If I'm honest, I became a historian of Italy because of the food. "In short: Italian cuisine did not migrate. It was invented abroad by people who had finally found something to eat – a truth that fits awkwardly with Unesco’s love of millennium-old continuity." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

What does Gen AI mean for the work of the historian and the value of historical experience, skills and craft? 'The Historian in the Age of AI' by @chriscampbell1.bsky.social. New Comment article now available in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' bit.ly/4atErTB #Skystorians 1/2

Who built the seven gates of Thebes? The books are filled with names of kings. Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone? And Babylon, so many times destroyed. Who built the city up each time? Oh so it actually was the kings? Cool, question answered, thanks.

Movie you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (either War or Trek), LOTR, or Marvel…

Time again for my favorite christmas post ever, one that still makes me laugh every time i read it

Our longest yearly book list ever! Thirty six books by contingent historians for you to read, gift, and request for purchase at your library!

We are delighted to announce that the preliminary program for our 2026 Annual Meeting is available to view and registration is open. We hope you will join us February 19–21, 2026, at our 72nd Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California. www.rsa.org/news/715597/... #RenTwitter #earlymodern #RenSA26

Small victories. Today saw students briefing the class on their final research un-essay projects. One student observed: "every challenge I had could be solved by research." Now that's a satisfying teaching moment.

Hell yeah!

You’ve been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who’s coming to save you? Hmm, either of them could probably get it done to be honest, but it wouldn't be pretty.

To “my students and to anyone who might listen, I say: Don’t surrender to AI your ability to read, write and think when others once risked their lives and died for the freedom to do so.” www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...

There are only three Star Wars films

Did you miss our beginners' webinar last week? The complete recording of our step-by-step introduction to Transkribus is now available on YouTube 👇

I'm very pleased to have all three versions of my book now out. #reformationinthelowcountries

Just published from ARC Humanities Press: Trust and Mistrust in Premodern Europe and the Mediterranean. Contributions range from 13th c. Tunis to my own contribution on "Trust and Time in Sixteenth-Century Italian Mediterranean Commerce," and include two great conceptual essays by the editors.

Just published from ARC Humanities Press: Trust and Mistrust in Premodern Europe and the Mediterranean. Contributions range from 13th c. Tunis to my own contribution on "Trust and Time in Sixteenth-Century Italian Mediterranean Commerce," and include two great conceptual essays by the editors.

CfP: Small Worlds, Big Worlds: Medieval Mediterranean Perspectives, Ninth International Conference of the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean, Instituto de Estudos Medievais (IEM) – NOVA, FCSH, Lisbon, June 22–26, 2026 maryjahariscenter.org/blog/small-w...

We are awarding FIVE tuition scholarships to RSA members who wish to attend the 2026 Digital Humanities Summer Institute on the campus of the Université de Montréal. Apply by November 19, 2025! www.rsa.org/news/712947/... #RenTwitter #earlymodern #scholarship #digitalhumanities

On Thursday, 30 Oct 2025, 5:30pm London time (1:30pm New York/6:30pm Brussels), Alex Lee (NYU London) will speak about ‘Disability and Community: Healing Miracles and the Bianchi of 1399’. Free! Online-via Zoom & IHR Senate House, London To register: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Our jam-packed programme is ready to go! Keep reading for more ⬇️

Our summer 2025 volume has been published open access at doi.org/10.1553/medi...

Books. No cookie preferences. No cookies. No GDPR. No pop ups. No bots. No floating videos. No AI. No ads. No trackers. No misinformation. No fascist techbros. No distracting animations. No paywalls. No influencers. How good are these things? Books are frickin awesome

Head to "that Frankenstein place" on the hill. What could possibly go wrong?

Book launch October 23rd! Join CEMS for the launch of Prof. @evelynwelch.bsky.social's Renaissance Skin. We'll be gathering in King's History department. Comments from Dr. @historyelaine.bsky.social and Dr. Paolo Savoia. Chaired by Dr. @hsmurphy.bsky.social. kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/renai...

The Black Italian Renaissance is a critically acclaimed documentary that examines the presence of Black people in the Italian Renaissance and their contribution to its development and significance. Join us for a screening & discussion: warburg.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Join us in Rome or online for a seminar on plant illustrations on 6 November! 🪴🌻🌿 Through images of mandrakes and ferns, @fabribald.bsky.social and I will be discussing issues in the role of images in early modern botany. www.biblhertz.it/events/43483...

Epistemic Practices and Plant Classification in Premodern European Botanical Knowledge: An Interdisciplinary Treatment Edited By @fabribald.bsky.social is now available in the new warehouse - www.routledge.com/Epistemic-Pr... The ebook is on sale for US $42.74

Netflix may have gone a bit far in its promo if the new series. But I’m glad to learn there’s a new series coming!

I love a good heist film (Hudson Hawk is my guilty secret!), and I agree the reality here seems far more prosaic. But I was still imagining the film in my head when I read the news this morning.

Good see the NGV doing the right thing again. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Today, free online registration from the Newberry in Chicago

This is not as dire as some make it out to be. But it does seem fundamentally to misunderstand university teaching. I don't think anyone actually teaching has seen it as content delivery for decades, if ever. University teaching has always been applied teaching. www.forbes.com/sites/shanno...

New book! So pleased to get my author copies of our edition, translation, and study of Gregorio Dati's "La Sfera", a fifteenth-century Florentine poem on cosmology and geography. This was the brainchild of the unstoppable Carrie Beneš. It's profusely illustrated and will be great for students.

Another brilliant tribute to Marc Maron and WTF. It's heartening to see how many other people's lives he touched. I was traveling all day yesterday so I have not listened to the final episode yet. That bitter-sweet treat awaits on tomorrow morning's walk. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Call for Papers📣: Gender, Violence and the Early Moderns. Join us in Florence. We look forward to hosting you in May 2026😎☀️ @eui-history.bsky.social #skystorians #academicsky #earlymodern

AN #EARLYMODERN POST!! They still exist! And a lovely one at that, for five years and with the brilliant people at KCL who have turned that place in quite the hub of exciting early modern research. Run, don’t walk.

The Word made Flesh is out today! I've not seen it in the flesh myself yet, but this is a happy day after many years of work. #EarlyModern #medhist #histmed #bodyhistory

Classical music, always and only. Probably not the first thing you thought of when I said classical music, but something more contemporary. Stephen Glass maybe.

The greatest comedy for television, by the proverbial country mile. "while television may have evolved since 1975, Fawlty Towers was born fully formed. It still lives in a world of its own." www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Like many others, it seems, you can no longer find me or my work on Academia.edu. You can still find my stuff on Hcommons, or as always just email or DM me if you don't have institutional access to an article or chapter I have published and I'll send you a PDF.

🚨Job Klaxon🚨 Open rank Professorship in History of the Middle Ages with consideration of digital Methods 📍Institute of History, University of Bern (🇨🇭) 📆Deadline: 19 October 2025 ▶️ Information: tinyurl.com/56ywncuj #Medievalsky #DigitalHumaniities

Coming up Sept 16 at @notredame.bsky.social - Art, Politics, and Ritual in the Clementine Jubilee Year 1525 A talk by by Sheryl E. Reiss arts.nd.edu/events/2025/...

"These companies might even lay off workers or slow their hiring because they are convinced—like the software developers from the METR study—that AI has made them more productive, even when it hasn’t."

"Why worry about actually learning anything when you can get an A for outsourcing your thinking to a machine?"

I have been assigning episodes of In Our Time as additional listening for students for years: a smart, accessible conversation between scholars. Melvyn Bragg can be a little annoying (to me anyway) but he never lets the discussion flag or get sidetracked and he keeps the guests honest!

(Call for applications) Assistant Professor, Tenure-Track, Medieval History (Global), Department of History, Baylor University histoiresante.blogspot.com/2025/08/post... #histmed

A group of economists train AI to prove what art historians have already established: more non-historians producing naïve, simplistic work b/c they have no understanding of historical methods or analysis. news.artnet.com/art-world/ai...

Technologist Miller Prosser sees a future where students expand creativity and critical thinking by reading and writing, all without a single subscription to a faulty techbro app.

"Raphael: Sublime Poetry" coming to the Met March 29–June 28, 2026