I now have several students writing their final dissertations on history in video games, it's great to have such a convenient resource to point them towards!

Medieval German law told it like it was I guess (but also, what?)

this is interesting #medievalsky. has anyone done any research collecting all the various European medieval structures there were imported and reconstructed in the US? there must be other small ones like this at Marquette... www.wuwm.com/marquette-st...

There’s no such thing as an unbiased chatbot. Academic librarian Raina Bloom @mmelibrarian.bsky.social on how “AI” developers ignore how people actually become informed. From Ep. 51 of Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, “The War on Knowledge”. (with @emilymbender.bsky.social)

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

New candidate for best article title just dropped 😂

I really wish there was any kind of consequence for when the customs people slap the wrong charges on a package. Happens all the damn time, in every country I've lived in, and there's absolutely no incentive for them to be any less crap at their jobs (indeed, the reverse). Grr.

Ça pourrait intéresser aussi @rmblf.bsky.social?

Check it out, we're planning a special issue of @frenchhistory.bsky.social for the 700th anniversary of the advent of the Valois dynasty! Details and timeline at the link below, but don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions 😊

WHAT ARE YOU DOING PAPARAZZO

Am I now using this quote as the title for a department talk I'm giving about the video game course? You bet I am! 😁

First day of teaching this term, let's go! (This year, featuring murderous bunnies, because why not)

We might not feel it yet but with the AI, the weaponisation of history and literature by the far right and the crisis of political system humanities are going to be very, very much in demand.

this is well worth checking out!!

My therapist: Don’t worry, Merovingian cursive is not real, it can’t hurt you Merovingian cursive:

What's that? You'd prefer a one page visualisation of what an academic & professional publisher needs to see in your book proposal? Here's one I made earlier.

Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college: 1. Histories of Leisure in Modern Europe (history) 2. Harmony (music) 3. Monasteries and Cathedrals in Medieval Europe (art history) 4. Space, Time and Motion (philosophy/physics) 5. Introduction to Statistics (social studies)

I hate to tap the sign but again: this is all made to make in-person education and access to knowledge transfer a preserve of the elite. Human education for the few, bots for the many.

New theory: aurora alerts generate clouds in southern Norway

My lure for tomorrow's meeting of our Medieval Histories research group: sea salt brownies. (Is this impact? I feel like this is impact.)

So much wrong with the history in this amicus brief (as the OP here knows). Birthright citizenship *was* medieval law in that children of aliens born in England were English. And being married to an English person exempted you from taxation. My receipts here: www.nacbs.org/post/medieva...

Anyway, good news! Open-ended lectureship in early medieval history at KCL. www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/136727-...

On the list of problems universities are currently facing this one ranks pretty low, but seriously, *why* are we forced to go through a travel agency rather than just booking trips ourself? Waste of time and money ><

That's a, uh, bold claim on the part of this anonymous C14 cleric... 🧐

Wanna pre-order Radiant Star and also get it signed (by me)? www.left-bank.com/book/9780316...

What is the early modernist equivalent of the International Medieval Bibliography and/or RI-OPAC? (I'm vaguely aware of the International Bibliography of Humanism and the Renaissance, but my library doesn't subscribe so I don't know if that's The Thing or if there's something else...)

Whenever they cut university budgets, more processes to apply for limited funds inevitably crop up, which means more time is wasted trying to proceed with essential tasks that used to be reliable and effortless: that is, cutting budgets also undermines efficient productivity. How is this rational.

More than twice the maximum number of students wanted me to supervise their BA dissertation, but sure, tell us again that medieval history isn't needed

I wish we'd stop banging on about "rules-based order" is dead. The more we say that, the more true it becomes. And the fewer rules there are, the worse things get. How about try banging on about the rules we want to see implemented instead?

TFW you live in Oslo and your aurora alerts are going off like crazy and it's completely overcast. Again. ><

This "any work undertaken will be regarded as voluntary" comes across as especially cynical, given how much routine academic work is already essentially voluntary even though UK universities 100% depend upon it...

No YOU spent way too much time trying to make a cool cover photo for your course website on Power and Violence from Vikings to Knights.

An interesting PhD opportunity (i.e. job!) at Oslo on the project POLYCHROME: "Candidates should propose a research project that examines, in one form or another, historical sources that shed light on changing attitudes to medieval objects after the Reformations in the Scandinavian countries."

Discord wants to know how you feel about AI. Go tell them: discord.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

TFW the results of my end-of-year-academic-budget shopping spree have reached my desk 😁

OK, so I've got basically 2 days to grade 31 student portfolios, hit me with your best tips to actually get this done 😅

As a pre-Christmas treat, allow me to explain the true significance of the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the @museecluny.bsky.social, which is the story of the unicorn's increasing disaffection with its career as a standard-bearer.

🧵 with a very useful framing: until the massive structural problems around this technology are fixed, the discussion cannot logically proceed any further (only put much better than this!)

At an archive in southern France I asked to see a certain collection. The archivist said it was still kept at the relevant castle... then went off and came back with the phone number of the marquis on a post-it note (sorry to say, I did not ultimately cold-call a member of the French "nobility" 😂)

Gods rest ye, dead Barbarians, Your hitpoints gone away, Remember that your Good cleric Has 3 Raise Deads per day To end your being spread so thin On dungeon walls all grey. Good fighting shall be yours to enjoy, yours to enjoy! Good fighting shall be yours to enjoy!

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Nice feeling to be able to comfortably read student essays in Norwegian at the end of my fourth semester of teaching here 😊 (Looking for wins in the pre-Christmas grading pile!)

Crying with laughter at the last line 😂

Don't steal pies this Christmas.

🎵'Tis the season🎵 where I wonder what the devil the designers of the user interface for our grading management software were thinking. A veritable maze of impenetrable options through which I vainly click in search of the only two things I need: the student's paper and a place to put the grade. Why.

One argument I used to make to my students about why it was important to learn history (and historical thinking) is that someone was always going to be trying to tell you things were natural or had always been this way and that you needed to be able to see that as an exercise of power.

There isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom

There's lots of ongoing work as we're preparing for the new Museum of the Viking Age to open in Oslo. Our museum, @kult-hist-museum.bsky.social is now hiring an Associate Professor in Nordic archaeology, with expertise in the Viking Age. www.jobbnorge.no/ledige-still... #Vikingtidsmuseet

Off to a fantastic start at the Late Medieval France and Burgundy Seminar! Particularly pleased to note that we have 2 back-to-back panels on politics with all-women lineups (and across all career stages)—a sign of positive change in the field? Also, it's all Jeannes all the time, as it should be 😂

Made a site comparing the sizes of living things :) The great Julius Csotonyi spent 5 months painting over 60 illustrations for the site, no ai used > neal.fun/size-of-life/