Pleased to have one of my Substack posts -- on making art in times of chaos -- featured on @nevillemorley.bsky.social's list: thesphinxblog.com/2025/12/29/b...

I need a really really fun and easy novel in German.

My annual list of blog posts, articles and other internet things that I enjoyed or found especially interesting this year: thesphinxblog.com/2025/12/29/b...

Christmas present. Can't put it down. This year I recovered a great deal of my joy in fiction through the novels of 20th century British and American women. I like the half-forgotten ones especially. Tell me your favorites?

"Writing, at least until I find my groove, feels like training a ferret. Making art feels more like releasing the animal and seeing where it runs.” — Irina Dumitrescu #SundaySentence

4/12 💙📚 #DSPBposts from @houseofanansi.bsky.social @astra.bsky.social @alexneve.bsky.social & @biblioasis.bsky.social & contribs @petrawrites123.bsky.social @sharmavivivek.bsky.social @shashibhat.bsky.social @johnwallbarger.bsky.social @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social @nancyhuggett.bsky.social

Very welcome news today that the UK will join the Erasmus+ programme in 2027. This will enable greater opportunities for study abroad and contributions in UK universities, and is something we called for in our most recent Manifesto.

I was on the CBC last night along with other contributors talking about a book I recommend. The link to the program is in this article, I'm right at the start, and I am apparently *very enthusiastic*. www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/...

Next April, I'll be hosting a salon at InterIntellect with the brilliant A. Natasha Joukovsky, whose novel MEDIUM RARE will be out by then from Melville House! interintellect.com/salons/was-c...

Journal of English and Germanic Philology 124.4 is available on @projectmuse.bsky.social ! Contributors include Britt Mize ( @tamu.bsky.social ), @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social ( @unibonn.bsky.social ), @dariocapelli.bsky.social , and more. cc: @ndiscenza1.bsky.social muse.jhu.edu/issue/55693

Pretty awesome to see one of my essays in Italian! www.internazionale.it/magazine/iri...

My name is Irina, I'm obsessed with colour, and I wrote about it for my column in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/regular-feat...

Reasons academics should contest universities’ AI campaigns: a manifesto - chatbots are being trained to replace your teaching - you are wasting time grading chatbot papers - you are wasting time peer reviewing chatbot papers - you are wasting time submitting papers reviewed by chatbots

The theme of next year's Power of The Power of Storytelling conference in Bucharest is: hope. I'm thrilled to be speaking alongside fantastic journalists, artists, and entrepreneurs, including two writers whose books I've been honoured to review in recent years. www.thepowerofstorytelling.org

I am extremely excited about this upcoming event on creative approaches to the medieval at Cambridge in January, and the chance to talk about craft, history, and scholarship with some truly amazing people. Open to the public, but registration a must. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-m...

My new article has now been published in the 2025 volume of Traditio. I use a little examined episode on the lower Rhine in the late 350s with the aid of agricultural archaeology to reveal fiscal dependency relations between the Empire & Barbaricum, & the consequences of their rupture. #medievalsky

Canadian friends, I will be on CBC Ideas on December 10, talking about a nonfiction book I'm absolutely obsessed with right now! www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/...

‘My eyes, exhausted with beauty, didn’t know where to look any more. Yet I couldn’t stop’ – Irina Dumitrescu visits the couture show at the Louvre, now on at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and finds a surfeit of riches

Next time I'm trying to write and it's not coming along, I will simply write, "unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits." After that, you can only go up.

A totally devastating and really thoroughly reported piece.

📢 #CfP #medievalsky #OldEnglish 📜Beowulf & Circulations Conference 📲Details: cemasorbonne.org 🏫Centre d’Études Médiévales Anglaises (Sorbonne Université) 🗣️Keynotes: Irina Dumitrescu (Universität Bonn) & Francis Leneghan (Oxford University). 📅March 13-14, 2026 ⏰Submission deadline: 10 January, 2026‼️

Last chance to book for 2 online workshops happening very soon. This Sunday 23rd as part of our workshop series, we are exploring Rhythm and The Ballad. Join us! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/exploring-...

Sometimes I think if I could go back to 2008 and tell grad student Irina about my creative life today, there's nothing about it she'd have an easy time believing.

Does anyone I know use Obsidian (or an app like it) to put together the pieces of a book or other large written project? Would be grateful for any tips or process notes you are in the mood to share.

📢 #CfP #medievalsky #OldEnglish 📜Beowulf & Circulations Conference 📲Details: cemasorbonne.org 🏫Centre d’Études Médiévales Anglaises (Sorbonne Université) 🗣️Keynotes: Irina Dumitrescu (Universität Bonn) & Francis Leneghan (Oxford University). 📅March 13-14, 2026 ⏰Submission deadline: 10 January, 2026‼️

The medieval mystics have been coming up a lot for me this week. Im re-reading Dr Carmel Bendon’s fabulous novel w/ historical medieval reference to Julian of Norwich w/ modern day mystery based in Sydney & now @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social article incl.mystic Margery Kempe psyche.co/ideas/get-me...

I would like to know about your favourite modern novels in verse, please! Mainly interested in English but also curious about other languages.

Yes! We just got a subscription to the @szde.bsky.social. Delivered in the mornings. Wild how exciting it is. Part of the idea is to leave it around so the kid starts to notice there are other ways of finding out what's going on in the world than what's on screens. The writing is great too.

I had a lot of fun writing this piece for @psyche.co, which just reminded me that people have always had to deal with criticism from others -- and the key is to be creative about how you deal with your haters. psyche.co/ideas/get-me...

No one could ever make me eat Brussels Sprouts as a kid - I would sit at the dinner table until hell froze over before I’d take a bite (now I like them).

Today I wish to share with you one of my first forays into food writing, an essay on Currywurst that appeared in Petits Propos Culinaires. My first attempt at understanding German culture, something that would become a long-term project! irinadumitrescu.com/wp-content/u...

I can't be there, sadly, but some of my Toronto friends might want to know about the launch of this year's Best Canadian Poetry!

'Each course also featured a “sotelte”, or subtlety, an ornamental dish meant to impress, often sculpted in sugar.' Irina Dumitrescu on medieval attitudes to social class

On bad luck. I was more right in this newsletter than I knew. irinadumitrescu.substack.com/p/and-then-a...

Bonjour, fellow medievalists! I'm very pleased to announce a conference on Beowulf next March at the @cema-su.bsky.social Sorbonne. I have the honour of joining Francis Leneghan in giving one of the keynotes. Link below has the CFP and registration info, please spread the word! cemasorbonne.org

Time to bring a twitter series to Bluesky: Given the incredible number of 20th-century churches in Northrhine-Westphalia (the topic of my dissertation), I’m going post one or two every day. None of these images are mine, they're all credited in the alt text, and I'll take any down if asked

A former picky eater and mother of a selective son makes a contrarian case for letting children listen to their taste buds and develop their own palates. www.seriouseats.com/the-kid-is-a...

I talked to the @unibonn.bsky.social magazine forsch about perfectionism, the Middle Ages, and why we could do with more creativity in scholarship. This is the English translation. www.uni-bonn.de/en/universit...

This was pretty awesome for me too!

Book review by @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social on Bee Wilson's new book about kitchen objects and the stories they tell. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/b...

As a four-time immigrant who has learned how much you have to leave behind -- and how meaningful the things you can still hold on to are -- I was particularly happy to review Bee Wilson's new book about kitchen objects and the stories they tell. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/b...

I was so very pleased to blurb Peter Jones' new book on the seven deadly sins and medieval psychology. It's an unexpectedly addictive read! www.penguin.co.uk/books/469085...

“Romania in the early 1980s was brutalized by government austerity policies... My parents stood outdoors for hours in sub-freezing temperatures to buy potatoes and meat... Faced with this hard-won fare, their wispy, sickly daughter clammed her mouth shut... I would not eat.”

"I do not want the family table to be a battleground for his bodily autonomy." 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗞𝗶𝗱 𝗜𝘀 𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁: 𝗜𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘆 𝗘𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 https://bit.ly/4nudUZ4 📸: Annelise Capossela 1/4

Well chuffed to see my picky eating essay for @seriouseats.bsky.social featured by @longreads.com as one of their five weekly picks!

In our Weekly Top 5: * Media mistrust @harpers.bsky.social * Hunting identity @bittersouth.bsky.social * Meat and pota-woes @serious-eats.bsky.social * Celebrating cinephilia @lrb.co.uk * Knightley news @thetimes.com longreads.com/2025/10/31/t...

For Hallowe'en, I'm sharing "Shift," my one and only work of fiction, a short Cortazar-inspired piece about transformation that I wrote for a pandemic-era online collaborative project. www.enneadecameron.com/shift/