Michael Furman
@profboeotia.bsky.social
Ph.D.
Ancient Historian - Thebes and Boeotia
Award-Winning Teacher
Historical Gaming
Pedagogy
Honors Education
Golf ⛳
Hot Takes on Classics and Academia
Ancient Historian - Thebes and Boeotia
Award-Winning Teacher
Historical Gaming
Pedagogy
Honors Education
Golf ⛳
Hot Takes on Classics and Academia
I think a good place to start is not even asking for recommendation letters until very late in the process. It introduces more bias and begs questions about status and prestige.
It's so much wasted labor on everyone's part to require them up front
It's so much wasted labor on everyone's part to require them up front
October 16, 2025 at 3:10 PM
I think a good place to start is not even asking for recommendation letters until very late in the process. It introduces more bias and begs questions about status and prestige.
It's so much wasted labor on everyone's part to require them up front
It's so much wasted labor on everyone's part to require them up front
Having run multiple faculty searches now I can say this with confidence:
There is absolutely no reason you can't inform unsuccessful candidates in a timely manner after every stage of the search process. It takes about five minutes to write and send blanket rejections through your HR portal...
There is absolutely no reason you can't inform unsuccessful candidates in a timely manner after every stage of the search process. It takes about five minutes to write and send blanket rejections through your HR portal...
October 12, 2025 at 1:49 AM
Having run multiple faculty searches now I can say this with confidence:
There is absolutely no reason you can't inform unsuccessful candidates in a timely manner after every stage of the search process. It takes about five minutes to write and send blanket rejections through your HR portal...
There is absolutely no reason you can't inform unsuccessful candidates in a timely manner after every stage of the search process. It takes about five minutes to write and send blanket rejections through your HR portal...
This so much. It makes me so angry to hear jokes about this. What does it say about you and your relationship with your students that your position is essentially 'my students are lying to me until they prove they aren't.' Some basic humanity in this scenario costs you nothing.
reminder, based on recent experiences: when all your undergraduates claim that their grandparents are dying, that's because their grandparents really are dying, that's just the age when a lot of people lose their grandparents.
October 4, 2025 at 7:56 PM
This so much. It makes me so angry to hear jokes about this. What does it say about you and your relationship with your students that your position is essentially 'my students are lying to me until they prove they aren't.' Some basic humanity in this scenario costs you nothing.
The Emmys snubbing ALL the main actors in Andor is absolutely insane!
July 16, 2025 at 4:16 PM
The Emmys snubbing ALL the main actors in Andor is absolutely insane!
Talk about ruining a valid issue with the wrong messenger. #Academicsky
Whining about teaching 76 students a semester and then having the audacity to complain you don't make as much as a high school teacher with the same degree (but more credentials)? GTFO
www.chronicle.com/article/my-u...
Whining about teaching 76 students a semester and then having the audacity to complain you don't make as much as a high school teacher with the same degree (but more credentials)? GTFO
www.chronicle.com/article/my-u...
My University Values Football More Than Education
At the University of Colorado at Boulder, athletics gets all the attention — and funding.
www.chronicle.com
June 18, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Talk about ruining a valid issue with the wrong messenger. #Academicsky
Whining about teaching 76 students a semester and then having the audacity to complain you don't make as much as a high school teacher with the same degree (but more credentials)? GTFO
www.chronicle.com/article/my-u...
Whining about teaching 76 students a semester and then having the audacity to complain you don't make as much as a high school teacher with the same degree (but more credentials)? GTFO
www.chronicle.com/article/my-u...
I guess Santa finally found a chimney he couldn't contort himself into...
June 3, 2025 at 11:46 PM
I guess Santa finally found a chimney he couldn't contort himself into...
80 years ago today my grandparents, a WAAF who spent months living in a subway tunnel while her city burned above her and a kid from the Bronx who lied above his age and landed in Normandy, celebrated what they thought was the defeat of fascism.
May 8, 2025 at 10:15 AM
80 years ago today my grandparents, a WAAF who spent months living in a subway tunnel while her city burned above her and a kid from the Bronx who lied above his age and landed in Normandy, celebrated what they thought was the defeat of fascism.
If this is true it would be hilarious because it is something straight out of a Percival Everett novel
lithub.com/did-the-puli...
lithub.com/did-the-puli...
Did the Pulitzer Board just overrule the Jury to give Percival Everett the prize?
Earlier today, the 2025 Pulitzer Prizes were announced and Percival Everett’s James was declared the winner for fiction. (You can see all of the winners and finalists here.) This came as no s…
lithub.com
May 6, 2025 at 9:21 PM
If this is true it would be hilarious because it is something straight out of a Percival Everett novel
lithub.com/did-the-puli...
lithub.com/did-the-puli...
Reading through the comments on the annual faculty poll and it's hilariously sad how petty some of them are. Like with so many things to talk about, you chose parking as the hill to die on??
March 31, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reading through the comments on the annual faculty poll and it's hilariously sad how petty some of them are. Like with so many things to talk about, you chose parking as the hill to die on??
Exactly what I would want in upper administration. The inability to parse complex ideas into tangible positions and not giving enough of a shit about the crowning achievement of your students to sit your ass down and write a meaningful speech just for them to show you actually think about them.
Oh, just reading about how this college president uses AI in academic leadership and wondering why, exactly, they need such salaries?
March 20, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Exactly what I would want in upper administration. The inability to parse complex ideas into tangible positions and not giving enough of a shit about the crowning achievement of your students to sit your ass down and write a meaningful speech just for them to show you actually think about them.
To mark the occasion, I'm starting a series of posts called 'Give Me A (Spring) Break'
Every day I will address some common practice that I have encountered in higher ed pedagogy and then explain why it sucks.
First up: Not accepting late work because students need to 'prepare for the real world'
Every day I will address some common practice that I have encountered in higher ed pedagogy and then explain why it sucks.
First up: Not accepting late work because students need to 'prepare for the real world'
March 10, 2025 at 12:53 AM
To mark the occasion, I'm starting a series of posts called 'Give Me A (Spring) Break'
Every day I will address some common practice that I have encountered in higher ed pedagogy and then explain why it sucks.
First up: Not accepting late work because students need to 'prepare for the real world'
Every day I will address some common practice that I have encountered in higher ed pedagogy and then explain why it sucks.
First up: Not accepting late work because students need to 'prepare for the real world'
She's planning her retirement in advance? She should have tried that with the sequel trilogy.
Talk about being handed the ingredients to Michelin star meal and making chicken nuggets out of it.
www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
Talk about being handed the ingredients to Michelin star meal and making chicken nuggets out of it.
www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
Lucasfilm Boss Kathleen Kennedy Expected to Retire This Year
The prolific producer has presided over the 'Star Wars' and 'Indiana Jones' franchises through ups and downs since 2012.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
February 25, 2025 at 10:21 PM
She's planning her retirement in advance? She should have tried that with the sequel trilogy.
Talk about being handed the ingredients to Michelin star meal and making chicken nuggets out of it.
www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
Talk about being handed the ingredients to Michelin star meal and making chicken nuggets out of it.
www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
Oh man am I going to have my Ph.D. in Ancient History revoked if I don't make a pedantic ragebait post about the pic of Matt Damon as Odysseus?
It's a movie, not a documentary. Lighten up. Adaptation is art. If it gets people talking about or interested in the ancient world that's a good thing.
It's a movie, not a documentary. Lighten up. Adaptation is art. If it gets people talking about or interested in the ancient world that's a good thing.
February 19, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Oh man am I going to have my Ph.D. in Ancient History revoked if I don't make a pedantic ragebait post about the pic of Matt Damon as Odysseus?
It's a movie, not a documentary. Lighten up. Adaptation is art. If it gets people talking about or interested in the ancient world that's a good thing.
It's a movie, not a documentary. Lighten up. Adaptation is art. If it gets people talking about or interested in the ancient world that's a good thing.
Watching the new French adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo and it is SO...DAMN...GOOD
February 16, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Watching the new French adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo and it is SO...DAMN...GOOD
As a professor, nothing enrages me more than seeing this from my peers.
1. Who cares if it IS fake? Students have lives beyond your class. Life happens. Stop being so vain and self-important and maybe ask yourself why the student would feel they need to fake it?
www.reddit.com/r/Professors...
1. Who cares if it IS fake? Students have lives beyond your class. Life happens. Stop being so vain and self-important and maybe ask yourself why the student would feel they need to fake it?
www.reddit.com/r/Professors...
From the Professors community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the Professors community
www.reddit.com
February 12, 2025 at 12:04 PM
As a professor, nothing enrages me more than seeing this from my peers.
1. Who cares if it IS fake? Students have lives beyond your class. Life happens. Stop being so vain and self-important and maybe ask yourself why the student would feel they need to fake it?
www.reddit.com/r/Professors...
1. Who cares if it IS fake? Students have lives beyond your class. Life happens. Stop being so vain and self-important and maybe ask yourself why the student would feel they need to fake it?
www.reddit.com/r/Professors...
You know what's totally going to save the field of Classics? Whining about how no one attends the Plenary Session at the SCS Annual Meeting. These are the real issues holding back our field 🙄🙄🙄
January 21, 2025 at 4:19 PM
You know what's totally going to save the field of Classics? Whining about how no one attends the Plenary Session at the SCS Annual Meeting. These are the real issues holding back our field 🙄🙄🙄
Academic Hot Take: Stop joking about 'how many grandparents die' every semester and trying to police students' lives. You sound like an insecure asshole whose only source of self-worth is asserting authority over 18 year olds. Also, requiring an obituary is fucking ghoulish and retraumatizing.
January 14, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Academic Hot Take: Stop joking about 'how many grandparents die' every semester and trying to police students' lives. You sound like an insecure asshole whose only source of self-worth is asserting authority over 18 year olds. Also, requiring an obituary is fucking ghoulish and retraumatizing.
On the next episode of Ancient Aliens: Snow Pyramids. Where did they come from? Who built them? What are they trying to tell us? Could more be buried in Antarctica? We'll never know because never do any actual research and that seems hard
I told my students I would give them 1 point of extra credit if they sent me a picture of themselves with a replica of an ancient monument they built out of snow.
So far, at least three pyramids have been constructed on campus.
So far, at least three pyramids have been constructed on campus.
January 10, 2025 at 8:27 PM
On the next episode of Ancient Aliens: Snow Pyramids. Where did they come from? Who built them? What are they trying to tell us? Could more be buried in Antarctica? We'll never know because never do any actual research and that seems hard
Another reflection on the SCS/AIA that came up in the panel I was chairing. I know that the organizations ostensibly support the development of pedagogy and global Classics, but a great start for actually demonstrating that would be to not schedule all the panels with those topics at the same time
January 9, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Another reflection on the SCS/AIA that came up in the panel I was chairing. I know that the organizations ostensibly support the development of pedagogy and global Classics, but a great start for actually demonstrating that would be to not schedule all the panels with those topics at the same time
So this has been living rent free in my head since it happened. At the SCS/AIA last week I'm listening to a paper on using the 'Athens 403' Reacting to the Past scenario in an intro Greek Civ course. The game takes up the entire second half of the semester. This makes me raise a question:
January 9, 2025 at 10:41 AM
So this has been living rent free in my head since it happened. At the SCS/AIA last week I'm listening to a paper on using the 'Athens 403' Reacting to the Past scenario in an intro Greek Civ course. The game takes up the entire second half of the semester. This makes me raise a question:
Happy to announce that my paper 'Tabletop Classics: Game Design as Pedagogy and Public History' has been accepted to the Association of Ancient Historians Annual Meeting as part of the Public History and History Pedagogy panel. See you in Cincinnati!
January 8, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Happy to announce that my paper 'Tabletop Classics: Game Design as Pedagogy and Public History' has been accepted to the Association of Ancient Historians Annual Meeting as part of the Public History and History Pedagogy panel. See you in Cincinnati!
Finally made the jump over here, so hi! I'm an ancient historian with a specialty on Thebes and Boeotia in the fourth century BC. I have developed courses on Ancient History Through Gaming, Pseudoarchaeology and Ancient Aliens, Appropriating the Past to name a few
January 4, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Finally made the jump over here, so hi! I'm an ancient historian with a specialty on Thebes and Boeotia in the fourth century BC. I have developed courses on Ancient History Through Gaming, Pseudoarchaeology and Ancient Aliens, Appropriating the Past to name a few