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Carlos Noreña

@carlosfnorena.bsky.social

4.5K followers 760 following 3.6K posts

Ancient Historian @ UC Berkeley • 🇪🇸 🇺🇸 • Series Editor, Antiquity in Global Context (CUP) • VP Communications & Outreach, Society for Classical Studies • interests: humanities, world affairs, sports, electronic music • He/Him

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 1m

It took a little patented Kershaw postseason magic, but yeah.

Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 49m

Annie Abrams Adventures in Academic Aptitudes

Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 1h

👏

Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 1h

No philosopher of the French Enlightenment was more interested in tobiko than Denis Dideroe.

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 1h

Much better than mine!

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 2h

This might belong to the top-10 dumbest things I've ever posted. If it gets double-digit likes, then you guys are an EASY CROWD.

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 2h

Q: Have you given any more thought to possibly suspending the principle of *lectio difficilior*?

TRUMP: Hannibal Lector?

Q: *Lectio difficilior*.

TRUMP: I don't know. I rather leave that to Kristi.

NOEM:

NOEM:

NOEM: Um, no, sir, I haven't been part of any discussions on textual criticism.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6h

Q: Have you given any more thought to possibly suspending habeas corpus?

TRUMP: Suspending who?

Q: Habeas corpus

TRUMP: I don't know. I'd rather leave that to Kristi.

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 4h

"As part of its decade-long investigation, the Harvard Corporation conducted oral interviews with several local experts and luminaries, including @melnickjeffrey1.bsky.social."

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 5h

Beautiful cat!

Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 5h

I happen to agree.

The big questions to me are (i) how long it will take to get from the here and now to the there and then and (ii) whether the passage will be violent and chaotic or peaceful and orderly.

I can imagine multiple plausible scenarios (some of them rather grim).

Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 5h

HARVARD FINDS GETTING HIGH AND LISTENING TO THE DOORS LATE AT NIGHT PART OF CULTURE

James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 7h

Shocked, just shocked, by this important scoop on front page of today's NYT. /s/

Based on report that came out ... nine months ago

And behavior long predating that

("Skip a class? Perish the thought!!" Says anyone who ever worked on a college newspaper, which covers a lot of people in the media.)

NYT front page headline: "Harvard Finds Skipping Class Part of Culture."

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 7h

Yes, let's here from the locals!

As a NorCal guy, whenever I travel south on 101, Santa Barbara always feels to me like the gateway to SoCal...

Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 7h

"Circa around" is excellent.

"We could just release the files, e.g. exempli gratia for example, at a press conference."

Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 11h

Not to mention: "structural" can also be (and often is) "bottom up"—but the "bottom up" has the *same* ambiguity. Right?

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 11h

Excellent point

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 11h

bzzzz-crackle-bzzzzzzzzzzzzz-crackle-POP!-bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-pop-pop-crackle-POP!-bzzz

Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 12h

Their visible insecurity is a real vulnerability. I agree entirely with your point.

Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 13h

Fantastic review, Ellen!

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 13h

This gets us to what I suspect is the heart of the matter: to assign analytical weight and causal significance to an empire is then seen—oddly and illogically, it seems to me—as an implicit *justification* (or even celebration!) of empire...

Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 13h

Ha!

Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 13h

PS: perhaps there is an assymetry here insofar as "bottom-up" approaches and the study of sub-elites and marginalized groups probably IS usually consistent with a progressive or left-leaning politics.

My point: the inverse (top-down as necessarily conservative/right-leaning) is not also the case.

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 13h

I say this because I have had the experience—several times now!—of being seen as somehow "pro" empire (!) or dismissive of individuals (especially sub-elites).

In brief, the "top-down" analytical perspective seems to get "coded" as a politically "right-leaning."

I find this frustrating. 😐

3/3

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 13h

One result is that I often begin from a "top-down" perspective on whatever it is I am investigating, which can be either macroscopic or granular in scope.

This structural perspective is (i) an *analytical* one and (ii) a *starting point*.

It is neither a political one nor the whole story.

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 13h

I am interested in the problem of how structure relates to agency, as a matter of social analysis, and how it relates to the event, as a matter of historical analysis.

So I am usually drawn to the topics of states, empires, and "systems" more generally in my study of the ancient world.

1/3

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Carlos Noreña @carlosfnorena.bsky.social · 14h

Santa Cruz native and Bay Area resident here. I'd say SC belongs in the Central Coast zone. Definitely.

But I'd also put Santa Barbara into SoCal.

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