Time and space get a bit weird in the liturgical poems of Romanos the Melodist. Learn from the sixth century hymnographer, as his Advent reflections transports us to Eden, Bethlehem, the River Jordan, and the baptismal font in our own church.

In the darkness of the winter, as we look forward to the coming of Christ during this season of Advent, we look for lights to remind us of the hope we have in the Gospel.

one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.

October looks pretty different than usual this year…. (There’s a lot going on. May the snow picture be a small break from it all).

Sewanee subtheme on movement as resistance and refuge is live! Submit a proposal to think about the potential readings of movement as response to crisis with me: www.sewaneemedievalcolloquium.com/movement-as-...

Sewanee subtheme on movement as resistance and refuge is live! Submit a proposal to think about the potential readings of movement as response to crisis with me: www.sewaneemedievalcolloquium.com/movement-as-...

Delighted to be getting started on a Fulbright year at Universitetet I Tromsø. With email access and an office sign, it is about as official as it gets!

Reposting this iconic “baby with book baby photo” along with the updated version, in honor of my book’s paperback release! (It’s also 50% off with code BB094 right now on @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social’s website, so, in short, a steal).

"Proofed," the Boydell & Brewer Blog's Series Focus: Gender in the Middle Ages: guest post written by Diane Watt and Jacqueline Murray, editors of the Gender in the Middle Ages series. boydellandbrewer.com/blog/medieva...

All the news is heavy right now. I wrote about cats and Helena Augusta to cope. www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiou...

Forgot to share this when it dropped, but if you’re interested in dancing plagues, give it a listen. open.spotify.com/episode/4X01...

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

The best place to be in early May. 🗃️ #icms2025

Okay, why does this book matter? We held a conference in Melbourne in 2023, believing democratic-decay scholarship needs to pay attention to Rome, the only old democracy to fall from internal causes. I don’t need to say why that matters now. We want to bring #ancientbluesky and #polisci together. 🧵

Thinking about popes today on @anxiousbench by looking at one of my favorites, the early medieval pope Gregory I. What makes a pope great? And how do we evaluate papal legacies? www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiou...

If you are interested in learning more about the theology of the Council of Nicaea for its 1700 year anniversary (or my work!), this podcast episode from the London Lyceum is a good start. open.spotify.com/episode/5qGJ...

My monthly post for @anxiousbench.bsky.social, with some thoughts on education (maybe especially for those in Christian education): www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiou...

This made me cheer. It gets directly at a problem I’ve often noticed: people don’t fundamentally understand what a historian *does*.

As I continue to reflect on the Council of Nicaea for its 1700th anniversary this year, it seemed appropriate to share about the mother of Nicaea this Women's History Month: Helena Augusta. Read about it here: www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiou...

Happy Release Day! 🎉 Becoming the Pastor's Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman's Path to Ministry by @bethallisonbarr.bsky.social We are so excited for this book to finally be hitting bookstore shelves! Get your copy here: bakerbookhouse.com/products/598...

St Patrick's Day #shelfie from a slightly battered copy of Spicilegium Ossoriense, 1874, by Patrick Francis Moran. Have a good day!

On calculating the number of female scribes and their manuscript output in medieval Europe. sonja-drimmer.squarespace.com/blog-1/2025/...

Call for papers! 🗃️ #earlymodern this year’s focus is the revolutions of 1525…. But all papers related to religion in the early modern era welcome!

Laura L. Gathagan, author of, The Queenship of Mathilda of Flanders c. 1031-1083, shares her insights on the post-Conquest queen in our latest author Q&A blog. ##WomensHistoryMonth buff.ly/xGVhhX6

In honor of International Women's Day I've started reading this important new work by the redoubtable Merry Wiesner-Hanks. #earlymodern 🗃️

Some of the photos marked for deletion by the Pentagon to extinguish evidence of diversity. Read ALT text for detail. Then get angry.

'The financial strain on universities has driven leadership teams into aggressive cost-cutting, often prioritising key performance indicators such as grant income and publication metrics. Historically, these have been shaped by a male-dominated system'. 1/2

My @anxiousbench.bsky.social post for Women’s history month: two books that I think you should read this month, about how women’s stories help us see where our systems are broken, and how we might change them to shield the vulnerable rather than the powerful. www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiou...

For those historians keeping track, esp #milhist folks, “history” is now a flagged word bc of its apparent connection to #DEI. Canary in a coal mine, indeed. @smh-historians.bsky.social 🗃️ www.tpr.org/military-vet...

"there is, somewhere in Kenya right now, a mother of three asking, 'If I die, who will take care of my children?' Donald Trump and Elon Musk don’t care. It turns out that millions and millions of people who claim to be followers of Jesus don’t, either." www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Every sentence of this: www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

Grant opportunity for #earlymodern scholars! 🗃️

In the midst of all the larger horrors and awful things, a small personal horror: checking your spam email folder for a password reset email and finding instead emails from the past month from two different editors I’m working with 😬😳

If you’re in the US and you’d like to know what projects and vital services federal grants currently fund in your state, you can search here: www.usaspending.gov And you can find the contact information for your elected representatives here: www.usa.gov/elected-offi... They need to hear from you.

Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers. This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

In the wake of the gov’t’s attempt to dismantle, defund, and diminish important US healthcare agencies and regulations, our authors describe their importance for protecting public health. nursingclio.org/2025/01/27/t...

1/2 Went to an international Holocaust Remembrance Day event today, and during the speeches, was reminded of the best piece of writing advice I’ve ever received. “Using passive voice hides the people who did things- and makes it seem like misogyny or racism just happens.”

Thanks @kkdumez.bsky.social for the work you do- and for those who haven’t checked out the podcast @sonsofpatriarchy.bsky.social you should. It’s a hard but necessary listen.

“I thought the AI chatbots would do a lot better,” said del Rio-Chanona, corresponding author of the study and assistant professor at UCL. “History is often viewed as facts, but sometimes interpretation is necessary to make sense of it.” Where does one even start....🗃️ www.earth.com/news/ai-stru...

The antidote for despair is action ❤️ * Dial (202) 224-3121 * Enter zip code * Leave voicemail * Say “My name is ___, I’m a constituent in [town]. (If clinician/scientist, say so) “The NIH freeze harms research and patients and must be lifted immediately.” Be brief. Staffers tally all calls. Go! ✅

I sighed at the news banner, then I laughed at the picture, then I sighed again because telling people to act justly and love mercy shouldn’t be considered a radical take from a cleric…

Week 2 of the semester, and we have a snow/cold day… time to redo my syllabi. With the increase in abnormal weather patterns lately, I don’t think there’s been a semester out of the past four where I have made it through the semester as planned…

Today is a good occasion for reflecting on how the temptation of Anthony provides insights into various sexual pathologies of Christian history. In Athanasius' biography, Anthony is tempted by the spirit of fornication, who is discovered in the shape of a black boy.

If you spend much time with my husband Adam or me, you know that we both love church history. Getting to learn from the diverse body of believers- women and men, from all parts of the globe- has been such an encouragement to both of us throughout our lives.

This is an absolutely fascinating thread (the recreation of Bologna! The towers!). Definitely going to be getting and reading this book!