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Donovan Schaefer

@feelingtheory.bsky.social

1.1K followers 920 following 850 posts

Teaching/writing about emotion, secularism, & power at @upennrels.bsky.social Current projects: Conspiracy theory, secular artifacts, Confederate commemoration 🐱🐱 Brighton & Bristol 🌱 ⓥ food 🏙️ Philly ✍️📚: http://donovanschaefer.com/research

donovanschaefer.com

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 22d

Manuscript submitted for review!

95,000 words. 48 chapters. 4 years of work.

Extremely excited to be bringing this into the world with my brilliant collaborators Olivia Haynie and @justinseward.bsky.social!

The False Image of History Project @falseimage.bsky.social · 23d

Coming soon to a library near you: The False Image of History Project book!

We're thrilled to announce that the False Image of History project will be published as a book as part of the Reconstructing America series at Fordham University Press @fordhampress.bsky.social!

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Reposted by Donovan Schaefer

Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 2h

week 7, in a city under siege for 32 days and counting, and the students who are able to come to class despite the blitz are showing up like their lives depend on those 50 minutes of togetherness, poetry, and big questions

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 3h

IDK, man. School started 2 weeks ago for us, and once again students remind me that they’re so curious and interested in the world and anxious to ask big questions. We hear that these questions are no longer useful or relevant, but wherever that’s coming from, it’s not what students believe.

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Reposted by Donovan Schaefer

Penn Religious Studies @upennrels.bsky.social · 19h

Exciting news from one of our alums!

Dr. Abdul Manan Bhat, who completed his PhD earlier this year, has launched Preface, a new YouTube series dedicated to "thorny issues regarding literature, culture, and politics."

The first episode has already racked up over 300,000 views! Check it out here!

Preface Ep 1— The Eloquent Fool: Javed Akhtar and His Views on Religion

YouTube video by Dr. Bhat

www.youtube.com

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 20h

The Republicans have launched a crooked and disgusting campaign to "term limit" the PA Supreme Court in this year's election.

What they actually want is to take advantage of the fact that all three SC judges up for retention this year are Democrats to vote them out.

Misleading flyers calling to "term limit" PA supreme court justices.

Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 20h

Pennsylvania folks! Don't fall for the Republican "term-limiting" scam. Vote YES to retain all three supreme court judges on your ballot next month.

This is what the section looks like on the ballot. In Philly, it was on the second page, tucked in with all the other judge retention questions.

A flyer with instructions for voting "Yes" to retain PA justices.

A section of the state ballot for the PA election, showing the three supreme court justices who are to be retained. Vote YES to retain all three.

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 1d

Fascists are very good at gaining power. But the skill set that feeds into the acquisition of power (demonizing disadvantaged groups, creating cults of personality, selling easy solutions) has very little overlap with actually governing effectively

Mussolini Didn’t Make the Trains Run on Time Professor Buzzkill

Ever been stuck on a train station platform, waiting and waiting for a train that was supposed to arrive half an hour ago? It’s a pain. What’s also a pain is

professorbuzzkill.com

Reposted by Donovan Schaefer

Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 1d

I'm team "books Covid vaccine the minute they're available" due to facts like this.

Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 1d

A new study shows that receiving an updated COVID vaccine reduced people’s risk of severe disease and death in all age groups, regardless of immunity from prior infection or vaccination

Annual COVID Vaccines Save Lives, New Study Shows

A new study shows that receiving an updated COVID vaccine reduced people’s risk of severe disease and death in all age groups, regardless of immunity from prior infection or vaccination

www.scientificamerican.com

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 1d

Ooh yeah we got some of those

Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 1d

OH GOD I FORGOT ABOUT SCHUYLKILL

That one's also a spelling test

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 1d

Bonus points: Passyunk

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Reposted by Donovan Schaefer

Lair Of The Gurt Sherm (Stoker 1911) @gurtsherm.bsky.social · 2d

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 1d

Incentivized bootlicking + algorithm manipulation by media/tech overlords got us where we are now.

𝕍∃, Cyber closed shell syndrome relief fund coordinator @vortexegg.com · 1d

Propaganda in service of the powerful is so lucrative that everyone from social media influencers to the legacy media to the large tech companies want a piece of the action. All the nation’s leaders have either been hired from or converted into propagandists as the first-order way of doing politics

Reposted by Donovan Schaefer

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 2d

i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 3d

"Cultural Christianity's Secular Cathedral"

Thrilled to have this new piece out with the Political Theology Network, written with my collaborator Yasemin Ural at the University of Leipzig!

politicaltheology.com/cultural-chr...

Cultural Christianity’s Secular Cathedral | Political Theology Network

Macron’s speech in Notre Dame on the occasion of its reopening was a transgression of the principles of French laïcité, confirming the worldwide tendencies towards the increasing culturalization of…

politicaltheology.com

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Reposted by Donovan Schaefer

Jason Kuznicki @jkuznicki.bsky.social · 3d

Articles found to have fake citations should be retracted. Citations to such articles should be disqualifying for future publications. Cordon off the bad information.

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 2d

Dinner with the Doktorvater!

85 years old. Still iconic. 👓

Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 3d

Here, we analyze the Cathedral of Notre-Dame as a nodal point in the "Judeo-Christian" secular network, a monumental anchor that defines some groups as inside the fold of western modernity and others on the outs.

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 3d

This is part of a book project we've been working on that looks at the way the secular--assumed to be just a set of beliefs and ideas--also manifests as a material culture drawing on objects, bodies, places, practices, and affects/emotions.

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 3d

Cultural Christianity’s Secular Cathedral | Political Theology Network

politicaltheology.com

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 3d

what if Keebler elf but bakes lies instead of cookies

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4d

Mike Johnson: "Let me look right into the camera and tell you very clearly: Republicans are the ones concerned about healthcare. Republicans are the party working around the clock everyday to fix healthcare. This is not talking points for us: we've done it."

Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 4d

And here's the blog post where I wrote up some of my findings about how white Southerners in the late 19th c tried to use cosmopolitan art world prestige to redeem the Confederacy.

uncommonwealth.virginiamemory.com/blog/2025/09...

London, Paris, Richmond: The Cosmopolitan Sensibility of Lee Monument

Confederate monuments are often defended on the grounds that they provide an educational function. Both enthusiasts and critics of the Confederacy who take this position see Confederate monuments as a...

uncommonwealth.virginiamemory.com

Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 4d

Very excited to be giving this virtual talk on Wednesday at noon, covering some of the research on Confederate monument societies I did at the Library of Virginia in May!

lva-virginia.libcal.com/event/15295882

Virtual Virginia Humanities Fellow Talk | Nationalism & Cosmopolitanism in the Creation of Richmond’s Confederate Monuments

Join us for a virtual presentation from Donovan Schaefer, a Virginia Humanities Fellow, on his research project “Nationalism & Cosmopolitanism in the Creation of Richmond’s...

lva-virginia.libcal.com

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Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 4d

I’m telling you: ridicule works. These guys are supposed to intimidate the citizenry and it’s very hard to do that when a guy in a frog suit is just staring you down and daring you to do something that makes it look like you’re afraid of a cartoon

dan sinker @dansinker.com · 4d

Portland never stops being Portland.

competentposter @competentposter.bsky.social · 5d

wizard frog is insane

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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 5d

Visionary.

Uplift and inspire people personally, activate and awaken them politically.

KOJAMF🤘🖤🤘 @kojamf.bsky.social · 5d

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 5d

Reposted by Donovan Schaefer

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 6d

Meat is a blind spot for people who care about climate. When I used to have dinner with my colleague Wally Broecker, the climate scientist who coined the term “global warming”, he would always order a steak.

The climate movement’s biggest weakness

What the climate movement is getting dead wrong.

www.vox.com

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