JOB for recent MLIS grads! Nadia Sophie Seiler Rare Materials Residency Split between Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington, DC, July-Dec. 2026) & Yale Center for British Art (New Haven, CT, Jan.-May 2027) Application deadline is May 22 amherst.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/FSL_Em...

What a gorgeous illustrated article. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The number one biggest, most important, most paralyzing reason I haven't finished writing my book(s) is that I'm scared of people online. This Odyssey meltdown is NOT helping. The second reason is that the "n" key on my laptop is sticky.

I want to make a poster of a raccoon with a cool guy casual vibe saying “hey planting one native plant is better than none”, to encourage people to start planting something and I know he should not be smoking a cigarette. I know. But I just feel like in my heart he IS smoking a cig.

Victorianists: the list of authors includes Arthur Conan Doyle (x4)!

We’re appointing a writer-in-residence! Join us to respond to our holdings related to the Bloomsbury Group (including the archives of Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press) ahead of a major exhibition in 2027. Applications close 19 May. Best of luck! collections.reading.ac.uk/news-and-vie...

TWO great jobs in History and Philosophy of Science at Sydney! Rank from Lecturer (Assistant Prof) to Assoc Prof. Particularly interested in candidates working in the areas of early modern science, or science or medicine in Asia, or Indigenous knowledge systems... #HPS #STS #histstm #histsci

Over the past 50 years, a criminal network sold millions of dollars of allegedly looted antiquities to some of the world’s largest museums, Ariel Sabar writes. He reports on their entrepreneurial genius—and their theft, deception, and betrayal:

Congratulations to our new union comrades at Penn State! Especially glad to hear the union covers temporary and part time faculty as well, to head off attempts to pit adjunct and TT against each other. www.centredaily.com/news/local/e...

A reminder that two-thirds of National Endowment for the Humanities staff were laid off last year from their *career* positions, and most divisions and programs were eliminated. None of which had to happen except by the inconceivable choices of a few in control. #NEH

Jesus christ I just saw who's been appointed chair of the NEH

I wish this article discussed the teams of taxidermists, artists + conservationists who flourish at most natural history museums, who work in workshops, and who are training a new generation. But we still love to see taxidermy represented nonetheless. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/s...

“This ring was given to the young lady who was drowned so early in her beautiful and happy career, by her husband, when they first plighted their faith to one another.

Her boredom rose so strong in her sometimes that it felt like terror: it took her by the throat. Not long ago she had been driven to speak of it. She had to talk, she thought, or she would go mad.

I was not prepared to learn the parrot's name. www.whitehousehistory.org/photos/theod...

there is no literal meaning to this (wokeness take parrot?) they just expect people to intuit 'miscegenation & effeminacy destroyed everything" & they do—the comments are picking that up

Follow up: Teddy Roosevelt is my most hated person (cc @ceaubin.com), and my unit on TR + nature hit so hard in my lecture class this semester that I’m expanding it next year. Using this photo.

Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can’st not go mad?

A recent speech in Cambridge by the Irish Premier. Admittedly HE funding is incredibly short in Ireland, but the audience of historians was taken aback to hear a defence of the humanities from a political leader that they had almost forgotten could exist. Link to event below, it links to the speech.

Nice coverage in The Atlantic “The country’s commitment to the humanities has been affirmed in court, and I love that.” (Me)

Lmao now our degree audit (our internal transcripts system where classes slot to track whether students are on track for their major / graduation / etc.) is malfunctioning. I swear I need to be on meth to deal with this.

Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr

I made it through the school year, but more importantly Franklin made it through the school year. He’s being treated for Lyme, but he’s a trooper who drags me on hikes / swims every morning. It’s been a hard one.

France passes law on the restitution of cultural artifacts looted during colonial rule

They’re gonna close down the predatory learning management system unless we put on the best dang talent show this town has ever seen!!!

Hackers have compromised Canvas, the learninge management system used to teache college courses. The hackeres have made the system slow, inefficient, unresponsyve, and yn manye cases ympossible to use. Studentes and Professors so far have not noticed any difference.

A relaxing, beautiful night before seniors' grades are due! (Actually doesn't affect my class much, but jfc)

ACLS / MLA / AHA / Authors Guild won the NEH case against the mass termination of grants.

It's almost as though Canvas, uh, sucks.

Now we've got hantavirus??

[disco sounde] Make a litel tea Reade a litel Woolf Staye yn tonighte! Staye yn tonighte!

LET'S GO SILK-WORMS *clap clap* *clap clap clap*

every mushroom foraging guidebook: This is Woodland Pot Roast, a tasty little mushroom that adds a delightful flavour to soups and stews. Note that it is often mistaken for Satan’s Fistula, a mushroom that erases the last 9 generations of your family from God’s ledgers.

It ys a moost terrible tyme. My greatest wisshe ys that you may fynde sum unpredicted moment of peace, delight, mirthe, pleasure, discoverye, connectioun, or fascinacioun that doth make yower day just a litel bettir, that doth helpe you thrugh. Ich wisshe thys for thee wyth every bit of myne hearte.

In 2020 @yaelrice.bsky.social and I authored this article to dispute this kind of pseudo-scientific research, which regularly gets press attention, precisely so that others don't have to cope with the tedium of refuting it. Here's the refutation you need! hyperallergic.com/how-scientis...

"Yet even in these stunningly precise accounts, the intensity cannot be felt vicariously. It is only through presence, our own animal body, that one can know the peace of being allowed near a wild creature or of having it meet your gaze"...I really loved this essay. pioneerworks.org/broadcast/ge...

Probably sex work

I wrote a short thing about Richard Spruce, Richard Evans Schultes, and the legacies of colonialism in Amazonian ethnobotany for Cultural Anthropology's Fieldsights: Theorizing the Contemporary series... www.culanth.org/fieldsights/...

It's just trauma all the way down! Then you make it into art!

"The monuments to the Confederacy remain resuscitated, unable to be covered over with vines or blurred under layers of graffiti, unable yet to become softened into the remnants of a dead empire." lareviewofbooks.org/article/monu...

if only Louis XVI had had a ballroom he might be alive today

Today is Octidi the 8th of Floréal in the year 234. Floréal is the month of flowers. Today we celebrate button mushrooms.#JacobinDay More information on button mushrooms

Much of the cardboard and paper goods strewn about our homes are sold by a single private company, with its name, Uline, stamped on the bottom. Many may not know that a multibillion-dollar fortune made on those ubiquitous products fuels far-right candidates across the country. (Published 2022)

How your email finds me

Yes, Kash Patel drinks heavily. But he doesn’t snort cocaine off toilet seats and he has never been publicly accused of sexual harassment. That makes him the odd man out in this administration.

Listen, one of my hottest takes for DECADES is that magicians - and particularly mentalists - are creepy, misogynistic, and potentially dangerous (I have and will say much more after a couple beers). I don't ever want to be near one. So yeah, this totally tracks.

Literal hell

Ich thynke but litel of a Mondaye bleake Tuesday grey and Wednesdaye eke Thursdaye Ich care not for thee Yet Fridaye Ich am yn love [super sweete lute riff] Mondaye thou kanst fall awaye Tuesdaye, Wednesdaye, myne herte slaye No mirthe ys founde upon Thursdaye Yet Fridaye Ich am yn love

Happy Arbor Day! 🌲 #SaveUSFS​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

3-year postdoc for the project Botanical Legacies: Towards a New History and Philosophy of Virtual Herbaria at Ruhr University Bochum - looks like a great project!