Relieved to read the editorial board of my local paper here in Fort Worth (largest republican majority city in Texas) come down on the side of free speech and academic freedom. www.star-telegram.com/opinion/edit...

Heads up, #humanities scholars! @ransomcenter.bsky.social is hosting an online info session about our 2026-27 research fellowships. Join me & Tracy Bonfitto next Thursday (Oct. 2) at 9 AM, CDT for details about our collections & application process. events.teams.microsoft.com/event/ad72fe... 🗃️📜📚

CHOTINER: And you didn’t know this person - what did you call him again? CELEBRIMBOR GREATEST OF THE ELVEN SMITHS: Right, his name was Annatar but CHOTINER: And you taught him to create a ring harnessing all his malice and cruelty? CELEBRIMBOR: Well I mean I was deceived CHOTINER: So you’ve said

Op Ed by President of the AAUP chapter at UT Austin. Let teachers teach, let students learn. #AcademicFreedom #DefendHigherEd

Found the best cure for the constant dread of creeping authoritarianism: taking my students to Special Collections! Seriously though, it’s my favorite class every semester. Buncha intro to early modern Euro history students, almost no majors, just so jazzed about touching really old books.

First post of the new academic year and it's a good one: JOBS! There are THREE fixed-term research jobs in @kingshistory.bsky.social attached to my colleague Francisco Bethencourt's new ERC project on the Visual and Material Culture of New Christians. Please circulate! #EarlyModern 🗃️

Many thanks to our friends @hyperallergic.com for spreading the word about @ransomcenter.bsky.social's 2026-27 #fellowships! Learn more by visiting the Center's website: www.hrc.utexas.edu/fellowships/ #Humanities #Photography #Literature #ArtHistory #RareBooks #Theatre #FilmHistory 🗃️📜📚

What amazing company to keep! And what a thrill to see Reading Practice honored in this way by the NACBS! @uchicagopress.bsky.social

We are thrilled to announce the shortlist for the 2025 Stansky Book Prize for best book in British Studies dealing with the period since 1800. www.nacbs.org/news/stansky... @uchicagopress.bsky.social @oxunipress.bsky.social @stanfordpress.bsky.social @princetonupress.bsky.social

Yeah, sure, but I won’t look like a Mr. Potato Head with hair plugs either

💫New Workshop #CfP💫 'Object Stories in Health and Medicine, 1700-1900', 5 December, online, organised by the very fabulous @annafranjam.bsky.social & @rebeccawhiteley.bsky.social. #HistMed #HistSTM #HistPsych #DisHist #HistNursing #MatCult #MaterialCulture #MedHums #Skystorians🗃️

what a humiliating way for don jr. to find out his dad sends birthday cards.

More women have nearly bled to death during miscarriage under Texas’ abortion ban. Experts say the trend paints a troubling picture of the harms of unnecessary delays in care. “This is striking,” one doctor said. “The trend is very clear.” (Published July)

Happy Labor Day! Feeling grateful for the unions that have made a real difference in my family’s life: @ruaaup-aft.bsky.social and @alliedpilots.bsky.social. Power to the workers, y’all!

Oh gosh, it’s almost like those of us trained to assess knowledge claims and situate them within their social and economic context were on to something…

Texas banned phones in schools and my kids (in 7th and 10th grade) are so happy to have the weight of managing this addiction taken off their shoulders. They’re so happy. My son (the sophomore) told me, “Mom, kids actually talk to each other again. It’s so nice.”

Just finished up the first week of the new semester, which began with a welcome back party last weekend, which turned into a super spreader event for a nasty stomach virus, which ended up taking down half the faculty and a bunch of our grad students. How was your first week?

Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it

It's your lucky day! The Recipes Project's Summer 2025 issue on "Making" launched today, & this issue we're releasing a new season of our podcast, Around the Table with Sarah Peters Kernan. Click below to read the first two posts in this issue! recipes.hypotheses.org

Just a heads up that we’ve extended the deadline and are accepting proposals for these two panels through August 5! Come hang in San Fran and talk global early modern #histmed #histsci

Attention scholars of the Renaissance, and particularly those in #histmed #histsci! As the Medicine & Science “Discipline Rep” for the RSA, I have the opportunity to sponsor up to 4 panels at next year’s conference. CFPs are up on the RSA’s site, but I’m posting details below!

We are thrilled to announce that the Conflict, War and Violence in the Early Modern World Conference, with a keynote address by Professor Mark Stoyle, will be held on 30-31 October at the University of Exeter. Please help us spread the world, and consider submitting a proposal!🗡️

I’m quiet on here, mostly posting about work things & academic stuff, because I just don’t know what to say about this nightmare we’re living in the U.S. They opened a concentration camp yesterday and made it into a photo op. Of course they did. newrepublic.com/article/1975...

At a Mexican restaurant in Malibu with my sis-in-law three weeks ago, waited for a to-go order next to David Duchovny (also getting take out). Wished it was Scully and not Mulder.

Man do I wish my specific & somewhat antiquarian expertise in premodern medical theory had absolutely zero relevance to the current state of health policy in the U.S. www.npr.org/sections/sho...

Just a reminder that we’re still accepting pitches for the summer 2025 issue of The Recipes Project on MAKERS AND MAKING. More info on submissions process below 👇

A new #medieval #medhist #manuscript post! "Magical Medicine in Medieval Manuscripts", written for the National Library of Medicine blog Circulating Now, reporting on one facet of my research there as a DeBakey Fellow in the History of Medicine. circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2025/06/05/m...

I'm just glad one of these men has the nuclear codes and the other has all our personal data.

Indiana U (my PhD alma mater) faces a far-right take over. IU gave the world the Kinsey Institute, offers more less-commonly-taught-languages than any other US university, and fortifies central Indiana with art & culture. They want to turn it into nothing more than its business school.

I am always so grateful to scholars who engage with my work, but getting to read James Waddell review Reading Practice for the TLS was a high point, for sure. So much attention to detail, & so thoughtful in its critiques. Just brilliant to be read so carefully! www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/b...

The Recipes Project team is starting to collect pitches for our Summer 2025 issue on MAKERS AND MAKING. We’d love to hear from you! More info on how to submit a pitch here: open.substack.com/pub/therecip...

Hot take: academic paywalls should be abolished, in order to encourage academics to return to more traditional forms of gatekeeping like writing in Latin or using ciphers

TL;DR: it turns out everyone feels shitty when what they believed to be meaningful interaction and engagement has been outsourced to an algorithm! Even students who use AI to write aggressively generic essays. Gosh, it’s almost like AI is making things worse? www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/t...

I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I ESTC.

Plantation sick houses and medical neglect - a new blog ahead of our closing conference, written by the extremely excellent Halle-Mackenzie Ashby. We've been following her progress since she participated in our summer school, and it's a true pleasure to see it develop. 🗃️

Maybe one of the coolest moments of my professional life. Reading Practice in the wild! At Heffers bookshop in Cambridge! On the same shelf as books by Ralph Hanna and Andrew Pettegree and Adam Smyth and Christopher de Hamel. WHAT THE WHAT.

I know everyone will tell you that the weather in England is dreary, but I’ve been visiting for research off and on for over a decade, and EVERY TIME I’ve had weather that’s *chef’s kiss.* Is it me? Am I the good luck charm? My walk home from the Cambridge University Library yesterday afternoon:

I’m really proud of the Spring issue of The Recipes Project: FOOD AND WAR, edited by @vanesamiseres.bsky.social and Jessica Clark. Some incredible posts coming your way this May! Read more via our Substack: open.substack.com/pub/therecip... And subscribe if you haven’t already!

Underrated medieval pope joke.

Cassocks are red Conclaves are dope Wake up babe we got a

@acls1919.bsky.social, the AHA, & @modernlanguage.bsky.social filed a lawsuit in federal district court today, seeking to reverse the recent actions of the NEH to devastate the agency, including the elimination of grant programs, staff, and entire divisions and programs. 🗃️

Really looking forward to the “Medicine, Race, and Slavery in the Atlantic World” conference happening in two weeks @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social, featuring yours truly, plus @alltoosuman.bsky.social, @meghankroberts.bsky.social, @claireweeda.bsky.social & so many more. Link to register below!

Your kids get a max of two toys and then grow up to work in the same factory as their father and grandfather screwing in tiny screws. It’s called The American Dream.

Full disclosure: it was a podcast episode that got me all up in my feelings. My students are producing a season of our department podcast in my history of science class, debunking myths about the relationship between religion & science in early modern Europe. Finished listening tonight. Stay tuned!

You know that feeling when you go out on a limb and assign students a non-traditional final and then they come through with amazing stuff that has you feeling like we’re all going to be ok? Yeah, that’s where I am right now.

It’s my last week of my first year on the TT after 5 years of postdocs & job searches & close calls & rejections. It’s not perfect—new jobs are always stressful, & academia is under attack right now—but I still feel v lucky to be doing this work & v grateful to be able to imagine my future in it.

Deadline approaching May 1st for the next round of research fellowships sponsored by the Consortium for History of Science, Technology & Medicine -- funding available for scholars to travel for research in library / archival collections of consortium members: www.chstm.org/news/apply-2... #HistSTM

Trying to think of any previous technology that needed this many people out there telling everyone that they're wrong about how it stinks and it is very good and helpfully actually