Ch 1 of Voices of Thunder tells Rose Thurgood’s story. She lived in Colchester, where she and her children were poor to the point of starvation. As a C17th woman writing from this perspective, her voice in the archive is unique. Her account of her life is in manuscript @thejohnrylands.bsky.social

Just two weeks until Voices of Thunder is published! If you’re interested in hearing the stories of a dozen radical seventeenth-century women, it can be pre-ordered now ⚡️#earlymodern #womenshistory

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

This looks good. The remarkable Wentworth, who published accounts of her experience of spousal abuse, is one of a dozen dissenting 17th-century women whose incredible stories I tell in my book, “Voices of Thunder: Radical Religious Women of the Seventeenth Century.” #booksky 📚💙

Women have been speaking out about abuse for centuries! I wrote about Anne Wentworth, a 17th-century survivor of domestic abuse, for @theconversation.com #earlymodern

"Women have been describing their experiences of male abuse for centuries – we just haven’t always been ready to listen to them." @drnaomibaker.bsky.social reminds us that if you think domestic and family violence is a new thing, you're not paying attention. theconversation.com/the-17th-cen...

She’s just the absolute sweetest, no argument! 😻 #catsofbluesky #caturday

Every time a film of Wuthering Heights yet again reduces Emily Brontë’s radicalism and imagination to something supposedly “relatable” it makes me go back to her poetry and remember how wild and enigmatic she really is. I love this poem on autumn #EmilyBronte

Holding her little book (a bible I would assume) #HerBook #EarlyModern

It’s one month until publication! ⚡️ reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/voices-... @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

The Pales, the oldest Quaker meeting house in continuous use in Wales. It is in a remote spot because of how intensely Quakers were persecuted in the 17th century - as the stories of the Quaker women in my book “Voices of Thunder” reveal. The burial ground dates to 1673, the meeting house to 1717.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, in which he demolishes ideals of beauty in the name of being able to see and celebrate a speaking, breathing, walking woman. It’s not that she’s “not pretty”, it’s that ideals of beauty are fundamentally destructive. Goodbye to “the goddess” and good riddance! #earlymodern

My chapter on ugliness in the forthcoming Bloomsbury Cultural History of Beauty begins with this Arcimboldo portrait of Rudolph II (c.1590). Is this image ugly or beautiful - or both at once?! Viewers have never been able to agree - because ugliness and beauty are metaphysical categories … 1/2

Not long now until ‘Voices of Thunder: Radical Religious Women of the Seventeenth Century’ by @drnaomibaker.bsky.social is published. It’s out on 1st October from Reaktion Books. #HistoryBookChat #EarlyModernHistory #EnglishCivilWar #WarsOfTheThreeKingdoms #RadicalHistory #ReligousHistory

The proofs are here for my chapter in the forthcoming Bloomsbury Cultural History of Beauty. Am really proud of this one! 📚 #earlymodern

On this day in 1819, 18 people were murdered and hundreds were injured when armed cavalry charged into a group of peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in Manchester. Shelley wrote “The Mask of Anarchy” in response to the massacre. 1/2

“A learned woman is thought to be a comet, that bodes mischief wherever it appears” (Bathsua Makin, 1673) - some things never change … 👀 #earlymodern

Is this the earliest surviving portion of the New Testament?? It’s a fragment containing John 18:31-33 and 37-38, describing Jesus’s confrontation with Pilate. It was discovered in Upper Egypt and has been dated to the second century CE. A fragment echoing with ancient mystery! @TheJohnRylands

New toy #caturday #catsofbluesky

Waterstones offer ends TODAY! www.waterstones.com/books/search... #earlymodern #womenshistory #books #WPreorder

Thanks @iantattum.bsky.social for this lovely review of VOICES OF THUNDER. It’s interesting that you pick up on how many of the women in my book - who as you say were “pioneer autobiographers” - had “unreliable husbands”! #earlymodern

1 year old today 😍 #catsofbluesky

So happy that Waterstones are featuring VOICES OF THUNDER in their fantastic summer pre-order promotion! 🌟 From TODAY for 4 DAYS ONLY - 25% off RRP when you use code SUMMER25 at the checkout for online orders 🌟 www.waterstones.com/campaign/jul... #WPreorder #earlymodern @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

‘[A] comprehensive, critically intelligent, challenging and original book, which genuinely breaks new ground in mapping the religious history of Europe.’ Thank you to Rowan Williams for his amazing review of ‘Silence of the Gods’ in @theobserveruk.bsky.social 📚 observer.co.uk/culture/book...

It is gripping and full of thought provoking anecdotes and insights on every page. Covers so many important topics of great historical interest and contemporary relevance. Such as the development of autobiography, women and working class people finding their voice, conscience, and lived experience

“I am no madder than Paul was” - thrilling to be reading the letter that the self-proclaimed prophet Richard Farnham wrote from Bedlam in 1638. 1/2 @thejohnrylands.bsky.social

Visiting @thejohnrylands.bsky.social today to look at a manuscript which contains two very early English conversion narratives - both dating to the 1630s and both written by women! VOICES OF THUNDER begins with the remarkable story of Rose Thurgood, one of these women #earlymodern

Did you know that over half of all publications by women in the 1650s and 1660s were prophecies? We need a new approach to women’s literary history 📚#earlymodern

So excited to see VOICES OF THUNDER in the top 10 “Hot New Releases” in women’s history on Amazon! ⭐️ #earlymodern

Orange is the colour of the summer 🧡

This image of a woman fighting the Beast in the 13th-century Trinity Apocalypse is sensational. The manuscript was possibly created for a woman and a 17th-century woman was its first identifiable owner - women are unusually prominent in its stunning illustrations Image: Trinity College, Cambridge

Comma butterfly going for a bold colour combo 🦋

Relieved to see I’m not the only one this happens to on the odd occasion … Jan de Bray, A Woman Asleep over a Book, 1660, British Museum

So much fun working with the @kingsartshums.bsky.social marketing team and the Globe on this ‘Top 5 Shakespearean Film Adaptations’ (and got to live out my inner TikTok star!) If you’re on Instagram - give the original a like too! — www.instagram.com/reel/DL4nTOC... #Shakespeare #skystorians

I was in my early 20s when I first read Rose Thurgood’s account of her life, written in 1636-7 while she was fearing that she and her four children would starve to death, such was their poverty. This was a completely different voice to those I was used to encountering in 17th-century writing. 1/3

Sneak preview of the contents page for #VoicesofThunder - a roll call of the incredible 17th century women whose amazing stories I am lucky enough to tell in this book @reaktionbooks.bsky.social #earlymodern

Hello, book! 😍 #earlymodern @reaktionbooks.bsky.social

One of my students used “maidenhead” for virginity in their essay and now I’m wondering if they think I am actually from the 17th century #earlymodern

Thank you so much @sarahceross.bsky.social for this wonderful endorsement of “Voices of Thunder”! I’m thrilled with how the book is connecting with its first readers - the women I discuss in the book have been kept in the shadows of history for far too long @reaktionbooks.bsky.social #earlymodern

“the most accessible, detailed and well-informed study to date of the 17th-century women preachers and prophets … many will find it an eye-opening revelation” Am thrilled with this wonderful endorsement of VOICES OF THUNDER by Prof. Nigel Smith @reaktionbooks.bsky.social #earlymodern

Excited to see that “Voices of Thunder” can now be pre-ordered (at a good price!) from The Guardian Bookshop! 📚 #earlymodern

Shelley’s prescient vision of Anarchy unleashed …

“I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention” #catsofbluesky #caturday

The first tragedy written in French was by a leading Calvinist Reformer, Theodore Beza. “Abraham Sacrifiant” was published in 1550 - this is the English translation by Arthur Golding. The Reformation was not in opposition to the Renaissance but was inextricable from it #earlymodern

Calvin on the right, Luther on the left. Brings it home that the Reformation was about words, words, words

I’ve got a chapter on beauty and ugliness coming out soon in which I discuss Shakespeare’s #sonnet130. What a poem, which in a few short lines is able to reject metaphysical models of beauty in the name of life in this world. It might have become a cliche but I love it #earlymodern

The proofs have arrived for my chapter in the “Bloomsbury Cultural History of Beauty”. I discuss the Neoplatonic concept that an entity that exists in time and space cannot ever truly be beautiful - a damaging idea that Shakespeare rejects, or so I argue!

30% off advance purchases of my forthcoming book press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/...

English Language and Literature was one of the five founding courses of the University of Manchester (when it began as Owens College in 1851) - the others were Classics, Maths, Mental and Moral Philosophy and Natural Philosophy @officialuom.bsky.social @uomcreativemcr.bsky.social