Brandon W. Hawk

@brandonwhawk.bsky.social

2982 Followers 1425 Following

Professor of English at Rhode Island College (views my own). I’m a nerd for medieval things, biblical apocrypha, Star Wars, LotR, & Magic (TCG). He/him. “Read some fucking apocrypha.” https://linktr.ee/brandonwhawk

Page from Perspective Drawing Handbook by Joseph D’Amelio, featuring the concept of the “vanishing point,” with a previous reader’s fingerprint smudge left from using the book with graphite on their fingers.
Pen ink drawing of Godzilla on lined notebook paper
Mock-up of press release (it's fake, unfortunately), reading: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NETFLIX NETFLIX ANNOUNCES NEW ANTHOLOGY SERIES, APOCRYPHICITY Get ready for the sensational stories that never made it into the Bible! Based on literature written over the centuries, Apocryphicity will feature little before featured tales about wise ancient patriarchs, wild women warriors, Jesus’s sordid childhood, the apostles’ amazing journeys, and supernatural visions of heaven and hell. Apocryphicity directors and cast will feature all-stars as well as newcomers, who will be aided by academic experts in the fields of biblical and apocrypha studies as show consultants.
Review on Amazon by MaggieA: 5 stars To Understand What Was Ignored Is to Understand History I am very happy with this purchase. It is basic. It is simple. But, it is also informative and provides me with just the right amount of information on a topic that is generally reserved for more intellectual pursuits. I have always been intrigued by the Apocryphal stories that were deleted from the biblical texts. This book gives me just right I need to know and understand. Then, if I want to pursue any of the books discussed I have a basic understanding and can delive deeper. It is for beginners and it does its job well.
Photo of IKEA instructions with manicule pointing to the correct item.
Post by Dr. Hussain Naji: People call ADHD “attention deficit” and then act confused when someone with ADHD spends 9 hours researching one niche topic with the intensity of a suspicious detective. (June 3 at 9:00 AM)
Screenshot of posts on Bluesky in succession.
Digitized photo of Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Bestland 701 Nr. 138, fol. 95ra.
Catalogue description for items in Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Bestland 701 Nr. 138, fols. 75r–77r
Digital photo of Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Bestland 701 Nr. 138, fols. 94v–95r
Digital photo of Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Bestland 701 Nr. 138, fols. 96v–97r
Scereenshot of Digital Bodleians site, with banner reading, "Technical issues are affecting Digital Bodleian. Images may be slow to load, and some features may not work as expected. We are working on a resolution."
Jesus, Harrowing of Hell in the Tiberius Psalter: London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius C.VI, folio 14r
Image of Phil Connors (Bill Murray) in the film Groundhog Day (1993, dir. Harold Ramis) with meme text: It's Shroud of Turin Season ... ... ... again I blame @evandeneykel.bsky.social for this meme.
Screenshot, reading: Fragmens philosophiques: An Eighteenth-Century Clandestine Manuscript of Voltaire’s Apocrypha and Related Works Brandon W. Hawk This article presents an examination of a previously overlooked eighteenth-century manuscript codex containing handwritten copies of Voltaire’s translations of biblical apocrypha, now held in the J. Patrick Lee Voltaire Collection of McGill University Library, Rare Books and Special Collections, under the designation MS Voltaire 002 (Lee), bearing the title Fragmens philosophiques: de la Collection d’anciens évangiles, avec trois autres pièces. This manuscript is an exceptional witness to not only the influence of Voltaire’s translations of apocrypha but also more general widespread attention to apocryphal and biblical subjects in the early modern period, especially through anthologizing efforts by European scholars. I argue that Fragmens philosophiques is a clandestine manuscript of works seen to be dangerous for their controversial religious elements. In addition to Voltaire’s Collection, the manuscript includes other Voltairean and anonymous works related to apocrypha and religious skepticism. Early modern scholars often turned their attention to apocrypha in the contexts of intense arguments over religion that could result in dire consequences for those involved. This manuscript was, therefore, part of a wider movement that included print and handwritten media used in polemical debates that manifested as part of drastically changing cultural currents in early modern Europe, as scholars collected, categorized, and organized knowledge into new epistemological frameworks. The contents of the handwritten Fragmens philosophiques represent the continued, complex interactions between these media, and how biblical apocrypha were a part of that dynamic history in early modern Europe.
Photo of snow walls with a small pathway between them, snow flurrying in the air.
Photo of a pathway between snow walls, with bunny footprints through the pathway.
Photo of a window from the inside, with white casing, turquoise curtains, screen caked with snow & a dead plant vine creeping up one side.
D.A.R.E. logo
Photo of pyxis with scenes from the infancy of Christ; Berlin, Staatliche Museen preussischer Kulturbestiz, Fruhchristlich-Byzantinische Sammlung, 585.
Screenshot of app badge that reads: You’ve Been Sober For: 60 days
Screenshot of Amazon Prime videos under the label "Religious documentaries," including the animated movie Joseph: King of Dreams (2000) & the live-action drama The Nativity Story (2005).
Screenshot of app badge that reads: You’ve Been Sober For: 30 days “If you didn’t drink today, you were successful.”
Screenshot of music player, playing “The Fate of Ophelia” by Taylor Swift
Screenshot of an email from The Bible for Normal People with subject line “A Coupon for the Rapture Survivors Club”; & information about a class about “The Rapture” including satirical text, “Congrats on Surviving Another Predicted Rapture!”
Image of a passage from previously linked article with the following text: "It is in the best interest of academic institutions—and the U.S. as a whole—for our leaders to stridently defend their core mission of educating students in ways that allow them to develop to their fullest potential. In order to do so, lessons from interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching that challenge ideologies, systems of privilege and structures that oppress or exploit some for the advantage of others, are essential."
Selfie with porcelain doll of Pope John Paul II in my office
Stage at Fenway with screens showing Ray Toro on guitar
Photo of book cover for Reading Christian Apocrypha by Tobias Nicklas & Janet Spittler
Screenshot of TIME100 AI 2025 home screen, with subheading that reads, "Meet the innovators, leaders, and thinkers reshaping our world through groundbreaking advances in artificial intelligence."
Photo of Central Machine double barrel rock tumbler
Rockhounding resources, including a mineral identification guide; Rockhounding New York book; & Rocks & Minerals of North America book.
Circle with lines in the shape of a T inside drawn in the sand
Selfie of me, 7 years ago, holding a physical copy of my first book, Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England.
Map of medieval Bristol
Cover of the book Medieval Manuscripts in Bristol Collections: A Descriptive Catalogue, edited by Kathleen E. Kennedy & Melek Karataş
Photo of multicolored post-sunset scene over a Nee England pond with beach in the foreground, islands & land in the background.
Library carrel with laptop & piles of blue books in various states of use.
Image of Amazon Best Sellers in the category of Christian Bible Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha, including Apocrypha for Beginners by Brandon W. Hawk as #1
Hand holding the book The Bible Says So by Dan McClellan
GIF of Lando Calrissian (in Empire Strikes Back) walking down the hall saying, “This deal is getting worse all the time.”
Meme of Samson fighting Lion, with text: I’m here to interpret dreams & pinch lions… and I’m all out of dreams.
Photo of Magic cards, including Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant on top
Photo of the first page of “The Fifteen Signs before Judgment” contribution to the volume cited in previous posts
Photo of the book Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, Volume 2, edited by James R. Davila & Richard Bauckham
Screenshot of The Atlantic "Search for an author in LibGen" tool with results indicating Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England in the database
Photo of proxy Magic card for Solphim, Mayhem Dominis, with a ladybug on character’s face
Screenshot from a tweet: DALL-E Parton @AliceAvizandum AIRLINE CHECK-IN STAFF: so you've got economy, and then above that you've got business class KARL MARX: right STAFF: so where would you like to sit on the plane KARL MARX: the what 1:25 PM • 7/13/22 • Twitter for iPhone
Image of passage from Barbara Foley’s Marxist Literary Criticism Today, p. 17
Screenshot of Reddit post about recent McSweeney’s article “HELM’S DEEP SHALL HENCEFORTH BE KNOWN AS SAURON’S DEEP. NO, NOT THAT SAURON” by Nathan Cowley; with moderator comment “Your post was removed because it was political.”
Boromir meme: “The United States has no king. The United States needs no king.”
Screenshot of a paragraph from the reshared article: "However, this isn’t the first time an AI training model has been accused of stealing information off the internet. OpenAI has been sued by novelists as far back as June 2023 for using their books to train its large language models, with The New York Times following suit in December. Nvidia has also been on the receiving end of a lawsuit filed by writers for using 196,640 books to train its NeMo model, which has since been taken down. A former Nvidia employee blew the whistle on the company in August of last year, saying that it scraped more than 426 thousand hours of videos daily for use in AI training. More recently, OpenAI is investigating if DeepSeek illegally obtained data from ChatGPT, which just shows how ironic things can get."
Meme with Jason Momoa sneaking up on Henry Cavill; Momoa labeled as "Me with evidence that Paschasius Radbertus knew the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew" & Cavill labeled as "Carolingianists"
Meme format with Wheel of Time logo (oroborous entwined in intinity loop through a wagon wheel) with the words, "What would Ta'veren do?"
Sketch drawing of me with the label “this is you” & speech balloon that reads, “I think that Space Balls is funny”
Photo of Slavoj Žižek with meme text, “Enjoy your symptom”
Screenshot from Wikipedia article about "Recap sequence": In the early years of Australian soaps Home and Away, Neighbours and Sons and Daughters a recap showed directly after the opening credits, which may have been confusing for viewers who would have started watching them, not realizing they were viewing a recap sequence and not a new opening scene.[1][12] The layout was changed in later years as recaps for Home and Away and Neighbours started before the credits, but currently they again show after the credits in such a way not to confuse the viewer. British soap operas, apart from Hollyoaks, do not use a recap sequence, however, they may be relevant.
Photo grid with pictures of students handling manuscript fragments & early modern books.