Research fellowships at Yale’s Beinecke Library! 📜📚 First: Short-term Research Fellowship (2027-2028) For anyone not a student. (Students: see next post.) Application deadline is August 15, 2026. beinecke.library.yale.edu/programs/fel...

Oh yay, the new Bulletin of the History of Medicine is out! It features my positioning paper on objects and materiality in the history of medicine. After years, it is finally out! muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

Had a totally wonderful time filming with the fabulous @k8lister.bsky.social for @historyhitsuk.bsky.social

Got to enjoy a masterful inaugural lecture by @jillburke.bsky.social last night. She looked at historical documents through their key ingredients: paper (through flax); ink (oak gall wasps); quills (from geese); and thought (through Da Vinci’s cat doodle). Fantastic.

Am giving a talk in Turin next week! 4.45pm 13 May, Villa della Regina - ‘Bella per forza: donne, bellezza e potere nell'Italia del Rinascimento’

NEW from me: many of our universities are now in a dying fall. A new global-national-regional-local split is opening up, which could choke off progress on almost all the Government's plans. Do they have a plan? Nope, nothing, not a clue. 👇 isrf.org/blog/whats-t...

It seems that books are a bit like buses... 'Fat Bodies in Early Modern Europe' edited by Christine Ott, @jillburke.bsky.social and me is out now!! #EarlyModern Also including contributions from Alex Pyrges, Andrea Baldan, @scarlettgauthor.bsky.social, Pablo García Piñar, and Roberta Colbertaldo

@bryonycoombs.bsky.social and I have been making ink @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social historical reconstruction lab. My v. easy 1555 recipe is from Alessio Piemontese’s Secrets - it involves wine, very Italian - and made pretty good ink, even with my Scottish galls. Can’t wait til our workshop!

Some really instructive (& fun) ink making experiments with @jillburke.bsky.social this afternoon in prep for a forthcoming ink & quills workshop. Scottish, English or Aleppo oak galls: which makes the best ink? we will tell you after the workshop! 😉 Many experimental ideas in the pipeline ✍️📜🍃

I'm giving a talk! It's online for ePublic of Letters, on “Why were beauty tips so popular in sixteenth-century Italy? Readers, Makers and Realms of Knowledge in Early Modern Cosmetic Manuals". April 15th, noon eastern U.S., 5pm UK, 6pm continental Europe. RSVP here: forms.gle/DNLMPQuBGcEi...

So so pleased to see that my book ‘Body Size in Early Modern Germany’ is now available on Oxford Academic ahead of its print publication later this month: academic.oup.com/book/62409 🎉🎉🎉 To mark its online publication, I thought I’d share a bit more about the book and its contents...

@jillburke.bsky.social, Christine Ott and I also have a co-edited volume 'Fat Bodies in Early Modern Europe' coming out later this year with @routledgehistory.bsky.social which looks at fatness in various European settings including a couple of contributors who touch on England.

Interested in environmental history? The IHR is offering a summer 2026 internship with the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH). Apply by 15 April 2026, 11:59 pm BST. More details at: buff.ly/Vzpz6G3.

The ERC-BROKENSONG project at Maynooth University, Ireland, is hiring (two positions - this is the second)! I'm also looking a new research assistant/postdoc to conduct image analysis of the medieval Insular music corpus recovered within the project. See: www.timeshighereducation.com/unijobs/list...

'I would set off, with some sense of what I might be looking for, and see what I stumbled across...' Is going for a walk a valid methodology for a historian? And if so, how much theory do you need to read before you start? Some thoughts in my latest blog post: manyheadedmonster.com/2026/02/10/i...

Women wore a bra already in the 15th century! Amazing discovery. Also: I highly recommend the book “How to Be a Renaissance Woman: The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity” by @jillburke.bsky.social 📖🌟💄

Still (just) time if you’re looking for a Christmas gift for someone who likes history/art/make up 😉

Phew: another output for the PTAS project ✔️ A really stimulating afternoon discussing experiential learning, heritage in education, recipes, historical fashion, pedagogy & so many exciting projects currently underway. With massive thanks to @jillburke.bsky.social for a fabulous keynote✨

Cuffs https://botfrens.com/collections/223/contents/100966

We are offering up to £10k for researchers to seed collaborations, feasibility studies, application advice and training, partnership building etc for applications to Pillar 2 of Horizon Europe – Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

The first to realise that gall wasps came from an egg was Swammerdam in 1669 (Redi dissected thousands of galls and concluded reluctantly that gall wasps generated spontaneously). He drew this picture of a wasp laying an egg. janswammerdam.org/Images/gall....

Oak gall wasps are my current obsession - galls are a key ingredient in European writing inks before industrialisation. Countless ideas on paper start with the relationship between an oak tree and a wasp. Marcello Malpighi observed galls to understand and illustrate their growth in the 1670s

The Renaissance changed how people saw and understood the body. Cultural and art historian @jillburke.bsky.social @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social explores fashion and everyday life in Renaissance Italy, reflecting on the surprising history of bras in medieval times: www.joinexpeditions.com/experts/4582

Have you heard our recent BBC You’re Dead To Me episode about Renaissance Era Beauty Trends? It’s very funny, and I got a historical makeover! My guests are fab comedian Tatty Macleod and brilliant expert historian @jillburke.bsky.social Available on all podcast apps worldwide

📣Are you a #histmed scholar whose book proposal belongs in our Social Histories of Medicine series? The @sshmedicine.bsky.social Annual Book Development Prize Competition is open for submissions!🥳 Secure £2,000 in funding to help turn your idea into a published monograph or collection! Details👇

'The study...found that the main driver of increased red tape was university efficiency reforms. It threw doubt on the idea that increasing automation results in real efficiency, and suggested that Australian universities...had recently shifted towards stronger central executive management.' 1/2

GRW-Rima! As we hear about nails, 16th century beauty treatments, and the value of care. With @jillburke.bsky.social @gregjenner.bsky.social @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social @cmatbaby.bsky.social and more. 1815 on R4 or afterwards on BBC Sounds. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

New episode of BBC YOU’RE DEAD TO ME: Renaissance Beauty — makeup, hair, skincare in 16th century Italy With me, comedian Tatty Macleod, and expert historian Professor @jillburke.bsky.social Available now on BBC SOUNDS, and coming to other podcast apps in 28 days www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Great to see our project written up in today's Guardian. Follow the link inside to our digital edition - more than one thousand pages of Thornton's writings transcribed and modernised. @kingsdigitallab.bsky.social @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social #EarlyModern 📜 🗃️

Every strand of this Edinburgh University report could be its own front page. Yes, some of it will be familiar to historians, but this kind of frank public recognition is all too rare. Incredible work by many different scholars.

#History #SkyStorians 2025 @hisjournalha.bsky.social Research Bursary scheme is now open! Available: 1 ECR award & 1 mid-career researcher award, each worth up to £1,500. Deadline *15 August*. For further particulars & downloadable application form, see www.history.org.uk/higher-ed/re...

Print Matters summer school hard at work at Thin Ice Press amid 3 days of book-making, reading Lucretius, depicting 'chaos', and perusing the Minster Library and Shandy Hall

📢 Call for Applications The Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici has published its 2025–2026 fellowship call (15 scholarships available). Deadline: 31 July 2025 More info 👉 www.iiss.it/bando-di-con...

Plan your summer 2026 to include Edinburgh in July: it will be THE place to be for historians of science! #hstm #bshs2026 #hss2026 #eshs2026

This is for people who are familiar with Italian sixteenth-century handwriting and/or who are clever at manipulating images. I think someone wrote their name on this frontispiece to a beauty manual in 1571 then the later owner, Girolamo Garofano, wrote over it. Can anyone make the first name out?

A bit unseasonal, but thought I’d share a pic of these gorgeous 16th c Venetian handwarmers we looked at behind the scenes at the V&A last week - which include a gimbal so the oil pot and wick face upwards whichever way you hold them

And it's out! Open access and free to download. Thank you @wellcometrust.bsky.social and @manchesterup.bsky.social. Excited to see it out in the world (and sure that despite all the proof reading, I will find typos) @hsmurphy.bsky.social @historyelaine.bsky.social @medievalbadger.bsky.social

The author of this piece advocates getting AI to read for you because “the internet-era explosion of digitized text now mocks nonfiction writers with access to more voluminous sources on any given subject than we can possibly process” 🙄

Our @samleggs22.bsky.social is part of a new #exhibition @stgilescathedral.bsky.social@edinburghcouncil.bsky.social  about the 1st Burghers as part of #edinburgh 's 900th birthday! 🎂 Check it out at #StGiles until 30th Nov ⛪ @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social #edinarch #archaeology #scotland #archsci

A joyful first event at the Edinburgh Historical Reconstruction lab where we tried European and Chinese early modern cosmetics and perfumes, found out what James I and VI smelled like, and made pomanders from a 1555 recipe.

'Sir Peter is facing anger from staff at the University of Edinburgh at plans to cut £140m from its spending - equivalent to at least a month's expenditure each year....in a wide-ranging interview...he said he cannot rule out compulsory redundancies at the 442-year-old institution.' 1/2

Went to the Science Museum stores yesterday. Utterly joyful. L-R 17th c pomander, 18th c essence box, travelling medical box (17th/18th c), 16th c anatomical doll

Hello Everyone, please join us at the Denbo Center virtually for @fabribald.bsky.social talk as part of our seminar series, Labour of Science. Register with the QR code below! Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Reposting this for the benefit of all our followers researching early modern women - do you have a new book? Seeking a reviewer? Please get in touch with @pjsalzman.bsky.social

Online exhibition alert! 🌐 Rewriting the Script: The Works and Words of Esther Inglis is live, bringing her manuscripts, calligraphy & self-portraits to the world. Curated by Anna Nadine Pike at Edinburgh University. Check it out!

New on advance access: "Nationcraft and the Origins of Territory: Experiencing Romanía in the Medieval Empire of New Rome" by Nicholas S M Matheou (@edinburgh-uni.bsky.social) #OpenAccess doi.org/10.1093/past...

The School's International Women's Day event features Emily Hauser, author of 'Mythica: A new history of Homer’s world, through the women written out of it,' on Fri 14 March. Register (free): edin.ac/4hBdAFk #History #Classics #Archaeology #IWD #Homer #IWD2025 #HCA #Edinburgh

If you're in London on 25 Feb, our very own Professor Alvin Jackson (Richard Lodge Professor of History) will be part of this British Academy event. In person, free to attend: https://buff.ly/3Q7ZNub #History #Fakenews #BritishAcademy #Edinburgh #London

Fixed-term post: Teaching and Research Fellow in Black British History @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLU474/t...

Our PhD Placement Scheme is BACK! Call for applications for 3-6 month placements at The British Library. All current PhD students registered with a UK university are eligible. Deadline 21st Feb, 5pm. For more information, & how to apply, please see our temporary website: www.bl.uk/more/researc...