I know that this is about the sciences and maybe things are different there but this sure did not pan out for the humanities.

Spring semester starting so need to know whether faculty are allowed to say in class that Greenland is ruled by Denmark.

Considering "Veganuary"? Read Krista Kesselring's new post! A New Year’s Gift: Fish, Flesh, and ‘Unlawful Diet’ in Early Modern England legalhistorymiscellany.com/2026/01/06/a...

Another exodus from the other site, from the sounds of it? If you're looking for the #EarlyModern gang, we've got three starter packs that compile a bunch of them. I can keep adding to the third, just poke. Here's the OG: go.bsky.app/VQeQbbF 1/3

Yep, I've got a History degree and the lessons from it are far less predictive of what will happen in contemporary society than Gender Studies and Critical Race Theory, which are like that sports almanac in Back to the Future II.

I'm not repeating my prior findings every time I publish, so I have to cite them. Who thinks this is "bad practice"?

All it takes for evil to thrive is for mediocre world leaders to say “I’d rather not say”

"Peaceful transition" via bombs and egregious breach of international law. Just not up to this moment.

Leaders who have fallen over themselves to normalize Trump's illegal action in Venezuela -- including Carney -- are enabling and emboldening Trump's next imperialist actions -- very plausibly in Cuba, Colombia, Greenland, Mexico, and yes Canada.

NO. NO. WE ARE NOT DOING THE "ASYLUM" THING AGAIN. I CAN PUT UP WITH QUITE A LOT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, BUT HERE I DRAW THE LINE.

Old enough to remember the Knowing Commentator position that taking the constant verbiage about Greenland or Canada at least a little bit seriously was a sign of terminal online neuroticism

Mark Carney turns off geolocation on phone just in case

This Trump speech is much bigger than Venezuela. He talked about the Monroe Doctrine - about America’s sphere of influence. He’s warning that any country close to the US must bow to the needs of America or power will be exerted.

People are going to try and lure you into debates about whether Maduro was a good guy or not and the thing is, it doesn’t matter for the purposes of discussing whether violent kidnappings and extrajudicial murders by the US government are ok. No, they aren’t! End of convo.

Weak-ass response. Embarrassing

This is the feast of Geneviève, patron saint of Paris, d. early 6th c. Here's a scene of a bishop and people praying to Geneviève, who looks pretty skeptical, from BNF lat. 1023, le Bréviaire de Philippe le Bel, from the end of the 13th c. #medievalsky

Specifically, a protest song about how the sons of the rich were able to avoid fighting, like fighting-age Donald Trump who got four deferments for being in college and another for bone spurs.

Marco Rubio is reportedly saying Maduro will stand trial in US courts. Which means it’s now the US administration’s position that US courts can hold foreign presidents, but not the US president, accountable for crimes.

Great 🧵— leading me to wonder why we don’t see predictions of life in 2126. Are we so pessimistic about the future that we don’t want to think about it? Or is that just me?

I find that there is nothing almost but bawdry at Court from top to bottom. How much of this is true, God knows, but it is common talk.

Can’t see what could go wrong with the chatbot that tells people to kill themselves also pushing DraftKings

I bring you a holiday #disability story that I’m convinced has trans bathroom panic at its center (w/ maybe ten percent due to my not communicating well.) 1/

My cartoon for the latest @newscientist.com

The idea that 'never says no' is something to aspire to in a partner is an absolutely poisonous idea and this ghastly technology is going to cause so much harm. Urgently needs burning to the ground and salting the earth after.

This is essentially the plot of The Sound of Music.

Wonderful, exciting news – my Reynard the Fox is now an audiobook! Completely unabridged and read by the perfect narrator, Joseph Edward Degnan. It's available now at all the usual places, see below for links and a clip!

If you’re wondering why your friends in academia are a little on edge right now, it’s because an eighteen-year-old who hasn’t done the reading, doesn’t look at the assignment, and has does no critical thinking skills more complex than “because I think it’s in the Bible” can literally end your career

Instead of spending big money to recruit a few dozen academics from outside of Canada, I wish the Liberals invested in the outstanding talent coming out of our PhD programs. Postdocs could be extended (#, duration) for large numbers for the same price. It is top-down, headline seeking politics.

The urge to add “since they are Canadian, I would not rule out treachery” to my bio

Notice of upcoming lecture on 13 Jan. Sponsored by @csmbr-pisa.bsky.social. Of interest to #MedievalSky #EarlyModern #VastEarlyAmerica #EpiSky #histmed

As a pre-Christmas treat, allow me to explain the true significance of the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the @museecluny.bsky.social, which is the story of the unicorn's increasing disaffection with its career as a standard-bearer.

Worth noting that the student admits that she just threw the thing together in 30 minutes without reading the paper she was supposed to be responding to.

PhD Funding! University of Leeds The School of History invites applicants from Black, Asian and other minoritised ethnic groups who wish to study for a PhD commencing in the academic year 2026/27 to apply for the School of History Access to Research Scholarship. phd.leeds.ac.uk/funding/387-...

I kind of like this whole “We won’t buy your liquor but we will air your state-suppressed news stories” niche that Canada’s apparently carved out.

Submit abstracts for Concordia’s great graduate history conference, “History in the Making”!

Can't wait for the big multi-million snazzy project which feeds thousands of photos of medieval records into the LLM and confidently sorts them into place/name databases, then medievalists have to spend the next hundred years pointing out that it can't differentiate 'Water Lambeth' from 'Battersea'

In this spirit: His Majesty the King, by and with the consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows: (1) A letter of marque shall come from the King; (2) To the scummiest vessel you've ever seen; (3) Notwithstanding the foregoing, God Damn Them All! #cdnhist #cdnpoli

Did medieval people buy each other Christmas gifts? New Year's Day was the main gifting day, but little is known about everyday people's present giving. Our project on London's customs records has uncovered a wealth of affordable items imported around this time: gloves and hats to toys and rattles🧵

a big part of the issue surrounding the use of chatgpt/LLMs in academic research comes down to process vs. product. a lot of us know that the process of doing research matters because that's where intellectual work is done; but some "academics" and lots of techies only care about a fast product

Great thread, wonderful comments from @finnlongman.com on how humans (us!) analyze historical docs. The hype about AI summaries of docs or scholarship rests on a false premise that we're just looking for some core info, all the rest can be tossed. Not so, form, structure, context, silences matter.

I posted this👇 to a claim that genAI is better than Ctl+F to search historical docs. @tristanpalmgren.bsky.social replied with a genAI summary of my document and @bookllyfr.bsky.social asked if it was accurate. It turns out that it did exactly what genAI does: made stuff up & got stuff wrong.🧵

Ctl+F this

“A priest, a minister and a rabbit walk into a blood bank. The rabbit says: I think I might be a type O.” Favourite of the decade by Barry Mulligan

Pantone just updated their Color Of The Year

Our tribute to Natalie Zemon Davis, in the Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte. Please share widely! www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...

this is a good reminder of how things that are shitty but have been accepted as normal and inevitable can actually turn out to be abnormal and evitable with some science, time, education and political will

slow day in the office so figured we'd start some beef with museums

In addition to this administration trying to kill kids, and they're also coming for our binders? OUR BINDERS.