hey y'all! my questionnaire on player experience in historical videogames is now LIVE! if you play videogames about the past, we want to hear from you! edu.nl/7w3yn

When cats are confused by or upset about something, they just smack the shit out of whatever it is that's frustrating them and I think that's beautiful.

A (long) thread of (anglophone) #StarterPacks and #feeds of interest to #EarlyModern #skystorians. The first two posts list a sample of hashtags for which Bluesky feeds currently exist. The following forty-two(!) posts list starter packs for scholars of various aspects of early modern history.

If you want to know more about our use of handwritten text recognition software (Transkribus) on the wills project, tune in on Zoom next week 👇 All welcome (not just postdocs!). #EarlyModern 🗃️ #DigitalHumanities #HTR #CitizenScience

Sharing a great new video for our (funded!) History MA here at Virginia Tech. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions or info for students who may be interested: #academicsky www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzZl...

Being a podcaster costs $40 for a decent mic and $18 per month for hosting. The hard part is having something interesting to say. Get a degree in that!

Had a lovely brief visit back in the Bay! Great fun discussing #17thcentury conspiracies with groups at Stanford and Berkeley 🕵️‍♀️

1. Modeling data does not a historical argument make. 2. Lefebvre might have written an early classic, but his sources are not the complete 'archive' of Great Fear rumors. 1/n

The evil that men do lives after them

Finally got to do the secret itinerary tour of the Palazzo Ducale! It was amazing. Friend described the vibe perfectly as “classy torture bureaucracy.” 🗃️

Just saw that my article "The Black Chamber: Opening Europe’s Post" is now up on @historytoday.com ! 📯🕵️🗃️ www.historytoday.com/archive/feat...

1,425 photographs at the archive today, that might be a personal best. RIP my shoulders though ☠️

Yay, just got word that the Historical Games in Research and Teaching roundtable has been accepted for #aha2026! Looking forward to talking about the pedagogy keeping me sane during AI-ification and all the rest. This hopefully means the linked panel and creative session will be appearing as well 🤞🗃️

✨✨Maps & newspaper research from LwM & MRM teams (@danielwilson.bsky.social @joshrhodes.bsky.social @jonhistorian61.bsky.social @nottinauta.bsky.social @ruthahnert.bsky.social @npedrazzini.bsky.social @kallewesterling.bsky.social + more) featured in @pnas.org this week! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I love him 😍

If anyone cares to weigh in, I'd be curious how realistic this sounds to #earlymodern or #medieval folks who know this particular journey well! I'll also be diving back into the postal materials, of course. 🗃️

Two new teasers from the forthcoming Italian Itineraries data for routes in Italy, #16thc - #18thc. On the left, heat map showing difficulty of travel based on elevation and slope. On the right, shortest route by km between Rome and Bologna #earlymodern #digitalhistory 🗃️

Finally warm enough to work on the porch with my favorite assistant 🐈‍⬛ #catsofacademia #academicats

Job klaxon for Virginia Tech, please share! #intelligencehistory #militaryhistory #skystorians 🗃️ careers.pageuppeople.com/968/cw/en-us...

enjoying in-my-bones certainty that I am working on the right project for my second book. I can't remember who to thank for this advice, so I'll pay it forward: think of the part you most enjoyed writing from the first project. That's the method and/or sources you want to spend more time with! 🗃️

I don't know whose cat needs to hear this, but you LITERALLY just ate.

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

I have taken the grant funds that were in your NEH account and which you were probably using for humanities research, training, and outreach. Screw you the statues will be so numerous so heroic and so cold.

did anyone else conveniently forget how much transcription went into researching for an #earlymodern book? 😵‍💫 I can thank #16thcentury Spanish administrators for re-activating the eye-twitch I got during qualifying exams...

Italian route network is done! 8 influential itinerary books from the #16thcentury through the #18thcentury ready for Maps-style route planning. We're on track for sharing the shapefiles in coming weeks as we continue to develop the tool. Watch this space! #earlymodern #digitalhistory 🗃️

Did the people investigated by the inquisition in Bologna form a few cohesive communities, or are they better understood as many small groups or individuals who drew the attention of the inquisitors separately? To find out, take a look at our most recent data snapshot! dissinet.cz/data-snapsho...

My review of @rmidura.bsky.social's Postal Intelligence is now available as a pre-print for The Seventeenth Century. In short: if you are a #skystorian interested in the #17thC and/or #EarlyModern #communication, #intelligence, and #StateFormation, buy this book!

Did you know that we give away free credits to students who want to use Transkribus for their Bachelor, Master or PhD thesis? Lean more about our Transkribus Scholarships 👇 www.transkribus.org/scholarship

A short article of mine on civil-military relations and democratic backsliding had been accepted for publication in the journal "Connections". Then I received an email that the editors can't publish the paper unless I "remove the case study/examples of the United States" (1/x) #CivMilSky

Word of the day is ‘bugiard’ (17th century): one who distorts the truth beyond all recognition to fit their own agenda.

Is Kilmar Abrego Garcia alive? Because the amount of resistance to addressing his being trafficked gives the distinct impression that either he is dead or what they have done to him is so unspeakable that they cannot afford for him to be freed, seen, or spoken with.

I don't think it's an exaggeration that it's an existential moment for the U.S. Supreme Court, when the President works with a foreign dictator to openly disobey a 9-0 ruling.

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

Hello Bluesky! This is the official account of the Society for Reformation Studies. We meet each April in Cambridge for our annual conference and our journal is Reformation and Renaissance Review. We are keen to engage with anyone interested in Reformation studies! #earlymodern #skystorians

Roundtable Discussion: “No Return: Jews, Christian Usurers and the Spread of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe” by Rowan Dorin. May 5, 2025, from 1:00-2:30 p.m. Ontario/Québec time, via Zoom. #jewishstudies mjsnow.hypotheses.org/17057

After the nth conversation with a student about AI, I've been thinking of ways to try convey what it feels like for their professor to read an AI-generated essay. Here is what I've settled on: it's Too Many Cooks. Here me out: youtu.be/QrGrOK8oZG8?... 1/4 🗃️

This is what they're doing to Dr. Badar Khan Suri. This is not my America, and the world is aghast.

Don't trust anyone who follows the word 'permanent' with the word 'digital'.

Probably one more session of tidying to go before I've got a complete route network for Italy as published #16thCentury - #18thCentury! I like this view of Northern Italy to show that the #earlymodern routes (red) are not just the Roman roads (green). 🗃️ @emdigit.bsky.social

This is well known but just sharing some images of a table book: these were small, portable, erasable, used for jotting down notes at sermons or lectures. This one is very fancy but they turn up as standard purchases in #earlymodern account books #folgerfinds

A quick 🧵of the incredible sights in cities across the USA right now. Millions are on the street speaking out against Trump & Musk trampling the Constitution. Let’s start here with Salt Lake City 😳👏 #HandsOff #HandsOff2025 #FiftyFiftyOne (📸Nate Blouin)

A mother and her three children were snatched by ICE from a dairy farm in Sackets Harbor, a rural town in northern New York. But the location is no coincidence—Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, LIVES THERE. He allowed his own neighbors, including a third grader, to be jailed. Deplorable.

Listen, as a premodern historian, I absolutely get wanting to look at my era, but this is Louis XIV without the skill. Charles I but incoherent. Nicholas II but a terrible father. This is your modern ruler who wants to be a godking but everyone else is looking at them like they're a fucking weirdo.

Today, approx. 135 of the 185 total NEH staffers woke up to the news that their positions were being RIFed. Then, almost all current grantees received emails cancelling their grants. I posted this on Fb, mostly for non-academics, but here's a bit about the impact of the 3 grants the NEH gave me: 1/

Keep in mind: the NEH’s budget is 0.01% of the entire federal budget. This is not about savings - it is about the destruction of the Humanities and the critical thinking abilities that they teach. 🗃️

Among the thousands of groups affected by the sudden cessation of funds are state arts councils, museums, historic sites, archives, libraries, educators and media outlets in all 50 states.

If you are an MAA member and your NEH or IMLS funding is at risk or has already been revoked, please email me. I don't know what, if anything, MAA can do to help you, but we will absolutely try. #MedievalSky

#skystorians #Venice #Carnival #c18th 🗃️Any advice: what is the 'Fresco' referred to here in Feb. 1791? 'Nous allames aux Fresco dans le Battellon de l'Ambassador ...Le Fresco fut suberb il y avoit 3 batteaux de Masques ainsi la Péote du Comte d'Artois qui etoit bien belle.'