I am reading Butler’s Earthseed series for the first time; currently on Parable of the Talents Encountering her fictional right wing, fascist presidential candidate and his MAGA slogan in the wild, imagined by her circa 1998, is certainly an experience

The Customs of London in the historical context of the early modern period is really just a completely wild legal structure. Impossible to figure out the particulars of something (unless it went wrong) because no one wrote it down because “everyone knows we’ve always done X”? Insane way to govern

What a terrible feeling to be reading Parable of the Sower and watching the characters, written in the 90s, talk about the measles epidemic of 2025.

I really do keep forgetting that most organisations have administrative bodies that are more like “Veep” and less like the Sith Lords

We’re on what feels like day 65 of endless rain in the northeast and I’m starting to understand why all these English Victorian heroines had to go to southern France for their health

anyway the consultation shuts tomorrow, one minute to midnight UK time: www.gov.uk/government/c... Amnesty have some good guidance here. Go on: media.amnesty.org.uk/documents/Am...

The survey is live until 12 February; please take a moment to comment.

In Neil Gaiman’s “I did nothing wrong ever” statement he says there’s been no good journalism about him or his assaults. There has been, of course. Thing is, he said the same thing in 2018 when @moryan.bsky.social reported on issues behind the scenes on American Gods www.moryan.com/a-burn-it-do...

The Capricorn Cake from clove coterie’s astrology cakes series is ready to go—a vanilla poppyseed olive oil sponge with blueberry and rosemary compote filling, a vanilla cake soak, and a violet-chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream

Thesis submitted! 🍾🍾🍾 If you'd like to read something that contains both bibliographical formulae and discussions of rimming, then it may be for you!

Democratic Senators: “someone should DO something! Someone needs to INVESTIGATE!” Me: …and is the someone in the room with us now, or…?

For any other residents of NH, there is still room in Sen Maggie Hassan’s voicemail; and I even spoke to an actual staffer in Shaheen’s office after 2 rings, so please do call: Hassan: 202-224-3324 Shaheen: 202-224-2841

You are using war powers without congressional approval? Believe it or not, jail!

This eggplant parm recipe by Claire Safitz was introduced to me by @18thcenturysam.bsky.social (occasionally I am very lucky and she makes it), but making it as I do every Christmas season always leaves my kitchen looking like the site of some obscene disruption www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bas-b...

Merriam Christmas

anyway, when you're wondering why AI can't do the job of historians, think about this image. none of this future collection is accessible to any LLM now; perhaps five decades from now, perhaps, 1% of this might be machine-readable. perhaps.

One argument I used to make to my students about why it was important to learn history (and historical thinking) is that someone was always going to be trying to tell you things were natural or had always been this way and that you needed to be able to see that as an exercise of power.

Apprenticeship has a long history in the UK; although there is a myth of the decline of apprenticeship as a training mode historically, what instead happened was that plum placements became the purview of the wealthy while poor children were trapped in endless indentured contracts with no route out

Once again 'a copy of Newton's first publication in Germany in battered contemporary sheep' is at the top of every child's Christmas wishlist, and I'm glad to say we're the only retailer where that is available for purchase: www.abebooks.co.uk/first-editio...

Harrowing (literally). And one of the knock-on effects from this kind of curricula violence is that legitimately interesting and promising computational work—including, yes, involving AI—is inevitably tainted by association. It’s not good for anyone, except administrators.

“Spell my own name correctly in email sign offs at the end of the year” challenge (this week iterations have included “Bwth,” “Beeth,” “Brth” and /incomprehensible keyboard smash/)

Pretty pleased with what my Spotify wrapped says about me: Bach (a top 2% global fan !); Fleetwood Mac; Charli xcx; Be Good Tanyas; and Stan Rogers

🪡🧵: As a part of the Robinson special collections bequest scheme, I’m working on the diaries of Hilda Runciman, one of the first women members of parliament. In 1938, her husband, Walter, was sent to Prague to help negotiate between the Nazis and the Czech government. She went along. (1/?)

It’s the “we have no choice” that gets me. Yes you did, @womensinstitute.bsky.social. You could have chosen to fight. There was no legally binding implementation from the ruling. No, you chose the path of cowardice—have the decency to own it as a choice.

I tried Gemini on some tricky marginal annotations I'm working on. I'm not a good manuscript scholar but it took much longer than me to produce a transcription that ignored most of the manuscript and inserted a word that wasn't there. I think I'm not going to give up reading my sources just yet.

I need you all to know that when I say I’m engaging in the proud tradition of writing my conference paper on the train to the conference, it’s all me

Friendsgiving plate 2025: green bean casserole (with from scratch mushroom soup, natch); sweet potato casserole with marshmallow; macaroni & cheese; Brussels sprouts with gochujang butter & walnuts; mashed potatoes; cranberry sauce; turkey; onion gravy

St. Paul-sized Roger L’Estrange balloon at the Lord Mayor’s Day parade

TFW you’re rehearsing for the Christmas concert and the conductor shouts up to the organist “Miles, I want apocalyptic levels of organ” and you know you’re going to be able to feel it in your sternum

I am heavily invested in handwriting & historical documents. Historians need to weigh carefully whether time spent transcribing documents is “wasted,” or whether it actually helps thought processes & skills. This is not to say these tools should not be used. Just consider the cost of “time saved.”

it’s important to remember that we can trust this application of machine learning—wrapped, alas, inside a chatbot—because we who are endowed with actual intelligence can independently verify the accuracy of the transcriptions.

The Friendsgiving turkey has arrived and is looking particularly plump

JQ has met snow directly for the first time today; as with everything, he met it with bonne humeur and a desire to see if something good to eat might result

Palaeography 🧵! Or why it can take a historian a while to confirm what they already suspected must be the case and not really get any further than they were—but this time with confidence 😂 I'm working with documents that list the incomes of medieval French lordships, so a lot of it is about grain.

I do find it funny that there are two (2) kinds of special collections library job: 1. You speak 18 languages; never sleep; have worked in a library for 50 years; published the definitive work on whatever the Board thinks is Most Important; salary of a billion dollars 2. You give book ($5/hour)

Curator of Rare Books at Folger listing is live. You’d be working with some first class people! amherst.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/FSL_Em...

Interesting revelation from the Newcastle University town hall w/ VC Chris Day today; apparently Russell Group VCs all had dinner w/ Reform leadership 2 weeks ago to try and “engage” with them. Wonder if they’ve also tried to “engage” with other parties like the Greens, who are doing well in polls?

The UK government is spending nearly £40k+ a year for 4 years on me, a US citizen, to be here and get my PhD. Yet no one is talking about taking my grandmother’s earrings or seizing my bank account. How did I “earn” that, & someone else also leaving 1 country for a better future in another, not?

Nice one, Zadie Smith.

Can’t emphasize how much I want to go back in time and ask everyone doing anything I care about to not do anything important like dying or being elected to the Stationers’ Court of Assistants between January and 26 March so I don’t have to deal with calendar reconciliation

“Lest we forget,” everyone says, actively and violently forgetting

I often bring knitting with me to conferences; this project came together almost entirely during the Women & the Household conference I just attended, and is finally complete. Meet Harold Fatmus:

Great look into the comprehensiveness of EEBO and EEBO-TCP and what that means for using those tools. Highly recommend for all computational bibliographers and early modernists doing large-scale work with EEBO

The fact that the UK is continuing to ban bringing back cheese from the EU should be considered a hate crime

More sights from Antwerp: the cathedral, Bakkerij Goossens, and Elfde Geboed

Spending a dreamy morning at the Hendrik Conscience library with the conference group and @svanimpe.bsky.social, who is a walking encyclopedia

Belgium will fry anything except bicycles

Ready for day 1 to talk about women, households, and books!

So Antwerp is incredible; obsessed with Jeanne Rivière, matriarch of the Plantins

I am in Antwerp for the Women & the Household in the Early Modern Book Trade conference (I’m very excited) and I have to say, in terms of hotel art, I really won the lottery