![\"Art](\"/assets/img/979-8-89731-285-6.jpg\")
I am pleased to share that my dissertation has now been published as a book: Catastrophic Christianity: An Iconological Study of the Messianic Idea in American Protestant Christianity circa 1900--1940. The book is available now through DTL Press and can be purchased through DTL Commons and Amazon.
\n
Catastrophic Christianity examines the messianic idea in "America" through early twentieth-century U.S. Protestant culture and popular media. The book traces how figures such as The Fundamentals, Superman comic books, Bruce Barton's capitalist Christianity, and The Wizard of Oz reveal two recurring ideological impulses: authoritarian-populism and catastrophic-utopianism. Together, these case studies show how messianism functions not only as a theological category, but as an iconological force shaping American religious, political, and cultural imagination.
\nThis project began as my doctoral dissertation in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University, and I remain deeply grateful to the people who made it possible. Thank you to my spouse, Stephanie Wyatt, for her love, patience, and support throughout the long life of this project. Thank you to my good friend Betty Hill, née Lyons, whose friendship, insight, and work continue to shape how I think about religion, power, and responsibility. I am also grateful to my advisors, Zachary J. Braiterman and Philip P. Arnold, whose guidance at Syracuse University helped bring this project into being. Finally, thank you to Tom Phillips and DTL Press for publishing the book and helping make this work available to a wider public.
\nI am grateful that this work is now out in the world and available to readers interested in American Christianity, messianism, religion and popular culture, authoritarianism, and the religious imagination of catastrophe.
\nPurchase the book here: DTL Commons or Amazon
\nI am pleased to share the publication of "A Postscript: Sovereignty Is Still the Issue," co-authored with Betty Hill (Lyons) and Nethanial Belmont, in the Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory.
\nThis article appears as part of JCRT 25.1 and reflects on the larger scholarly conversation generated by two special issues on domination, religion, law, Indigenous resistance, and the ongoing work of undoing Christian empire. In the postscript, we argue that sovereignty remains one of the most urgent questions for Indigenous studies, religious studies, and critical theory. Rather than treating sovereignty as a narrow legal category or as something granted through settler colonial recognition, we emphasize Indigenous sovereignty as lived, enacted, and grounded in land, language, traditional governance, and responsibilities to all living beings.
\nI am grateful to have worked alongside Betty Hill (Lyons) and Nethanial Belmont on this piece, and I am thankful for the many scholars, elders, teachers, and community leaders whose work continues to shape this conversation. The publication represents one part of an ongoing effort to think beyond the Doctrine of Christian Discovery toward healing, restoration, and the renewal of right relationships with one another and with Mother Earth.
\nRead the article here: "A Postscript: Sovereignty Is Still the Issue"
\nDownload the PDF here: PDF version
\n", "date_published": "2026-05-20T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/zettelkasten/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/zettelkasten/", "title": "Zettelkasten as a Mind Garden", "content_html": "It is not enough to read a text. Reading, by itself, too often leaves ideas inert—underlined passages fading into memory, PDFs piling up in folders never to be reopened. Learning begins when reading turns into thinking, and thinking turns into writing. For me, that transformation has long happened through a practice many of my students now encounter as the Zettelkasten—what I like to call a mind garden.
\nEach week in my courses, students are expected to take notes and write short reflections on what they read in textbooks, articles, podcasts, and other course materials. These reading logs are not busywork. They are tools for cultivating critical reading and thinking skills. Active reading requires sustained engagement with a text: asking questions, noticing patterns, identifying tensions, and making connections across ideas. When students participate in this kind of reading, comprehension deepens, learning becomes stickier, and the course itself becomes more intellectually alive. You move from being a passive recipient of information to an active curator of knowledge.
\nI still use reading logs myself. My own notes usually begin with the name of the piece and a short summary written in my own words. I add hashtags to help me rediscover ideas later, especially across projects and years. I include quotations that strike me as generative—phrases I know I will want to return to in future writing or teaching. Over time, these notes form a dense web of ideas rather than a linear archive. When I sit down to write, I am rarely starting from nothing; I am entering a conversation I have already been having with myself for years.
\nThis practice is inspired by the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, whose Zettelkasten—literally “slip box”—has become famous for its role in supporting an astonishingly productive scholarly life. Luhmann wrote short, self-contained notes, each focused on a single idea, and linked them together through references and keywords. The power of the system was not in any single note, but in the relationships between them. Ideas collided, cross-pollinated, and produced unexpected insights. Writing, for Luhmann, was not the final step of thinking; it was the continuation of thinking by other means.
\nThat is why I describe the Zettelkasten as a mind garden. Each note is a seed. Some grow quickly into sturdy trees—arguments, essays, lectures, podcasts. Others remain dormant for years until the right conditions bring them back to life. Connections between notes act as nutrients, helping ideas flourish in unexpected ways. The goal is not perfection or polish, but steady, thoughtful cultivation. Short, simple notes written consistently over time can support excellence in both thinking and writing.
\nIn my classes, I am not expecting students to create public-facing digital gardens or elaborate knowledge management systems. What I am asking is that they practice the habit of weekly note-making: slowing down, reflecting critically, and learning to trust that small intellectual investments compound over time. A well-kept reading log becomes the backbone of future assignments, especially larger projects like podcasts or research essays. More importantly, it becomes a companion—something students can carry with them beyond a single semester.
\nThe tools and resources below offer excellent entry points into the Zettelkasten tradition and its contemporary adaptations. Whether you are a student, a scholar, or simply someone trying to think more carefully in a noisy world, the invitation is the same: tend your mind as a garden. Read attentively. Write regularly. Let ideas grow together.
\nMental Nodes – A Gardening Guide for Your Mind
\nhttps://www.mentalnodes.com/a-gardening-guide-for-your-mind
Schmidt, J. F. (2018). Niklas Luhmann's Card Index: The Fabrication of Serendipity.
\nSociologica, 12(1), 53–60. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/8350
Sönke Ahrens, Take Smart Notes
\nhttps://www.soenkeahrens.de/en/takesmartnotes#zettelkasten-en
Zettelkasten Method – Overview
\nhttps://zettelkasten.de/overview/
Since the publication of Pagans in the Promised Land by Steven T. Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape), scholarship on the Doctrine of Discovery has expanded significantly as a central issue in Indigenous law and politics. However, its implications remain underexamined in Religious Studies, Indigenous Studies, and legal scholarship. This article analyzes the matrix of enslavement, exploitation, and extraction that Newcomb identifies within settler-colonial systems and examines how scholars in Religious Studies, Legal Studies, and Indigenous Studies have engaged with the Doctrine of Discovery. Situating the Doctrine of Discovery within the broader analytical frameworks of enslavement, systemic violence, and religious imperialism reveals its deep entanglement with historic and legal structures of oppression. Examining its intersections with Religious Studies and postcolonial scholarship uncover how white Christian hegemony maintains its dominion and exposes the fragility of any perceived boundary between church and state.
\nBrett, Adam D. J., and Betty Hill. 2026. “ Examining the Doctrine of Discovery in Religion and Indigenous Studies,” Religion Compass: e70039. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec3.70039.
\n", "date_published": "2025-12-30T15:15:34Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-12-16-eleventy-build-times/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-12-16-eleventy-build-times/", "title": "How I fixed an 11ty performance error that caused my build time to be seven minutes", "content_html": "Inspired by the 11tymeetup, I decided to add a blogroll. I followed the suggestions in various tutorials; however, I forgot to include 11ty fetch. Satisfied, I ran my build, and I was horrified when my build time was a whopping 7 minutes!!!
\nKnowing I needed to make immediate changes to make the site leaner and faster, I made the following changes using the fetch plugin and Netlify's persistent cache across deploys. It wasn't until halfway through making changes that I started writing down the changes to remember in case I make this mistake again in the future.
\n.cache/blogroll. The fetcher now logs how long it takes to hydrate the list and skips network calls during FAST_BUILD=true runs.netlify-plugin-cache in netlify.toml so deploys reuse the .cache directory. No more re-downloading dozens of feeds on every publish..nvmrc.These changes brought my build time down from the horrific high of seven minutes to 1.6 seconds on my machine and 37 seconds on Netlify.
\nHaving made these changes, I realized that I still had one more change to make, and that is to make sure my sitmap, feed, and tag collections exclude /blogroll/ and feed endpoints. I did this by making sure the sitemap template ignores pages whose permalink is false and this keeps the invalid URLs at bay.
I also made some tweaks to speed up my local development.
\nFAST_BUILD=true, the dev server spins up without waiting for purgeCSS, pagefind, or the blogroll fetch queue.If you are a newbie to Elveventy like me, I hope this is helpful but mostly this post is for future me.
\n", "date_published": "2025-12-16T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-12-15-eleventy-shortlinks-qr-code-purl/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-12-15-eleventy-shortlinks-qr-code-purl/", "title": "Announcing a new 11ty Shortlink and QR Code Generator purl.im", "content_html": "Ever since the originary essay, I have been firmly committed to the philosophy of A Domain of One's Own (DoOO) (see a previous post). Even before the concept came around, I had too many domain names and was encouraging others to have their own sites as well. One of the central problems with having your own site has been the walled gardens of social media. Getting people to leave the walled gardens of social media, stop scrolling, and read/watch/listen to human-crafted information remains a serious problem. Some ways around this have been "link in bio" and short links. The issues with these tools are that they tend to be yet another big tech walled garden. My friend Eileen Campbell-Reed, in her book Pastoral Imagination, used her own custom link shortener that I helped her set up. This link shortener has worked great for easily typeable URLs for readers of the book and has allowed her to stop link rot in the book by updating the short links whenever links change (big shout-out to the internet's best friend, archive.org). Link rot is sadly a problem that is not going away soon. As link shorteners like goo.gl are being phased out and authors move between web frameworks and Content management systems, these problems persist.
\nWorking with Eileen helped me to see the ease of using a DoOO for your own shortlink system; likewise, working with activists and organizers has taught me the frustration and limits of services like TinyURL and Bit.ly, where the shortlinks get increasingly convoluted to type. These issues led me to search for a solution. I wanted to find a self-hosted shortlink and QR code solution that was lightweight, easy to use and deploy, and, of course, open source. Netlify provides a super simple way to shorten links; however, I also wanted to be able to automatically generate QR codes for the shortlinks because if I need one, I will need the other. After asking around on Mastodon and Discord, I found two outstanding projects that I combined to make this project. By the powers of 1y and findth.At, I give you Frankenstein's Monster. The goal of this project was two-fold: first, to see if I could combine two of my favorite open-source projects into one, and second, to create a useful link shortener and QR code generator for my colleagues and me to use---my deepest gratitude and apologies to everyone involved. @Nhoizey and @philhawksworth, you are both brilliant and incredible web developers. Thank you for shipping such outstanding open-source projects.
\nUnder the hood, purl.im is:
\nThe result is a link shortener and QR code generator that I can confidently share with colleagues, knowing it won't go anywhere as long as I maintain my domain.
\nI decided not to use Netlify or Decap at this time because I have concerns about Netlify's new pricing model and did not want to receive a large surprise bill. On the 11ty Discord and Mastodon, people speak highly of Pages CMS's ease of use. Using and implementing Pages CMS was relatively easy. It did take me a while to figure out how to prevent pages from automatically appending a date to the markdown files, but after I solved that issue, it has been relatively smooth sailing. My one remaining problem with Pages is that it has been very confusing for non-technical users to log in. My next task is to create a help document outlining the workflow for purl.im and the Pages CMS.
\nPresently, I have implemented purl.im on the following sites:
\n\n", "date_published": "2025-12-15T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-12-04-uls-democracy/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-12-04-uls-democracy/", "title": "United Lutheran Seminary to host 'A Vision for Liberating Our Democracy' Conference, February 27–28", "content_html": "United Lutheran Seminary (ULS) will host A Vision for Liberating Our Democracy: Examining the Religious and Racialized Roots of American Democracy on February 27--28, 2026, at its Philadelphia campus. The interdisciplinary conference will bring together scholars, activists, educators, and faith leaders to examine how religion and race have shaped democratic life in the United States and to explore liberative visions for the future.
\nThe conference builds on a growing body of research that examines the theological, cultural, and political intersections of democracy, citizenship, and power. Participants will investigate how worldviews and faith traditions have informed concepts of governance, belonging, and personhood from the founding era to the present. The conference will highlight not only the Haudenosaunee Influence on American Democracy but also the historic and present contributions to Democratic thought by Black, Indigenous, and Latine communities, contributions which are often forgotten and ignored.
\n"As America's oldest Lutheran seminary, founded by an antislavery theologian 200 years ago in Gettysburg on land that was to become part of the Civil War's greatest battlefield, United Lutheran Seminary has always been part of the nation's conversation on race and freedom," said the Rev. Dr. R. Guy Erwin (Osage Nation), ULS president. "The Lutheran heritage of freedom of conscience and its emphasis on serving the common good draw us always from faith toward action. With this conference, our Seminary returns to the center of our current national debates."
\nDean Teresa L. Smallwood said, "The American context is ripe for a time of reflection on the concept of democracy. "We the People" must evaluate our democratic commitments as we witness our nation entering a period of structural erosion. It is felt across all pockets of the nation. Have we redefined the governance schemata such that democracy is literally on life support? Do we continue to believe in the checks and balances of government? Is America a bastion for equality or have we reordered our commitments as a nation? These are some of the questions we must wrestle with at this conference."
\n"United Lutheran Seminary is committed to fostering public conversations about the moral and historical foundations of democracy," said the conference organizing committee member Adam DJ Brett. "By examining the ways religion and race intertwine with political life, we can better imagine inclusive and equitable systems of governance."
\nThe conference will feature exciting plenary addresses by:
\nThe organizing committee invites proposals for papers, panel discussions, roundtables, and creative presentations. Submissions from scholars at all career stages, including graduate students and early-career researchers, are encouraged. We are open to presentations from independent scholars as well.
\nThe program will also include undergraduate poster sessions, graduate student panels, and live podcast recordings designed for classroom and public scholarship use. Following the event, an open-access journal volume will publish selected presentations.
\nProposals should include a 300-word abstract and a 100-word biography. The submission deadline is January 15, 2025. Proposals may be sent to abrett@uls.edu.
\nAs social media platfoms move more and more towards being walled gardens with ever shifting policies and AI creep opting out of these platforms takes on a new sense of urgency. For graduate students, contigent faculty, tenure track faculty, and independent scholars having a webpresence that does not rely on a university becomes increasingly vital.
\nMy personal theory is that as we see more AI creep and the decrease in search enginges abilities to return meaningful results there is going to be a resurgent interest in directories and individual webpages, in short the 90s are back this time out of necessity not nostalgia. I believe that scholars still need a stable, independent home on the web --- and that's exactly what the IndieWeb and no-code tools like Carrd make possible.
\nThe IndieWeb isn't a fad or a niche movement --- it's a philosophy: personal websites, on your own domain, as your primary online identity. It champions owning your content, not renting your presence from algorithmic platforms. (indieweb.org)
\nFor a scholar, that means instead of relying on fragmented, institutionally-controlled pages or transient social media profiles, you have a stable digital "room of your own." As many have argued, academics benefit greatly from such personal websites --- they offer a space for your CV, publications, syllabi, reflections, teaching philosophy, blog posts, and more. (Inside Higher Ed)
\nYour domain becomes a durable digital identity --- one that you control regardless of where life or your institution takes you. As one recent post noted, a custom domain "signals authority and permanence" (adamdjbrett.com).
\nIf you're not a developer --- or simply very busy with teaching and research --- the technical overhead of building and maintaining a website can feel daunting. That's where no-code tools like Carrd really shine.
\nCarrd lets you create clean, professional, responsive sites in minutes --- no coding required. As highlighted in "Why Carrd.co Is the Best Platform for Simple, Responsive One-Page Sites," Carrd is ideal when what you need is a quick, budget-friendly online presence that still looks polished and professional. I have written on this topic previously, ("Why Carrd.co Is the Best Platform for Simple, Responsive One-Page Sites, with Discount Code")
\nFor many academics, a simple one-page site --- with links to your CV, publication list, contact info, maybe a short bio or blog feed --- may be all you need. And Carrd gives you just that: minimal hassle, full control, and a site that works on any device. Virginia Woolf was right you need a room of ones one and a domain of one's own, ("Why Scholars Should Own Their Online Presence").
\nWhen you own your site, you also determine how and where your content lives. A personal academic website can become a central hub: a place to house your scholarship, teaching resources, blog reflections, syllabi, podcasts, and more. You can link to social media, preprints, press coverage --- whatever represents your work --- on your terms (bastian.rieck.me).
\nMoreover, the IndieWeb encourages not just ownership but connection: by using its open-web standards, your site can participate in decentralized conversations, syndicate posts, and stay compatible with long-term web culture built on openness, not walled gardens (indieweb.org).
\nAs someone teaching courses working broadly in the "Digital Humanities (???)", I am increasingly concerned about how quickly and easily trendy and popular platforms fade in and out of existence. A personal site gives you the flexibility to curate how your work is presented: syllabi, lecture notes, reading lists, public resources, multimedia, etc.
\nI love building things for the web which is why I love and have built so many websites and projects with 11ty. While I believe that building and making your own site from scratch is not only doable but also fun! I realize that most other people have a very diffent definition of fund and hobbies and this is where high quality exportable #nocode tools like Carrd come into the piecture.
\nWith Carrd, you don't need to invest in complex hosting, themes, or devops. As the post "Why Carrd.co Is the Best Platform..." explains, you can get a polished site for just ~$19/year with the Pro plan --- cheap, accessible, and sustainable (adamdjbrett.com).
\nIf you want to experiment --- maybe a simple homepage, a pointer to a CV, a short blog --- it's an easy "first step" into the IndieWeb universe without committing to heavy website infrastructure.
\n🔗 Want to explore more? try.carrd. If you sign up using this discount code you can save 40%.
\nP.S. I never know exactly how to write for the web. Do you like the parenehttical footnote style hyperlinks I did here or do you want a more traditional web forward style where I link relevant text? I prefer the ladder.
\n", "date_published": "2025-11-30T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/deploying-eleventy-xmit/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/deploying-eleventy-xmit/", "title": "Deploying an Eleventy Site to XMIT using GitHub Actions", "content_html": "Thanks to the wonderful #11ty and #webdev communities on Mastodon, I interacted with Pierre Carrier and learned about his great free web hosting project, xmit.co. To test it out, I migrated one website from an old shared hosting server and some others from Netlify. In both cases, moving to XMIT was easy.
\nAs Pierre explained recently on Discord, the whole project is super small and minimalistic, taking a direct path from vision to inception. Wednesday, November 19th, He shared this on Discord. Look how beautiful small xmit's production codebase is:
\npcarrier@dog /s/xmit.co (main) [124]> tokei src\n━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━\n Language Files Lines Code Comments Blanks\n━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━\n CSS 1 241 201 0 40\n TSX 11 2040 1951 1 88\n TypeScript 2 23 19 1 3\n━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━\n Total 14 2304 2171 2 131\n━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━\nI appreciate the minimalist/brutalist style of the project, even if it was rather disorienting to come from a fancy VC-backed host to something much more raw and independent. Personally, I love being back here amongst the #indieweb community and living with the ethos of early web development with modern tools.
\n![\"xmit](\"/assets/img/xmit/xmit-admin.png\")
Make sure your domain registrar allows you to use ANAME/ALIAS records. Then you will create an ANAME record for your team number at xmit.co. My team number is 268, so I will replace 42 in the examples below with my team number. The examples Pierre gives are repeated below\n
\n \t@ CNAME 42.xmit.co. \t* CNAME 42.xmit.co. \t\n\nI found it very easy to create ANAME/ALIAS and CNAME records with the appropriate info, super easy. Personally, I went for the combo of an @ and a www. record for my domain names. One important note here is that you will need two records.. I had to go back and create www.xmit.000000076.xyz to get my sites working.
\nFor good measure, don't forget to also create the TXT record with your team number @ TXT "xmit=42" or in my case 268.
If you decided to use one of the two included subdomains, you can skip these steps.
\nXMIT_SITE: dominationchronicles.com@268 to be your domain name and team number. Based on the Discord chat, I think the number is only needed the first time, but your mileage may vary.XMIT_KEY where I then copied my XMIT API key. For all that is good and holy, never expose your API key publicly.Thus far, I have been super happy with how hosting with XMIT has been going. I liked how easy it was, that there was no added bloat, and that it was a fairly turnkey, quick solution for web hosting.
\nIf you do decide to host with XMIT, please also join the Discord; it is a helpful place.
\nOh, and if you were wanting a more GUI-friendly deployment option, the newly released Bob's your Oncole can help.
\n- name: Setup Node.js\n uses: actions/setup-node@v4\n with:\n node-version: 20\n cache: 'npm'\n\n- name: Install dependencies\n run: npm ci- name: Setup Node.js\n uses: actions/setup-node@v4\n with:\n node-version: 20\n\n- name: Install dependencies\n run: npm installin my experience 11Covers-Theme Deploys fasters without the cache than with the cache. I cache Domination Chronicles because of the number of assets in /public/ but I dont know if its the right thing to do. Based on the speed difference I'm debating removing the cache.
\n", "date_published": "2025-11-29T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-11-26-deploying-jekyll-xmit/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-11-26-deploying-jekyll-xmit/", "title": "Deploying Jekyll to XMIT", "content_html": "As the year comes to a close I am still working on reducing my hosting bills and exploring using xmit.co for hosting. In the last few days Pierre has refactored the homepage and documentation which makes using the service even easier and more appealing. Today's site that I decided to move over from netlify to xmit uses Jekyll so it was a bit tricky for the move. I havent touched Jekyll in a few months so I was a little out of practice. First I decoupled the site from netlify, updated the DNS ANAME, CNAME, and TXT records to using the DNS Configuration settings. Then I updated the xmity-deploy.yml github action to work for jekyll. the file is below:
name: Deploy Jekyll to XMIT\n\non:\n push:\n branches: [\"main\", \"master\"]\n workflow_dispatch:\n inputs:\n site:\n description: \"XMIT site/domain (e.g. example.com)\"\n required: true\n type: string\n\nconcurrency:\n group: deploy-xmit-${{ github.ref }}\n cancel-in-progress: true\n\npermissions:\n contents: read\n\njobs:\n deploy:\n runs-on: ubuntu-latest\n env:\n # Target site/domain for XMIT deploy\n XMIT_SITE: example.com@268 \n steps:\n - name: Checkout\n uses: actions/checkout@v4\n\n - name: Setup Ruby\n uses: ruby/setup-ruby@v1\n with:\n ruby-version: '3.3'\n bundler-cache: true\n\n - name: Build Jekyll site\n run: bundle exec jekyll build\n\n - name: Verify build output\n run: |\n if [ ! -d _site ]; then\n echo \"_site directory missing after build\" >&2\n exit 1\n fi\n ls -1 _site | head -n 20\n\n - name: Setup Node.js (for XMIT CLI)\n uses: actions/setup-node@v4\n with:\n node-version: 20\n\n - name: Deploy to XMIT (CLI)\n env:\n XMIT_KEY: ${{ secrets.XMIT_KEY }}\n run: |\n if [ -z \"$XMIT_KEY\" ]; then\n echo \"XMIT_KEY secret is not set\" >&2\n exit 1\n fi\n # Use manual input when workflow_dispatch triggers this workflow\n SITE_INPUT=\"${{ github.event_name == 'workflow_dispatch' && inputs.site || '' }}\"\n if [ -n \"$SITE_INPUT\" ]; then\n export XMIT_SITE=\"$SITE_INPUT\"\n fi\n if [ -z \"$XMIT_SITE\" ]; then\n echo \"XMIT site/domain not provided. Set repo Variable 'XMIT_SITE' or pass 'site' input.\" >&2\n exit 1\n fi\n echo \"Deploying _site to $XMIT_SITE via XMIT CLI\";\n npx -y @xmit.co/xmit \"$XMIT_SITE\" _site || { echo 'XMIT deploy failed' >&2; exit 1; }\n\n - name: Post-deploy summary\n run: |\n echo \"Deployment attempt finished for $XMIT_SITE\";\n echo \"Visit: https://$XMIT_SITE\";\n\n # Uncomment below for an alternative raw API upload if you have endpoint details\n # steps:\n # - name: Deploy via API (curl)\n # run: |\n # tar -czf site.tar.gz -C _site .\n # curl -f -X POST \\\n # -H \"Authorization: Bearer $XMIT_KEY\" \\\n # -F \"bundle=@site.tar.gz\" \\\n # https://api.xmit.example/deploy?site=$XMIT_SITEAfter updating the xmit-deploy.yml file I naively thought that I would be good to go. However that was not the case. Immiediately my github action failed so I had to:
jekyll-author-page and jekyll-tagsgeneratorsource \"https://rubygems.org\"\n\n# This will help ensure the proper Jekyll version is running.\ngem \"jekyll\", \">= 4.3.3\"\n\n# Windows does not include zoneinfo files, so bundle the tzinfo-data gem\ngem 'tzinfo-data', platforms: [:mingw, :mswin, :x64_mingw, :jruby]\n\n# Required for Ruby 3.3+ (Jekyll/kramdown dependency)\ngem 'rexml'\n\ngroup :jekyll_plugins do\n gem 'jekyll-paginate', '1.1.0'\n gem 'jekyll-seo-tag', '>= 2.8.0'\n gem 'jekyll-sitemap', '>= 1.4.0'\n gem 'jekyll-redirect-from', '>= 0.16.0'\n # Remove jekyll-tagsgenerator and jekyll-author-page as they are not maintained for Jekyll 4.x. If you need similar functionality, consider alternatives or custom plugins.\nendI replaced the tag pages with rflog's Automated Jekyll blog tags and that worked nice and easily. I still havent replaced the jekyll-author-page plugin but that is tomorrows problem, I found jetroid's Jekyll Author Pages which seems like a nice gem free alternative.
After these updates to jekyll, I pushed to github and everything is working nicely with the site now living its best life over at xmit.co
\n", "date_published": "2025-11-26T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-11-22-eleventy-xmit-redirects/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-11-22-eleventy-xmit-redirects/", "title": "XMIT Redirects and 11ty", "content_html": "If you followed the setup on my previous article on using xmit.co with Github actions you should also be mindful of how to setup redirects. Pierre the creator of XMIT was kind enough to help me when I posted on Mastodon. He said if you want your redirects to work dont forget to copy your xmit.toml file into your _site directory. I took his advice and it works great. If you want to see how I did it check out my 11ty config file.
If yo uwish to use a custom 404 page on xmit.co along with redirects please note the 404 has to be before the redirect section. For example:
\n404 = \"404.html\"\n\n[[redirects]]\nfrom = \"^/youtube/?$\"\nto = \"https://www.youtube.com/@DominationChronicles\"\npermanent = true\n\n[[redirects]]\nfrom = \"^/podcast/?$\"\nto = \"https://redcircle.com/shows/dominationchronicles\"\npermanent = trueWhen it comes to building websites, static site generators (SSGs) have become a popular choice for developers who want fast, secure, and easily maintainable sites. Among the many options available, Eleventy | 11ty stands out as one of the best. Lightweight yet powerful, Eleventy | 11ty offers flexibility and simplicity that make it a top-tier choice. But how does Eleventy | 11ty stack up against WordPress, the reigning CMS heavyweight, or Jekyll, another beloved SSG? Let’s break it down.
\nWhen it comes to building websites, static site generators (SSGs) have become a popular choice for developers who want fast, secure, and easily maintainable sites. Among the many options available, Eleventy | 11ty stands out as one of the best. Lightweight yet powerful, Eleventy offers flexibility and simplicity that make it a top-tier choice. But how does Eleventy stack up against WordPress, the reigning CMS heavyweight, or Jekyll, another beloved SSG? Let's break it down.
\nWordPress has long been a go-to solution for building websites, but its reliance on dynamic content generation comes with significant trade-offs. Here's why Eleventy wins:
\nWordPress generates pages dynamically on each request, which can slow down loading times---especially for high-traffic sites. Eleventy, on the other hand, pre-builds your site into static files, making it lightning-fast for end users. Static files are also better for SEO since page speed is a ranking factor.
\nWordPress's complexity can be a double-edged sword. Its reliance on plugins and databases introduces vulnerabilities that often make it a target for hackers. With Eleventy, your site is static, meaning there's no database to breach or server-side scripts to exploit. It's inherently more secure.
\nEleventy is a developer-first tool. Unlike WordPress, which can feel bloated with unnecessary features, Eleventy gives you full control over the codebase. You decide on the structure, templating language, and build process, without being locked into a proprietary ecosystem.
\nWordPress sites often accumulate "plugin creep," where additional plugins are installed for minor functionality, resulting in unnecessary overhead. Eleventy is lean by design, letting you build only what you need.
\nJekyll has been a staple of the SSG community for years, especially for GitHub Pages. But Eleventy has several advantages that make it a better choice in most cases:
\nJekyll relies on Ruby, which can have a steeper learning curve for developers unfamiliar with the language. Eleventy, written in JavaScript, leverages a language most web developers already know. This makes it easier to onboard and maintain projects.
\nWhile Jekyll is tied to its Liquid templating system, Eleventy supports multiple templating languages, including Markdown, Nunjucks, Liquid, and Handlebars. This flexibility allows you to pick the right tool for your specific needs or even mix and match templates within a single project.
\nEleventy integrates seamlessly with modern JavaScript tooling, such as npm and bundlers like Vite. It also supports advanced features like serverless functions and API-driven workflows, making it more versatile than Jekyll for modern web projects.
\nEleventy's setup is refreshingly simple. It doesn't require a rigid folder structure or opinionated defaults. You can drop files in any directory and configure the build process to your liking, which is much harder to achieve with Jekyll.
\nEleventy is perfect for developers and designers who want:
\nWhether you're building a personal blog, a portfolio site, or a small business website, Eleventy offers an unbeatable combination of simplicity, performance, and adaptability.
\nEleventy isn't just another static site generator; it's a game-changer in the world of web development. By combining the best aspects of speed, security, and flexibility, Eleventy offers a superior alternative to WordPress and Jekyll.
\nIf you're ready to embrace a minimalist, developer-friendly approach to building websites, Eleventy is the clear choice. So why wait? Dive into the Eleventy ecosystem and discover how this powerful SSG can transform your web development workflow.
\nI plan on transferring as many sites as possible away from Jekyll and WorPress to #11ty. Here is my list of 11ty sites so far:
\nThe red balloon emojii means an 11ty site
\nMonospace and github repo
\n11 Covers Theme and g ithub repo.
\n11 Covers Theme and github repo.
\n\n\n\n", "date_published": "2025-11-07T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-10-30-profbook/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-10-30-profbook/", "title": "Leave forprofit Academic Networking", "content_html": "Gov. Kathy Hochul insists that nuclear power is the future for New York. We at the American Indian Law Alliance strongly oppose this view and call for caution.\nNuclear reactors are fundamentally dangerous and harmful to the environment and all living beings. Nuclear power is a controlled explosion until it becomes uncontrolled, at which point it turns deadly. Humans cannot control what is inherently uncontrollable.
\n
As of 2026 Profbook has shutdown
\nLooking for a not-for profit alternative for academics by academics? An alt to academia DOT edu, Facebook, Research Gate, etc.\nCheck out #ProfBook
\n", "date_published": "2025-10-30T01:15:34Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-10-09-qr-codes/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-10-09-qr-codes/", "title": "How to Generate QR codes in macOS", "content_html": "Generating a QR code used to be so simple when goo.gl existed, as it was a great link shortener and QR code generator. However, Alphabet/Google, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to close the service, and then they were going to sunset all the links, which would have caused massive linkrot on a dying(dead?) internet. However, thanks to public outcry, Google has reversed its decision. Google's decision further illustrates the importance of a domain of ones own. My dear friend and colleague, Eileen Campbell-Reed, understood this point. When she published her book, Pastoral Imagination: Bringing the Practice of Ministry to Life, she utilized her own domain name, linkshorter, and QR codes, ensuring that her book had little to no link rot.
\nThanks to the simplicity of Netlify's _redirects file, I can easily run my own link shorteners. However, one ongoing issue I face is generating QR codes quickly and effortlessly. I dislike using standard link shortening QR code services because some of these services want to lock you into high monthly fees, inject their own tracking, and set arbitrary limits on the codes. Another concern is what happens if the service is case sensitive, which can cause users to accidentally visit a different site. I want to create branded shortlinks and QR codes on a domain I own so that users and scanners can trust both, without injecting third-party code. For a while, I considered building my own QR code generator website, but that seemed like overkill. Instead, I once again turned to my trusty homebrew solution for Mac.
I found the official documentation to be deeply unhelpful, however Nikhil Vemu has a very helpful explainer. Here is what was most helpful to me:
\nqrencode -o code.png "https://aila.li/olp" -s 8\nThe default size of 3 is barely 99 pixels square, size 8 is almost 250 pixels which for me is a much more useful size.
\n", "date_published": "2025-10-09T05:02:34Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-10-09-webp-jpg/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-10-09-webp-jpg/", "title": "How to convert JPG to WEBP in macOS", "content_html": "In the quest for ultrafast websites and the every elusive four-hundos score in Google's lighthouse, I have recently begun to explore what are the best and fastest ways to convert JPG and PNG files to webp. Certainly I could use online tools to convert the images but then, there are concerns of course about webtools renaming files, modifying metadata, and of course having limits on them. Therefore I turned to a Mac users best friend homebrew where I found the wonderful Homebrew Formulae for webp. The tool is super easy to install and use.
\nbrew install webpcwebp input.jpg -o output.webpIf you have a whole folder you wish to convert you can use Phil Warnath's super helpful script:
\nfind . -type f \\( -iname '*.png' -o -iname '*.jpg' -o -iname '*.jpeg' \\) -exec sh -c 'cwebp -quiet \"$1\" -o \"${1%.*}.webp\"' _ {} \\;\n\n\n", "date_published": "2025-10-02T01:15:34Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-09-01-healing-the-sacred/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-09-01-healing-the-sacred/", "title": "Healing the Sacred", "content_html": "Looking at the ecocide caused and still being caused by the Erie Canal and Onondaga Lake, we ask ourselves: What does the Erie Canal symbolize? Genocide and ecocide.\nRead more at Syracuse.com
\n
The Onondaga Nation is petitioning the Organization of American States (OAS) for land rights to Onondaga Lake, a notoriously polluted body of water in Central New York State. The Onondaga Nation is one of six nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Iroquois), and Onondaga Lake is the sacred site where Gayanashagowa, the Great Law of Peace, was established. As Keepers of the Central Fire, the Onondaga Nation bears the responsibility of maintaining unity and peace within the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. This article examines the history of the lake, its significance to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and the consequences of its desecration through industrial pollution. By juxtaposing Haudenosaunee teachings with the European Christian Doctrine of Discovery, we reveal how clashing worldviews led to violence, land theft, and genocide against the Haudenosaunee and other Indigenous Nations. Specifically, we apply Steven T. Newcomb's Domination Code to analyze the settler-colonial justification for resource extraction, which left behind ecological and social devastation. We argue that returning Onondaga Lake to the Onondaga Nation is a vital step toward restoring this sacred place, bringing long-overdue healing to its people, the surrounding communities, and the natural world. The protection and restoration of Onondaga Lake is not only essential for its future but for the well-being of all. The restoration of Indigenous sacred spaces is a catalyst for meaningful social and ecological change.
\n\n", "date_published": "2025-09-01T01:15:34Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-06-27-crosscurrents/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-06-27-crosscurrents/", "title": "New CrossCurrents Special Issue", "content_html": "New CrossCurrents Special Issue Vol.74.No.4 out now: 200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Indigenous Responses to the Religious Foundations of Racism
\n![\"Front](\"/assets/img/9781469683744.webp\")
Read Now or buy as a print book or ebook.
\n", "date_published": "2025-02-23T03:15:34Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-02-23-get-tufte/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-02-23-get-tufte/", "title": "Get Tufte with 11ty", "content_html": "I've always admired Edward Tufte’s approach to design—his emphasis on clarity, simplicity, and the thoughtful presentation of information. That’s why I’m excited to share my latest 11ty web starter, which is built around Tufte’s design principles.
\nTufte’s philosophy is all about maximizing the data-to-ink ratio, meaning every element on the page should serve a purpose. His designs prioritize content over decoration, offering a minimalist aesthetic that feels timeless and professional. In my 11ty starter, I’ve incorporated features like side notes, subtle typography, and a focus on whitespace to create a clean and readable web experience.
\nFor me, this project isn’t just about building a theme—it’s about creating a tool for anyone who wants to share information clearly and effectively. Whether you’re crafting essays, publishing research, or just want a no-nonsense blog, this starter is designed to keep the focus on your content.
\nIf you're interested, you can check out the demo and explore the demo code on GitHub. I hope this project inspires others to embrace Tufte’s principles and build websites that are as beautiful as they are functional.
\nI used these same principals for another 11ty starter called Wisp.
\nBrutalist web design has always fascinated me for its raw and unapologetic aesthetic. Much like its architectural counterpart, brutalism in web design strips away the polished layers of modern design trends and focuses instead on functionality and honesty. There's something refreshing about a site that doesn’t hide behind gradients, soft shadows, or overly smooth animations. Instead, it presents itself with bold typography, stark contrasts, and an almost jarring straightforwardness.
\nFor me, the appeal lies in how brutalist design challenges our expectations of the web. It invites users to engage with content directly—without distraction—and often carries a playful or experimental edge. The aesthetic isn't about being crude for its own sake; it’s about rejecting unnecessary embellishments and embracing a kind of digital honesty.
\nI also love how brutalism opens up creative possibilities. When you’re not bound by conventional design rules, you have the freedom to try unconventional layouts, bold color schemes, and unique interactions. It’s an aesthetic playground that encourages exploration and offers a kind of authenticity that’s rare in a world where many websites look and feel the same.
\nUltimately, brutalist web design is about embracing imperfection and valuing substance over style. It aligns perfectly with my interest in minimal computing and the #minicomp movement—both prioritize function, sustainability, and a bit of rebellion against the status quo.
\nI've been experimenting with design frameworks lately, and I'm excited to share an 11ty web starter, which uses the NeoBrutalismCSS framework by Matias Fandiño. NeoBrutalismCSS is all about embracing the raw and unapologetic aesthetics of neo-brutalism in web design. It offers a minimalist approach, applying fundamental styles based on HTML semantics without the clutter of endless class names and complex configurations.
\nWhat I love most about NeoBrutalismCSS is how it pairs simplicity with boldness. The design language is straightforward---there are no hidden tricks or unnecessary flourishes. Instead, it focuses on creating a visually striking and highly functional web experience. The framework's minimalist approach aligns perfectly with the #minicomp philosophy I'm so passionate about, emphasizing minimal design, minimal maintenance, and minimal obsolescence.
\nIf you're curious, you can check out the 11ty NeoBrutalismCSS demo and explore the GitHub repository. I hope this new starter inspires others to experiment with neo-brutalist aesthetics and build websites that are as bold as they are simple.
\nGoing back to basics here is an 11ty web starter using the Tiny Brutalism CSS framework. This minimalist framework is all about bold, monochrome colors, hard edges, and those iconic prominent drop shadows. At under 4KB, Tiny Brutalism CSS lives up to its name---tiny, fast, and to the point.
\nWhat I love most about this framework is how it strips design down to the essentials. There's a kind of honesty in the starkness of brutalism that challenges the polished, overproduced aesthetics we see everywhere online. Plus, the simplicity of Tiny Brutalism CSS aligns perfectly with my passion for minimal computing---focusing on minimal design, minimal maintenance, and minimal obsolescence.
\nIf you'd like to see it in action, check out the 11ty Brutalism Theme demo here and explore the GitHub repository. I hope this starter inspires others to experiment with bold, minimalistic web design and embrace the power of simplicity.
\nI've been diving deep into the Eleventy (11ty) Static Site Generator (SSG) lately, and I'm excited to share some new website starters I've developed with a friend. These themes are built around the #minicomp ontology: minimal design, minimal maintenance, and minimal obsolescence. My goal with both projects was to create lightweight, flexible, and highly readable web experiences that reflect my passion for simplicity and usability.
\nImbricate feat. μ CSS started as a thought experiment with a friend. We wanted to see how far we could take the concept of an ultra-lightweight theme using the μ CSS framework, which is just 1KB in size. This theme is all about keeping things simple and responsive, staying true to the #minicomp principles.
\nSome of the features I'm particularly proud of include:
\nIf you'd like to see it in action, check out the demo site or dig into the GitHub repository to explore the code.
\nμ CSS is an incredibly interesting framework for website development due to its ultra-compact size, lightning-fast speed, and refreshing simplicity. At just 1 KB, μ CSS embodies the "less is more" philosophy, ensuring that websites load quickly and maintain a minimal footprint. Its mobile-first design approach guarantees compatibility across all screen sizes and browsers, while its straightforward styling keeps content legible and accessible to all visitors. μ CSS proves that effective web design doesn't need to be complicated—it just needs to get the point across.
\nThe idea for 11ty Long Reads came from a conversation on Blue Sky with @tessalaprofessa. They mentioned how great it would be if blog themes had features like Instapaper and e-readers, giving users control over the reading experience by adjusting font family, font size, line height, font color, and background color.
\nI built this theme with that vision in mind, offering:
\nFeel free to explore the demo and, if you're interested, the GitHub repository has all the code.
\nI believe that websites shouldn't just look good---they should also be practical and sustainable. Both of these 11ty starters are designed to help creators build sites that are not only beautiful and functional but also align with the ideals of the #minicomp movement.
\nWhether you're looking to create a no-frills, fast-loading site or a customizable, reader-focused blog, I hope these starters provide a solid foundation. As always, I'm looking forward to seeing how others might use and adapt these tools.
\n", "date_published": "2025-02-21T03:15:34Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-01-06-religious-freedom-limits/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-01-06-religious-freedom-limits/", "title": "On the Limits of the Concept of Religious Freedom in Indigenous Communities", "content_html": "In this essay, we will argue that firstly, the international and national legal framings of religion or belief are limited in scope, and one must ask not only religious freedom for whom but also from whom. Secondly, we will underscore the continued limitations of international human rights-based discourse. Why are Indigenous nations consistently excluded from rights-based discourses? We have the UN Declaration on Human Rights (UNDHR), the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNPFII), the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), this new report, and so many other reports. We will ask at what stage we move from declarations and reports to protecting and supporting Indigenous nations and peoples. Thirdly, building on the limitations of rights-based reporting, we will highlight what this report gets right and invite activists, lawyers, scholars, and all folks to take up and read the report and follow up on the elements we believe to be most salient. Finally, we will conclude by offering an alternative to declarations that support Indigenous nations and peoples' inherent right to sovereignty. Our conclusion emphasizes Faithkeeper Lyons' urgent message, "The Ice is Melting in the North," and provides a framework for how people could respond by explaining the Two Row Wampum treaty and the Two Row Wampum Method.
\nBrett, Adam DJ, and Betty Hill (Lyons). 2024. “On the Limits of the Concept of Religious Freedom in Indigenous Communities”. Journal of the Council for Research on Religion 5 (2). Montreal, QC, Canada:75-96. https://doi.org/10.26443/jcreor.v5i2.117.
\n\n", "date_published": "2025-01-06T03:15:34Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-01-01-11ty-clean-blog-clean-repo/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2025-01-01-11ty-clean-blog-clean-repo/", "title": "11ty Clean blog and cleaner repository", "content_html": "I have been loving the new 11ty 3.0.0 release. This release is radically simple and for someone like me who is just dipping my toes into the 11ty waters having a simplifed SSG is critical. One of the things I have been working on this holiday break is trying to figure out what is my optimal repoistory layout. I want to keep things, clean, simple, and easy for myself and whomever may look at my code or projects later.
\nIn order to better understand one how best to create an 11ty template for myself and two how best to make this structure, I ported Start Boostrap's Clean blog template to 11ty.
\nThe strucutre that I like is below
\n/11ty-clean-blog-startboostrap\n├── /_config\n├── /_data\n├── /_includes\n│ └── /_includes/partials\n├── /content\n│ ├── /content/blog\n│ └── /content/feed\n└── /public\n ├── /public/css\n ├── /public/images\n └── /public/js\nFilters go in _config to be set and left alone. _Data for anyting I want to customize. _includes was tricky. I am still trying to figure out a reasonable balance between too many and not enough partials for templating here. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Pages go out in the open in /content/, Collections into a lovely subfolder (/blog), and beautiful RSS feeds go into /feed. Taking advantage of the new 11ty 3.0.0 plugins like image transform, and others I have moved images, css, and js to make pass through easier and in order to simply my own config files.
\nAlso thanks to Bob Monsor, Creativas.dev and all of the wonderful folks in the community who have written posts about implementing pagefind.app.
\nIf you wish to see my porting of clean blog the demo is at: clean.000000076.xyz/ and github repo
\n", "date_published": "2025-01-01T03:15:34Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-12-27-learning-eleventy-by-adapting-jekyll/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-12-27-learning-eleventy-by-adapting-jekyll/", "title": "Learning 11ty by adapting a Jekyll Template", "content_html": "Presently my favorite Static Site Generator (SSG) is 11ty. I love 11ty for many reasons first its adaptability, customizability, speed, and stability. 11ty unlike WordPress and Jekyll gets out of the way and allows me to focus on content. Jekyll feels fun but as many have said it feels abandoned/stalled. Perhaps due to Jekyll being stalled, Dependabot is consistently giving me notices and alerts, which I appreciate but it takes my time away from other things. Likewise I'm consistently fussing with settings on Github Pages and Netlify to get Netlify to deploy. None of those issues exist when I am working with 11ty. Therefore one of my goals for 2025 is to transition away from Jekyll and towards 11ty.
\nOne of the things that is overwhelming to me about 11ty is just how customizable and open it is. I frequently find myself overwhelmed by the fact that everything is possible but I am limited by my own skills and ability (which fair). Another barrier that trips me up is often 11ty feels and acts so similar to Jekyll that I get surprised and confused when 11ty doesn't work like Jekyll.
\nOver the holiday break I decided to work with Creativitas.dev&emdash;a colleague from the 11ty community&emdash; on adapting/porting a Ed. a #minicomp theme for public humanities.
\nWhat I started by doing was taking the Jekyll theme, breaking it down into its component parts and then 11ty-ifying [sic] them.
\nI roughed out the following directory structure\n11ty-eddy
\n├── LICENSE.md\n├── README.md\n├── _data\n│ ├── metadata.json\n├── _includes\n│ ├── article.njk\n│ ├── base.njk\n│ ├── home.njk\n│ ├── narrative.njk\n│ ├── partials\n│ │ ├── aside _narrative.njk\n│ │ ├── aside.njk\n│ │ ├── editor_notes.njk\n│ │ ├── head.njk\n│ │ ├── header.njk\n│ │ ├── menu.njk\n│ │ ├── menu_narrative.njk\n│ │ ├── narrative_info.njk\n│ │ ├── nav.njk\n│ │ ├── search.njk\n│ │ ├── sidebar.njk\n│ │ ├── sidebar_narrative.njk\n│ │ └── toc.njk\n│ └── textslist.njk\n├── content\n│ ├── index.md\n│ ├── pages\n│ │ ├── 404.md\n│ │ ├── about.md\n│ │ ├── credits.md\n│ │ ├── documentation.md\n│ │ ├── pages.11tydata.js\n│ │ └── search.md\n│ ├── sitemap.xml.njk\n│ ├── tag-pages.njk\n│ ├── tags.njk\n│ ├── texts\n│ │ ├── drama\n│ │ │ └── raisin.md\n│ │ ├── narrative\n│ │ │ └── narrative.md\n│ │ ├── poem\n│ │ │ ├── a-julia.md\n│ │ │ ├── delayed.md\n│ │ │ ├── dreams.md\n│ │ │ └── o-captain.md\n│ │ └── texts.11tydata.js\n│ └── texts.njk\n├── public\n│ ├── css\n│ │ ├── main.css\n│ │ └── nu.css\n│ ├── img\n│ ├── js\n│ │ └── main.js\n└── END\nThe biggest changes that I made were first splitting the texts out by type to make it easier for me to template in 11ty and to see visually in my codebase which texts are using which layout types. Next I had to wrap my head around Jekyll layouts and includes versus 11ty includes and partials. As I was porting the template, there were so many differences that in order to better focus and make problem solving simple, Creativitas recommended splitting the partials up into very small files and that helped tremendously with the issues.
Another big change was moving away from SCSS to CSS because I want to be able to use and teach this template in a public humanities course and while I love SCSS I think for students CSS might be easier? We will see.
\nThanks to Creativitas assistance and thanks to this tutorial by Thomas Broyer, I learned that when adapting Jekyll to 11ty there are differences in liquid templating and while minor they are still important. Katie Kodes outlined the 5 things you need to know about Jekyll vs. 11ty Liquid includes.
\nThe next big issue with adapting this template was markdown processors. I am most familiar with Kramdown but 11ty defaults to Markdown-it so then we had issues with footnotes and table of contents two vital features of this theme. Thankfully robb knight and Bob Monsour over on Mastodon were able to point me in the right direction. Also Bob humorously reminded me of the awesome resource that is his site 11tybundle.dev.
\nThanks to these fine folks, 11ty TOC, and markdown-it-footnote the template now has a Table of Contents and Footnotes! Both plugins were very straight forward to add. Also shout out to the community repository plug11ty.
\nthe next change that we made to the template was replacing lunr JS with pagefind. I really love pagefind it is such an excellent and lightweight search bundle but it constantly give me fits setting it up in 11ty. Someone should write a post on how to add page find easily to 11ty.
\nlanguage: to texts front matter so that browsers can be notified if sites have multilingual content.Overall it took fifteen hours for Ed to become Eddy. Porting this site would not have been possible without the wonderful folks in the 11ty community and the brave folks who not only #BuildinPublic but also blog and talk about their experience so that others can learn from them. Once again building anything is an activity that is best done in community, at least for me.
\n", "date_published": "2024-12-27T03:15:34Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-12-12-why-i-love-carrd-discount-code/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-12-12-why-i-love-carrd-discount-code/", "title": "Why Carrd.co Is the Best Platform for Simple, Responsive One-Page Sites, with Discount Code", "content_html": "If you need a quick, clean, and professional online presence without the fuss of managing a full website, Carrd.co is the perfect platform. It’s specifically designed for creating simple, fully responsive one-page websites for nearly any purpose—portfolios, resumes, small business pages, event promotions, or personal profiles. Carrd excels in its ease of use, affordability, and elegant design options. With its intuitive drag-and-drop editor, anyone can build a polished site in minutes, no coding required. Plus, every site automatically adjusts to look great on desktops, tablets, and smartphones, ensuring you make a strong impression on any device.
\nCompared to platforms like WordPress, Carrd is often the better choice for most users who only need a single, streamlined page. WordPress is a powerful tool, but its complexity can be overwhelming for simpler needs. Managing plugins, themes, and hosting can feel like overkill when all you want is a concise, beautiful webpage. Carrd eliminates that hassle entirely—no hosting worries, no unnecessary features, just everything you need to create a sleek, professional page. For only $19 a year for a Pro plan, Carrd is budget-friendly and perfect for showcasing what matters most without the distractions of a multi-page setup. When simplicity and functionality are key, Carrd is the clear winner.
\nadjb or YXJL3 – directly at checkout) I will earn you 30% of the amount paid towards their next Pro upgrade or renewal. You will also get a discount.adjb or YFSYXJL3.\n\n\nThe Doctrine of Christian Discovery is a series of fifteenth-century papal bulls that served as the theological and legal justification for the colonization of the world and the enslavement of the Original Free Nations, starting first on the African continent before spreading across the globe. In the 1800s, these bulls and other documents like The Requerimiento and colonial charters would be codified and enshrined together in U.S. law as the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, becoming the foundation of property law and international law. Also, considering what Peter d’Errico calls Federal Anti-Indian Law, we will trace and document how this framework of domination began with the Catholic crowns of Europe and transformed into the dominion theology found within Christian nationalist theologies today. Our research highlights how the Doctrine became enshrined and encoded within Protestantism and the imagined “secular” of the U.S. and Canada, countries who rhetorically espouse separation of church and state while justifying land theft, treaty violations, and the abuse of Indigenous nations and peoples through the Doctrine. We craft a genealogy of Christian domination by carefully analyzing primary sources, especially the colonial charters. We will conclude by juxtaposing the domination framework and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s principles of the Gayanashagowa (Great Law of Peace).
\n
This publication is free and open access
\n", "date_published": "2024-12-11T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-11-22-why-scholars-should-own-their-online-presence/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-11-22-why-scholars-should-own-their-online-presence/", "title": "Why Scholars Should Own Their Online Presence", "content_html": "In the digital age, having a domain name is a critical step for scholars to establish their professional identity. A personal domain name, such as "FirstNameLastName.com," signals authority and permanence. Unlike social media platforms, which can change policies or even shut down, a custom domain provides a stable foundation for an academic's online presence. It also lends credibility to their work, as a dedicated web address conveys professionalism and makes it easier for colleagues, students, and collaborators to locate relevant information about their research and publications. For scholars who aim to control how they are perceived online, owning a domain is non-negotiable (Cf. A Brief History of A Domain of One's Own).
\nCreating and maintaining a professional website is the logical next step for academics seeking to showcase their achievements. A well-designed website can serve as a digital portfolio, featuring a CV, publications, teaching resources, and links to external projects. Such a site centralizes information, making it accessible to diverse audiences. Moreover, owning and managing the website ensures that the scholar has full control over its content and design, avoiding dependency on external platforms that might introduce ads or unrelated distractions. For scholars in fields like history or religious studies, where nuanced presentations of complex ideas matter, a self-owned website allows for a thoughtful and intentional representation of their work.
\nCarrd, a platform known for its simplicity and elegance, is an excellent tool for building a professional website quickly. Its intuitive interface requires no prior coding knowledge, making it accessible to even the busiest of academics. Carrd offers customizable templates that strike a balance between aesthetics and functionality, enabling scholars to create visually appealing and well-organized websites. With affordable pricing and responsive designs, Carrd allows users to focus on curating content rather than grappling with technical challenges. For scholars who value efficiency and design, Carrd provides a straightforward path to establishing an impressive online presence.
\nFor scholars seeking a more robust, multipage website that remains easy to maintain, tools like 11ty and Astro provide exceptional solutions. Unlike simpler platforms such as Carrd or feature-heavy systems like WordPress, 11ty and Astro strike a balance between customization, performance, and simplicity. These static site generators allow academics to build websites that are not only fast and secure but also flexible enough to accommodate complex needs, such as hosting blogs, research archives, multimedia, and teaching materials. Scholars can use these platforms to create a polished and highly functional website without relying on heavy, plugin-dependent systems that can slow performance or introduce vulnerabilities.
\nBoth 11ty and Astro cater to users with some basic familiarity with web development while offering extensive documentation to guide new adopters. 11ty is renowned for its lightweight design, enabling scholars to create static websites that load quickly and perform well on search engines. Astro, on the other hand, is optimized for creating hybrid sites, where dynamic elements coexist seamlessly with static content. These tools emphasize modular design and are compatible with modern web standards, ensuring long-term sustainability. For scholars who value autonomy and efficiency, 11ty and Astro provide a professional-grade foundation for crafting feature-rich, aesthetically pleasing websites that grow with their academic careers.
\n", "date_published": "2024-11-22T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-09-07-digital-humanities-limits/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-09-07-digital-humanities-limits/", "title": "Digital Humanities as Preserving Inherently Ephemeral Information", "content_html": "The Download is where we bring you up to speed on all things digital when it comes to working in our field. In this issue, we are pleased to have a piece from Adam DJ Brett. Many of us have been working long enough to know that technologies change and fade away. Brett gives us a framework for thinking about how to make sure our content is built to last.
\nBrett, Adam DJ. 2024. "Digital Humanities As Preserving Inherently Ephemeral Information". Bulletin for the Study of Religion 53 (1): 24-28. https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.28913.
\n\n", "date_published": "2024-09-07T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-07-29-teaching-religious-studies/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-07-29-teaching-religious-studies/", "title": "On Teaching Religious Studies", "content_html": "Episode 240: Teaching Religious Studies
\n", "date_published": "2024-07-29T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-07-16-ten-commandments-truthiness/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-07-16-ten-commandments-truthiness/", "title": "Louisiana’s Ten Commandment Truthiness", "content_html": "\n\nHB71 continues Christian nationalists’ terraforming of the United States, conflating “American” with “Christian” to refashion the country in their image. To make this equivocation successful, they must profess fealty to their trinity of sacred texts: the Bible, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
\nAt its core, the bill directly attacks the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which ensures the constitutional right to religious freedom. But for and from whom does religious freedom exist?
\n
Read More: Louisiana’s Ten Commandment Truthiness - Good Faith Media.
\n", "date_published": "2024-07-16T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-06-26-pll-lacrosse-buddy/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-06-26-pll-lacrosse-buddy/", "title": "Will you be my Premier Lacrosse League buddy?", "content_html": "Growing up I played sports but I did not really love sports. However that all changed when I moved to study at Syracuse University and I feell in love with Deyhontsigwa'ehs (lacrosse). In many ways lacrosse chose me. What I love about lacrosse is its deep roots in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, its role as a Medicine Game, a way to bring healing and how it is used diplomatically. The athletes playing for the Haudenosuanee Nationals travel on the Haudenosaunee passport. I love that lacrosse provides a reminder and chance to affirm Haudenosaunee Confederacy sovereignty and tell the story of the Great Law of Peace. The past, present, and future of lacrosee are inspiring to me. My first lacrosse stick is a wooden lacrosse stick made by the late great Onondaga Nation stickmaker Alfie Jacques. My favorite types of lacrosse to watching collegiate lacrosse, box lacrosse, field lacrosse, and Olympic sixes. Of course the Syracuse University :orange: are my favorite team. Professionally I love the National Lacrosse League (NLL) which is box lacrosse and the Premier Lacrosse League which is field.
\nWhile I love lacrosse deeply I am bit of an odd duck because I have never played lacrosse. I am learning but as a geek my hand eye skills are not great.
\nAnyway here is my post asking if there are any other fellow lacrosse fans out there who might be interested in playing fantasy lacrosse with me? No money involved and it will be deeply casual. I am super bad at fantasy sports and just enjoy the camaraderie.
\nIf you are interested please join the PLL Nation using my referral code below!.
\n\nPLL Merch Discount refferal link
\n", "date_published": "2024-06-26T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-06-25-annoucing-alf-jacques-award/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-06-25-annoucing-alf-jacques-award/", "title": "Annoucing the Alf Jacques Ambassador Award", "content_html": "![\"Alf](\"/assets/img/alf-jacques-social-image.webp\")
Alf Jacques was known as a stick maker, but he was also a lacrosse ambassador. He took time to teach the values of the Medicine Game and let the world know that lacrosse is a game of community, friendship and peace. Please consider a small donation towards the creation of the next major lacrosse award. The Alf Jacques Ambassador Award will be given to a member of the International lacrosse community who has spent a lifetime not simply growing the game, but growing the game in a way that fosters friendship and peace. This is a brand new award, please spread the word. New website and donation link below.
\n\n~ annoucement text by Robert Carpenter
\n", "date_published": "2024-06-25T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-06-17-why-i-switched-from-namedotcom-namecheap/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-06-17-why-i-switched-from-namedotcom-namecheap/", "title": "Why I switched from Name.com to Namecheap", "content_html": "I have used numerous domain name registrars including some of the most popular ones 1&1, Gandi.net, Google Domains (🪦), hover, name.com, and namecheap.com. My all-time favorite was name.com. I started using name.com in June of 2010 when I setup adamdjbrett.com and stephanieywatt.net. Back in 2011 name.com was still a young Denver based startup with incredible customer service, engaging social media, and most importantly was 1) affordable 2) high quality and 3) easy to use. I appreciated their stance against as being anti-SOPA, pro-net neutrality, and how the ceased DNS wildcarding. Now name.com is part of Identity Digital. The biggest change I have seen from 2011 to today has been the rise in prices, and fewer customer first initiatives, the fun is gone. I miss the bearglecorn mascot.
\nI am leaving name.com behind because of the rising renewal costs. I had several domains up for renewal at $125.89 which was quite steep. Part of that cost was I was being charged $4.99 per domain for whoisprivacy. I began to shop around and see what some other options and I were decided to go with namecheap because domain privacy was included, and the renewal fee is $76.52.
\nNamecheap is a private company and they support the Electronic Freedom Foundation and the Fight For The Future.
\nWhat I like about namecheap thus far has been the price and the privacy. The features I lost from name.com have not yet to me justified the price difference. While Namecheap's interface is not as user friendly for me as name.com, it is still easy to navigate and moving the domains over was a rather painless process.
\n| Service Element | \nName.com | \nNamecheap | \n
|---|---|---|
| WHOIS Privacy | \n$4.99 | \nFree | \n
| DNS | \nFree | \nFree & Premium | \n
| DNSSEC | \nNO | \nPremium | \n
| SSL | \nPaid Add-On | \nPaid Add-on | \n
| Titan Email | \nPrivate Email | \n|
| Email Forwarding | \nYes | \nYes | \n
| User Interface | \n⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | \n⭐️⭐️⭐️ | \n
| Customer Support | \n⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | \n⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | \n
Name.com had wonderfully fast DNS and offered ALIAS records for an included price. Namecheap charges extra for premium DNS which has features I don't need for each domain name. Now I use Cloudflare for DNS, so I don't have to use namecheap DNS. Additionally, instead of using namecheap or name.com email redirects as I found both so limited I use IMPROVMX, a service which I highly recommend.
\nI think I am going to transfer most of my domain names away from name.com towards namecheap. I much prefer domain + Google Workspace integrated billing of name.com so I am going to keep at least one domain and project on name.com. Plus I can hope that name.com may lower their domain prices and start offering included privacy protection.
\nFor those who might be interested here are my present tech stacks.
\n| Elements | \n#NoCode or Low Code | \nStatic Site Generators (SSG/Jamstack) | \nWordPress | \n
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain Name | \nNamecheap or Name.com | \nNamecheap or Name.com | \nNamecheap or Name.com | \n
| DNS | \nNamecheap or Name.com | \nCloudflare | \nCloudflare | \n
| Email Forwarding | \nImprovMX | \nImprovMX | \nImprovMX | \n
| Site Builder | \nCarrd.co | \nEleventy or Jekyll | \nWordPress | \n
| Hosting | \nCarrd.co | \nCloudlfare Pages | \nDigital Ocean | \n
| \n | \n | Github Pages | \nVultr | \n
| \n | \n | Netlify | \nLinode | \n
| Advanced Additions | \n\n | \n | \n |
| Hosted Email | \nGoogle Workspace | \nGoogle Workspace | \nGoogle Workspace | \n
| \n | \n | \n | \n |
Using these links I may earn a comission.
\n\nIf you have any domain name reigstrar recomemndations for me or other elements I should consider about name.com and namecheap please drop me a line.
\n", "date_published": "2024-06-17T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-06-12-using-github-actions-convert-file-formats/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-06-12-using-github-actions-convert-file-formats/", "title": "Using Github Actions to Convert File Formats", "content_html": "This post is all about learning and coding in public. We learn from each others mistakes and we get better by building together.
\nOne of my favorite longterm projects has been RELCFP. It is a simple site that aggregate religious studies call for papers. The site works by pulling in a custom RSS Feed and CFPs that have been submitted via the site. I like to blend the data together so that people can quickly and easily get to the main location of these call for papers. Recently the script I have been using broke. XMLHttpREquest is no longer recommended as a way to display and style XML. Here is the broken script 🪦.
<script type=\"text/javascript\">\n function loadXMLDoc(dname) {\n xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();\n xhttp.open(\"GET\",dname,false);\n xhttp.send(\"\");\n return xhttp.responseXML;\n }\n \n var processor = new XSLTProcessor();\n var theXML = loadXMLDoc('feed.xml');\n var theXSL = loadXMLDoc('feed.xsl');\n \n // prepare the processor\n processor.importStylesheet(theXSL);\n \n var theResult = processor.transformToDocument(theXML);\n // now you have a DomDocument with the result\n // if you want to serialize (transform to a string) it you van use\n \n document.write(new XMLSerializer().serializeToString(theResult)); \n </script>\nI am working on several ways to replace this script. First I replaced my old FreshRSS server with a wonderful Eleventy starter theme called Multiplicity-M10ty by @lwojcik. Now instead of a bland RSS feed and yet another server bill I have a nicely stylized feed with clear attributions. Plus this new site is much easier to upate.
\nNow for part 2 fixing the homepage of relcfp.com. I want and need an automated and easy way to style the data. I am able to easily import the RSS. Now I just need to style it. Styling the XML is proving rather difficult. One of the solutions I am exploring is convering the XML into JSON and styling JSON something which is a much clearer and more well documented process. Using CI/CD I want to create a Github Action that will automatically convert XML to JSON and then commit the new JSON file to the repository.
\nI found a really cool github action "Data Format Converter Action" by @fabasoad. Through lots of trial and error and kind assistance by fabasoad. I wwas able to get the Github Action almost working on my repository. Presently my issue is that the script runs but it does not output and add a new results.json to the repository.
\nHere is what I have learned for how to setup this Github Action.
\nThe current instructions are rather threadbare but thanks to the assistance of @fabasoad I was able to get them working.
\n\n\nOption 1: Personal access token (PAT) #
\n\n
\n- Create PAT\nwith
\nrepopermission.- Create repository secret\n(e.g.
\nMY_GITHUB_TOKEN) with the PAT value.- Use the following configuration:
\n\nYAML\n- uses: fabasoad/data-format-converter-action@v0\nwith:\ninput: \"person.xml\"\nfrom: \"xml\"\nto: \"yaml\"\ntoken: $
In this section please make sure that you create your ``MY_GITHUB_TOKENvia thePersonal access tokens (classic)``` method. I tried the newer approach but I could not get it to work. if you can please let me know.
\n\nOption 2: GitHub App token #
\n\n
\n- Register a GitHub App\nwith
\ncontents: readpermission.- Create private key and save it somewhere on your local disk.
\n- Install GitHub App\nto your repository.
\n- Create repository secret\n(e.g.
\nAPP_PRIVATE_KEY) with the private key created on step 2.- Create repository variable (e.g.
\nAPP_ID) with the GitHub App ID.- Use the following configuration:
\n\n- uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1\nid: generate-app-token\nwith:\napp-id: $\nprivate-key: $\n- uses: fabasoad/data-format-converter-action@v0\nwith:\ninput: \"person.xml\"\nfrom: \"xml\"\nto: \"yaml\"\ntoken: $NaN
This section really tripped me up. Creating the app and installing the app take time but the setup eventually was fairly direct. Here is a screenshot of the settings I used.\n![\"Screenshot](\"/assets/img/screencapture-github-settings-apps-adjb-dfca-2024-06-11-20_03_59_tn.webp\")
For permissions they need to be for content and metadata.\nWhen installing the APP I chose to limit to just the repositories I am using it on for this project for added security.
\nWhen Creating your APP you will be asked to create a ``private keyand this key will download to your computer. You are going to copy and paste that whole key into theAPP_PRIVATE_KEY``` that you create on your repository. Likewise you will want to use the APP_ID and not the Client_ID as your vairable.
I had a lot of issues trying to figure out the keys. If you are having trouble, I do recomend walks to give your brain a break and to reset. I did not take enough breaks and that actually, ironically slowed me down and made this whole process take way longer.
\n# This is a basic workflow to help you get started with Actions\n\nname: XML2JSON #Change the Name\n\n# Controls when the workflow will run\non:\n # Triggers the workflow on push or pull request events but only for the \"main\" branch\n push:\n branches: [ \"main\" ]\n pull_request:\n branches: [ \"main\" ]\n\n # Allows you to run this workflow manually from the Actions tab\n workflow_dispatch:\n\n# A workflow run is made up of one or more jobs that can run sequentially or in parallel\njobs:\n\n # This workflow contains a single job called \"build\"\n build:\n # The type of runner that the job will run on\n runs-on: ubuntu-latest\n\n # Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job\n steps:\n - uses: actions/checkout@v4\n\n # Runs a set of commands using the runners shell\n # name: Use Github App\n - uses: actions/create-github-app-token@v1\n id: generate-app-token\n with:\n app-id: $\n private-key: $\n # name: Data Format Converter Action\n - uses: fabasoad/data-format-converter-action@main\n id: xml2json\n with:\n input: \"person.xml\"\n from: \"xml\"\n to: \"json\"\n token: $NaN\n - name: Print result\n run: echo '$' > result.json\n - name: Print result\n run: echo '$' > result.json\n - run: cat result.json\n - name: Configure Git\n run: |\n git config --global user.name 'adamdjbrett'\n git config --global user.email '22662978+adamdjbrett@users.noreply.github.com'\n - name: Commit and push changes\n run: |\n git add result.json\n git commit -m \"Save output to file\"\n git push\n env:\n GITHUB_TOKEN: $\nPresently I am stuck on what do I do next, how do I output the demo data to a json file and commit that file to my repository? After I commit the file to my repository, then I can move over to trying to do this with a full RSS XML feed and see how well that works.
\nIn order to get the "Configure Git" step to work I followed this article: "How to solve "Permission to x denied to github-actions[bot]"".
\nFollowing that article I was able to get my file to save and commit to the repository.
\nWhat wound up working was two things first sanitzing the json thanks to @spenserblack
\nname: Print result\nrun: echo \"$RESULT\" > feed.json\nenv:\n RESULT: $Second switching to python thanks to @imajeetyadav
\n - name: Set up Python\n uses: actions/setup-python@v5\n with:\n python-version: '3.11'\n - name: Install dependencies\n run: |\n python -m pip install --upgrade pip\n pip install xmltodict\n - name: Data Format Converter Action\n shell: python\n id: xml2json\n run: |\n import xmltodict\n import json\n def validate_json(json_string):\n try:\n json.loads(json_string)\n return True\n except ValueError as e:\n print(f\"Invalid JSON: {e}\")\n return False\n with open('feed.xml', 'r') as xml_file:\n xml_data = xml_file.read()\n xml_dict = xmltodict.parse(xml_data)\n json_data = json.dumps(xml_dict, indent=4)\n with open('feed.json', 'w') as json_file:\n json_file.write(json_data) The current full file may be viewed in the repo
\nThank you to all of them for being willing to learn, create, and help in public.
\nNow to apply this to my main repo. relcfp.com
\nEverything is working great now. Please go check out the site relcfp.com
\n", "date_published": "2024-06-12T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-05-19-rs-rss/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-05-19-rs-rss/", "title": "New Religious Studies Aggregators", "content_html": "I love the open web. I believe that knoweldge and information should be as free and open source as possible. In college when I really started becoming a geek, I fell in love with open sources software (Linux I love you), websites without paywalls, and nominal walled gardens. As time has passed the web has become more and more less open. RSS readers like Google Reader have been killed off. Now social media platforms lock us viewers into to their ecosystems, only feeding news to us algorithmically not syncronously. These platforms frequently have PR crisies, close down, get bought out, or the data goes missing. This is once again a plea for everyone to have a domain of ones own. You should own your information and be the one keeping that information online, transpporting your data from one style of website to another seamlessly.
\nAnother problem is that Google Search Results have gotten worse and it has been increasingly difficult to like, find and subscribe to the information I want. As newsletters have become more popular again they are also super annoying b/c I hate email. Plus reading your brilliant words in my email drives me to distraction when yet more email arrives. I have decided to fix this problem (at least for myslef and I wanted).
\nI want a simple quiet, easy to use feed reader that looks great on all devices even grayscale e-ink screens. I also do not want yet another app which is yet another walled garden. The open web is so much easier.
\nDuring the 11ty Conf, I learned about @lwojcik's awesome 11ty template m10y. It is perfect. It is exactly what I want an open web RSS reader.
\nI have created a couple versions for myself and maybe even you.
\nThank you to Good Faith Media for publishing my first op-ed.
\nCivilization and personhood are the intellectual bulwarks for the justification of colonization. The colonizer assumes they are made in the image of their God while spreading the message of conquest, civilization and Christianity.\n\n\n", "date_published": "2024-04-02T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-03-26-23rd-unpfii-events/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2024-03-26-23rd-unpfii-events/", "title": "The 23rd UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII)", "content_html": "The Doctrine of Discovery, a set of 15th-century papal bulls, provides the theological and legal framework for Christian domination. It communicates that “explorers” who “discover” lands not occupied by Christians can view them as “terra nullis”–a territory without a master–and claim them for their sovereign.
![\"GIWC](\"/assets/img/20240GIWC-EN.webp\")
\n![\"GIPC](\"/assets/img/20240GIPC-EN.webp\")
\n![\"Craft](\"/assets/img/2024-Craft-EN.webp\")
\n![\"OAS](\"/assets/img/OAS-Event.webp\")
It was an honor to colloboare with Mickey Holton and the Volunteer V8 Ford Club on their website. Using their comments and feedback I built them an image driven, easy to use and maintain WordPress website. Our hardwork was honored by the national V8 car club organization which gave our website a second place ribbon for our sites layout, event information, and photo galleries. I am honored to have designed and built an award winning site.
\n![\"Volunteer](\"/assets/img/screencapture-web-archive-org-web-20240119214301-https-volunteerv8-com-2024-02-26-09_34_46.webp\")
![\"Doctrine](\"/assets/img/doctrine-podcast-artwork.png\")
The conference The Religious Origins of White Supremacy: Johnson v. M'Intosh and the Doctrine of Christian Discovery represented a unique opportunity. Indigenous leaders, scholars, and activists from 20 countries gathered together with non-Indigenous peoples for a collaborative dialogue around three themes 1) the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, 2) the legacy of Johnson v M'Intosh; and 3) the religious origins of white supremacy. The conference intentionally incorporated the arts with two powerful indigenous performances In the Court of the Conqueror and Tēnei Te Põ Nau Mai Te Ao: Ancient Māori Puppetry Healing Traumatic Histories. Additionally art and poetry were present in many sessions.
\nConference organizers Prof. Philip P. Arnold, Sandy Bigtree (Mohawk Nation), and Adam DJ Brett, established the conference methodology as following the Two Row Wampum treaty. This 1613 treaty between the Haudenosaunee and the Dutch is represented in a wampum belt where each nation is a row of purple beads traveling side by side down the river of live. Each one not interfering with one another but moving forward in symmetrical and mutual directions living in harmony with the natural world.
\nAcknowledging the singular and unique nature of this gathering Syracuse University and Indigenous Values Initiative partnered with Good Faith Media to produce a podcast which would highlight the conference themes and be the opening presentation of conference outcomes. This podcast hosted are Mitch Randall (Mvskoke Creek) and his son Tanner Randall (Mvskoke Creek). We were excited to have Tanner a recent graduate from Dartmouth's Native Studies program as the host because we envision this podcast as a teaching resource for undergraduate courses. Our hope is that having a recent undergraduate as the host will help make the podcast more engaging and useful to an undergraduate and other audiences new to the conversation. We are so excited to hear how people are able to use this podcast in their teaching and organizing.
\nFinally this podcast represents the first of many educational resources that will be coming out of this conference which will hopefully be useful not only for challenging the legacy of Johnson v. M'Intosh but also dismantling the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, and further challenging white supremacy through understanding its longer history.
\n![\"Mapping](\"/assets/img/mapping-doctrine-of-discovery-favicon.webp\")
The Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery Podcast is designed to educate and inform people bout the lasting harmful effects of white Christian hegemony not only upon Indigenous peoples but all peoples. The podcast tells the story of how the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and domination is interwoven into settler-colonial society. As Shawnee/Lenape scholar Steven T. Newcomb highlights in his book Pagans in the Promised Land, the Doctrine of Discovery is the theological and legal justification of domination. This attempt to justify domination focuses on three things enslavement, exploitation, and extraction. With something as deeply rooted and embedded in our society as the Doctrine of Discovery it is difficult to know where to begin so this podcast begins, in the middle. We begin tracing the roots of this system of domination by starting with what does it mean to resist white Christian hegemony.
\nLikewise, this podcast is rooted in another story, the story of the Great Law of Peace and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy's labors to create, preserve, and maintain another system of relationship not only with each other but also the natural world. Through this podcast week seek to juxtapose the Doctrine of Christian Discovery over and against other modes of being. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously wrote that "words create worlds." This podcast seeks to interrogate not only the rhetorics of domination but also the rhetorics of liberation. We look to the past to learn the lessons of the prior generations in order to create a better world for the generations yet to come.
\nPlease take a moment and listen to our podcast, peruse our show notes, resources, and transcripts.
\nThe Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery podcast is one part of the larger Doctrine of Discovery Project presented by the Indigenous Values Initiative.
\n\n\n\n“Peace can only be attained when human beings live in proper relationship to the natural world” ~Tadodaho of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Sid Hill
\n
\n\n“The pandemic gives us all an opportunity to be at home and reflect on what we have done and where we are going. It is an opportunity for Mother Earth to breath, rest and recover.” ~Jake Haiwhagai'i Edwards, Onondaga Nation citizen
\n
![\""Photo](\"/assets/img/Broken-Treaties-Brandon-Lazore-Web-credit.webp\")
The “Doctrine of Discovery,” better described as the “Doctrine of Christian Discovery and World Domination,” established the worldview that not only brought devastation to the natural world, but also impaired the ability for human beings to live in proper relationship with the Earth. 15th century Papal Bulls, issued by the Vatican, justified the assault upon Indigenous Peoples as an artificial justification to take possession of their bodies, lands and resources in order to finance their New World Order. This worldview advanced the Age of Discovery as an extension of the Crusades, and was the conceptual framework behind the Protestant Reformation, the establishment of Nation States around the world, and later secularized to define colonialism, white supremacy and global capitalism.
\nEssentially, what defines Indigenous Peoples is their relationship with a living landscape that includes the soil, water, air, and all other non-human being co-inhabitants. This orientation to land is distinctly opposed to the European concept of owning land and the process of colonization. Indigenous scholars have discussed these two opposing orientations as being one of habitation and the other, of occupation. Although the violent seizure of Indigenous lands was initiated with “discovery,” corporations today, continue exploiting Indigenous Peoples and their land all over the world. The Doctrine of Discovery is the root of the problem, and the reason that it is discussed at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
\nThis current pandemic and the escalating climate chaos clarify to everyone that there are consequences to the devastation humans have perpetrated upon the environment. As Oren Lyons has pointed out, Natural Law will reestablish balance, and these climate changes will not destroy the Earth, but will most likely destroy the human beings who abuse her. The earth will rebound in its own time. If we are to survive as a species, we must reorient to an Indigenous worldview acknowledging that we are first and foremost, co-inhabitants with this Earth—not in charge of it. These Indigenous values, along with the acceptance of traditional ecological knowledge, will transform future technological innovations possibly resulting in a viable future for our species. Religious concepts of imperial thinking urgently need to be re-imagined; messages from Indigenous Peoples need to be heeded; and environmental justice needs to be restored. Racist ideologies of conquest and domination are directly connected with domination of the Earth and other non-human beings.
\nThis conference will connect the dots between our current pandemic, environmental devastation, the Doctrine of Discovery, and a way forward. Too often these are thought of as unrelated concepts, rather than being the core impediment in working towards social justice in an ecologically balanced Earth. Our speakers have been working in these areas for many decades. Participants will hear the wisdom from the traditions of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), as well as other Indigenous Peoples. Through virtual discussion groups, you will be able to interact on how best to implement these values of respect, thanksgiving, and peace into your lives. Please join us in August 2020 for conversations about the Doctrine of Discovery, so we can begin the process of decolonization back to understanding our proper relationship to the natural world and peace.
\nLet’s learn to build a website using name.com and carrd.co in order to create excellent #nocode one page portfolios and more. There are lots of wonderful website builders out there but none faster, easier, and more fun than carrd.co. If you don't believe me I will show you.
\nexample.comyour-name.wordpress.com, your-name.wix.com, etcnow that I have hopefully convinced you that you need a domain name lets talk about what type of site do you need:
\n- Classics\n- .com, .net, .org\n- Country Codes\n- .af, .co, .fm, .in, .us, .tv\n- New gTLDs\n- .cool, .coffee, .expert, .style
\nAgain one page website
\nDRY\nWe talked about
\nThank you to Garmondyu for being such a wonderful host and having me on the Gladden Podcast which hopefully one day soon will have its own domain name and landing page possibly even with Carrd.co
\n", "date_published": "2020-04-18T00:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2020-03-17-referral-links/", "url": "https://www.adamdjbrett.com/blog/2020-03-17-referral-links/", "title": "Referral Links and Discount Codes", "content_html": "When consulting on projects and/or working as a developer on a project I use a wide variety of tools in my tech stacks. These resources are all things I have found incredibly helpful for myself and/or clients. If you use any of these links I will earn a discount off of them and so will you.
\nNamecheap stands out as an excellent choice for purchasing domains and hosting websites due to its affordability, extensive features, and commitment to customer satisfaction. Offering over 400 top-level domains (TLDs) at competitive prices, it caters to a wide range of needs, from personal blogs to professional businesses. Customers benefit from free domain privacy protection, free BasicDNS, DNSSEC security, and a free website builder for easy and stylish layouts. Its hosting packages, including shared, VPS, and dedicated servers, guarantee 100% uptime, making it reliable for all website types. Namecheap also emphasizes security and privacy, providing free SSL certificates, robust firewalls, and round-the-clock support from a knowledgeable and friendly team. Whether you're a beginner or an advanced user, Namecheap offers the tools and services needed to build a strong online presence without breaking your budget.
\nIf you need a domain, Name.com is pretty amazing. Become a new customer and we both get $5!. Every domain name I own is registered with name.com. I especially appreciate the ability to do ANAME or ALIAS records for DNS. This is incredibly helpful for "serverless" hosting like github, netlify, zeit.co, surge, etc. Name.com's customer support is super fast and responsive. Whenever I have had questions or concerns they have been right there ready to help. Register or transfer your domains with them today. The code is\nda845
adjb or YXJL3 – directly at checkout) I will earn you 30% of the amount paid towards their next Pro upgrade or renewal. You will also get a discount.adjb or YFSYXJL3.Carrd.co is the best #nocode utility out there. It is great for academics, professionals, and anyone who needs a domain of one's own. A domain of one's own is exactly like a room of one's own but only its digital. Carrd.co provides a simple and easy to use graphical user interface for creating amazing one-page sites for everything. Carrd.co has plenty of templates to get you started or you can DIY. Personally I use carrd.co pro standard all the time because it lets you bring and use your own domain name. The only downside of carrd.co pro lite is you cant use your own domain name you do get a free subdomain name. Your options are: "carrd.co", "crd.co", or "uwu.ai". UWU is an emoticon depicting cuteness overload. Carrd.co replaces: about.me, flavors.me, linkin.bio, linktr.ee, or whatever leadpage software you are running. Nine times out of ten Carrd also replaces WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace. Most of the time all a person needs is a snazzy one page website. Still not convinced to try Carrd.co? Here are some samples from my consulting clients:
\nMIDGEEKCRISIS.Sometimes fast isn't fast enough. When you need to speed up your website try BunnyCDN. BunnyCDN is fast, reliable, and quite powerful. It is also the most cost effective CDN I have found thus far at mere pennies on the GB served up to your website visitors. If you have a resource intensive website or if your website is just extremely popular check out BunnyCDN.
\nThe National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion is a community of teaching scholars. Most members teach at Baptist-affiliated schools, colleges, and seminaries, but members also hail from a wide range of institutions in the United States, Canada, and abroad, including church-related and state-supported schools.
\nI serve as the Assistant Executive Secretary. My two primary roles are social media coordinator and web administrator.
\nRecently I was hired to be the social media manager for NABPR and in this capacity I manage the website, two facebook groups, facebook page, twitter, and other social media platforms. Presently we use social media to reach out to members, live tweet conference keynotes and more. Until recently the website was hosted as a google site, until I moved it over to wordpress to better facilitate updating and maintaining the site while giving it a more modern look. Plus Wordpress allows for easier integration of online payments via paypal and better conforms to google and other search engines best practices.
\nThe event was cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns
\nWhile we celebrate the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in the United States, to celebrate the fact that women of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy have exercised political voice in this land for 1,000 years. These Indigenous women were the model for early suffragists like Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. In the mid-1800s, women of the United States were considered “dead in the law” after they married, which meant they had no rights and were under the control of their husbands. They looked at their Indigenous sisters, with whom they had formed friendships, and saw another society, one in which women and men were equals. Women were able to choose their political representatives, while having responsibility for the economy, land, and spiritual ceremonies. This model became the impetus for American women to demand equality under the law and the right to vote.
\n![Haudenosaunee Women's Influence Poster](/assets/img/posters/2020-Haudenosaunee-women-influence-web.webp "The central image features Onondaga Nation women (left to right) "Clanmother Audrey Shenandoah, daughters Rochelle Brown and Jessica Jeanne Shenandoah with cameos of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (left), Matilda Joslyn Gage (center) and Lucretia Mott (right). Image SCW ©2018, Onondaga Nation photograph: Toba Tucker ©1991")
\nTo learn more about this amazing confluence of cultures and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of woman suffrage in 2020, join us as we honor our Haudenosaunee Sisters for their inspiration and guidance.
\nAfter the panel, we will present the first Annual Matilda Effect Project Award to the family of Audrey Shenandoah held the title of Deer Clanmother of the Onondaga Nation. Audrey has represented the Haudenosaunee Confederacy internationally as a writer, teacher, and adviser of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to the United Nations.
\nThe term “Matilda Effect” was created by scientist Margaret Rossiter to refer to women like Gage who are not recognized for their achievements and inventions. The Matilda Effect Project will design a database that will memorialize their important contributions in an effort to repopulate our history with intersectional women who, like Gage, have worked for social justice and peace by creating a database that will memorialize their important efforts.
\nThe event is a fundraiser for the American Indian Law Alliance and the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation and is co-sponsored by the American Indian Community House and the Ethical NYC. For TICKETS visit: http://matildaeffect.events/.
\nA Religion Department Graduate Conference with a keynote by Dr. Kathryn Lofton.
\nThe Religion Graduate Organization and the Department of Religion at Syracuse University announce the 2018 Graduate Student Conference Flourish and Decay: Exploring Religion in Process on Friday, April 13th, 2018.\n![\"Flourish](\"/assets/img/misc/2019-flourish-and-decay-header-main-min.webp\")
Flour·ish: [‘flǝriSH] (n., v.) growth and development in a good environment; a gesture or to gesture in such a way that attracts attention.
\nDe·cay: [dǝ͘‘kā] ‘(n., v.) to rot organically or the process of decomposition; to deteriorate; to fall into a state of disrepair. Rotten matter. A gradual decline of quality.
\nThis conference proposes the terms “flourish” and “decay” as entry points through which to further understand how religion emerges and envelops within past, present, and future worlds.
\nBoth flourish and decay can operate as either overarching metaphors of change, transformation, and fluctuation or as literal descriptions of cycles of growth, consumption, and loss. We embrace the capaciousness of these terms and encourage graduate students to think innovatively through them as an opportunity to explore religion in process. We welcome diversity in topics, theoretical approaches, and methodologies from all academic fields and disciplines across a broad range of histories, geographies, and religious traditions.
\nPapers and panels might engage the following (but not limited to) themes of:
\nPlease submit a short abstract (350 words for papers; 500 words for panels) and a CV in PDF format to: SUReligionConference@gmail.com by January 20, 2018.
\nreligionconference.syr.edu
Syracuse University syallbi design resources for teaching assistants.
\nSmall Group #2\nAugust 16, 2017
\nPlease check with CLASS and your department to ensure that you are including the required syallbi elements.
\nUpdated Academic Integrity Policy
\nReligious Observance Policy
\n\n\n\n\nReligious Observances Notification and Policy
\n
\n\n\n\nSU religious observances notification and policy, found at https://hendricks.syr.edu/spiritual-life/index.html, recognizes the diversity of faiths represented among the campus community and protects the rights of students, faculty, and staff to observe religious holidays according to their tradition. Under the policy, students are provided an opportunity to make up any examination, study, or work requirements that may be missed due to a religious observance provided they notify their instructors before the end of the second week of classes for regular session classes and by the submission deadline for flexibly formatted classes.
\n
\n\n\n\nFor fall and spring semesters, an online notification process is available for students in My Slice / StudentServices / Enrollment / MyReligiousObservances / Add a Notification. Instructors may access a list of their students who have submitted a notification in My Slice Faculty Center. [Enter course specific language as appropriate, about how and when academic requirements will be made up.]
\n
This page is designed to point Syracuse University Teaching Assitants towards some of the relveant rescources to consider when doing course design. This list is by no means exhaustive and should not in any way be considered definitive.
\nThese are selected Syracuse University policy documents which might be useful in helping to facilitate leading TA orientation small groups.
\nThis list is not exhaustive and was for an exercise in 2017.\nPlease discuss SU policy with your department and Syracuse University Governance, Ethics, Integrity, and Legal Compliance.
\nSyracuse University Governance, Ethics, Integrity, and Legal Compliance
\nThis page shows a sample of some of the Syracuse University Policy Statements, for those looking for a place to begin examining university policies and proceedures. This list is not exhaustive.Please review and study the full list of SU Policy Statements. If you have questions or concerns please contact supolicy@syr.edu http://supolicies.syr.edu/
\nA presentation on integrating technology into the classroom.
\nby Adam DJ Brett & Caleb McWhorter\nAugust 16, 2017
\nGoogle Apps Presentation slides
\nI have been part of WOCATI since 2008, when Prof. Dr. Namsoon Kang asked me to serve as the Web Administrator for the organization.\nIn this capacity I have been part of several major projects for WOCATI.
\n![\"WOCAT](\"/assets/img/misc/wocati-cover.webp\" "\\"WOCATI")
WOCATI started out as raw HTML and iFrames before moving onto typo3 hosted by the World Council of Churches before moving onto WordPress with a custom theme. Presently WOCATI's website is running on the static site generator Jekyll and is hosted on Github. Transitioning to Jekyll + Github allows for WOCATI's website to be fast and responsive for its global audience.
\nStephanie M. Wyatt earned her PhD in Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) from Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University.
\nHer dissertation is Widows in the Memories of Biblical Israel. She is an ordained Baptist ministry who loves biblical interpretation, Christian education, pastoral care and ministry, social justice, and living sustainably.
\nI helped Stephanie develop a website that highlights her work as a teacher-scholar, minister, and community builder.
\nMy work at Warner Southern College.
\nWarner University is a evangelical Christian College located in Lake Wales, Florida. I attended Warner from 2002-2006. During this time I double majored in History and Biblical Studies while also working several on campus jobs, until I eventually became the Web Administrator for the college.\nAs the web admin I my responsibilities were to oversee and maintain the website and to assist in transitioning the website from multiple servers some IIS running ASP and ASP.net and others a php based LAMP server.
\n![\"Warner](\"/assets/img/websites/wsc-original.webp\")
\n\t