The students at Harvard who worked on Eblaite came out of Chicago but worked with Italians for their dissertations, namely Marco Bonechi (though he isn't the sole expert over there).
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Interesting--did they do comparative Semitics with Rebecca as undergrads?
aug 29, 2025, 11:45 am • 0 0 • view
I'm not sure! They both are more focused on Sumerology, not that this precludes them from exploring other coursework.
aug 29, 2025, 11:56 am • 1 0 • view
Understandable irony that one of the earliest documented Semitic languages has to be studied mainly by Sumerologists because we have to figure out how the hell the writing system is encoding it before we can look at the language.
aug 29, 2025, 2:55 pm • 3 0 • view
I can say as a current student that part of the utility of being at Chicago isn't just which classes you can enroll in, but which people are there to study with. I know other students who are enthusiastic about Hurrian, for example, and meet to study it. Pausing admissions reduces that support.
aug 29, 2025, 6:26 pm • 6 0 • view
Nothing about a one-year pause of admissions to humanities PhD programs affects the ability of any student who wants to take any of the 56 languages that UChicago has taught for the last decade. What honestly are you worried about? And based on what?
aug 30, 2025, 10:13 pm • 0 0 • view
One obvious thing is that especially if admins are looking to consolidate, it's difficult or impossible to teach a class that only 2 students sign up for. At that point you have to teach it on your own time, ie as an overload, for which you're not paid. Those add up.
aug 30, 2025, 10:40 pm • 3 0 • view
Teach undergrads — that is the whole ethos of the university, that grad and undergrad learn from these experts; 4. Most of the ancient languages classes often now only have 2-5 people, sometimes only 1. And U of C preserves those languages regardless of that. You are tilting at windmills.
aug 30, 2025, 11:03 pm • 0 0 • view
OK just so I understand: 1) there's no need to worry because UC will maintain all the ancient languages, even with enrolments of 1-5 and 2) at the same time "the teaching load of faculty in some departments have fallen inexcusably low"? But how do we increase teaching load and keep 2-person classes?
aug 31, 2025, 12:42 am • 1 0 • view
Magic admin math, which interestingly is taught at chatgpt university.
aug 31, 2025, 1:19 am • 1 0 • view
1. None of the second or third year students are leaving (from what I’ve heard) — second years take a full load and third years take classes as needed for their research; 2. There are over 150 masters students each year (not paused); 3. there are undergraduates; 4. UChicago professors proudly
aug 30, 2025, 11:00 pm • 1 0 • view
Every last professor who teaches ancient languages at U of C will be there. They will be teaching the same (or comparably interesting classes), perhaps more of them because the teaching load of faculty in some departments have fallen inexcusably low and the university is trying to change that.
aug 30, 2025, 10:11 pm • 0 0 • view