So here it is

Harpokrates, Egyptian Art

Gift of David Dows, 1945 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Medium: Cupreous metal, precious metal inlay

Harpokrates, Egyptian Art

Gift of David Dows, 1945 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Medium: Cupreous metal, precious metal inlay

and then they did the Greek Thing and painted naked men fighting the monster 

or, well, a deeply flawed representation of what they imagined the fossil had looked like while alive, an early form of paleoart. 

but sometimes they also just. drew the skull and slapped a black blob monster onto it? anyway i love the greeks.

Detail from the fresco Pelias Recognizes Jason, Pompeii

Published Version: And then the peasant hero learned a valuable lesson about the virtue of humility and not straying above one’s station.

when your history has been and is still constantly erased under the guise of “we can’t know for sure [so it doesn’t count], “we can’t apply modern terminology to the past,” and “they’re just friends,” it’s entirely reasonable not to trust or assume good faith from authorities who insist on using this type of language.

is that fair to the field of history? not really. but if you want to change that, punch UP instead of complaining about your queer students. cis & straight historians who teach especially need to remember this: you are in a position of power over vulnerable young people, and the full weight of an oppressive culture lies at your back, ready to crush them, and ready to bias you against people like them, even unconsciously. there is a reason that your students feel that no one is going to fight for them, and if you want them to trust you, you have to demonstrate that you are actually trustworthy.

history is not only (if it ever was) about the search for “objective” truth. it is highly political, and when you use the language of oppressors, you reinforce the dominant culture and will be considered its ally by both queer and non-queer people in lieu of other context.

this letter that diogenes apparently wrote to alexander the great about how he was too gay to function is probably spurious but i still love it because i can only imagine that this is how that particular conversation would go:

diogenes: you’d be a better cynic if you weren’t too busy banging your boyfriend

alexander the great:

Women have always been at the forefront of literature, the first novel (what we would consider a novel in modern terms) was written by a woman (Lady Muraskai’s the Tale of Genji in the early 1000s) take your snide “Isaac Asimov” reblogs and stick it

even in terms of male scifi authors, asimov was predated by Jules Verne, HG Wells, George Orwell, you could have even cited Poe or Jonathan Swift has a case but Asimov?

this may be one of my favorite greek artifacts ever because at first glance the animals pulling the chariot are either very long horses, or very flat camels, or a couple of giraffes who mixed up their vertical and their horizontal, so you go to check the description and

im sorry to hear that. that’s a tough situation to be in. ultimately, if you really, really do not enjoy something, there’s no point in continuing with it. you’ll have money, sure, but you’ll be miserable, and you’ll burn out. and the thing is, if you give up on being a doctor a few years in because you hate it and you can’t stand to do it for a day longer, you’ll also not be making any money.

it’s entirely within the realm of possibility to make a living- even a comfortable- wage with a humanities degree, and it will save you a lot of heartache. having a job you hate weighs on you, and no amount of money will lesson how much you hate it.