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illdottore.bsky.social
Joseph Howley
@illdottore.bsky.social
7.6K followers 1K following 2.6K posts
“imagine a classics professor” – The New Yorker
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illdottore.bsky.social
it's ray from achewood saying Daaamn! That answer rocks
November 25, 2025 at 1:53 PM
illdottore.bsky.social
A wonderful essay by McNeil Taylor on Hellenism, Zionism, and the legacies of c19 Western European colonialism. www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/71/ta...
Syros was not the only pilgrimage spot that seemed, to the Western eye, to have withered on the vine of ancient vitality. When Melville’s ship reached Palestine, his heart sank, just as it had on Syros: “No country will more quickly dissipate romantic expectations than Palestine—particularly Jerusalem,” he wrote in his journal.8 The Holy Sepulchre was “a sickening cheat,” and it is again the arid landscape, lacking the bloom of Western painting, that pains the traveler: “Judea is one accumulation of stones.”9 He also saw Christian Zionist missionaries, for whom he had little sympathy: they were in the grips of a “preposterous Jew mania” that was “half melancholy, half farcical.”10 These forces would, of course, soon accelerate during the 1880s, as Zionism expanded beyond its initial Christian purview to inspire Jewish settlers to colonize Palestine. Yet what is less well-known is that the Greek revolution played a crucial role in this process: before Zionists sought to “make the desert bloom,” Hellenism had to bring Watteau’s lush arcadia to life.
November 25, 2025 at 1:08 PM
illdottore.bsky.social
The title of this section of Karla's 2023 edition of the Life of Aesop (SBL) could also be the title of some really gripping DS9 fanfic
The MORN Recension and its Textual Tradition
November 24, 2025 at 3:28 PM
illdottore.bsky.social
I also am cursed to think about Ancient Rome every day (Seneca Epistle 27, Gummere's Loeb)
Within our own time there was a certain rich man named Calvisius Sabinus; he had the bank-account and the brains of a freedman.b I never saw a man whose good fortune was a greater offence against propriety. His memory was so faulty that he would sometimes forget the name of Ulysses, or Achilles, or Priam,—names which we know as well as we know those of our own attendants. No major-domo in his dotage, who cannot give men their right names, but is compelled to invent names for them,—no such man, I say, calls off the namesc of his master’s tribesmen so atrociously as Sabinus used to call off the Trojan and Achaean heroes. But none the less did he desire to appear learned. So he devised this short cut to learning: he paid fabulous prices for slaves,—one to know Homer by heart and another to know Hesiod; he also delegated a special slave to each of the nine lyric poets. You need not wonder that he paid high prices for these slaves; if he did not find them ready to hand he had them made to order. After collecting this retinue, he began to make life miserable for his guests; he would keep these fellows at the foot of his couch, and ask them from time to time for verses which he might repeat, and then frequently break down in the middle of a word. Satellius Quadratus, a feeder, and consequently a fawner, upon addle-pated millionaires, and also (for this quality goes with the other two) a flouter of them, suggested to Sabinus that he should have philologists to gather up the bits.a Sabinus remarked that each slave cost him one hundred thousand sesterces; Satellius replied: “You might have bought as many book-cases for a smaller sum.” But Sabinus held to the opinion that what any member of his household knew, he himself knew also. This same Satellius began to advise Sabinus to take wrestling lessons,—sickly, pale, and thin as he was. Sabinus answered: “How can I? I can scarcely stay alive now.” “Don’t say that, I implore you,” replied the other, “consider how many perfectly healthy slaves you have!” No man is able to borrow or buy a sound mind; in fact, as it seems to me, even though sound minds were for sale, they would not find buyers. Depraved minds, however, are bought and sold every day.
November 24, 2025 at 1:38 PM
illdottore.bsky.social
Thank you for this reminder that I want to frame and hang my copy of the soundtrack LP sleeve
November 21, 2025 at 9:37 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_Do...
November 14, 2025 at 9:05 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
maps.app.goo.gl/xhjWEUcXdLdM...
November 13, 2025 at 6:06 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
The Dude in the Big Lebowski with a speech bubble indicating that the quoted post is his reported speech
November 12, 2025 at 9:32 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
My colleague Helen Benedict writes this update on teaching at Columbia in the present political climate. tomdispatch.com/capitulation...
For now, however, we faculty are stuck with Columbia as it is. In my case, this means that I must teach social justice journalism not only under the cloud of the Kirk aftermath, with professors and employees being fired or chased out of the country for daring to criticize that purveyor of hate, but with the IHRA sword of Damocles dangling over my head. Social justice journalism is essentially about covering the ways in which the powerless are oppressed by the powerful — that is, a manifestation of Joseph Pulitzer’s mantra that journalism should “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” This means that just about every topic my students will cover flies in the face of all that the Trump government wants to suppress and might well come up against Columbia’s new rules, too. What if one of my students should want to cover the deportation hearings for Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi, for instance? Or a speech by our former student, the once-imprisoned Mahmoud Khalil? Will even a mention of a Palestinian activist be deemed antisemitic now? Will quoting someone who criticizes Kirk or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be grounds for expulsion? Can we report on Planned Parenthood or transphobia, the ICE persecution of Brown and Black immigrants, the ongoing climate catastrophe, environmental racism, violence against women, or Islamophobia? Can we talk about social justice at all?
November 12, 2025 at 8:03 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
This might be my favorite line from my grandfather's FBI file: "has made 'strange remarks' in the past; for example, 'I want to live in England because it is a good place and I like their form of government.'"
A gnarly scan of a typewritten document: "[] stated that the employee has made 'strange remarks' in the past; for example, 'I want to live in England because it is a good place and I like their form of government.' However, [] stated it is his opinion that such remarks as the one quoted above were made in a 'pop-off' manner..."
October 7, 2025 at 9:07 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
I have real enthusiasm for the ML-powered search in my Photos app but it feels genuinely uncanny that it should work on Roman handwriting such that I could find this snap I took of this famous graffito from the imperial paedagogium on the Palatine – I entered "labora" and this appeared immediately
a fragment of Roman graffiti, where the letter A really doesn't look like our letter A, but the software has correctly identified and highlighted the search term
September 29, 2025 at 3:29 PM
illdottore.bsky.social
For Universities to not be ready for or responsive to this kind of predictable, documented, targeted harassment of faculty is a choice www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Early last semester, Droubi said, students began approaching Cheyfitz with complaints that a graduate student in the “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance” class appeared to be recording them, possibly to “gather their names and comments” and intimidate them. “We believe that a student came to the course for the sole reason of surveilling and potentially harming students in the class,” Droubi said. “That ended up proving itself to be true because multiple students came forward and shared their concerns with Professor Cheyfitz.” Cheyfitz said one Palestinian student quit the class after telling him she felt upset and frightened.
September 29, 2025 at 12:29 PM
illdottore.bsky.social
A remarkable essay on, among other things, the personal toll of working at the consent factory. bidoun.org/articles/hou...
Around four months into the war on Gaza, scholars of genocide were reaching a consensus that what was happening in Palestine was a genocide, the crime of crimes, and I waited for the magazine to say so, too. I tried to talk to the editor-in-chief about using the word in our coverage, but he said he didn’t think it was a genocide. The word’s conspicuous absence led me to suspect that he had prohibited its usage among the editors. This was a notable exception to the accepted epistemology; a few months into the job, I overheard another checker cold call an addiction scholar to confirm that gambling was, in fact, addictive. But I did not have it in me to keep fighting.
September 18, 2025 at 10:40 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
Under the "Palestine exception" to free speech principles, some "hard questions" can and must be suppressed. Do institutional leaders now suddenly enamored of 'debate' want to end that exception, or create a new one in which other "hard questions" – such as these – must be elevated and entertained?
The point of this so-called mastery was as familiar as it was conspiratorial—“great replacement.” There was an “anti-white agenda,” Kirk howled. One that sought to “make the country more like the Third World.” The southern border was “the dumping ground of the planet,” he claimed, and a magnet for “the rapists, the thugs, the murderers, fighting-age males.” “They’re coming from across the world, from China, from Russia, from Middle Eastern countries,” he said, “and they’re coming in and they’re coming in and they’re coming in and they’re coming in…” You can probably imagine where this line of thinking eventually went. “Jewish donors,” Kirk claimed, were “the number one funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions, and nonprofits.” Indeed, “the philosophical foundation of anti-whiteness has been largely financed by Jewish donors in the country.”
September 17, 2025 at 10:58 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
For example, in early 2024, President Rosenbury sought to cancel (but ultimately allowed with extraordinary restrictions) a screening of the film "Israelism," as a colleague explained in the pages of Columbia's student newspaper. (2/4) www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2024...
“Barnard is a place that catalyzes knowledge creation, embraces investigation, and stimulates intellectual curiosity,” Barnard President Laura Rosenbury wrote in an email she sent me Wednesday evening. And yet, everything that led up to that email has made me wonder if, in fact, this is true. For weeks, President Rosenbury has been quietly working to shut down an event I have been planning with students and staff: a screening of the film Israelism, followed by a discussion with a stellar panel. For weeks, in turn, I have been asserting that as a faculty member, I have a right and a responsibility to cultivate and curate educational events without the interference of the administration. President Rosenbury finally conceded, in an email to me Wednesday night that read, in part, “Ultimately, the decision to screen the film is yours, and you maintain the right to do so in your capacity as a faculty member.” On January 20, I emailed President Rosenbury and Provost Bell a request to confirm what they had told me verbally: that I could not screen the film, but could hold the panel. They never responded to that email. President Rosenbury also wouldn’t confirm over email that I did have permission to proceed with the event. They would neither permit nor prohibit the event in writing until nearly two weeks later. A week later, on January 26, I met with President Rosenbury alone. She conveyed a desire to make this event more palatable—to whom I still don’t know. I offered to help with follow-up events and to think through advertising but refused to reconsider the panelists, because I was confident in the depth of their experience and knowledge and that the diversity of their expertise would be invaluable for helping the audience consider and understand their own reactions to the film. Moreover, as a faculty member, determining what this panel would look like (something I had done in close consultation with the students who desperately sought to have this discussion) is my right.
September 17, 2025 at 10:33 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
The President of Barnard College calls for more controversial speakers like the late Kirk (without citing any of his controversial views), a position at odds with what Barnard colleagues describe as a track record of censoring events and speakers on Palestine. (1/4) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/o...
Colleges and universities have long resisted polarization and monolithic thinking by invoking these commitments to open discussion and inquiry, and we must continue to do so. College campuses must remain places where students are able to ask and grapple with hard questions, especially those that are uncomfortable and even hurtful. Higher education’s role is not to erase conflict but to channel it into dialogue, debate and learning. To do so, educators and students must face ideas we find offensive and speakers whose words cause pain.
September 17, 2025 at 10:33 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
At the center of this “old book market” in Paris is a statue “Le Porteur de Viande” by Albert Bouqillion. The adjacent park was once a meat market (specializing, a local tells me, in horse).
A weathered bronze statue of a human figure carrying a massive joint of meat on their shoulders
September 15, 2025 at 8:40 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
This is Yuki. Everybody say What's up Yuki you look beautiful today
The most beautiful older shorthair black cat you ever did see lying in the sun on a flagstone Now she's standing up and she's got sunshine eyes and you can see from her fur that she is a good twenty years old and still an iconic beauty
September 8, 2025 at 11:55 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
You hear stories about what an academic household does to children but today at bedtime my precocious rising kindergartner said “father will you read me a story about university leaders who believe LLM-based chatbots have made language teaching irrelevant?” and fortunately I had just the thing
I *really* like slop! By Mo Willems
August 14, 2025 at 12:34 AM
illdottore.bsky.social
NYT headline: Meat Is Back at Eleven Madison Park, After 4 Vegan Years That one Uruk-hai from Two Towers
August 13, 2025 at 1:37 PM
illdottore.bsky.social
I hope this means the first year curriculum is being isolated to include robust training in what these tools do and how they work!
The email described access to these tools as “important for gaining a basic level of AI literacy.”
August 13, 2025 at 12:38 PM
illdottore.bsky.social
@aristofontes.bsky.social important Stoicism update
Typical Gen Z! 'Gen Z Stare' results from Generation Z's reading of Stoic philosophy, often used in situational conflict and awkwardness
August 11, 2025 at 11:41 PM
illdottore.bsky.social
A memorial today outside Columbia University for Palestinian journalists killed yesterday in Gaza City by an Israeli strike, including Anas al-Sharif, and for Awdah Hathaleen, killed two weeks ago today in the West Bank by an Israeli settler.
On the red brick sidewalk outside Columbia University, framed photographs of Awdah Hathaleen, Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh, Mohammed al-Khalidi, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, Moamen Aliwa. In front of each portrait is a lit votive candle and a rose.
August 11, 2025 at 4:52 PM
illdottore.bsky.social
A recent graduate reflects on what she will remember of her time at Columbia www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2025...
I will always remember receiving death threats after a faculty member continuously posted me on their social media to their hundreds of thousands of followers and viewers; I remember reading the threat aloud to then-interim University President Katrina Armstrong during a meeting. The threats were not only directed toward me: I watched as multiple friends broke down from harassment by University affiliates with insufficient support from Columbia. I will never forget the time I spent filing dozens of harassment reports to the school. I will remember when my winter break was interrupted by a formal notice from the OIE, informing me of an investigation into my involvement with Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition. I was only allowed to see the evidence against me–my own social media posts and personal correspondence–after signing a nondisclosure agreement. As part of this “investigation,” I faced a transcript hold, leaving me unable to apply for jobs and additional graduate study. Despite the charges being dropped, I received no explanation from the OIE about why a transcript hold was placed to begin with. I will remember the behavior of our administration as being unfair and one-sided, but a significant portion of the vitriol came from members of our community. Columbia’s failure to respond to such incidents effectively endorsed the behavior and allowed it to continue. I spent my last semester at Columbia waking up every morning, frantically checking my phone to see if Immigration and Customs Enforcement had abducted another one of my friends. Columbia’s response? Silence. A group of alumni compared students to roaches and said they should be squashed, with no response from Columbia. Another alum yelled at my friend and told her that they hoped she would be raped at alumni weekend. Columbia remained silent, and continues to do so, when it comes to anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia. When, during a rally on campus, students were sprayed with a substance that induced physical symptoms and led to several hospitalizations, I emailed administrators, begging them to acknowledge the incident, but we only received a response after we had gone to the press. I am constantly reminded that my existence creates a hostile environment for others, that I do not belong here. My student experience at Columbia has consisted of constant reminders that my mere presence is unacceptable. I thought that if I presented myself the right way and said the right things, I would no longer be deemed a terrorist. Perhaps, if I emphasize my Christian faith and my North Carolina roots, if I wear nice dresses, I will be treated as a human being at the institution I dreamed of attending. That is, after all, a function of racism: to distract and deflect from the gory reality of bombs and missiles with feelings, hypotheticals, and platitudes. In the name of “campus safety,” we have experienced the outright denial of Palestinian existence. Every facet of our existence, from our flags to our keffiyehs to our art, has been treated as a threat and a danger to others. But the real danger on campus isn’t me. The real dangers are our peers and campus affiliates who cheered on the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil. How are international students expected to feel safe when other students are actively calling for their deportation?
August 8, 2025 at 6:12 PM
illdottore.bsky.social
I’m this guy
August 8, 2025 at 2:59 PM