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soraaad.bsky.social
Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
@soraaad.bsky.social
3.5K followers 4.2K following 590 posts
SORAAAD.org, allowing people to gather w/o being religious since 2011. Qual Research on Religion, Religion-like stuff, and Religion & stuff best not studied as religious but key to understanding those doing, being, saying & feeling stuff labeled religion
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soraaad.bsky.social
Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop @soraaad.bsky.social · 11d
All the data nobody is allowed to gather has one aim:
brandontsnider.bsky.social Brandon T. Snider @brandontsnider.bsky.social · 11d
"If you destroy the systems that measure harm and appoint corrupt functionaries to invent your desired figures, you destroy the evidence of your responsibility. If you make truth unknowable, accountability becomes impossible." www.thenation.com/article/poli...
OCTOBER 27, 2025 Destroy the Metrics, Destroy the Truth Trump’s decimation of public health systems isn’t about efficiency, cost-saving, or even ideology. It’s about building a world without truth or the possibility of accountability. ERIC REINHART
Reposted by Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
themodsisyphus.bsky.social
Yes. The fact that the second in command of the so called largest democracy in the world orchestrated the killing of a Canadian citizen and attempted murder of a US national should be massive news.
arshy.bsky.social Arshy Mann @arshy.bsky.social · 2d
I’m honestly shocked that this story from @globalnews.ca has flown under the radar. Confirmation that Amit Shah, the second-most powerful man in the Indian government, was directly involved in the assassinations on Canadian soil. globalnews.ca/news/1151469...
Intercepted communications link Indian government to B.C. Sikh leader’s assassination | Globalnews.ca
British intelligence provided Canada with initial tip tying India’s government to temple leader's 2023 killing.
globalnews.ca
November 9, 2025 at 6:37 PM
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lottelydia.bsky.social
a mental health crisis among British students whilst universities are pushing faculty to accept or even encourage students using generative AI is a catastrophe waiting to happen
disabilitystor1.bsky.social Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 4d
1.This is not the only known example we know of ChatGPT cheering on a vulnerable young person to die by suicide, this time it is a recent Texas A&M grad
2. Every single university that has invited OpenAI into our midst should be asked to account for their choices.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
Shamblin’s conversation partner wasn’t a classmate or friend – it was ChatGPT, the world’s most popular AI chatbot. A CNN review of nearly 70 pages of chats between Shamblin and the AI tool in the hours before his July 25 suicide, as well as excerpts from thousands more pages in the months leading up to that night, found that the chatbot repeatedly encouraged the young man as he discussed ending his life – right up to his last moments.
November 7, 2025 at 9:19 PM
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rezekjoe.bsky.social
Thrilled that Kelly Wisecup and Christopher Pexa will present at the next meeting of the Am Lit & Culture seminar at the Mahindra Center at Harvard, Nov 12, 6pm. This event is co-sponsored with the Native Cultures of the Americas Seminar. Join us if you are in town!
Poster describing the event. Title of talk: ‘your own work eats up trees’: Birchbark Bookmaking, Settler Memory, and Paper Histories
November 7, 2025 at 5:32 PM
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chrisgeidner.bsky.social
BREAKING: Cornell caved.

Here is the settlement agreement, signed today by the university's president, Michael Kotlikoff: statements.cornell.edu/2025/documen...
SIGNATURES For Cornell University: Michael I. Kotlikoff President of Cornell University Office of the President 300 Day Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 Ben the Winited States (including but not limited to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Servives and the U.S, Department of Education): /N istant Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20530 For the Department of Health and Human Services: Paula Matana S Paula M. Stannard Director, Office for Civil Rights U.S. Department of Health & Human Services 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20201 Effective Date: 14/7/2025.
November 7, 2025 at 5:11 PM
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chrisgeidner.bsky.social
Cornell agrees to include Bondi's anti-DEI/anti-trans memo as a "training resource to faculty and staff" (see: www.justice.gov/ag/media/140...)
Both Parties affirm the importance of and their support for civil rights. Cornell affirms its commitment to complying with federal civil rights laws and agrees to include the Department of Justice's "Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding Regarding Unlawful Discrimination" of July 29, 2025 as a training resource to faculty and staff so long as that Guidance remains operative.
November 7, 2025 at 5:21 PM
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chrisgeidner.bsky.social
Cornell agrees to "invest" $30 million in things like AI farming.

Cornell also agrees to pay $30 million to the U.S. for no clear reason or purpose.
To that end, and in settlement and compromise of the Released Claims in this Agreement, Cornell shall invest the sum of Thirty Million Dollars ($30,000,000), payable in equal installments, over the three years following the Effective Date, in research programs that will directly benefit U.S. farmers through lower costs of* production and enhanced efficiency, including but not limited to programs that incorporate Al and robotics, such as Digital Agriculture and Future Farming Technologies. These additional resources demonstrate Cornell's and the United States' longstanding commitment to assist America's fariners. 14. In consideration for entering into this Agreement, Cornell shall pay the United States the sum of Thirty Million Dollars ($30,000,000), payable in equal installments over three ycars. The first payment will be made within thirty (30) days of the Effective date, and each subsequent payment shall be made on the anniversary of the Effective Date.
November 7, 2025 at 5:25 PM
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chrisgeidner.bsky.social
Cornell agrees to turn over "anonymized" admissions data broken down to individual colleges and schools.
Cornell shall provide the United States with anonymized undergraduate admissions data consistent with 34 C.F.R. § 100.6 and similar regulations broken down by Cornell's individual colleges and schools, race, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests, on a quarterly basis, in a form permitting statistical analyses for each year of the Agreement. Admissions data will also be subjected to a comprehensive audit by the United States. This information will be maintained confidentially and exempt from public disclosure and subject to pre-disclosure notification and an opportunity to object to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, to the fullest extent possible by law.
November 7, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
And, Cornell's president agrees to bow down to Trump each quarter.
10. Cornell's president shall certify under penalty of perjury cach quarter Cornell's 2 full compliance with all the provisions in this Agreement. Such certification will state: President of Cornell University, hereby certify, to the best of my knowledge, and after reasonable review and investigation, that Cornell University has maintained and implemented policies and procedures as well as training programs to ensure material compliance with the Agreement between the United States and Comell University [Effective Date]. The United States may make such inquiries as it deems necessary to verify the accuracy of such certification.
November 7, 2025 at 5:30 PM
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colombodougovito.com
It’s infuriating to watch university after university spend *millions* of dollars on this junk, while freezing staff and faculty pay and downsizing workforces or eliminating entire departments altogether.
disabilitystor1.bsky.social Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 3d
Call me controversial, but technology that leads vulnerable people into crisis and even holds their hand as they die by suicide should not be endorsed by schools and universities, we should not be giving discounted subscriptions to this monstrous tech to young people AT ALL
fionakatauskas.bsky.social Fiona Katauskas @fionakatauskas.bsky.social · 4d
The boyfriend of a friend of my son's has spent several weeks in a psych ward due to Chat GPT induced psychosis. He isn't suicidal but AI encouraged him down a toxic and paranoid wormhole until he became completely delusional. Evil stuff.
November 7, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Reposted by Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
petridishes.bsky.social
Did Women Ruin The Workplace
Adam and Eve under an apple tree with a snake sort of peering down at them
November 7, 2025 at 2:43 AM
Reposted by Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
sandeepbak.bsky.social
Hello dearies, I've made available online my syllabus for the course titled,

Bodies and Sexualities: Transnational/Queer Feminisms

It's a reading-heavy course (3hours each week, 8 weeks in all) for MA Year 2 students with a guest lecture. You can consult it here: doi.org/10.13140/RG....
November 4, 2025 at 3:41 PM
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sandeepbak.bsky.social
Just so folks know - Sara Ahmed, Oyeronke Oyewumi & Maria Lugones are covered by my colleagues in their courses; we reference them, esp. Ahmed. And we work with Rita Segato & Ochy Curiel linking them to Yuderkys Espinosa’s work. One feminist missing is Lelia Gonzalez but I don’t read Portuguese :-(
November 4, 2025 at 5:56 PM
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tyleraking.com
Reposting to correct an error: trump admin is quietly gutting 13 buildings and about 100 laboratories at Goddard campus that has been instrumental to Hubble and James Webb telescope missions. Staff say they’ve be locked and told to move equipment. Anything left behind will be thrown away.
NASA may be quietly gutting an iconic campus with what it calls strategic closures, workers fear
(CNN) — Alarm is growing among federal workers at NASA’s iconic Goddard Space Flight Center’s main campus in Greenbelt, Maryland — the nerve center for groundbreaking missions like the Hubble
www.wkow.com
November 5, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
bakerdphd.bsky.social
To prep for the higher ed policy class on censorship next week, I'm rereading Schrecker's No Ivory Tower. Buddy this intro has it all! SCOTUS jumping on the bandwagon, disregard of first amendment rights, why congressional hearings played such a key role, how private companies aided the government.
Screenshot of page 3 that reads: McCarthyism: The Anatomy of an Inquisition By February 3, 1960, Joseph R. McCarthy had been dead for nearly three years, and the novement that had received his name was presumably over. But not for Chandler Davis. On that day, Davis, a former instructor of mathematics from the University of Michigan, ended a six-year struggle against McCarthyism, said goodbye to his family, and surrendered to a federal marshal in Grand Rapids to begin serving a six-month prison term. Davis's crime had occurred on May 10, 1954 when he refused to tell the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) whether or not he had ever been a Communist. Davis challenged the committee, insisting that its questions about his politics infringed upon his freedom of speech and, as he put it, overstepped "the bounds placed on Congress by the First Amendment.'" He knew that he would probably lose his job and be convicted for contempt of Congress, but he hoped that the Supreme Court would eventually exonerate him. Instead, on June 8, 1959, the Court in effect ruled against him in the similar case Lloyd Barenblatt, another former college teacher who had also defied HUAC on First Amendment grounds. The 5 to 4 decision affirmed that the committee did not violate its witnesses' constitutional rights by asking them about their relationship with the Communist Party (CP). That ruling sent both Barenblatt and Davis, whose case was determined by Barenblatt's, to Danbury Federal Penitentiary. Screenshot of page 7 which reads: Most of this housecleaning took place at congressional hearings. Legislative investigations gave the conservatives a perfect arena for their campaign against the New Deal and its supposed sympathy for Communist subversion. To begin with, as congressmen constitutionally immune from lawsuits, they could make accusations without having to worry about being sued for libel. In addition, since legislative investigations were not judicial proceedings, these politicians could use witnesses whose testimony did not have to stand up in court. Best of all, committee hearings created headlines. American politics had never offered a more dramatic spectacle than the confrontation between the investigators and their witnesses, especially when those witnesses pulled microfilms out of pumpkins and talked of false names, clandestine meetings, secret passwords, and the arcane workings of a shadowy underworld peopled by Soviet agents and urbane upper-class spies. Once the rise of Richard Nixon showed how a smart politician could parlay his berth on an investigating committee into the Vice Presidency, congressmen clamored for such positions. In 1952, 185 of the 221 Republicans in Congress applied for seats on the House Un-American Activities Committee, an unpopular assignment only a few years before. Screenshot of page 9 which reads: McCarthyism was amazingly effective. It produced one of the most severe episodes of political repression the United States ever experienced. It was a peculiarly American style of repression--nonviolent and consensual. Only two people were killed; only a few hundred went to jail. Its mildness may well have contributed to its efficacy. So, too, did its struc- ture. Here, it helps to view McCarthyism as a process rather than a movement. It took place in two stages. First, the objectionable groups and individuals were identified-during a committee hearing, for example, or an FBI investigation; then, they were punished, usually by being fired. The bifurcated nature of this process diffused responsibility and made it easier for each participant to dissociate his or her action from the larger whole. Rarely did any single institution handle both stages of McCarthyism. In most cases, it was a government agency which identified the culprits and a private employer which fired them.
October 30, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Reposted by Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
soraaad.bsky.social
All the data nobody is allowed to gather has one aim:
brandontsnider.bsky.social Brandon T. Snider @brandontsnider.bsky.social · 11d
"If you destroy the systems that measure harm and appoint corrupt functionaries to invent your desired figures, you destroy the evidence of your responsibility. If you make truth unknowable, accountability becomes impossible." www.thenation.com/article/poli...
OCTOBER 27, 2025 Destroy the Metrics, Destroy the Truth Trump’s decimation of public health systems isn’t about efficiency, cost-saving, or even ideology. It’s about building a world without truth or the possibility of accountability. ERIC REINHART
October 30, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
soraaad.bsky.social
Religion and Politics in the U.S.
Part the first
karlsteel.bsky.social Karl Steel @karlsteel.bsky.social · 5d
the thing in medieval confessional manuals about being careful not to accidentally introduce your parishioners to ways of sinning they had never yet considered. like that.
derek.bike derek van vliet @derek.bike · 5d
good morning specifically to the FBI agent who introduced Mamdani’s dad to Marx
November 5, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Reposted by Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
soraaad.bsky.social
Religion and Politics in the U.S.

Part the second.
November 5, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Reposted by Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
soraaad.bsky.social
When Academic Twitter was reassembling here, and joining was dependent on invite codes (and sharing them) no single person did more to connect people (across and within specializations) than Prof Farhana Sultana, especially before lists became available.
yungenchee.bsky.social Yung En Chee @yungenchee.bsky.social · 6d
As someone who greatly respects and has greatly benefited from Professor Farhana Sultana's critical & generous public scholarship on the interrelations between water governance, climate change, colonialism & capitalism, I have signed this Letter of Support

Please consider signing it too
Letter of Support for Professor Farhana Sultana
As scholars within and beyond academia, we write in solidarity with academic freedom of expression with our colleague, Dr. Farhana Sultana, an internationally recognized scholar and tenured Full Profe...
docs.google.com
November 5, 2025 at 12:27 AM
soraaad.bsky.social
Religion in the U.S.

Immigration
Establishment Clause
Free Expression/Religious Liberty
Leo IVX
Roman Catholic Church
ICE
christopherjhale.bsky.social Christopher Hale @christopherjhale.bsky.social · 6d
BREAKING: After ICE refuses to allow detained migrants to receive the Eucharist, Pope Leo calls on Trump and Vance to respect migrants‘ dignity and religious liberty.

“They must allow ministers to assist with their needs. They've been separated from their families and no one knows what happens.”
November 5, 2025 at 6:02 PM
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christopherjhale.bsky.social
Pope Leo XIV chastised President Trump and Vice President Vance for not respecting the dignity and religious liberty of migrants in the United States.

Here are his full remarks.
BREAKING: Pope Leo XIV Denounces Trump-Vance Decision to Block Eucharist from ICE Detainees
After ICE refuses to allow detained migrants to receive the Eucharist, Pope Leo calls on Trump and Vance to respect migrants‘ dignity and religious liberty.
www.thelettersfromleo.com
November 4, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Reposted by Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
evansmithhist.bsky.social
The latter is me now that I have submitted the large grant application.
evansmithhist.bsky.social Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 7d
Beginning of the project/End of the project
November 5, 2025 at 5:45 AM
soraaad.bsky.social
Religion and Politics in the U.S.

Part the second.
November 5, 2025 at 6:00 PM
soraaad.bsky.social
Religion and Politics in the U.S.
Part the first
karlsteel.bsky.social Karl Steel @karlsteel.bsky.social · 5d
the thing in medieval confessional manuals about being careful not to accidentally introduce your parishioners to ways of sinning they had never yet considered. like that.
derek.bike derek van vliet @derek.bike · 5d
good morning specifically to the FBI agent who introduced Mamdani’s dad to Marx
November 5, 2025 at 5:59 PM
soraaad.bsky.social
When Academic Twitter was reassembling here, and joining was dependent on invite codes (and sharing them) no single person did more to connect people (across and within specializations) than Prof Farhana Sultana, especially before lists became available.
yungenchee.bsky.social Yung En Chee @yungenchee.bsky.social · 6d
As someone who greatly respects and has greatly benefited from Professor Farhana Sultana's critical & generous public scholarship on the interrelations between water governance, climate change, colonialism & capitalism, I have signed this Letter of Support

Please consider signing it too
Letter of Support for Professor Farhana Sultana
As scholars within and beyond academia, we write in solidarity with academic freedom of expression with our colleague, Dr. Farhana Sultana, an internationally recognized scholar and tenured Full Profe...
docs.google.com
November 5, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop
yungenchee.bsky.social
As someone who greatly respects and has greatly benefited from Professor Farhana Sultana's critical & generous public scholarship on the interrelations between water governance, climate change, colonialism & capitalism, I have signed this Letter of Support

Please consider signing it too
Letter of Support for Professor Farhana Sultana
As scholars within and beyond academia, we write in solidarity with academic freedom of expression with our colleague, Dr. Farhana Sultana, an internationally recognized scholar and tenured Full Profe...
docs.google.com
November 4, 2025 at 9:03 PM