Fantastic to see the stolen (and later recovered) copy of Shakespeare's First Folio at the Cosin's Library with @imems.bsky.social this evening!

“Without the ideas+perspective of ECRs… there will be no new generation of scholars to take up ideas and push them in new directions” @wadehistory.bsky.social on “What can be done?” for the French History Network’s ECR in 2025 series frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/6746/ 🗃️#FRHistory

Been trying out lidded pots. Latest ones got a bit weird...

Today a follow up to yesterday’s post on being an ECR in French History, by @wadehistory.bsky.social frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/6744/ 🗃️ #FRHistory

🚨Call for Papers🚨Delighted to share the CfP for next year's meeting of @frenchcolonial.bsky.social which we will be hosting in Maynooth June 25-27. The theme is "Après la tempête: Afterlives of Colonial Crisis and Conflict". Deadline for submissions is November 14 frenchcolonial.org/annual-meeti...

As much as I'll miss this feathered colleague an office probably isn't the best place for a magpie...

Very excited to be starting at IMEMS and working in such a fantastic building!

Worrying long term hidden fiscal drag The family income threshold at which English students maintenance loans start to get reduced is just £25,000/yr. It has been this level since the 2008/2009 academic year. We have had 64% (CPI) inflation since then. So it's been slashed hugely in real terms

Then & Now: Blackfriars Bridge Swipe to see Blackfriars Bridge today in 2025, alongside a beautiful watercolour of its grand opening by Queen Victoria in 1869. Thanks to @thelondonarchives.bsky.social for the historic image. #CityBridgeFoundation #BlackfriarsBridge #ThenAndNow

Epic to swim in rough seas under the mournful glaze of a ruined castle. (Not pictured - slightly less epic golf course the other side...)

Medieval rabbits could play two recorders at the same time (one in each nostril) while simultaneously singing. But no one has seen this done since the thirteenth century. Humans have tried to accomplish this, but have been unsuccessful so far. True story.

Wow. The University of Chicago, a world-class institution whose humanities faculty in the past has included Homi Bhabha & Lauren Berlant & Ralph Ellison & Hannah freaking Arendt, is getting rid of basically every graduate department involving the acknowledgment that other cultures & languages exist.

We are very sorry to learn of the death last Saturday of Professor Peter J. Marshall (1933-2025), former Rhodes Professor of Imperial History @kingshistory.bsky.social and President of the Royal Historical Society, 1996-2000 bit.ly/4lUl74K Peter will be greatly missed by many #Skystorians

#GCFHSResist It was such a pleasure to meet/catch up with so many wonderful scholars in French history! Although French history/history/academia faces so many challenges, there is an abundance of kindness and generosity within the community that will help us face those challenges together.

Thrilled to have received an honorable mention for the FCHS Eccles prize for my paper, “Reframing Global Commerce in 18th-Century India: Views from the Homes of Tamil Merchants” Especially grateful for the generous feedback I received from the audience at Buffalo frenchcolonial.org/awards-prize...

Thanks to my fellow panelists and all attendees - a great experience to present together! #GCFHSResist

Some great source discussion at Birkbeck's early modern research day today!

Coloured engraving of 'Het Huis van den Oost Indische Huis in Londen', with the English East India Company's headquarters on Leadenhall Street. It would be torn down in 1726. #earlymodern #skystorians

A lovely find today: notes on Don Quixote made by John Fullerton of the East India Company in his commonplace book. One of three such pages written while he traded across the Middle East and South Asia in the 1720s and 1730s. #earlymodern

Freudian footnote? The misspelled title of a book in a recent historiographical review compared to its actual title:

Two 4-year fully-funded PhD studentships available at UCL for Black British candidates. One in History of the legacy of Transatlantic slavery and reparations; the other on reparations and the media/culture focusing on reparations and the media/culture. Here's the History one. 1/2

While annoying to still be using TNA's catalogue to search for India Office Records in the British library, searching all British archives does bring up surprising links, e.g. that churchwardens in Dorset celebrated the 1761 capture of Pondicherry with the ringing of church bells.

Beautiful detail in this letter from August 1697: 'Patterns from Persia received overland via Aleppo'. Glorious little clumps of silk thread in vivid colour, suggesting what could be bought by EIC merchants in Persia for the domestic market in England. IOR/G/29/1-2 #earlymodern #skystorians

Feel this really captures the essence of Lambeth country fair, only second place though...

Feel this really captures the essence of Lambeth country fair, only second place though...

must be incredibly frustrating and disheartening to have federal funding that was promised to you for important work suddenly and arbitrarily ripped away

There's no doubt that editors for academic publishing need more help and support to keep things going. But my god, this isn't it. I've published in a number of OUP outlets. This would force me to reconsider. I suspect other #SkyStorians will, too.

"Worse still, executives recently established a subsidiary, Innovative Educational Partnerships Ltd, with themselves as directors. Staff... will be employed by this entity, not the university. The central purpose is for executives to.. hire staff on inferior terms and conditions."

Fantastic to catch Electric Dreams at Tate Modern just before it ends. A psychedelic and sensory show on artists and tech pre-internet. The "white heat" of some of this 1960s technology was clearly flagging by this point - stared at one piece for ages before confirming with a steward it was broken.

OK this is unbelievably cool! Incidentally the V&A have a magnificent collection of South Asian musical instruments. I don’t know if they’re in the East Storehouse now but do have a nosy! Love the V&A. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

I'm very excited to be joining the team at French History! Looking forward to working with the team and helping to publish excellent research on the history of France and the Francophone world!

Huge rally of staff and students today rejecting cuts at Sheffield 💥

Paris, yesterday, the unveiling of a plaque for the Chevalier de Saint George, rue Saint André des Arts (6e) where he lived in his youth. I didn't attend but my friend Maestro Marion Daniel did. Very happy about this. Well done those involved especially Claude Ribbe.

Would love to see how this would be written up as an impact case study... Historians dispute Bayeux tapestry penis tally after lengthy debate www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Fascinating to see the exhibit from the trial of the East India Company at the Court of Intergenerational Climate Crimes

amazing how the cyber attack on the British Library still means that all recently published work (and that's a definition that stretches back several years) is completely unavailable to researchers, since they only acquired ebooks and that system is still down

Exploring some different glaze combinations. This was after three different attempts to get the second coat of glaze to stick which kept bubbling after dipping - I think the key is leaving the first coat plenty of time to dry. Definitely like the results though!

Today ✊🏽 www.un.org/en/observanc...

Today's most adorable research find: A child's message scrawled at the bottom of this c1700 letter from Madras, asking their dad to come home #earlymodern

UK universities are in crisis. Dave Hitchcock (@davehitchcock.bsky.social) on how the sector became 'broken' and why it must be approached as an interdependent system. www.historyworkshop....

There’s an Urdu name for a “Jack of all trades” that translates to “every talent Lord.” A Korean version is “eight direction beauty.” But my favourite name for someone who tries their hand at lots of different things is the Lithuanian Barbė devyndarbė. It means “Barbie nine jobs”

Some days you just wanna give up , let everything go and follow the light inside of a red cabbage

This is a horrific decision. It would be bad enough to cancel future programs, but living overseas without any source of income is terrifying. The state department is supposed to look out for US citizens overseas, not send them abroad and then take away their financial resources

Wild that I have spent so many Public History lessons using the Enola Gay and the Smithsonian as a case study for the complexity of stakeholders in public history/museums and now we've reached the level of discourse where the Enola Gay has been cancelled because it's got the word gay in it.

Something about Choiseul reminds me somehow of Michael Gove

In this essay, I have analysed the Portuguese translation of an important catechetical work by the Jesuit missionary Roberto Nobili. I have sought to highlight how the concept of "Catholicity" could take on an "accommodationist" connotation in early modern South India. www.academia.edu/127918568/

Exhibition in Tower Hamlets: Researchers uncover stories of Black Londoners who escaped slavery: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... #History #BlackHistory 🗃️

Glad to see Birkbeck not giving any ground to the Coriander haters

Byline Times is facing major DDOS (malicious traffic-flooding) issues on our site apparently after this article went live... bylinetimes.com/2025/02/21/d...

Wonderful to finally make it to the British Museum's Silk Roads exhibition. I was struck by the prominence of slavery in the exhibit, described as "a dark thread" that runs through the silk roads. Deeds of sale for the enslaved in multiple languages, as well as neck restraints and this figurine.