Scott Van Keuren
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svankeuren.bsky.social
Scott Van Keuren
@svankeuren.bsky.social
Archaeologist, US Southwest, medieval Peloponnese, & no longer willing to grill in subzero weather.
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
A recently published illustration by @kjkillackey.bsky.social . screw AI, hire an artist.
December 3, 2025 at 9:27 PM
My Spotify Wrapped has been compromised by my tween's bizarre musical taste so I won't be sharing it.
December 3, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
Agreed. Best yet on the utter disaster university administrators and AI oligarchs have enacted.
December 3, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
I've taught more than 100 sections at a criminally underfunded public university and never once has it been a problem to make an accommodation for a student who needs a little extra time or whatever so I suspect this is not really a problem at the University of Chicago with its $10 billion endowment
December 2, 2025 at 3:10 PM
I can't wait to see the final product on this one.
If you run across a gen A.I. slop 🤖💩 diagram in an academic journal, I’d love to know about it! Please fill out this form:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Slop in journals is illuminating about journals’ quality control. And journals would like you to forget their mistakes.

#AcademicChatter
Slop graphics in academic journals
Use this form to share graphics (e.g., figures, covers, graphical abstracts) made using generative A.I. that have appeared in academic journals. The plan is to compile these slop graphics in an ope...
docs.google.com
December 2, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
"Under my leadership, we have instituted an assessment program where we assess how we assess what we already assessed, using learning outcomes that include all of the buzzwords someone in admin told us were important."
A Faculty Member’s Self-Evaluation at the End of the Semester
Dear Committee Members, As part of the faculty review process, I am pleased to report to you on my work. In this letter, I will offer information ...
buff.ly
December 1, 2025 at 6:25 PM
I have serious doubts about the Bundt pan turkey trend.
November 21, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
From the brand new issue of Museums Journal, guest-edited by Gary Younge, my article on human remains in museums — "Return The Bones"; you can read it here >> www.danhicks.uk/essays
November 19, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
🧪 Academic journal editor using gen-AI for cover art...
Time for some discussions in scientific community around standards and ethics approaches for illustration?
November 18, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
But you imagine where you might be, eventually, when you learn IT has HAPPENED.

Maybe you will wake up, anxious and scared and angry (i.e., normal).

Then, out of nowhere, the push notification from THE NEWS: “Breaking: IT Has HAPPENED.”

What will you feel like? When IT HAPPENS?
When It Happens
It’s been so long, you sometimes forget that eventually, IT will HAPPEN. It’s impossible to say when IT will HAPPEN. But it can’t be too long until...
buff.ly
November 16, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Shameful:
Fired Scholars and Big Grants to Favored Projects: Inside Trump’s N.E.H.
www.nytimes.com
November 15, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Hard no:
November 11, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
My old pal Pete Coviello — one of the best writers and thinkers I've ever known — wrote the piece of the moment

lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
lithub.com
November 9, 2025 at 3:17 AM
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
A nice story in @science.org this week about the collaboration between archaeologists and Kuikuro people in Brazil, which has been central to uncovering evidence of social complexity in the Amazon region more than 600 years ago.

www.science.org/content/arti...
To unearth their past, Amazonian people turn to ‘a language white men understand’
A model partnership between archaeologists and the Kuikuro people has helped rewrite the history of early Amazonian societies
www.science.org
November 7, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
NEW - The Trump admin has disbanded its federal cultural property investigations team and reassigned the agents to immigration enforcement, delivering a blow to one of the world’s leaders in heritage protection, according to multiple ppl familiar with the changes.

www.denverpost.com/2025/11/06/u...
The U.S. was a leader in cultural heritage investigations. Now those agents are working immigration enforcement.
Homeland Security Investigations, the department’s investigative arm, once had as many as eight agents in its New York office investigating cultural property cases.
www.denverpost.com
November 6, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Holy crap I want this SO bad.
November 6, 2025 at 4:16 PM
'Dance your PhD' is a great but why in the world add the AI component? www.science.org/content/arti...
Science’s ‘Dance Your Ph.D.’ contest is open again—with an all new, AI twist
For the first time, there’s a special prize for a research-themed dance generated by an artificial intelligence program
www.science.org
November 4, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
Everyone involved in this case, including the Border Patrol agent, should be dying of embarrassment being involved in such a ridiculous prosecution.
Border Patrol agent Lairmore testifies that he was not injured by the sandwich, but he felt the impact through his ballistic vest.

The sandwich came apart and "kind of exploded" on his chest upon impact, he says.

"I could smell the onions and mustard."
November 4, 2025 at 5:01 PM
New pleasure is tormenting the pre-teen with 90s music. Yesterday it was Jane's Addiction. That was too much for him, but some day he'll come home with old vinyl and ask if I've ever heard of these bands (like he somehow discovered them).
November 4, 2025 at 1:54 PM
No one likes Baby Ruths anymore.
And we have now progressed from data analysis to policy recommendations.

I told her that we'd calculate the cash value of her candy haul, that I'd ask her to raid her piggy bank and donate 1/3 the candy cash value to a local food bank, and that I'd add on a 5X match.
November 2, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Reposted by Scott Van Keuren
Archaeologists speak up against the Vice President's blatantly disinformative use of archaeology for spreading these harmful Christian nationalist narratives
🏺
October 31, 2025 at 5:46 PM