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...

The count-down-clock 🥹 I'm going to need a calendar to cross of the number of sleeps. This is going to be phenomenal!

Hard-hitting and reflective piece. It would be a public service to higher education in the UK and internationally if @timeshighered.bsky.social made it free to read, even if only for 24 hours. Kudos to the authors: Anonymous, Martin Mills (Aberdeen), Nick Megoran (Newcastle) & Les Back (Glasgow).

I am a specialist in Italian history/art history 1400-1700. Just got an email asking me to submit an article within 24 hours to the Journal of Biotechnology and Bioresearch for their volume coming out on 19th Feb. What do you reckon - should I help them out?

Please share with any postdocs in the History of the Americas who would like to join the brilliant and eclectic bunch of historians at Edinburgh University - 3 years, mainly research. elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

📅 Join us over the next three months for seminars on a range of different topics! ⏲️ Each one will be held at 5:15pm within the Old Medical School building. Find out more on our website and follow this feed for the latest updates! #History #HCA #Edinburgh #EdinburghUniversity #Seminars #medievalsky

Another great week of seminars and events, including a History & Games Lab Games Night! Find out more on our website, edin.ac/4e5MjZy #History #Classics #Archaeology #HCA #Edinburgh #EdinburghUniversity #Studentlife

One week until the Justin Arbuthnott Lecture 2025: 'Women and work in modern Ireland'. Find out more: https://buff.ly/40pBwUY #History #IrishHistory #WomensHistory #Ireland #Ednburgh #JustinArbuthnott #ArbuthnottLecture #EdinburghUniversity

NEWS!!! A CFP for our capstone conference, "Medicine, Slavery, and Race in the Atlantic World", King's College London, 15-17 May. A *stellar* roster of confirmed speakers. All expenses paid. Please share with anyone who may be interested. 🗃️ #EarlyModern

Join us on 13 Feb, in person or online, at @warburginstitute.bsky.social to hear more about #digitalhumanities at the Institute and discuss potential future projects. I’ll be talking about my #mapping project. More info and book here: warburg.sas.ac.uk/events/digit... #dh #maps #datavisualisation

This puts it well & it’s a point I keep making about why using AI to write is so flattening. Writing is the process of working out & refining what you think. If I write an article, I’m not just generating 1000 plausible words. I’m trying to articulate ideas with precision, & challenging myself.

Was delighted to talk to @louisamckenzie.bsky.social for this wonderful article in The Times on pimple patches! My fellow beauty historian @katieaske.bsky.social is in there too 😊

‘Cómo ser una mujer del Renacimiento. Mujeres, poder y el nacimiento del mito de la belleza’, de Jill Burke: Una historia de las mujeres desde abajo. papelenblanco.com/c%C3%B3mo-se...

So this is very exciting! We have 16 places on our AHRC-funded Print Matters Summer School. There is no course fee, and applicants get 4 nights B&B accommodation and a travel bursary of up to £100. The Summer School is open to all disciplines and career stages. www.thinicepress.org/events/print...

New History Compass piece by Yan Liu looking at the work that has been done thus far on aromatics in pre-modern China: compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1... #smellhistory #smellhistory #smellstudies #sensoryhistory #sensorystudies

My draft of a syllabus statement on a.i. for my writing class, for what it is worth:

It's January! It's 2025 even! A very happy new year to all. We've got an exciting 2025 ahead, with our biannual conference in Bristol this July. We've also got a couple of opportunities still open. A short thread with a reminder of some upcoming deadlines:

#CallForPapers: The Women and the Household in the Early Modern Book Trade (5-7 November 2025, Antwerp). #Bookhistory #HerBook #WomensHistory #Herstory museumplantinmoretus.be/en/page/wome...

@jillburke.bsky.social & Wilson Poon discuss their recreation of a Renaissance 'anti-wrinkle' cream to explore women's domestic experimentation & know-how. Re-making personal care recipes reveals insights into the sensory world tied to female identity & scientific knowledge.

The Fra Angelico exhibition coming to Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco in September, curated by Carl Brandon Strehlke, is sure to be a stunner www.palazzostrozzi.org/en/archivio/...

"You and 500 other people compete for the chance at one prize due to the rigged economic system and bad life decisions that have landed you in a cycle of exploitation and debt."