informatief interview met historicus Beatrice de Graaf waarin ze het besluit van de meerderheid in de Tweede Kamer om Antifa als terroristische organisatie te kenmerken scherp veroordeelt. www.historischnieuwsblad.nl/antifa/

"This is what it looks like when a society’s elite rolls over in the face of authoritarianism. It never ends well.'

RIP Robert Redford, who famously and beautifully brought Norman Maclean’s *A River Runs Through It* to the big screen:

If you are interested in the history of book, check out this phenomenal exhibit curated by the wonderful Martin Heijdra at Princeton. It is a model exhibit in so many ways, covering different parts of the world, so many languages, and, images are in IIIF dpul.princeton.edu/global-book-...

"drastic plans to halve the intake of humanities students at one of China’s most prestigious institutions, Fudan University, divided opinions among scholars." Has anyone seen more on this?

From the supposed advocates of freedom of speech and the supposed critics of "cancel culture": target lists continued.

Very pleased to see The Young Academy's important report on First Generation Academics published as a book. Hoping that this coming academic year will be better for all, including first generation academics! To read online www.linkedin.com/posts/de-jon... and www.dejongeakademie.nl/nieuws/30313...

We just released IMMARKUS 1.0 - our first full release! An open-source tool for semantic image annotation: multi-image workbench, AI-powered selection tools, ontology builder, knowledge graph, #IIIF support. Runs fully local–no login, no-signups, no data sent to the cloud! 👉 immarkus.xmarkus.org

On international enrollment in NL: "The decline is particularly noticeable in the Language and Culture sectors (-28.5 per cent), Law (-25.0 per cent), Science (-12.5 per cent), Behaviour & Society (-16 per cent), and Economics (-4.0 per cent)." 😮

REGISTRATION OPEN! Now more than ever, research is reshaping our view of women’s roles in the early modern book trade. Join us in Antwerp (5–7 Nov 2025) for our conference Women & the Household in the #earlymodern Book Trade. Register here: tinyurl.com/womenbooktrade #rarebooks #bookhistory 💙📚📜

“Stimmt es, dass Tausch die erste Währung war?” (“Was barter the first form of currency?”) is now online in the ARTE Mediathek – and also on YouTube. I had great fun contributing a small part on the first production of paper #money (esp. 12.45-15.15 minutes) youtu.be/W9f51gaShNI?...

Coming up in Leuven next week: Workshop​: Structures of Descent: Neo4j-Enabled Readings of Intergenerational Mobility and Marriage in Premodern Korea ​ Date: Monday, 1 September 2025​ Time: 15:00–17:00​ More info:​ www.infrastructurelives.eu/events/1-9-2...

"Daarnaast heeft het aan elke vorm van toezicht op het functioneren van Hofman ontbroken. Alleen het resultaat telde." Geldt dat niet voor alle decanen en instituutsmanagers die zich in de laatste decennia schuldig hebben gemaakt aan allerlei wangedrag @unileiden.bsky.social? Goed nieuws voor hen.

I regularly get the question: "Which is the best model?" I usually answer: "You have to test." IMMARKUS (immarkus.xmarkus.org) makes testing across various open and commercial models easy for automatic transcription and translation. You can compare, collate, edit, and save all notes for later use.

Urban historians working on any part of Asia are warmly invited to submit proposals for the session "Good Governance and Urban Conflict in Late Medieval and Early Modern Cities in Europe and Beyond (13th-17th centuries)" at the 2026 European Association for Urban History Conference in Barcelona.

It's hard for this fairly text-oriented historian to beat that imposter feeling, but I'm looking fwd to discussing ongoing work on the longue-durée social and regional history of infrastructures at a Society for East Asian Archeology 10th Conference keynote. Programme: seaa-web.org/conferences/...

This looks wonderful!

Quick update: Plugging your own transcription service into #IMMARKUS via Hugging Face Spaces is now available for testing on our dev server! It’s a bit DIY/hacky... But if you’re building your own HF Spaces, you’re probably ready for that 🙂 Ping me if you’d like to try it out!

Soon on immarkus.xmarkus.org : select your favorite models from Huggingface, the Github of AI models; or add your own. Turns out freely available Chinese models like QWEN perform well on early printed Latin texts -better than others. Get in touch if interested in testing or further collaboration.

And as we assemble a fantastic vol 13.1 a reminder that we are always looking for exciting essays and special issues in any area of medieval studies tmj.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk - do get in touch! #medievalsky

Oxford Studies in Medieval History is now Oxford Studies in the New Medieval History. Glad to be part of the opening up of this great series to global approaches. We are looking forward to receiving book manuscripts in global #medieval history. More info in the flyer: fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/...

The amazing Dan Pett has been at it again. Using @aboutgeo.bsky.social liiive.now Dan explains how to DIY your own IIIF: add image to cms, create manifest, put manifest into Rainer's magic, download annotations, paste text into cms, manifest recreates. Try it yourself! museologi.st/blog/iiif-di...

Worth a read: "It seems likely that China will remain a self-denying empire... In this respect, 21st-century China displays an uncanny resemblance to 20th-century America, which clung to its mythic self-conception as empire’s enemy even as it assumed an unprecedented orbit of power."

"guidelines on the responsible use of AI in research are clear that we should refrain from using GenAI tools in peer reviews and evaluations. But that’s not to say that researchers aren’t experimenting. Thelwall’s team has shown weak success in using Chat GPT to replicate human peer review scores.."

Our #history department at KU Leuven is again looking for a new Postdoc colleague, this time to join the ERC project “Regionalizing Infrastructures in Chinese History” led by @hildedw.bsky.social. For more info check: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo... #sinology #imperialchina #chineseinfrastructure

Oh no, what a tragic loss for all and Tangut Studies in particular.

@hilariodesousa.bsky.social deserves a medal and our gratitude for this and his other apt visualizations of Benelux rail networks. Amsterdam Brussels Paris London rail options PDF: hilario.bambooradical.com/benelux/imag...

With eight different submission types for #AAS2026, there's sure to be one that matches your preferred participation format! Check them all out at our website and get your proposal for Vancouver ready—the deadline is coming up on August 6! buff.ly/GLqsRJv

let us think about this #IMC2025

On the way to Leeds #IMC2025 for this roundtable with Chinese and European historians imc-leeds.confex.com/imc/2025/mee... and also looking fwd to discussing the potential of our image collection, annotation and transcription platform IMMARKUS in global medieval studies (immarkus.xmarkus.org) /1

Most incredible about this is that IU-Bloomington has long been the no. 1 university in the world for teaching Asian languages and cultures, with many programs found nowhere else. They're slashing many of IU-B's most distinctive programs with zero thought or debate. They probably don't even know.

Still in time to become part of the @digitalorientalist.bsky.social! Do you work at the intersection of digital humanities and area studies? Do you want to write pieces that explore a DH idea, a database, or bits of your research? This is for you!! 📆 July 13th, 2025! #application #opportunity #DH

Lovers of logbooks, practitioners of every art, rejoice and clip away!

And we've now added Chinese models in IMMARKUS. Results vary, so try several. More to come, inc. a model for Han Nom. Check back regularly and send your favorites to add. Shown: performance on IIIF Chinese manuscripts maps and texts from @labnf.bsky.social & the National Palace Museum.

Great post on the first French translation of Confucian texts. The ms is accessible ‪@gallicabnf.bsky.social‬ @labnf.bsky.social and you can import, transcribe and edit transcriptions in a snap with a range of models in IMMARKUS (immarkus.xmarkus.org) 😃 www.linkedin.com/posts/bnf_co...

CFA: One-year postdoc in late imperial Chinese infrastructural history in Leuven. Deadline: July 31, 2025 www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo... Come join our multi-disciplinary team www.infrastructurelives.eu/team-members/

We’re adding more OCR and image annotation services to #IMMARKUS! Now available: Google Vision API — which actually works really well with historical materials, too. 👀 (Note: you’ll need to bring your own API key.)

CFP networks.h-net.org/group/announ...

Off to Beijing for digital history week at Beida and the 20th anniversary of China Biographical Database. 18 years ago I wrote a long report about this massive undertaking's problems and possibilities. What I asked for then was more than fully realized, no mean feat, kudos to all involved. /1

Well done @thejohnrylands.bsky.social on the #IIIF -- working with the primers and all your metadata in #IMMARKUS (immarkus.xmarkus.org) is a snap!

When in Paris, something to go see @labnf.bsky.social : Carte complète de l’organisation terrestre de la Grande Qing éternellement unie, dite « Blue map », xylographie - vers 1800 - BnF, Cartes et plans www.bnf.fr/fr/agenda/la...

Performing from discarded parchment scores that were reused as box lining. More cool stuff from the most amazing print museum. www.facebook.com/share/v/18x2...

My latest in the #China Leadership Monitor: “Going Xianzhong Mode”: Can Local Governments Stop “Revenge Against Society” Attacks? #献忠 #献忠学 #枫桥经验 prcleader.org/post/going-x...

KU Leuven has just advertised two positions in East Asian Studies. The first is an assistant professorship in modern Chinese thought. www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo... The second is an assistant professorship in East Asian art and popular culture (Focus Korea) www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...

We're scouting open source models to link to our image annotation platform IMMARKUS (immarkus.xmarkus.org) for the transcription of text in maps and other graphics. Recommendations for models that can transcribe East Asian language text, ms & print (esp. from #maps), would be esp. appreciated. #AI

"Verzijlbergh explained that Belgian wind farms have an advantage over Dutch ones. “They are located southwest of the Dutch parks and the wind often comes from the southwest, so you often steal some of our wind,” he said." 😂

Join us for a discussion w Naomi Standen on global history & technologies of building & making based on her forthcoming book Digging, Weaving and Dancing: Everyday Creativity in Eastern Eurasia in the 7th to 14th C www.infrastructurelives.eu/events/talk-... www.infrastructurelives.eu/events/04-06...

Great programme for this upcoming conference in Antwerp on How to Decolonize Political History www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferenc...

Zeer betreurenswaardig dat Zuhal Demir taalonderwijs flink duurder maakt. Voor velen heeft extra taalonderwijs wel degelijk met een job te maken. Jammer dat de NVA hiermee ook afbreuk doet aan de meertaligheid waarmee Vlaanderen al eeuwenlang wordt geassocieerd en ons sterk op de markt zet.

Hartelijk dank aan The Young Academy voor dit interview over sociale ongelijkheid in de (Nederlandse) academie. www.linkedin.com/pulse/hilde-... With thanks to The Young Academy for this interview on social inequality in the (Dutch) academy. Read this and other interviews along with the report: