Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar

Dr. Rachel Schine

@rachelschine.bsky.social

1542 followers 699 following 4191 posts

Asst. Prof of Arabic & HIST @/UMD, PhD @/UChicago, purple cow šŸ®. Muslim epics/gender/race/hist&litcrit. Jewess. "At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed." Maked one (1) monograph.

Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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Carpenters couldā€™ve made a killing offering ergonomic stoolsā€¦

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Sarah E. Bond's avatar Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social
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There is a lot of current and forthcoming amazing work on disability attached to ancient scribal practices. A new open access article looks at the spinal impact on Egyptian scribes. www.nature.com/articles/s41... turns out criss-cross applesauce writing is very bad for the spine, joints, & even jaw

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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also literally just realized I wasn't following you šŸ«£

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I'm glad that a day that started out horribly got turned around!

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And I made keema matar for dinner, in my ongoing quest to win the approval of aunties who do not yet know me.

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Tony Corsentino's avatar Tony Corsentino @notalegalrecord.net
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shout out to Horn Pond in Woburn Mass. for being shaped like a cartoon whale with the face of John Quincy Adams

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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I slightly forced Spousal Unit to play hooky from work with me today so we could go out for lunch, go visit a museum, get some gelato, and plan some upcoming stuff. I should play hooky more. I look forward to being absent from your things soon.

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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But I also think that when translators pick words they pick them for a variety of reasons, and one of the historical meanings of defile in the Queenā€™s English has been to ravish a virgin, if you will, and so this might be chosen along that line, esp given its selection for the KJV

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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I mean reading in light of what comes later I do think itā€™s fair to say her siblings viewed it that way šŸ˜­

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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But I definitely think itā€™s supposed to be an emotionally affecting way of putting it, too! When using defilement for the Arabic translation, I consider whether the sexual reference is meant to be vulgar, humiliating, or was ā€œbadā€ sex (re: social norms) (a little defilement can be fun in that case)

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Tagging in the Hebrew expert (hi @bnuyaminim.bsky.social), but afaik the Hebrew root there indicates literal uncleanliness/impurity, and is the same as used for ritually impure objects/states in halakhah, like carrion or menstruation, so thereā€™s resonances of legal violation prob bc out of wedlock

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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Itā€™s because they only read 24 books. That last one really helps.

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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I wish I could say that a single moment of this summer has felt easy or relieving work wise but that would be a LIE.

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More proofs have arrived šŸ˜­šŸ˜­šŸ˜­ Donā€™t tell my employer this, guys, but Iā€™m never publishing again.

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Shiv Ramdas's avatar Shiv Ramdas @nameshiv.bsky.social
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Project 2025 will ban sunday sportsball and beer is a message with really serious legs, there is a whole genre of Americans who will put up with basically anything except no football sunday

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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shit my bad it was pub'd in 2009, then pub'd online in 2020 I'm sorry, that's still... not great.

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wait it was 2009?? maybe it was pub'd online in 2020--my bad!

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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lol thank you! and likewise, I too am chronically epistemologically anxious... maybe there's a support group

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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I'm writing an essay about all of (*gesturing wildly*) this right now and, erm, I apologize to *you* and am sure you are very great, but as to English depts on the whole?

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man imagine the number of CV lines I could have...

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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oh hey guys did you know that "Maimonides wrote in Arabic" ?!?! earth-shattering stuff here

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I had, unfortunately, overcommitted to the bit... Never a-fucking-gain

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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... but the earliest Qur'an that we possess has been quite plausibly dated to immediately after when Muhammad would have lived, and he's mentioned in there a fair few times!

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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there is a well-known "Mecca didn't exist" conspiracy, I hadn't heard the "and there was no one named Muhammad" bit, but it is true that there was no literal "record" in the conventional sense of the written word...

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As long as it serves us (non-Muslim) 21st centurites, of course.

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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Yes let's try to see medieval Islamic cultures "write back," shall we?

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grand theft eigenvalue šŸ”†'s avatar grand theft eigenvalue šŸ”† @akhilrao.bsky.social
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Existence of sublime implies existence of superlime

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Yair Wallach's avatar Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social
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I will repeat myself. In the absence of a ceasefire deal *this summer*, the displacement of close to two million Palestinians in Gaza (and beyond it) could very likely become permanent ethnic cleansing. Just like it happened in 1948.

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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Yeah you have more literal versions of this, eg women as Ų­Ų±Ų«, tillage

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Thank you for listening to this episode of Rachelā€™s sleep disorderā„¢ļø

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Dr. Rachel Schine's avatar Dr. Rachel Schine @rachelschine.bsky.social
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Fun/weird fact: the word ā€œdefileā€ in English comes from defouler, Old French for ā€œto trample on.ā€ The word ŁˆŲ·Ų¦, in Arabic, likewise means both to trample and to f*ck. (I therefore translate it as defile in Classical stuff, context depending). ā€¦ What is with humans and going to ā€œpound-town?ā€

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I think itā€™s kinda cool šŸ˜…

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Jason Hickel's avatar Jason Hickel @jasonhickel.bsky.social
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BREAKING: The Lancet has published this article "conservatively" estimating that the death toll in the Gaza genocide could be 186,000 people or more. That's 8% of the population, obliterated. These are apocalyptic figures.

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

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