Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 5d

That's really interesting though!

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 5d

Amazing, thank you for sharing this!

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 5d

GO BEAAAAARRRSSSSS!!

Micah @rincewind.run · 5d

my wife is a Cal fan and apparently this week they’re putting a “59” on their football helmets to honor the 59 Nobel laureates tied to Cal in order to flex on Duke

this is maybe my favorite dunk anyone has ever done on Duke

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 6d

Minoan octopus fit, courtesy of @greekmythcomix.bsky.social!

Picture of me reading at a podium with a sweater with a Minoan octopus design on it in black figure style

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 6d

DYING 😂😂😂

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 6d

God bless, the Aeneid is SO MUCH more manageable than the Iliad! We are chugging beautifully along, in Book 9, and getting to Nisus and Euryalus 😭

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Reposted by Amy Pistone

Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · 6d

As Hoo-dith Butler always says, gender is perfor-molt-ive

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 6d

To clarify, I would like it to be a more meaningful connection there than just "girl human, girl owl" -- the lament maybe feels like it's actually more like Anna? Are there things people say about this special she-owl? (I'm not in my office/a library to actually look into this properly)

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 6d

So I have learned that Aeneid 4.462 is the only place in (classical, probably) Latin where bubo is feminine??

solaque culminibus ferali carmine bubo
saepe queri et longas in fletum ducere voces

Anyone have thoughts on why? Because Dido is also a woman isn't super satisfying

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 6d

This is such a badass line.

"Oh, my dad didn't fight like this? He was better than me? WELL YOU CAN TELL HIM THAT WHEN YOU SEE HIM IN HELLLLLLLLLLL"

Pyrrhus replied: ‘Then go tell Peleus’ son,
My father, how far short of him I fall.
Be sure he knows what hateful things I did.
Now die.’

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 6d

Today is Gonzaga's Homerathon (ft. Virgil)! Sorry in advance for all the Aeneid content that I'm going to be churning out today, since I have 12ish hours of marinating in the Aeneid and I need SOMEWHERE to share all my dumbest, weirdest reflections...

Selfie of me wearing a shirt with a black figure pot print and my colleague, Dave Oosterhuis, wearing a Mundus Sine Caesaribus shirt

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 8d

😂

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 9d

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 24d

Very excited to be part of a panel talk-back after a screening of this documentary tomorrow -- this will be an exciting opportunity to have a conversation among Classics, Religious Studies, and our LGBTQ+ center!

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · 25d

My review of @sarahebond.bsky.social's latest book, Strike, just came out in the Classical Journal! It was a pleasure to read and review and I really hope everyone will check it out!

CJ-Online -- 2025.09.02

Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire. By SARAH E. BOND. Yale University Press, 2025. Pp. 272. Hardcover, $35.00. ISBN 978-0-300-27314-4.

Reviewed by Amy Pistone, Gonzaga University (pistone@gonzaga.edu)

Bond offers a compelling historical account and a provocative claim: the histories we tell about labor organizing ought to start earlier than the medieval guild system or the industrial revolution. Her argument is persuasive and she effectively balances careful historical analysis with invitations to draw connections between ancient and modern labor, a theme well served by her strategic use of modern terminology. For example, Bond’s decision to describe manual laborers as “essential workers” (37) is at once jarring in its apparent anachronism and also very effective at prompting the reader to consider parallels between ancient craftspeople and modern workers during the COVID-19 crisis. With Strike, Bond carries the banner for unapologetically political scholarly analysis. In a way, critical engagement with this book—a book which will inevitably receive criticism in some circles for politicizing ancient history (horribile dictu!)—forces the reader to grapple with whether apolitical history is possible, particularly on topics like labor and collective action.

A great strength of this work is Bond’s transparency about the methodological challenges of a history like this: the dearth of sources and elite biases in the sources that do survive. Bond is transparent and regularly returns to the question of how to deal with scant and fragmentary sources. Further questions arise with mythohistorical sources and determining what we can learn about material realities from legends about an imagined past. Rather than debate the historicity of, say, Livy’s account of the Struggle of the Orders, she instead highlights how we can excavate Livy for a sense of what Romans might have considered the “imaginable types of popular resistance and collective action” (22). Ultimately, articulating and expanding “the imaginable” is precisely the role that Strike plays more generally, asking us to reconsider how we interpret ancient sources and to cultivate more capacious historical imaginations. Scholars of the ancient world will know that we constantly imagine what the past might look like when we connect the dots of incomplete sources. Often, contemporary political circumstances narrow our sense of the possible or we unconsciously replicate the lines of inquiry found in the scholarship that shaped us. What Bond offers in this work is a welcome invitation to dream a little bigger.

To be clear, she also offers a detailed examination of Roman history through the lens of labor, and it would be an injustice to her to elide the thorough yet accessible scholarship just because this reviewer wants to wax poetic about historical imaginations. Strike is organized into seven chapters (plus an introduction and conclusion) that are mostly chronological in their treatment of Roman history, though each period is also approached through thematic lenses. The first chapter deals with early Roman history and offers a reading of stories found in sources like Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus that is attentive to class conflict. Chapter Two looks at the Late Re…

Chapter Three, on the fall of the Republic, takes freedom of assembly as its theme. We see how elite anxieties and suspicions about large assemblies are balanced against the realization (most notably, by Caesar) that large groups of lower-class people could also be an effective source of power. Chapter Four develops these themes, looking at how Augustus co-opted and promoted associations that benefited him, even as associations of entertainers and religious groups found themselves in more tenuous positions across the Empire.

Chapter Five, about the Imperial Period, focuses on the ongoing power negotiations between workers and the state, particularly in Asia Minor where associations often flourished and work stoppages among coloni were frequent. Chapter Six focuses on Late Antiquity, the rising problem of compulsory labor, and an increase in surveillance, all done under the guise of “anticorruption.” I found that some of her interpretations, including the effect of reforms around coinage, lacked the evidence to be completely persuasive, but her speculations raise interesting questions about the evidence that does exist. Finally, as an avid sports fan, I devoured the final chapter’s analysis of athletic factions and the role the arena and spectacles play in mediating social and political relationships.

Space precludes thorough treatment of all the themes of this book. Bond offers an accessible survey of Roman history that decenters the upper classes and instead looks for the experience of both free and enslaved labor within the changing political landscape of the Roman Empire. I see so much potential to use this book in a classroom context, where it would serve as a helpful tool for introducing source criticism, historiography, methodologies for engaging with fragmentary sources, and the uses and limits of comparisons between the ancient and modern world. The open, readable style makes this book suitable for advanced high school students, classics majors and non…

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Reposted by Amy Pistone

Dr. Ellen Lee @ellenleephd.bsky.social · Sep 2

YESSS

AI policy for Speculum:
The use of generative AI to write any part of an article’s text or notes or to generate ideas is strictly prohibited.
AI cannot be considered an author of submitted works, as AI tools cannot take ethical or legal responsibility for their output or enter into legal agreements.
If prohibited AI use is discovered even after an article has been accepted, the article will not be published and the offense will be treated as plagiarism.
Authors must fully disclose and cite their use of any content created by AI tools in their manuscripts at the time of submission. This includes data, images, figures, or any other type of content.
Authors must accept full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and citation of content created using generative AI systems, including factual and citation accuracy.
Software that assists with grammar, spelling, or translation of your own words is not considered generative AI and doesn’t require disclosure.

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Reposted by Amy Pistone

Jay @duniagamemaster.bsky.social · Aug 25

It's Minnesota State Fair time! It's time for Minnesotan folk art! Here, for example, is Saturn Devouring His Corn, in the seed art category!

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Reposted by Amy Pistone

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · Aug 23

This is horrible. Attacks on the humanities are another way to destroy our future. Now is when we need the humanities the most.

Sara Silverstein @sarasilverstein.bsky.social · Aug 22

Arabic Studies, Holocaust Studies, Russian, Eastern European & Eurasian Studies, Religion, & more—decimating the humanities destroys our ability to understand the world, act in it, and envision a future. Blue states are complicit in this destruction of scholarship and teaching
@uoregon.bsky.social

"I've now been allowed and asked to share more details about what's going down at the University of Oregon, which involves imminent announcement of firings, among others, of tenure-track and tenured faculty. Given the units impacted (see below), please share this with your professional networks in related disciplines and start getting ready to put pressure (or begin putting pressure already) on the University of Oregon upper admin to abandon this alleged plan before they finalize it.

It appears that, with no prior consultations, the departments of Religion and Classics (two separate units), and the programs in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, German & Scandinavian, Judaic Studies, Arabic Studies, and Holocaust Studies (the latter five all parts of a previously- consolidated mega unit called the Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages) are facing imminent announcement of elimination (expected the week of Sept 7), with layoffs of pre-tenure, tenured, and career faculty in these units. The reason given is "financial exigency" -- upper administrations of several universities across the country (and in blue states like Oregon also) appear to be giddy to use the context of Trump attacks on higher ed to dismantle the humanities.

Faculty at OU won a faculty union not long ago; this may be, in part, a retaliation for that, l've been told. The union is working with AAUP, etc.; my understanding is that the maximum spotlight is needed at this point."

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · Aug 20

Um EXCUSE ME???

One of the most notable tools is the AI grader agent, which Grammarly says can provide feedback based on uploaded course details and “publicly available” information about the instructor. The bot can give tailored writing recommendations and estimate what grade the paper will receive in its current state, helping students make improvements prior to submission.

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Reposted by Amy Pistone

Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · Aug 15

Yes. Once you start seeing this (Institution X probably wanted do this conservative thing anyway but now can blame it on Trump), it's everywhere. It's not capitulation, it's agreement. "We can stop doing this thing we started doing from 2014-2020 because of woke/progressive/anti-racist pressure."

En Buen Ora - "Hell Çid" 😈 @enbuenora.bsky.social · Aug 15

circling back to @perrybaconjr.bsky.social on how institutions are *using* Trump threats to do much of what their leadership (including boards & investors) want to do

newrepublic.com/article/1987...

Why So Many Key Institutions Have Folded Rather Than Challenge Trump

Yes, they’re under pressure. But maybe a lot of these leaders kinda like what Trump’s doing. Just remember: Trump was defeated once before.

newrepublic.com

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · Aug 13

I'm so glad you found it useful!! ❤❤❤

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · Aug 11

Mostly classics-ish stuff, and two copies of the Spokane Is Reading book so my partner and I can both participate!

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · Aug 9

THIS IS PERFECT I WILL BUY 200 ITEMS OF CLOTHING FOR A TEAM THAT ISN'T EVEN MY TEAM AS SOON AS I HAVE THE OPTION

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · Aug 7

Well that escalated quickly

Selfie of me with an absolute armload of books outside the bookstore

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Amy Pistone @apistone.bsky.social · Aug 6

The session will be recorded for people who cannot make the time/date, so please register even if you can't make it, and I will be sure to send out the recordings and resources to everyone on the registration list!