I have been sitting in the ED waiting area so long I'm now imagining myself as an extra in The Pitt.

Lauren MacDonald displaces the Franciscans in favor of the Mercedarians and their practical savvy in the conquest of Mexico emspanishhistorynotes.wordpress.com/2026/05/11/m...

Our special issue #30.1-2, "Reflections on the Global Early Modern," is now available online! It opens with an introduction by Zoltán Biedermann, Giancarlo Casale, and Molly Warsh, "How Early? How Modern? Reflections on the Global Early Modern (Part 1)." brill.com/view/journal...

Ruth MacKay with another banger in @pastpresentsoc.bsky.social - issuing new law codes weren't really about fixing the law, but simply an expression of royal authority & genealogy emspanishhistorynotes.wordpress.com/2026/05/05/m...

it really is our time to shine. my husband stumbled across my previous post and I had to explain that it was medieval church history insider baseball.

Do I need to call Catherine of Siena to clean up this mess? you do not want to make that lady mad.

im a sucker for a airplane sunrise

🤣, sayeth scholars of saints

part of the problem with needing to make travel arrangements to Europe far in advance is that sometimes I'm guessing about timing if some events haven't nailed down the schedule yet. long story short, I have a very awkward couple of empty days to figure out what to do in July

yesterday it was 79

I had such a great discussion with my graduate students yesterday on David Wheat's Atlantic Africa paired with Yanna Yannakakis's Since Time Immemorial. we couldn't stop talking!

Anthropic cofounder says studying the humanities will be ‘more important than ever’ and reveals what the AI company looks for when hiring by Jason Ma for Fortune fortune.com/2026/02/07/a...

💔

here's something that might be helpful to early career researchers: starting at a new archive can be really hard. I've been at thus for 20 yrs & still have occasional crash outs trying to navigate confusing systems. You'll figure it out, be patient with yourself.

here's something we (historians) don't talk enough about = the archive is magical but the archive hurts. I mean physically. it's too hot or too cd, the seats are hard wood, it requires squinting over sometime indecipherabld hands in twisting posture for hours. in complete silence

if there's anyone out there working on Sor María de Agreda, let me know. I just came across a completely random but fascinating snippet in the archive about reception of her book c. 1683/4

Here are some early 17thC flowers painted by Clara Peeters just because it’s dark & it’s winter. (Met Museum)

you know how you know you picked the right hotel while traveling for research? you check in Sunday evening and out of no where the lady at the desk says 'would you like a glass of champagne?" and you've been traveling for almost 24 hrs and it feels like a miracle

I'm getting ready to go to Spain for two precious weeks of research, to Palma of all unlikely places and then very briefly in Seville. I chose the locations most miserable to visit in the summer! desperately trying to get the finishing touches on this article.

Being in crisis & grief during the holidays is surreal, esp when traveling. It's nearing the anniversary of a devastating run, a dash from the bedside of a critically ill loved one to a visit with a dear friend in hospice. For all of you out there experiencing grief and trauma this season, I see you

I learned English grammar from Latin.

Mountains from airplanes are magical. Pro tip: if you're flying into Portland from the east, sit on the left side for the best views of this beauty

trying to put together an outline for a new monograph, and realizing it's too early to have a clear shape and trying to figure out if it's still worthwhile exercise

". . . there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it." - C.S. Lewis

for those of you who can't stand 'impactful', I'd like to introduce you to 'solutioning together '

this poster hangs on my office walls!

WOULD YOU LOOK AT THIS PROGRAMME 🤩 And more excitement to come in 2026 as well. I often get driven to despair about the health of #earlymodern studies because of how it's deemed 'not useful' and 'unpopular in recruitment' and then I see just how much brilliant and varied work we do despite all that

🌟 On this day in 1970, Pope Saint Paul VI proclaimed Saint Teresa of Ávila Doctor of the Universal Church. He recognized her extraordinary doctrine "as coming from heaven." 🔗 https://twp.ai/ImqA4K #SaintTeresa #DoctorOfTheChurch

Wild early Modern engravings from JHUs Women of the Book Collection

I'm not gonna lie - yesterday I was crashing out and spent a really long time watching "Hamilton climbing out a window" Tiktoks and giggling because how clever of these female creators to riff on how contemptuous H was of his wife.

In 2004 when writing my dissertation, I decided to buy a printer (my 1st); my brother recommended one that was pricey for me - a Brother 5040 LaserJet. It just went kaput. RIP printer. I love that printer, which got me through one dissertation and two books

I've reached the early-middle stage of this project where it feels like the projects is going nowhere and says nothing. Experienced enough to know that's common and not necessarily true, but still not a good feeling

The English translation of Job Ludolphus is sending me. The insults are so good - in reference to another author: "he was one always of Little Judgment, less Faith, and no Honesty." He's a hater and I'm here for it.

All my sources so far have been in Portugese, leading to the question of whether I should be in Lisbon, not Madrid. But Madrid is my city so I regret nothing.

It is absolutely wild to see baroque sacred art complete with lovely estofado work sitting around Madrid antique shops.

Because I didn't learn Spanish until I became an early modernist, sometimes I accidentally use 17th c spellings. Today I wrote 'quatro' and couldn't figure out why spellcheck flagged it. 😆

A weekend of jam making and bread baking (finding peace where I can. This week - back to the nuns and their professiobs.

On my way! ✈️

'Under Philip II, librarians imagined the stocking of the royal bookshelves as an enterprise parallel to the voyages of exploration.' Alberto Manguel on the organiszation of knowledge in the Spanish Golden Age

Happy friday!

humanities major hiring on the rise against the hallucination plagiarism arson machine www.cnbc.com/2025/05/16/c...

First fruits

JHU put required first year writing (called Reintro to Writing) at the center of our curriculum, and our excellent University Writing Program is a leader in what Writing programs can do.

This might win academic bluesky today

I was trying to be cool about the conclave but I confess I'm on pins and needles now

Being in the humanities is wild. You spend years studying how societies construct meaning, only to have people say “lol cute, but what’s the real value?” Bro I’m literally explaining how value exists.

I love this word so much

Few things more magical than mountains from the sky.

A sneak peek at the first book in English on 17th-century Portuguese painter Josefa de Óbidos #earlymodern #arthistory #booksky

Because the bread gods despise self congratulations, this morning while making my loaves, I was talking & got distracted & doubled the water. It was a complicated recipe involving a poolish so not easy to fix. I will light a candle to the patron saint of baking debacles