M. Willis Monroe
@willismonroe.bsky.social
Cuneiform Studies, History of Science/Religion, Digital Humanities/Coding, Associate Professor at the University of New Brunswick, Co-Director of the Database of Religious History.
Just checked in for a flight and for the first time (that I'm aware) as part of the check in process there was a hold put on my credit card in case I brought a bag that I didn't pre-check to the gate. The fine print said it would be released once I was admitted onto the flight...
November 18, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Just checked in for a flight and for the first time (that I'm aware) as part of the check in process there was a hold put on my credit card in case I brought a bag that I didn't pre-check to the gate. The fine print said it would be released once I was admitted onto the flight...
Insight from a baller and a scholar... Why do left wing parties again and again move right only to lose to further right parties? What if the voting public has malleable positions that are influence by people speaking (well) and actually standing for something?
We all get it, right? We truly all get it - the argument is easy to understand. If people say that they fear immigrants, it makes logical sense that if the more liberal party gets more xenophobic it can keep those voters in the fold. At some point, though, you have to explain why it doesn't work.
The Danish Social Democrats are currently on course for their worst election result since at least the Second World War, despite their brand of far-right accommodationism being touted as a blueprint for other centre-left parties.
November 18, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Insight from a baller and a scholar... Why do left wing parties again and again move right only to lose to further right parties? What if the voting public has malleable positions that are influence by people speaking (well) and actually standing for something?
In class today my students created a social network of (meme-famous) Ea-naṣir based on the letters in his dossier. It coincided with the most recent episode of the Thin Edge of the Wedge. An excellent roundup by great colleagues on everything we know about Ea-naṣir and his historical context...
For the Ea-nasir fans, Assyriology podcast 'Thin End of the Wedge' just released a special episode about everyone's favorite copper merchant, featuring @gvkonsta.bsky.social, @gabemoshenska.bsky.social, and Steven Garfinkle, and yours truly.
Listen here:
www.buzzsprout.com/1338718/epis...
Listen here:
www.buzzsprout.com/1338718/epis...
80. Ea-nasir: everyone's favourite copper merchant - Thin End of the Wedge
Gina Konstantopoulos, Andrew Deloucas, Gabriel Moshenska, and Steven Garfinkle discuss internet favourite, Ea-nasir. What do we know about the Dilmun traders and their role in the supply of copper to ...
www.buzzsprout.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:10 PM
In class today my students created a social network of (meme-famous) Ea-naṣir based on the letters in his dossier. It coincided with the most recent episode of the Thin Edge of the Wedge. An excellent roundup by great colleagues on everything we know about Ea-naṣir and his historical context...
Reposted by M. Willis Monroe
🗣️ PLEASE SHARE 🗣️
I'm writing an intro & sourcebook on late ancient Gazan literature for Dar al-Kalima University Press. The press and I plan to produce an Arabic translation to make Gazan literature more accessible to Palestinians. Help me compensate the Gazan translator!
spot.fund/dn8t744sc
I'm writing an intro & sourcebook on late ancient Gazan literature for Dar al-Kalima University Press. The press and I plan to produce an Arabic translation to make Gazan literature more accessible to Palestinians. Help me compensate the Gazan translator!
spot.fund/dn8t744sc
Click here to support Chance Bonar's story *AncientGazanLitTranslation
*spotfund is the easiest place to create beautiful and free online fundraisers. It takes just minutes to start raising money today.
spot.fund
October 21, 2025 at 5:25 PM
🗣️ PLEASE SHARE 🗣️
I'm writing an intro & sourcebook on late ancient Gazan literature for Dar al-Kalima University Press. The press and I plan to produce an Arabic translation to make Gazan literature more accessible to Palestinians. Help me compensate the Gazan translator!
spot.fund/dn8t744sc
I'm writing an intro & sourcebook on late ancient Gazan literature for Dar al-Kalima University Press. The press and I plan to produce an Arabic translation to make Gazan literature more accessible to Palestinians. Help me compensate the Gazan translator!
spot.fund/dn8t744sc
Reposted by M. Willis Monroe
Today I published a new section of my website with resources for those who wish to learn, study, and/or teach ancient languages using braille. It rests on work we did over the past year to expand screen reader access to these languages through the LibLouis library. Check it out and share around!
New: Braille Resources for Reading Ancient Languages
[Photo by me. Tactile graphic by Crystal Peng.] I recently created a new section of my website, which provides educational resources for anyone who wants to read ancient Middle Eastern and North …
www.blindscholar.com
October 16, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Today I published a new section of my website with resources for those who wish to learn, study, and/or teach ancient languages using braille. It rests on work we did over the past year to expand screen reader access to these languages through the LibLouis library. Check it out and share around!
Reposted by M. Willis Monroe
Weirdly enough I was telling my first-years about "warrior ethos" last week.
Here's the skill set of a Top Viking, as set out by a dude who'd have gone through anyone using the phrase "warrior ethos" like a well-aimed axe.
Here's the skill set of a Top Viking, as set out by a dude who'd have gone through anyone using the phrase "warrior ethos" like a well-aimed axe.
September 30, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Weirdly enough I was telling my first-years about "warrior ethos" last week.
Here's the skill set of a Top Viking, as set out by a dude who'd have gone through anyone using the phrase "warrior ethos" like a well-aimed axe.
Here's the skill set of a Top Viking, as set out by a dude who'd have gone through anyone using the phrase "warrior ethos" like a well-aimed axe.
This exhibit from the Derbyshire Record Office hosted on Google Arts and Culture is really cool! Beautiful images of handwriting throughout the last 800 years. Relevant because I just finished teaching lectures on cuneiform and its change over time...
artsandculture.google.com/story/800-ye...
artsandculture.google.com/story/800-ye...
800 Years of English Handwriting - Google Arts & Culture
Google Arts & Culture features content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online.
artsandculture.google.com
September 25, 2025 at 12:45 PM
This exhibit from the Derbyshire Record Office hosted on Google Arts and Culture is really cool! Beautiful images of handwriting throughout the last 800 years. Relevant because I just finished teaching lectures on cuneiform and its change over time...
artsandculture.google.com/story/800-ye...
artsandculture.google.com/story/800-ye...
Reposted by M. Willis Monroe
September 17, 2025 at 6:08 PM
We've got a new poll up on the DRH focused on ritual, we're always recruiting more scholars to create entries (and we've got honoraria available!).
The DRH is excited to announce the release of our new Religious Ritual poll (religiondatabase.org/landing/poll...). Experts can now submit entries on specific rituals, with detailed questions about every aspect of timing, participants, practices and purposes.
September 15, 2025 at 5:18 PM
We've got a new poll up on the DRH focused on ritual, we're always recruiting more scholars to create entries (and we've got honoraria available!).
These threads are a pretty amazing example, by Will, of how dangerous LLMs are when consulted for advice, information, etc... (basically anything). Lots of "yes and"ing and pushing the user to extremes choices.
Today's round of "is ChatGPT still racist AF"
I asked it to make a graph showing the effects of an illegal & dangerous skin lightening product. Chatbot knows it's dangerous, but thinks it makes you smarter. And overall: the boosts to intelligence, confidence, etc outweigh serious health risks.
1/8
I asked it to make a graph showing the effects of an illegal & dangerous skin lightening product. Chatbot knows it's dangerous, but thinks it makes you smarter. And overall: the boosts to intelligence, confidence, etc outweigh serious health risks.
1/8
June 19, 2025 at 11:35 AM
These threads are a pretty amazing example, by Will, of how dangerous LLMs are when consulted for advice, information, etc... (basically anything). Lots of "yes and"ing and pushing the user to extremes choices.
We just finished watching season 2 of Andor (loved it) and this was a fun and insightful read:
A new blog post in which I argue that Andor's commitment to a historical mode of storytelling sets it apart from the legendary mode that dominates the Skywalker Saga and allows it to succeed where so many of the other prequel stories fall flat.
joshuapnudell.com/2025/05/31/h...
joshuapnudell.com/2025/05/31/h...
Historical Star Wars
An exploration of the legendary and historical modes of storytelling in Star Wars.
joshuapnudell.com
June 1, 2025 at 9:47 AM
We just finished watching season 2 of Andor (loved it) and this was a fun and insightful read:
Reposted by M. Willis Monroe
We may never know everything about the past, but we do know how to say in Akkadian 'Speak out, revolt' (tisiʾā tuqumta)!
That's thanks to one of the earliest Flood myths, Atra-hasis, composed nearly four thousand years ago.
That's thanks to one of the earliest Flood myths, Atra-hasis, composed nearly four thousand years ago.
My folks are visiting Armenia, so naturally they asked about Mount Ararat and that really means they wanted to better understand the reception history of Bronze Age political myths:
May 23, 2025 at 1:32 PM
We may never know everything about the past, but we do know how to say in Akkadian 'Speak out, revolt' (tisiʾā tuqumta)!
That's thanks to one of the earliest Flood myths, Atra-hasis, composed nearly four thousand years ago.
That's thanks to one of the earliest Flood myths, Atra-hasis, composed nearly four thousand years ago.
You should download this while you can, Andrew is an excellent scholar and has a unique way of distilling quite complex historical narratives into compelling and edifying prose.
Today is the second to last day to download my "Element" for free. The argument is basically that we ought to think of ethnic authors as individuals who 1) locate themselves within overarching strategies and 2) deploy those strategies in unique and individual ways
Israel and its Heirs in Late Antiquity
Cambridge Core - Religion: General Interest - Israel and its Heirs in Late Antiquity
www.cambridge.org
April 22, 2025 at 12:15 PM
You should download this while you can, Andrew is an excellent scholar and has a unique way of distilling quite complex historical narratives into compelling and edifying prose.
I just want to highlight this figure, it is so shocking... Students use AI to create not learn. They're not scaffolding their learning, they're not working their way up a pyramid of skills... they're just having the AI write their assignments.
There's a lot in there, but this figure is the standout. Students use AI to create work, not to understand tricky problems or figure out how to apply concepts. They're just using AI as a shortcut not a tool. Quoting the authors of the white paper: "An inverted pyramid, after all, can topple over."
April 16, 2025 at 12:44 PM
I just want to highlight this figure, it is so shocking... Students use AI to create not learn. They're not scaffolding their learning, they're not working their way up a pyramid of skills... they're just having the AI write their assignments.
If you're concerned about AI use in higher education check out this whitepaper from the AI company Anthropic www.anthropic.com/news/anthrop... about how students use their product (Claude™) there's some really fascinating and worrying stuff in here—kudos to the authors for putting it all out there..
Anthropic Education Report: How University Students Use Claude
AI systems are no longer just specialized research tools: they’re everyday academic companions. As AIs integrate more deeply into educational environments, we need to consider important questions abou...
www.anthropic.com
April 16, 2025 at 12:27 PM
If you're concerned about AI use in higher education check out this whitepaper from the AI company Anthropic www.anthropic.com/news/anthrop... about how students use their product (Claude™) there's some really fascinating and worrying stuff in here—kudos to the authors for putting it all out there..
I've been thinking about an analogy of AI LLMs as junk food: readily available, easy and fast, and rewiring our brains to want more. And how time and money is spent by health organizations trying to get people to eat their vegetables! This article seems to confirm that: futurism.com/the-byte/cha...
Something Bizarre Is Happening to People Who Use ChatGPT a Lot
ChatGPT "power users," or those who use it the most, are becoming dependent upon — or even addicted to — the chatbot.
futurism.com
March 25, 2025 at 3:12 PM
I've been thinking about an analogy of AI LLMs as junk food: readily available, easy and fast, and rewiring our brains to want more. And how time and money is spent by health organizations trying to get people to eat their vegetables! This article seems to confirm that: futurism.com/the-byte/cha...
Reposted by M. Willis Monroe
Call for papers: new Nature HSS collection! articles on computational analysis of #western-asia from when writing emerged c. 3500 BCE till 1500CE! #DANES @geophilologist.bsky.social @maltaweel.bsky.social
www.nature.com/collections/...
www.nature.com/collections/...
From bits of history to bytes of data: AI and the study of the ancient Near East
This Collection aims at examining the computational and digital study of “greater Western Asia” and its epistemological implications.
www.nature.com
March 14, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Call for papers: new Nature HSS collection! articles on computational analysis of #western-asia from when writing emerged c. 3500 BCE till 1500CE! #DANES @geophilologist.bsky.social @maltaweel.bsky.social
www.nature.com/collections/...
www.nature.com/collections/...
Reposted by M. Willis Monroe
Publication news! 🎉 Ancient Pasts for Modern Audiences is NOW AVAILABLE for everybody to read! We are so excited to share this work with you all: www.routledge.com/Ancient-Past... 🎉
Cover art by the wonderful @flaroh.bsky.social!
Cover art by the wonderful @flaroh.bsky.social!
March 10, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Publication news! 🎉 Ancient Pasts for Modern Audiences is NOW AVAILABLE for everybody to read! We are so excited to share this work with you all: www.routledge.com/Ancient-Past... 🎉
Cover art by the wonderful @flaroh.bsky.social!
Cover art by the wonderful @flaroh.bsky.social!
Reposted by M. Willis Monroe
UNB students are putting on a (modern) rendition of Aristophanes' ancient comedy the Frogs here on campus under the expert direction of Dr. Carolyn MacDonald a professor in our department. All are welcome on March 21st and 22nd in Memorial Hall, see the flyer for more details.
March 11, 2025 at 3:28 PM
UNB students are putting on a (modern) rendition of Aristophanes' ancient comedy the Frogs here on campus under the expert direction of Dr. Carolyn MacDonald a professor in our department. All are welcome on March 21st and 22nd in Memorial Hall, see the flyer for more details.
Last week to submit an abstract for our workshop at ASOR this year: The Robot at the Back of the Classroom: Student Engagement and Assessment under the Shadow of Generative AI... We're interested in talking about what we're all talking about, how do we teach/inspire/assess in our classrooms with AI?
March 10, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Last week to submit an abstract for our workshop at ASOR this year: The Robot at the Back of the Classroom: Student Engagement and Assessment under the Shadow of Generative AI... We're interested in talking about what we're all talking about, how do we teach/inspire/assess in our classrooms with AI?
Reposted by M. Willis Monroe
We have just published our second release of our Standard Cross Cultural Sample of Religion (SCCSR)! This version adds language tags which can be use to help control for historical relatedness (in addition to a lot more data). Check out the release on Zenodo here: zenodo.org/records/1496...
Standard Cross-Cultural Sample of Religion
The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample of Religion is a product of the Database of Religious History (DRH). The DRH is a qualitative-quantitative encyclopedic database of historical religious data across ...
zenodo.org
March 4, 2025 at 2:25 PM
We have just published our second release of our Standard Cross Cultural Sample of Religion (SCCSR)! This version adds language tags which can be use to help control for historical relatedness (in addition to a lot more data). Check out the release on Zenodo here: zenodo.org/records/1496...
This is an amazing visualization project... the total ISBN space! Make sure you search and/or scroll in to see the books arranged on a virtual bookshelf:
phiresky.github.io/blog/2025/vi...
phiresky.github.io/blog/2025/vi...
Visualizing all books of the world in ISBN-Space - phiresky's blog
Libraries have been trying to collect humanity’s knowledge almost since the invention of writing. In the digital age, it might actually be possible to create a comprehensive collection of all human wr...
phiresky.github.io
February 27, 2025 at 12:51 PM
This is an amazing visualization project... the total ISBN space! Make sure you search and/or scroll in to see the books arranged on a virtual bookshelf:
phiresky.github.io/blog/2025/vi...
phiresky.github.io/blog/2025/vi...
Reposted by M. Willis Monroe
Call for Papers, ASOR 2025
November 19–22, Boston
"Towards a Working Ancient Economy: The Bronze Age"
www.asor.org/am/2025/appr...
If you have any questions, send me a message on here or via email!
November 19–22, Boston
"Towards a Working Ancient Economy: The Bronze Age"
www.asor.org/am/2025/appr...
If you have any questions, send me a message on here or via email!
2025 LIST OF APPROVED SESSIONS - American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR)
The 2025 ASOR Annual Meeting will be held November 29-22 in Boston and online. View the list of sessions and workshops that have been approved for the 2025 Academic Program.
www.asor.org
February 24, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Call for Papers, ASOR 2025
November 19–22, Boston
"Towards a Working Ancient Economy: The Bronze Age"
www.asor.org/am/2025/appr...
If you have any questions, send me a message on here or via email!
November 19–22, Boston
"Towards a Working Ancient Economy: The Bronze Age"
www.asor.org/am/2025/appr...
If you have any questions, send me a message on here or via email!
Reposted by M. Willis Monroe
Happy #BlackHistoryMonth everyone! The Department of Historical Studies at UNB will host its 9th annual lecture by #CanadaResearchChair Claudine Bonner speaking about love and #Africville - A free public lecture!
February 1, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Happy #BlackHistoryMonth everyone! The Department of Historical Studies at UNB will host its 9th annual lecture by #CanadaResearchChair Claudine Bonner speaking about love and #Africville - A free public lecture!
We just had a wood stove installed (Jøtul 602 v2 if you're wondering) and was dreading informing our home insurance company... I sent the e-mail this morning and they just replied that it reduced(!) our bill by $10.
(maybe because it counts as a secondary heat source and prevents pipes freezing)
(maybe because it counts as a secondary heat source and prevents pipes freezing)
December 3, 2024 at 2:55 PM
We just had a wood stove installed (Jøtul 602 v2 if you're wondering) and was dreading informing our home insurance company... I sent the e-mail this morning and they just replied that it reduced(!) our bill by $10.
(maybe because it counts as a secondary heat source and prevents pipes freezing)
(maybe because it counts as a secondary heat source and prevents pipes freezing)