Author | Lightnews

Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Jul 26

YES to all of this. 📌

Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · May 28

Every year I briefly consider not going, in part because I miss my kitty.

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · May 28

I leave very soon and for my annual stint at the excavation of a Roman villa in Portugal (the Santa Susana Archaeological Project.)

Watson will not be tagging along, so while I pack he is making sure that I have an adequate supply of cat hair on my stuff for the next several weeks.

An orange tabby cat with white paws, chest, and muzzle lounges among orange packing cubes in a partially-packed suitcase. He is grooming so enthusiastically that he has turned one of his ears inside out.

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · May 20

Gosh, it’s like being able evaluate complex sources of information and understand nuance are useful 🤔🙄🤓

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Curtis Dozier @curtisdozier.bsky.social · May 20

"Majors in nutrition, art history and philosophy all outperformed STEM fields when it comes to employment prospects, according to a recent analysis of labor market outcomes of college graduates by major by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York."

Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · May 19

humanities major hiring on the rise against the hallucination plagiarism arson machine www.cnbc.com/2025/05/16/c...

College majors with the best and worst job prospects — art history beats finance

In general, what college students choose to major in has significant implications for job prospects and future earnings potential.

www.cnbc.com

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · May 14

I had this conversation with one of my students just last week *sigh*

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Audrey Watters @audreywatters.bsky.social · Apr 28

On cheating 2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/dishonor-cod...

Dishonor Code

Tressie McMillan Cottom recently offered a neat little summary of how universities have responded to generative AI: "Academics initially lost our minds over the obvious threats to academic integrity. ...

2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com

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Reposted by Betsy Bevis

Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · May 3

The scope of issues confronting research and scholarship is 😱🤯 among them for publications the profusion of AI slop.

But the direct political intervention in funding and publishing research as well as in libraries and universities shows this to be a 360 crisis.

Eric Reinhart @eric-reinhart.com · May 2

Since this was published yesterday, NPR reports JAMA joins NEJM on the list of journals that confirms they’ve been sent threatening letters by Trump’s DOJ, ominously referencing their tax-exempt status in a bid to compel regime-friendly editorial choices.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

The Scary Implications of U.S. Government Attacks on Medical Journals

A Trump-aligned prosecutor’s attack on medical journals is a threat to your health care—and the medical establishment should not comply

www.scientificamerican.com

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Apr 28

I strongly believe that Pratchett is the most impactful thinker on ethics in recent history.

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Apr 23

Watson takes his TA duties seriously. 😉🐈

A ginger tabby cat with white splashes on his face and white paws and chest lounges on a stack of Roman art tests. The head of the 1st century BCE sculpture called The Tivoli General is visible just below his outstretched paw.

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Apr 6

There’s a big list on this website www.arthistorykids.com/blog/358
At the end is a DK Eyewitness art history book. DK books in general are really well illustrated, so even the ones that aren’t specifically about art will have relevant art for a given place/time/topic.

Art History Booklist for Toddlers to Teens — Art History Kids

Artists are just really just regular people. And when a great storybook introduces someone like Andy Warhol to kids, they just get to know him on a personal level as the wacky guy who liked cats. Mayb...

www.arthistorykids.com

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Apr 6

Time to start buying stock in yaupon companies.

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Apr 6

Absolutely! I’ll DM my email address.

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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · Mar 30

This is why universities are “the enemy”, why the arts need to be defunded, why humanities degrees are a “waste of time”.

You cannot have authoritarianism without manipulating history first.

Jenny Cohn @jennycohn.bsky.social · Mar 29

Joshua Clemans is a partner of New Founding—backed by DOGE advisor Marc Andreessen. “Martial” means warlike. 1/

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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · Mar 16

beaver's return

Comic by Stephen Collins for the Guardian. Script as follows:

Scene is a British WOODLAND by a RIVER. A NATURALIST is stood next to a cage, and TV NEWS REPORTERS are filming him and the cage.

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NATURALIST:
And now It is my great honour

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NATURALIST:
to reintroduce the first wild beaver
back into Britain

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[Cut to the BEAVER’S CAGE. Its door is open and the Beaver is leaned nonchalantly up against the opening, smoking a cigarette.]

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BEAVER:
Well, well, well.

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BEAVER:
Look who's come crawling back.

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BEAVER:
Got a rubbish ecosystem have ya?

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BEAVER:
Not happy with the *critical anti-flood infrastructure* engineered by the flippin *badgers*?

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BEAVER:
I almost didn't recognise you without one of my ancestors on your head…

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BEAVER:
First you wipe us out… now you ask us to come back and build dams for free…
You actually expect me to be *pleased* don’t ya?

NATURALIST:
I'm so sorry I…I…

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BEAVER:
“Ooh la la, the Brits have come crawling back…”
Do I look like *Michel flippin’ Barnier*?

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NATURALIST:
I-if there’s some kind of… *remuneration* we could offer I-I’m sure…

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BEAVER [throwing cigarette to the ground]:
Unlimited pond weed, two tickets to Abba Voyage.

NATURALIST:
Done.

[ends]

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Mar 6

I’m going to make the best of a very dumb layover in NYC

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Mar 6

Midterm season — grading is piling up, and I’m presenting a conference paper in a couple of weeks, various things I’ve promised to organize are heating up. I have downtime scheduled for 4:15 pm on the 14th and for about 20 hours on the 22nd. 🤪

View of a terribly messy desk. Organizational supplies, to do lists, a tea mug and teabags, research materials, and spinning supplies for a class on ancient textiles are piled haphazardly. The interior of my mind is much the same.

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Max Berger @maxberger.bsky.social · Mar 5

Sesame Street really tells the story of America:

- Created for PBS to educate young (especially Black!) children
- Becomes a beloved institution cherished by the entire country
- Gets privatized and kicked to premium cable due to budget cuts
- Unionization leads to mass layoffs

What a country!

NPR @npr.org · Mar 5

The layoffs come after 200 Sesame Workshop employees announced they want to form a union.

Sesame Workshop will 'downsize significantly' with layoffs, CEO says

The layoffs come after 200 Sesame Workshop employees announced they want to form a union.

www.npr.org

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Feb 23

I think this is the first time I’ve had all my books unpacked since I left home thirty years ago (….although there is still a box of paperbacks in my mom’s basement…)

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Sara McDougall @sarannmcd.bsky.social · Feb 22

slate.com/news-and-pol... “This particular faux-medieval aesthetic depicts wealth and power while criticizing a certain other—more tech-y, maybe more tacky, definitely more male—version of wealth and power.” @lollardfish.bsky.social @profgabriele.com #medievalsky

Every Era Has Its Own Way of Thinking About the Middle Ages. Here’s 2025’s.

Tapestries, stone walls, chain mail, crossbows. This era’s medieval mashup has it all.

slate.com

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Feb 22

Thank you for sharing!

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The Black Trowel Collective @blacktrowel.bsky.social · Nov 13

Don't Panic! How to fight fascism as an archaeologist.
Hey, archaeologists! As archaeologists, we tend to be the doing sort, the busybodies shoveling and sorting, keeping and caring, custodians of time, places, people, it's time to lean into that!
blacktrowelcollective.wordpress.com/2024/11/13/d...

Don’t Panic! How to Fight Fascism as an Archaeologist

Hey, archaeologists! As archaeologists, we tend to be the doing sort, the busybodies shovelling and sorting, keeping and caring, custodians of time, places, people. It’s time to lean into that, to …

blacktrowelcollective.wordpress.com

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Feb 14

Valentine’s Day might be a Hallmark holiday, but this love story from StoryCorps is too delightful not to share.

storycorps.org/animation/wi...

Wild in Love

When Jackie and taxidermist Bud went on their first date in 1954, Jackie knew she was in for an adventure. “Wild in Love,” takes you for a ride on their 68 years of love.

storycorps.org

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Betsy Bevis @vulpicula.bsky.social · Feb 13

Just an adorable cat photo.

An orange and white cat sleeps on top of an open cookbook with one paw tucked under his chin.

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Dr Katherine Blouin @isisnaucratis.bsky.social · Feb 7

Thank you to Rafi Greenberg for his open letter to his colleagues participating in next week's grotesque occupation archaeology conference taking place in Jerusalem
His letter was shared via @EmekShaveh's newsletter. It is quoted in full here (# 72): everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2024/03/21/c...

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