Melissa Kutner
@melissannbee.bsky.social
Ancient Studies professor at UMBC. Mostly Roman things. Views my own.
Pinned
Melissa Kutner
@melissannbee.bsky.social
· Dec 19
PEETERS ONLINE JOURNALS
poj.peeters-leuven.be
My paper, "Public Granaries and Private Transactions: Infrastructure and Standardization," is now out in Ancient Society! Standard measures were never imposed by the Romans across Egypt. But I argue that taxation infrastructure, especially public granaries... poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?...
I’m not seeing this, exactly—which isn’t to question the experience but to offer a (slightly) more hopeful example. AI is a big challenge for out-of-class work but most students are attending and working hard on in-class stuff and tests. I do find that it’s hard to get them to do reading outside...
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
November 29, 2025 at 1:53 AM
I’m not seeing this, exactly—which isn’t to question the experience but to offer a (slightly) more hopeful example. AI is a big challenge for out-of-class work but most students are attending and working hard on in-class stuff and tests. I do find that it’s hard to get them to do reading outside...
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
this op-ed is a video reel of interviews with some of the 47 million people in the US experiencing food insecurity right now.
if you can, i hope you give to local mutual aid groups today/this weekend.
if you can, i hope you give to local mutual aid groups today/this weekend.
Opinion | America, the Hungry
www.nytimes.com
November 27, 2025 at 4:13 PM
this op-ed is a video reel of interviews with some of the 47 million people in the US experiencing food insecurity right now.
if you can, i hope you give to local mutual aid groups today/this weekend.
if you can, i hope you give to local mutual aid groups today/this weekend.
Reminds me of Tell Brak. Lots of interesting questions to ask about how large sedentary communities became sustainable— or not— from a social perspective.
November 27, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reminds me of Tell Brak. Lots of interesting questions to ask about how large sedentary communities became sustainable— or not— from a social perspective.
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
Chilling amazing read
Headless bodies hint at why Europe’s first farmers vanished. www.science.org/content/arti...
Headless bodies hint at why Europe’s first farmers vanished
Wave of mass brutality accompanied the collapse of the first pan-European culture
www.science.org
November 27, 2025 at 6:47 AM
Chilling amazing read
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
The operating assumption of those who design and champion this software is that it's all just 'content' anyhow, and the easier it is to access that content without having to deal with the orthographic or material form that it takes the better. Nothing of evidential value inheres outside the semantic
November 26, 2025 at 10:12 PM
The operating assumption of those who design and champion this software is that it's all just 'content' anyhow, and the easier it is to access that content without having to deal with the orthographic or material form that it takes the better. Nothing of evidential value inheres outside the semantic
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
Always fight back when they try to close you down. Because even when it looks hopeless, you'll never know that you might actually win.
Bravo @antrelclaottawa.bsky.social
Bravo @antrelclaottawa.bsky.social
November 26, 2025 at 6:25 AM
Always fight back when they try to close you down. Because even when it looks hopeless, you'll never know that you might actually win.
Bravo @antrelclaottawa.bsky.social
Bravo @antrelclaottawa.bsky.social
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
🏺🗃️ Something else I love about this? It shows women together gaming: they're playing knucklebones
#Matriarcha
#Matriarcha
November 26, 2025 at 10:50 AM
🏺🗃️ Something else I love about this? It shows women together gaming: they're playing knucklebones
#Matriarcha
#Matriarcha
Forcefully struck by the tendency in Roman Egypt for people to own "shares" in a single enslaved person, and in some cases for one share to be freed while the other shares haven't been...this is particular to Roman Egypt I think?
November 25, 2025 at 8:52 PM
Forcefully struck by the tendency in Roman Egypt for people to own "shares" in a single enslaved person, and in some cases for one share to be freed while the other shares haven't been...this is particular to Roman Egypt I think?
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... On balance among New Yorker writers, I'd slightly prefer to be on the wrong side of Isaac Chotiner to the wrong side of Gideon Lewis-Kraus.
What Does “Capitalism” Really Mean, Anyway?
In a new global history, capitalism is an inescapable vibe—responsible for everything, everywhere, all at once.
www.newyorker.com
November 25, 2025 at 6:39 PM
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... On balance among New Yorker writers, I'd slightly prefer to be on the wrong side of Isaac Chotiner to the wrong side of Gideon Lewis-Kraus.
This is what Joyce Carol Oates meant about him devaluing any gathering he joins
Everything about this might be the saddest thing I’ve ever seen
November 25, 2025 at 12:08 AM
This is what Joyce Carol Oates meant about him devaluing any gathering he joins
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
First attested in the 1840s, “pixilated” means crazed, deranged, afflicted by mischievous spirits (eg pixies). Which is why I just overheard Porky Pig tell Daffy Duck “You’re pixilated!” in a cartoon from 1948 that my kids were watching.
November 24, 2025 at 9:59 PM
First attested in the 1840s, “pixilated” means crazed, deranged, afflicted by mischievous spirits (eg pixies). Which is why I just overheard Porky Pig tell Daffy Duck “You’re pixilated!” in a cartoon from 1948 that my kids were watching.
Seems like universities should take note
Guardrails anyone? Apparently not. With a sharing link for 3 non-subscribers. on.ft.com/44fyMfK
Insurers retreat from AI cover as risk of multibillion-dollar claims mounts
AIG, Great American and WR Berkley seek permission to limit liability from AI agents and chatbots
on.ft.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Seems like universities should take note
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
From the email from ASPROM, I read the sad news of the passing of Professor Roger Ling, Emeritus Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at University of Manchester.
Anyone engaging with the archaeology of Pompeii should read his two volume work on The Insula of the Menander - a superb study.
Anyone engaging with the archaeology of Pompeii should read his two volume work on The Insula of the Menander - a superb study.
November 21, 2025 at 8:59 PM
From the email from ASPROM, I read the sad news of the passing of Professor Roger Ling, Emeritus Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology at University of Manchester.
Anyone engaging with the archaeology of Pompeii should read his two volume work on The Insula of the Menander - a superb study.
Anyone engaging with the archaeology of Pompeii should read his two volume work on The Insula of the Menander - a superb study.
Yes. The usefulness of chatbots is fatally compromised by their interface, because that interface inevitably undermines the ability of any user to judge the output. That same interface creates addictive tendencies, etc.
my most butlerian jihad coded belief is that we should probably make it illegal – and more importantly, we should work toward a cultural consensus that it is immoral – to design a computer program whose interface uses the first person
November 21, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Yes. The usefulness of chatbots is fatally compromised by their interface, because that interface inevitably undermines the ability of any user to judge the output. That same interface creates addictive tendencies, etc.
Paging Catullus
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 20, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Paging Catullus
Money museum 😍
The American Numismatic Society’s collections of coins will be relocating from Manhattan to the spacious campus of the Toledo Museum of Art. The $20 million plan, to be completed in 2028, would make possible its long-harbored vision of a state-of-the-art money museum.
After 167 Years in New York, a Priceless Coin Collection Heads to Toledo
www.nytimes.com
November 20, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Money museum 😍
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
The New School is now a place where students cannot major in History, Anthropology, Sociology, Global Policy & International Affairs, Global Studies, Urban Studies, or Environmental Studies. And more pauses, closures, and mergers coming down the pike this week. The future is uncertain.
November 19, 2025 at 1:15 PM
The New School is now a place where students cannot major in History, Anthropology, Sociology, Global Policy & International Affairs, Global Studies, Urban Studies, or Environmental Studies. And more pauses, closures, and mergers coming down the pike this week. The future is uncertain.
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
I've fallen down the rabbit hole of small town life in the USA in the 1880s-1930s [as research for the book currently called "The Money of the Poor"]. And even though I *knew* it, there's still something awful about the census form that lists a woman's age as 24, who's had 7 children, 5 living
November 18, 2025 at 3:37 PM
I've fallen down the rabbit hole of small town life in the USA in the 1880s-1930s [as research for the book currently called "The Money of the Poor"]. And even though I *knew* it, there's still something awful about the census form that lists a woman's age as 24, who's had 7 children, 5 living
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
Would read a book about the impact of the spreadsheet tbh
Imagine if we had the same breathless coverage for that other genuinely disruptive technology, the spreadsheet
November 18, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Would read a book about the impact of the spreadsheet tbh
Sometimes you have an experience like this and years later see the man thanked for his mentorship by another man in the preface to the latter’s book, and it really burns
If women are underrepresented in STEM, it's at least partly because men like this offer mentoring, then embarrass themselves by assuming their mentees must be into them, then decide the best solution is to cut ties, which sends the signal to other faculty that the mentee must not be good enough.
The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.
November 16, 2025 at 1:53 AM
Sometimes you have an experience like this and years later see the man thanked for his mentorship by another man in the preface to the latter’s book, and it really burns
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
very happy to see my PBSR article on female token issuers in Rome and Ostia is now live! If anyone would like a copy, let me know. :-) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
REPRESENTATIONS OF ROMAN WOMEN ON THE TOKENS OF ROME AND OSTIA | Papers of the British School at Rome | Cambridge Core
REPRESENTATIONS OF ROMAN WOMEN ON THE TOKENS OF ROME AND OSTIA
www.cambridge.org
November 14, 2025 at 9:51 AM
very happy to see my PBSR article on female token issuers in Rome and Ostia is now live! If anyone would like a copy, let me know. :-) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Thinking about the recent research on towers in rich houses in Pompeii in relation to Evan Jewell's (@quidamabo.bsky.social) excellent article on wayfinding, and his point that the rich had sweeping views of the city while the poor did not
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
Discovery Suggests That the House of the Thiasos and Other Domus in Pompeii May Have Had Observation Towers
The mental image of the city of Pompeii, crystallized by the mold of ash and lapilli that preserved its ground level for centuries, may be about to acquire a new vertical dimension. A digital archaeol...
www.labrujulaverde.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Thinking about the recent research on towers in rich houses in Pompeii in relation to Evan Jewell's (@quidamabo.bsky.social) excellent article on wayfinding, and his point that the rich had sweeping views of the city while the poor did not
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/d...
Reposted by Melissa Kutner
Sit tibi terra levis
The American penny died on Wednesday in Philadelphia. It was 232. The cause was irrelevance and expensiveness, the Treasury Department said. Nothing could be bought any more with a penny, as the cost to mint the penny had risen to more than 3 cents. nyti.ms/48bFd5K
November 13, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Sit tibi terra levis