Mira ‘Assaf

Same!

From Technostructure To Technofeudalism (A Tale of Today, Episode #16) with James Livingston, Astra Taylor, & Yanis Varoufakis

This 9-month-old episode suddenly spiked 200+ downloads today. I love it when this shit happens & will never fail to post about it.

The episode features Yanis Varoufakis & James Livingston mainly, with some side quests into Galbraith's "Age of Uncertainty," "Mad Men," & Taylor's "Age of Insecurity"

Teaching the Revolutionary era is so wild rn because the founders knew this could happen, an anti-democratic tyrant could destroy the whole experiment, it was what they most hated about the king and what they most feared. This needs to be the lesson we sing the loudest as 250 approaches

What a way to bury the lede, Manu!

Name reality. We are on the Pequod.

Oh Ellie!! And “cooking” or getting “cooked.”

Protect your innocence, Lara! It’s so beguilingly stupid!

Did I just type “what does 6-7 mean?” In my search engine? Oh yes yes, I did. Comes in handy when you’re raising 7-9.

This reminder from the great Toni Morrison: “Canon building is empire building. Canon defense is national defense.” (“Unspeakable Things Unspoken,” 1989: 132).

I’m also listening to it and playing Rocks in my Pocket on repeat. It’s such a sad song for the season. Sorry, I can’t answer the boat question, but this Mediterranean landlocked woman loves the maritime through line in the album.

I really hope an editor pays Lisa to write this thread up. it’s a great example of how academic work contributes to movement work. @bostonreview.bsky.social? @therumpus.net?

Arab woman delivering a lecture to an audience. Lecture’s title is “Arab Cleopatra: Conviviality and Queerness at Cleopatra’s Court”

Arab woman standing behind a lectern pointing at a slide that shows three kids with Roman ruins in the background.

Very grateful to the OHio Valley Shakespeare Conference for inviting me to present a plenary on my new work: “Arab Cleopatra: Conviviality and Queerness at Cleopatra’s Court.”

Smiling Arab woman wearing glasses looking at camera. The text reads: Mira Assaf Headshot of Mira Assaf Assistant Professor – English 317-940-6812 massaf@butler.edu Jordan Hall 314B More About Mira Assaf Mira Zoubeida ‘Assaf ميرا زبيدة عساف is an Assistant Professor of English and Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Butler University, specializing in Premodern Critical Race Studies, Shakespeare, and Early Modern Culture. She earned her Ph.D. in English from The Ohio State University, her M.A. in English from the American University of Beirut, and her B.A. in English Literature and Language from the Lebanese..

Same person. New middle name and reclaimed last name. New email.

In Praise of Chocolate YouTube video by Passamezzo

Today is #WorldChocolateDay!
Here is a #17thcentury #ballad extolling the virtues of #chocolate, printed in the year that the first chocolate (and coffee) house was opened in London....
From Chocolate, or an Indian Drinke, 1652.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5KJ...

#earlymusic #earlymodern #otd

PSA: when you buy my book, make sure to get a second
copy so that the first doesn’t get lonely. 😂😂

Screen shot of tweet from Andrew Cuomo “Chicago is proof that incompetent leadership can turn a deep-dish city into a half-baked mess From long before we built the Erie Canal to compete with Chicago, New York has always been about making things happen I believe in government that works. I have done it time and time again for the people of New York. Let's do it again.”

The Erie Canal is from the 1820s. You were competing with PHILADELPHIA.

I’m sure the ADL will wave it away as merely a Shakespearean reference from our deeply learned president

Beyond excited to read this amazing volume! #earlymodern #beachreading

A burgundy quilt with an off center medallion showing a shipyard. The medallion is surrounded by different sized Mariner’s Compass blocks in reds, whites and blues. The larger Compasses have images or sayings in them.

Several people asked if my Mom ever sells her #quilts. She's had bad experiences both showing & selling, so has been loath to do either. NOW I’ll tell the story of “Illustrious Ancestors” which commemorates Frederick Douglass’s time as a caulker in Baltimore. /1
#Art
#Quiltsky
#Juneteenth
#Blacksky

Congratulations!! This is magnificent! You are!

A FUNNY THING will be out this Thursday, June 5! Ask your libraries to order it! If you read it, tell me which parts made you laugh!!

Colorful quilt of a nighttime scene with Harriet Tubman in an orange jacket and purple dress carrying a rifle. She is leading other figures who walk behind her.

Harriet Tubman #quilt by my Mom, Vera P. Hall, who makes quilts celebrating Black people who fought for their own freedom. This seems to be the crowd favorite of the “We Didn’t Wait for Freedom” series. Happy #Juneteenth #quilting

Adriana Smith did not give birth to a baby.

She was used as an incubator, cut open, and a baby was taken out of her lifeless body.

A Black woman was used as a science experiment.

“But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly.

Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech.

Somewhere I read of the freedom of press.

Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”

#earlymodern
#ShakeRace
#RaceB4Race
#Blackademics

I preordered @profkfh.bsky.social’s

THE SWEET TASTE OF EMPIRE

40% off until June 20th!

www.pennpress.org/978151282786...

Congratulations, Liz!

[ SEMINAR • SAA 2026 ] SHAKESPEARE & PUBLIC LIBRARIES This seminar examines the role of public libraries (local, national and international) in the preservation, dissemination, and study of the books and other media that transmit works by Shakespeare and other early modern writers. The recent identification of two books once owned by John Milton—a Shakespeare First Folio and a copy of Holinshed's Chronicles-at two American public libraries (The Free Library of Philadelphia and the Phoenix Public Library, respectively) and the presence of another of Milton's books (a sammelband of early Italian editions) at a third (The New York Public Library) invites us to acknowledge and rethink an implicit bias towards well-funded elite libraries and collections as privileged sites of textual and historical research. How might our knowledge of early modern textual history and the history of early modern books in the longue durée change with greater consideration of public collections? What do (and could) scholarly partnerships with public libraries look like-and what can they achieve in terms of bolstering the value of humanistic inquiry? How might the histories of (and transmitted by) the early modern books in these collections, which we are uniquely positioned to tell, relate to the specific local communities that they serve? In this way, the seminar is also interested in the ways that public libraries feature Shakespeare in the promotion of their circulating collections, educational programming, and public events, as many U.S. public libraries did during the quatercentenaries of Shakespeare's death in 2016 and of the publication of the first folio in 2023. While the idea for this seminar emerges from our experiences working in American public libraries, we would welcome contributions from scholars and librarians considering the role of public libraries in Shakespeare and early modern studies in various different regional and national traditions.

If you’re planning to attend @saaupdates.bsky.social in Denver next year, consider joining @roaringgirle.bsky.social and me for a seminar on Shakespeare & Public Libraries. Public libraries are crucial to our understanding of collection histories of all kinds of books and material. We need them!

This was a fascinating series (and available on #BBCSounds for more than a year).
It also made me completely re-evaluate Brief Encounter... Oh, and I've borrowed Death in High Heels via @suffolklibraries.bsky.social 📕