically very broad. Definitely worth a visit.

Super interesting article on the archaeology jobs wiki and trends in archaeology job ads

Almost every major news story this week is about how the entire economy is now gambling, scams, bribes and theft.

This is much more comprehensive than my own list, and reassuringly familiar from my experience of marking. I’ll be sharing the list with my students, both to think about writing for different audiences (encyclopaedia articles) and being aware of the weakness of LLM generated text.

I participated in this excellent conference a few years ago and I encourage anyone interested to submit an abstract!

the person behind this unhinged, anti-factual editorial is set to decide coverage at one of the nation’s major news networks

There are so many unforgivable actions of capitulation being taken by the institutions most well-positioned to stand up to Trump’s authoritarianism if they wished to do so. A must-read from @samtlevin.bsky.social:

"The president's laws"...they really aren't sending their best!

Academics love to pretend to be busy as an excuse not to respond to emails but will constantly be posting on Instagram, Facebook, and the like. Get serious!

The University of Chicago “lost tens of millions investing in crypto around 2021” Hahahahahahaha

Wake up babe, people are posting on the Liverpool Classics Listserv that the destruction of the Humanities in the age of the neoliberal university has nothing to do with politics

The kids are alright! www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...