Jeremy Simmons
@caeliambulator.bsky.social
Historian at UChicago working on Indian Ocean trade and the wider ancient world. More than occasionally talks about the doggo. Opinions my own.
Pinned
I’m thrilled to announce that my book, provisionally titled “Sea of Treasures: A Cultural History of Ancient Indian Ocean Trade” is now under contract with @princetonupress.bsky.social. Excited for it to be out in the world in 2026!
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
In mid-2023 I was invited to speak about the 3rd Century Crisis at a conference in Copenhagen. By the time I was writing the paper later that year, the irony of writing about ancient crises from a position of safety in a world full of real violence (in the very same places) was almost too much.
January 16, 2026 at 9:37 AM
In mid-2023 I was invited to speak about the 3rd Century Crisis at a conference in Copenhagen. By the time I was writing the paper later that year, the irony of writing about ancient crises from a position of safety in a world full of real violence (in the very same places) was almost too much.
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
Today is our last day at the @archaeological.org & @scsclassics.bsky.social meeting, but you still have time to stop by our booth (113)! Not only do we have fascinating new classics titles, but we’re also giving out code EXH30 for 30% off (in the US & Canada) through 1/31! #AIA2026 #SCS2026
January 10, 2026 at 4:07 PM
Today is our last day at the @archaeological.org & @scsclassics.bsky.social meeting, but you still have time to stop by our booth (113)! Not only do we have fascinating new classics titles, but we’re also giving out code EXH30 for 30% off (in the US & Canada) through 1/31! #AIA2026 #SCS2026
It is indeed on the banner 😊 bsky.app/profile/prin...
People keep writing me that the cover for my book (out later this year) is on the @princetonupress.bsky.social booth's banner at the AIA/SCS, so I thought I'd share it here! Just overjoyed and so grateful to the PUP team for bringing it to life
January 10, 2026 at 7:13 PM
It is indeed on the banner 😊 bsky.app/profile/prin...
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
Hey historians, if you're sick of AI and digital slop then come to our Jan 9th #AHA2026 panel at the Field Museum to explore artifacts of the Java Sea Shipwreck collection! 🌊 12th-13th cen recovered objects will be on special display for the session. aha.confex.com/aha/2026/web... @historians.org
December 21, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Hey historians, if you're sick of AI and digital slop then come to our Jan 9th #AHA2026 panel at the Field Museum to explore artifacts of the Java Sea Shipwreck collection! 🌊 12th-13th cen recovered objects will be on special display for the session. aha.confex.com/aha/2026/web... @historians.org
People keep writing me that the cover for my book (out later this year) is on the @princetonupress.bsky.social booth's banner at the AIA/SCS, so I thought I'd share it here! Just overjoyed and so grateful to the PUP team for bringing it to life
January 8, 2026 at 6:59 PM
People keep writing me that the cover for my book (out later this year) is on the @princetonupress.bsky.social booth's banner at the AIA/SCS, so I thought I'd share it here! Just overjoyed and so grateful to the PUP team for bringing it to life
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
I sadly won't be at AIA/SCS this year, but I hope to follow along from afar. This feed I made last year should hopefully still work (it collects #AIASCS and similarly tagged posts)—in case it's of use to anyone else! bsky.app/profile/did:...
January 6, 2026 at 7:26 PM
I sadly won't be at AIA/SCS this year, but I hope to follow along from afar. This feed I made last year should hopefully still work (it collects #AIASCS and similarly tagged posts)—in case it's of use to anyone else! bsky.app/profile/did:...
I sadly won't be at AIA/SCS this year, but I hope to follow along from afar. This feed I made last year should hopefully still work (it collects #AIASCS and similarly tagged posts)—in case it's of use to anyone else! bsky.app/profile/did:...
January 6, 2026 at 7:26 PM
I sadly won't be at AIA/SCS this year, but I hope to follow along from afar. This feed I made last year should hopefully still work (it collects #AIASCS and similarly tagged posts)—in case it's of use to anyone else! bsky.app/profile/did:...
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
Studying history and reading novels both get us out of our own heads, the first by helping us to imagine different worlds, and the second by prompting us to inhabit different subjectivities.
Those who do neither are forever imprisoned in the here, the now, and the self.
Those who do neither are forever imprisoned in the here, the now, and the self.
December 27, 2025 at 12:56 AM
Studying history and reading novels both get us out of our own heads, the first by helping us to imagine different worlds, and the second by prompting us to inhabit different subjectivities.
Those who do neither are forever imprisoned in the here, the now, and the self.
Those who do neither are forever imprisoned in the here, the now, and the self.
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
The search for the next director of the Classical Summer School at the AAR, to start in 2027-28, is now open.
Be my successor!
www.aarome.org/about/open-p...
Please share with anyone who might be interested in applying. You’d get to shadow me for a week in 2026. Happy to answer any questions!
Be my successor!
www.aarome.org/about/open-p...
Please share with anyone who might be interested in applying. You’d get to shadow me for a week in 2026. Happy to answer any questions!
Open Positions
The American Academy in Rome is seeking candidates for Chief Operating Officer and Director of the American Academy in Rome Classical Summer School.
www.aarome.org
December 22, 2025 at 9:35 PM
The search for the next director of the Classical Summer School at the AAR, to start in 2027-28, is now open.
Be my successor!
www.aarome.org/about/open-p...
Please share with anyone who might be interested in applying. You’d get to shadow me for a week in 2026. Happy to answer any questions!
Be my successor!
www.aarome.org/about/open-p...
Please share with anyone who might be interested in applying. You’d get to shadow me for a week in 2026. Happy to answer any questions!
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
📖 Feiertags-Lesetipp: Jahrbuch des DAI
Die aktuelle Ausgabe 140/2025 des #JdI wartet u.a. mit indischen, größtenteils lokal hergestellten Artefakten auf, die im ptolemäisch-römischen Berenike am Roten Meer in Ägypten ausgegraben wurden.
👉 Das und vieles mehr: publications.dainst.org/journals/jdi
Die aktuelle Ausgabe 140/2025 des #JdI wartet u.a. mit indischen, größtenteils lokal hergestellten Artefakten auf, die im ptolemäisch-römischen Berenike am Roten Meer in Ägypten ausgegraben wurden.
👉 Das und vieles mehr: publications.dainst.org/journals/jdi
December 22, 2025 at 10:06 AM
📖 Feiertags-Lesetipp: Jahrbuch des DAI
Die aktuelle Ausgabe 140/2025 des #JdI wartet u.a. mit indischen, größtenteils lokal hergestellten Artefakten auf, die im ptolemäisch-römischen Berenike am Roten Meer in Ägypten ausgegraben wurden.
👉 Das und vieles mehr: publications.dainst.org/journals/jdi
Die aktuelle Ausgabe 140/2025 des #JdI wartet u.a. mit indischen, größtenteils lokal hergestellten Artefakten auf, die im ptolemäisch-römischen Berenike am Roten Meer in Ägypten ausgegraben wurden.
👉 Das und vieles mehr: publications.dainst.org/journals/jdi
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
today is all about watching people come up with entirely new ways of being wrong
like we're experiencing breakthroughs in the field of error studies
nobel committee rushing to cobble together a Prize for Inaccuracies
epistemologists' heads spontaneously exploding from the falsity vibrations
like we're experiencing breakthroughs in the field of error studies
nobel committee rushing to cobble together a Prize for Inaccuracies
epistemologists' heads spontaneously exploding from the falsity vibrations
(standing in the NARA reading room, “feeding” a raft of unpublished government documents into AI somehow, as the archivists are definitely applauding me, telling it to find the important stuff)
“Look at me, I’m a historicalian!”
“Look at me, I’m a historicalian!”
December 21, 2025 at 9:31 PM
today is all about watching people come up with entirely new ways of being wrong
like we're experiencing breakthroughs in the field of error studies
nobel committee rushing to cobble together a Prize for Inaccuracies
epistemologists' heads spontaneously exploding from the falsity vibrations
like we're experiencing breakthroughs in the field of error studies
nobel committee rushing to cobble together a Prize for Inaccuracies
epistemologists' heads spontaneously exploding from the falsity vibrations
Managed to stop by the Met’s “Divine Egypt” exhibit. Some of my favorites were on the later side!
December 21, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Managed to stop by the Met’s “Divine Egypt” exhibit. Some of my favorites were on the later side!
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
Some important monkey business!
December 17, 2025 at 10:17 PM
Some important monkey business!
Excited to dive into this new book by @berangere.bsky.social on the routes through Egypt's Eastern Desert! #AncientBlueSky 🏺 books.openedition.org/momeditions/...
Sur les routes du désert Oriental égyptien
Ce livre explore les réseaux de circulation qui ont permis aux hommes de traverser le désert Oriental égyptien sur près d’un millénaire, entre la fin du ivᵉ s. av. J.-C. et le début du iiiᵉ s. ap. J.-...
books.openedition.org
December 11, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Excited to dive into this new book by @berangere.bsky.social on the routes through Egypt's Eastern Desert! #AncientBlueSky 🏺 books.openedition.org/momeditions/...
Nice to see all these recent finds—including an edition of the inscription—in a single publication!
Astonishing finds excavated at Berenike in Egypt include Buddha images & other artifacts from India and some made locally in Indian style, plus a bilingual Sanskrit & Greek dedicatory inscription found near a marble Buddha head in an Isis temple courtyard.
publications.dainst.org/journals/jdi...
publications.dainst.org/journals/jdi...
December 2, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Nice to see all these recent finds—including an edition of the inscription—in a single publication!
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
This essay by @johannawinant.bsky.social is beautiful on what can happen in the classroom, and on the importance of *argument* to literary studies. I especially like how she writes about helping students to "believe in their own significance"
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
The Claims of Close Reading - Boston Review
Literary studies have been starved by austerity, but their core methodology remains radical.
www.bostonreview.net
November 26, 2025 at 4:47 PM
This essay by @johannawinant.bsky.social is beautiful on what can happen in the classroom, and on the importance of *argument* to literary studies. I especially like how she writes about helping students to "believe in their own significance"
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
November 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
End of an era in American Jewish history.
Breaking News: Saul Zabar, who over seven decades made the Upper West Side food emporium Zabar’s a New York institution, is dead at 97. nyti.ms/42qGl2n
October 7, 2025 at 6:01 PM
End of an era in American Jewish history.
Happy start to the autumn quarter to all who celebrate!
September 29, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Happy start to the autumn quarter to all who celebrate!
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
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.
Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
September 28, 2025 at 2:02 PM
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.
Reposted by Jeremy Simmons
"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."
me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually
www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...
me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually
www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...
How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review
Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.
www.bostonreview.net
September 23, 2025 at 5:09 PM
"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."
me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually
www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...
me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually
www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...