Jon Hoover
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jhoover04.bsky.social
Jon Hoover
@jhoover04.bsky.social
600 followers 340 following 40 posts
Islamic Studies, Taymiyyan Studies. Views are my own. Likes and reposts≠endorsement.
Posts Replies Media Videos
jhoover04.bsky.social
Student-initiated petition to save the BA in Theology and Religion at the University of Nottingham. Please do sign.
www.change.org/p/stop-the-r...
Sign the Petition
Stop the removal of undergraduate Theology & Religion at the University of Nottingham
www.change.org
November 9, 2025 at 8:57 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
uonphilosophy.bsky.social
Delighted that our Theology & Religion courses are ranked in the top ten of @thetimes.com UK University Rankings 2026 League Table!

More: tinyurl.com/55ddyx84.

#colleagues #happy #success #trs #theology #religion
September 19, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
fancynahyan.bsky.social
I am delighted to announce that my co-authored article on Mamluk maqamas on #BlackDeath has just been published in a lovely special issue of JAIS. journals.uio.no/JAIS/article...
#plague #MedievalSky #GlobalMiddleAges #EnvironmentalHistory #histmed 1/2
Mamluk Maqāmas on the Black Death | Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies
journals.uio.no
November 4, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
merkelsey.bsky.social
Look what's finally out in the world!
Smiling me holding a copy of my freshly published book "Co-texts and contexts in the book of Jonah"
October 28, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
helenlovatt.bsky.social
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.
adzebill.bsky.social Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · Aug 31
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
Reposted by Jon Hoover
olivia.science
I collected some materials on critical AI from my perspective; hope it's useful: olivia.science/ai

"CAIL is as an umbrella for all the prerequisite knowledge required to have an expert-level critical perspective, such as to tell apart nonsense hype from true theoretical computer scientific claims"
September 15, 2025 at 8:29 AM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
olivia.science
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
petertarras.bsky.social
Starting a new thread to collect critical perspectives on AI, as they are articulated dozens of times every day and appear repeatedly on my timeline. I can't read everything right away, but if, like me, you want to stay up to date, then this might help a bit:
September 11, 2025 at 7:02 AM
jhoover04.bsky.social
Catarina Belo and I published an obituary for Yayha Michot in the 'Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association'. Pdf download link in the first comment. doi.org/10.1515/jiqs...
Obituary: Yahya Michot (1952–2025)
Article Obituary: Yahya Michot (1952–2025) was published on August 12, 2025 in the journal Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association (volume 0, issue 0).
doi.org
September 17, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
matthewjkuiper.bsky.social
Just received proofs of my forthcoming entry on T.W. Arnold. Yay! It includes a review of Arnold's life, works, and legacy followed by a substantive review of his best known work, The Preaching of Islam, and its legacy.
Image of page 1 of proofs of article/entry on Thomas Walker Arnold, the late 19th/early 20th c. British orientalist and scholar of Islam
September 17, 2025 at 8:47 PM
jhoover04.bsky.social
My new book chapter open access: 'God as an Empirical Entity: The Expanded Scope of Sense Perception in Sunnī Traditionalist Spatialism'. www.jstor.org/stable/10.33... In a great volume edited by @ramonharvey.bsky.social and Safaruk Chowdhury.
CHAPTER 2 God as an Empirical Entity: The Expanded Scope of Sense Perception in Sunnī Traditionalist Spatialism The Expanded Scope of Sense Perception in Sunnī Traditionalist Spatialism from Anal...
JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources.
www.jstor.org
September 16, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
petertarras.bsky.social
"Consider the implications if ChatGPT started saying “I don’t know” to even 30% of queries ... Users accustomed to receiving confident answers to virtually any question would likely abandon such systems rapidly."
September 13, 2025 at 6:50 AM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
drtermagant.bsky.social
This is a desperately ignorant position from UUK that endangers research that benefits grassroots communities and ignores the fact that much knowledge-building is incremental and begins with small investigations that provide proofs of concept and space to develop ideas:
eicathomefinn.bsky.social Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · Sep 12
'"You can’t have hobbyist research that’s unfunded going on in institutions. We can’t afford it.”'

Such a badly formulated phrasing of the issues, so open to so many misinterpretations. If this is the level of thinking about research among sector leaders and policy-makers, be very afraid.
resprofnews.bsky.social Research Professional News @resprofnews.bsky.social · Sep 12
Ministers ‘want to shift funds away from low-quality research’ .

Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
September 12, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
drtermagant.bsky.social
The idea that the only worthwhile research is large-scale and externally funded risks generating volumes of shallow, soundbite, fashion-led content with inadequate empirical underpinning and limited audiences outside of policy echo chambers.
September 12, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
histphilosophy.bsky.social
An issue of the Monist has just appeared devoted to Ibn Sīnā/Avicenna! A great lineup of authors, and I'm honored to be part of it, having written a paper with Michael Noble about the reception of the idea of the Active Intellect.

academic.oup.com/monist/issue...

#philsky #avicenna #ibnsina
Volume 108 Issue 3 | The Monist | Oxford Academic
One of the oldest and most important journals in philosophy. Publishes quarterly thematic issues on particular philosophical topics which are edited by leading philosophers in the corresponding fields...
academic.oup.com
August 16, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
uonphilosophy.bsky.social
PUBLIC!

New episode 1135, with Dr. Ian James Kidd. We talk about philosophical misanthropy. #Philosophy

YouTube: youtu.be/qMjDupmcxEM
Podcast: bit.ly/3HpAfIe

#philosophy #misanthropy #humanity #ethics #pessimism
#1135 Ian James Kidd: What Is Misanthropy?
YouTube video by The Dissenter
youtu.be
August 11, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
merkelsey.bsky.social
👀

www.bloomsbury.com/us/cotexts-a...
Co-texts and Contexts in the Book of Jonah
Marian Kelsey argues that the book of Jonah weaves together many narratives with shared themes into a phenomenon of 'interlocking allusion'. While describing th…
www.bloomsbury.com
July 29, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
battalia.bsky.social
I’m thrilled to share my first-ever academic publication, in volume 10 of Philological Encounters, entitled “The Philological Philanthropy of Muḥammad Naṣīf (1885–1971): Arabic Editions, Salafi Islam, and State-making in the Hijaz.” doi.org/10.1163/2451...
July 16, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
matthewjkuiper.bsky.social
Just saw that this was posted by one of my favorite Islamic Studies/History podcasts. This is a clip, focused on the contemporary scene, of a longer conversation in which Islamic da’wa (preaching/proselytization) is defined and examined from the Qur’an to the present. 🗃️
The Incredible Popularity of Muslim Preachers - Ahmed Deedat, Zakir Naik & 21st Century Dawa
YouTube video by Exploring the Quran and the Bible
youtube.com
July 14, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
uonphilosophy.bsky.social
PUBLIC!

Prof Jon Hoover's new video series, 'Exploring the Qu'ran' -

👉text and transmission
👉interpretation
👉themes
👉the daily life of Muslims
👉interfaith relations

Video 1: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHl4...

#islam #theology #quran #religion
Exploring the Qur’an – Text and Transmission | Theology | University of Nottingham
YouTube video by University of Nottingham
www.youtube.com
July 8, 2025 at 7:19 AM
jhoover04.bsky.social
My review of Adrien Candiard's book on Ibn Taymiyya has been published. www.academia.edu/130334749/Re...
Review of Adrien Candiard, Le Dieu immédiat: Le concept de vérité dans le Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql d’Ibn Taymiyya (Paris: Les éditions du Cerf, 2023), in Islamochristiana 50 (2024): 319-322.
Review of Adrien Candiard, Le Dieu immédiat: Le concept de vérité dans le Darʾ taʿāruḍ al-ʿaql wa-l-naql d’Ibn Taymiyya (Paris: Les éditions du Cerf, 2023), in Islamochristiana 50 (2024): 319-322.
www.academia.edu
July 4, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
islamicorigins.bsky.social
New Blog Post:

"Did Muhammad Exist? An Academic Response to a Popular Question"

islamicorigins.com/did-muhammad...
Did Muhammad Exist? An Academic Response to a Popular Question - Islamic Origins
The last two decades have seen a proliferation of publications variously questioning or outright denying the historical existence of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Although such views have gained pract...
islamicorigins.com
June 28, 2025 at 4:09 AM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
dgb-philosophy.bsky.social
What kind of history of #philosophy do we need for the 21st century? #Otd in 2024, as the first woman ever to be appointed professor of philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, Sabrina Ebbersmayer replied to this in her inaugural lecture, published #openaccess in SATS:
doi.org/10.1515/sats...
June 21, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
csmc-hamburg.bsky.social
Much of what we know about everyday reading practices in #Arabic writing cultures comes from audition certificates. We make these valuable #manuscripts accessible to research on an online platform. A new version now offers #OpenAccess to over 5000 sources:
uhh.de/csmc-acp
June 16, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Jon Hoover
nicmorton.bsky.social
Starting next Thursday!

"Medieval Warfare in the Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia"

In co-operation with @medievalists.bsky.social I will be running this five session online course.

For more information and to get involved see👇

medievalstudies.thinkific.com/courses/warf...
Medieval Warfare in the Middle East, Europe, & Central Asia
Explore the development of land warfare from 1000 to 1300. From the Eurasian Steppe to the Middle East and the kingdom of England, this course offers a sweeping panorama of military history during a ...
medievalstudies.thinkific.com
May 30, 2025 at 4:24 PM