Re-reading Emma Flatt's Courts of the Deccan Sultanates and very much appreciating this piece of advice, from the 11th century Qābūsnāmah:

A Frenchman in London gets brought into Bridewell having been "taken in women’s apparel", but they let him go after his mistress and neighbours swear "that he did it upon a merriment to fetch oysters and without any other cause".

OMFG. Check out the one on ‘Explorers and Conquerors’. WVU should be embarrassed to teach such dated bullshit.

My Ides of March fun fact is that the place where Caesar was stabbed is now a cat sanctuary, and I think it’s beautiful that creatures with tiny knives on their feet live there

We're excited to present some aspects of our project at #AAS2026 -- looking forward to a great (hybrid) conversation about 'New Approaches to Colonial Archives in S. Asian #DH' -- w @electrostani.bsky.social, @shreethorat.bsky.social , @christinawelsch.bsky.social & @schottemargaret.bsky.social

www.bbc.com/news/article... #materialculture

"If you'd like to witness human evil at its worst, come with me any day to the West Bank." -- David Shulman www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Last year, this guy (left) from DOGE used ChatGPT to find NEH grants that were too “DEI” for Trump, and canceled them, including mine, as shown by the letter I received last April (right). Huge new NYT article on the back story link below

This is Nathan Cavanaugh, another DOGE staffer explaining how he flagged grants at NEH for "DEI" which would be reviewed for termination. 404 Media has reviewed hours of this footage and we'll have more soon. Part of a lawsuit by @acls1919.bsky.social, @modernlanguage.bsky.social + @historians.org

"U.S. officials called London insurers and brokers, trying to figure out how the market operates, industry insiders said." When applied to the current administration, I urge caution in using terms like "plans," "strategy," "policy," or "doctrine." www.wsj.com/finance/u-s-...

shared with me by @jamesnevius.bsky.social

A DOGE staffer assigned to the National Endowment for the Humanities to flag grants for "DEI" tries to explain what "DEI" is. This deposition is part of a lawsuit by the @acls1919.bsky.social, @historians.org and @modernlanguage.bsky.social.

We are delighted to announce the winner of the WHN Book Prize. The judges chose Female Servants in Early Modern England by @charmianmansell.bsky.social The highly readable & engaging book, interrogates long-standing assumptions about the domesticity & constraints of women’s lives in service.

“The two killed were of Indian and Bangladeshi nationality”

this is a remarkable chart

BREAKING: U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained three U.S. citizens and three Green Card holders, including an Evanston resident, at O'Hare Thrusday afternoon At least one, an Evanston woman, is currently being held at Broadview's ICE facility, her sister told me

SHOULD THE U.S BLOT OUT THE SUN AND USHER IN AN AGE OF ETERNAL DARKNESS? - Gallup 2/20/26-3/5/26 NO - 41% YES - 38% UNSURE - 21%

At Harvard, I personally collected the archives of many women of color, including chef & writer Madhur Jaffrey. I will be in conversation w/ Priya Krishna April 16 at Harvard Radcliffe to celebrate the opening of Madhur Jaffrey collections to the public. www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2026-p...

Update

One woman who called the State Department helpline looking for help said they told her to "stop ranting and raving" and hung up on her. Another woman said they asked her how to spell Oman. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/t...

i still find it absolutely fucking incredible that Marco Rubio has a imagined version of Chiang Kai-Shek that he's turned into a ancestor spirit for the GOP

NYT: Inside the Underground Safe Houses Sheltering Immigrants From ICE By Miriam Jordan. Photographs by Maddie McGarvey. In Springfield, Ohio, some Americans have converted their basements and spare bedrooms into shelters for immigrant families who could be targeted in raids. Gift link!

This story, from @natezuke.bsky.social, is absolutely wild. A trans woman who never changed her gender marker was issued a letter invalidating her license. At the DMV they cut up her license, which had an "M" marker. www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

In person early modern metals event in London next month with me, @laurenworking.bsky.social, and Lubaaba Al-Azami. Please repost and share widely! And register here -- forms.office.com/Pages/Respon...

Under a new policy released Thursday, the Trump Administration will test conversion therapy on trans people in prisons. It explicitly states that it aims to help trans people “recover,” all the while forcibly detransitioning them both medically and socially. transitics.substack.com/p/the-trump-...

Eugenics. Also this will force mostly women out of their jobs

It’s happening 🌸

Hi friends. As I previously noted, the U. of Iowa is planning to get rid of African American studies; Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, & the Classical Languages major—along with others. If you wish, please sign the classics petition: www.change.org/p/keep-the-c.... I will add more as I find out.

Got a cab near the Department of Education. Hadn’t seen the Charlie Kirk banner before.

Latest from Columbia U: "This morning at approximately 6:30 a.m., federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security entered a Columbia Residential building & detained a student. ... [T]he federal agents made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building to search for a 'missing person.'"

Organised by Prof Susan Breau (IALS), this, coming up on Tues 3 March, is the first of three free online training workshops on the vital topic of Scholarship at Risk, a collaboration with @scholarsatrisk.bsky.social, with participation from @penamerica.bsky.social. www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

This is happening at schools across the country and similar to ignoring Trump’s racist attacks we’re seeing these moves being downplayed in the hopes of white racial reconciliation.

I’m giving an on-line lecture on Saturday March 7th about East India Company artworks! Joining instructions below.

Nice to notice some #DisHist on the programme this week at the IHR. Online participation possible too!

"...confidence went up when [people] had AI access, even though half the answers were deliberately wrong. They borrowed the machine’s confidence—always quite high—without checking its accuracy...The subjective experience of using AI is that you’re doing better, even when faulty answers pile on."🔥 🔥

Timeline cleanse

'A statement on 23 February explained the Bloomsbury-based research institute will be “disbanded” at the end of July 2026 because it “in its current form is not sustainable”.' Goodbye utopia, hello myopia?

Can anyone help me identify these golf signatures? From the masters , no date

"You now live in a country where volunteers deliver babies at home, in secret, off the books, because mothers fear that if they go to the hospital, they will be abducted by masked, armed agents of the state while giving birth. This is not a hypothetical."

DOGE Bro’s Grant Review Process Was Literally Just Asking ChatGPT ‘Is This DEI?’ Federal grants that had been approved after a full application and review process were terminated by some random inexperienced DOGE bros based on whether ChatGPT could explain—in under 120 characters—that they were…

📣 3-year early modern French job at Oxford: my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

"organizing with others in your same condition generates a lot of the goods we’re alienated from in our competitive society. the connection you have to others, the nonalienated ways of relating, it’s something I didn’t count on because I’ve never been in a union before." jacobin.com/2026/02/nyu-...

March 27, 1936: Portraits of the Führer are raised on official buildings across Berlin. This one at the Potsdamer Railway Station reads "Freedom - Peace"

Join us today at #RenSA26 #RSA2026 for a roundtable on #earlymodern materiality, material culture, and emerging methodologies! What am I going to talk about? Diplomacy and women (what else?) but questioning how transportability and movement impacted gift-giving.

Rümeysa Öztürk: I want them to know how many of us tried, with our small hands, to stop the wars. One day, they might. They may grow up to read what we write and share. They may know someone heard their screams and held space for their grief.