This is all reminding me of a conversation I had recently with an old friend who works in tech and extremely gung-ho about AI. When I told him about my process for writing a long New Yorker piece, he was absolutely sure that AI could make it more "efficient." / www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

What if we just went back to reading a bunch of books and thinking about them together, and that was the class? With syllabi no longer than three pages.

finally

No one needs April Fool’s Day in a world of fake news.

My university: "Copilot is Microsoft's AI-powered productivity service that uses large language models (LLMs) to help you create content, analyze information, summarize documents, and complete tasks more efficiently." Microsoft: LOL

Fellowships! The National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam has published a call for proposals to conduct research into its maritime historical collection. More information, including the English translation of the call texts, can be found here www.hetscheepvaartmuseum.nl/collectie/on... #skystorians

My graphic novel Mrs. Orwell, illustrated by the great @elrevel.bsky.social, is finally out in the world. The story has been a decade in the making, one of many projects, like Gaslit Nation, that came out of the making of Mr. Jones. Grateful to share it with you all us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

On May 10, @marwinvos.bsky.social & I will lead a creative/collective translation workshop on the poetry of Kim Hyesoon. All languages welcome. The workshop is free. Send a short motivation statement (<100 words) to [email protected] by April 14 on how this workshop resonates with your practice. 💗

Here’s what iOS 26.4 does to improve your typing, plus tips to help you reclaim your keyboard. on.wsj.com/4uZ31U0

@adapalmer.bsky.social Saw your lovely book in paperback at bookshop Cafoscarina in Venezia!

As it is #WorldTheatreDay 🎭, let's marvel at one of the most impressive and best-preserved ancient theatres of the Roman world. The theatre of Aspendos in Turkey was built during the reign of Marcus Aurelius by an architect named Zeno. Its capacity was about 12,000.

Might be the greatest opening paragraph of anything ever.

📢 CFA - 3 Postdoctoral Researchers in Early Modern History (35 months) within the project ‘Travellers’ interactions in early modern Italy’ at the Italian-German Historical Institute in Trento. Deadline: 8 May 2026. jobs.fbk.eu/Annunci/Jobs... Please circulate widely!

Every kind of abomination.

The SRS invites applications for its Postdoctoral Fellowships, ŵ a stipend worth £15,000. SRS Fellows can hold jobs alongside their fellowship provided they do not take up more than the equivalent of 3 days a week over the course of the academic year. Apply by 30 April rensoc.org.uk/apply/postdo...

if Wikipedia, an org with a shoestring budget and volunteer workforce can ban use of llms, what excuse do large orgs and universities have

The #Guarini400 anniversary year was over at the end of 2024, but the Italian national committee to celebrate the occasion has organized two closing events in Turin next week. #earlymodern #baroque #architecture susanklaiber.wordpress.com/2026/03/26/a...

If I may recommend a book in which infectious diseases are used as a pretext for policy interventions in the name of public health resulting in social control, Andrea Bagnato’s Terra Infecta offers interesting historical case studies from Matera (1952), Naples (1884) and Venice (1922). #literature

CFP! Conference "Growing Up in the Early Modern World: Children, Institutions and Belonging" 26 November 2026 Macquarie University, Sydney Deadline 15 July #earlymodern

St Andrew's in Lviv is one of the great churches of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the site of the shrine of St John of Dukla, built and beautified in thanksgiving for 17th-century victories over the Muscovites who are now trying to destroy it

If I may recommend a book in which infectious diseases are used as a pretext for policy interventions in the name of public health resulting in social control, Andrea Bagnato’s Terra Infecta offers interesting historical case studies from Matera (1952), Naples (1884) and Venice (1922). #literature

‘History breeds discomfort. Foucault’s basic question is still of great interest: what is it about sex that makes people believe it expresses fundamental truths about the self, and when did that belief arise?’ @piercepenniless.bsky.social on gay history and its uses. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Why did Gustave Caillebotte paint so many men? Why did he repeatedly paint the bodies and faces of men, in a variety of settings and with a variety of purposes that cannot add up to a statement or query about male identity?’ Tom Crewe on Caillebotte’s gaze. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I wonder if people understand that for many of us the pride flag is not just an expression of queer identity it is a REJECTION OF THE CLOSET SPECIFICALLY. That is- its display is explicitly meant to COUNTER the conditions of queer invisibly, which has been at the heart of our marginalization. 1/

And many happy returns to Venice, today 1605 years old! 🥳🎉

Uplifting thought of the day

This was absolutely delightful!

Yep. In fact, the real failing of students was when we stopped requiring them to regularly search a library catalogue for their reading and instead produced lists with hyperlinks that students simply had to click. As soon as they have to go off list, they’re lost.

Want to take your mind off the news? If you're in NYC & haven't yet seen it, get yourself to the Met to view the spare, intensely felt paintings of Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946), in a show up for just two more weeks (closes April 5) www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/...

It is lovely that the Art Gallery of Ontario can now name the Black woman in the gorgeous #18thc portrait they acquired 6 yrs ago & also date the painting. It's from 1775. She is Eleonora Susette, enslaved by the Dutch governor of Guyana, accompanying his widow on her return to the Netherlands.

Venezia ❤️

The 2026 Holberg Prize is awarded to Australian-British scholar Lyndal Roper of the University of Oxford for her ground-breaking research into early modern European history. holbergprize.org/laureates/ho...

Greek mythology makes a lot more sense now that I have a set of unaccountable powerful people with stupid and obvious flaws and no way to smite them myself

"The current wave of autocratization is unprecedented in length, scope, and magnitude – worse than the 1930s in all these regards." "The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history." The latest report from @vdeminstitute.bsky.social...

Tonight I saw a very penetrating and brave documentary about the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on a local school in the Ural, forced to implement Russian state propaganda and thereby shaping the minds of its youth. #MrNobodyAgainstPutin

Trump says Europe declining to help rescue him from a mess of his own making in Iran means NATO will face a "very bad future," which might've persuaded some if he hadn't spent a year denigrating allies, demanding Greenland, and convincing everyone he wouldn't help NATO countries if they're attacked.

Posted as self-criticism.

Today I went to the cinema to see Bernardo Bertolucci’s Il conformista (1970), a beautiful and hugely impressive film (also on a technical level) about fascism, repressed sexuality, and the people that want to conform just to feel normal. #films

This was a truly gross event. Centrist intellectuals featuring as audience to legitimate an anti-democratic grifter in the service of entertaining the ultra-rich reactionary class. Can’t capture the “heterodoxy” movement better than this. One big grift, ultimately only helping the far right!

On students using AI: "They were getting worse, and feeling better about it"

Not to be a dick but this sort of thing is exactly what I think of every time someone suggests a technological solution to a problem created by technology.

Please help spread the word #medievalsky! Funded PhD position on medieval literary and artistic representations of disability as part of a Vidi project I will be leading that is funded by the Dutch Research Council: www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3592...

Time to bust out this excellent biography again. An intellectual titan has passed. A grand synthesizer and public thinker.

Bij iedere volgende pagina voelde ik méér hersencellen afsterven. #boeken #CPNB

Hear ye, hear ye! My book is in production! www.routledge.com/Unconventual...

Neutrality is not a value, it is a strategy. And an amoral one in our current time.

Today's artist without a (known) birthday: Vittore Carpaccio of Venice. Turned the ordinary into the marvelous in his paintings. Here, a particularly luminous Flight into Egypt, 1515.

Amsterdam kitchens are tiny, partly because most Dutch food is made on the floor, using an axe, a cudgel and a spade, which is used to scoop the meal into the pan. The work surfaces are just big enough for two drinks, a bowl of peanuts and the New Testament.

A little plug for the Adornes book, posted on another site by Brepols, so I will add it here! Brepols publishers Now Available 𝗔𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗺 𝗔𝗱𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗹, 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲, 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗰𝗼𝘁𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱, 𝗕𝗿𝘂𝗴𝗲𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗝𝗲𝗿𝘂𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗺 Edited by Bryony Coombs, Jill Harrison and Giovanna Guidicini

Wat doen we met de belastingvluchtelingen uit Dubai? Alsnog de schatkist laten vullen www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opin...