I had the *immense* honour of working on two of the RSA's 2025 Award-winners! My congrats to @rmidura.bsky.social and @smunozar.bsky.social !! www.rsa.org/news/721395/... www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501... www.dukeupress.edu/the-new-king...

#BookHistory gang, I *need* you to act. There had been one of an entire #ItsyBitsyGutenberg shop in 2022 and we didn't get it to the required number of votes 😭

Have a medieval novel inside you waiting to be written? 🏰✍️ Join our Writing Medieval Fiction Workshop and start honing your craft. medievalstudies.thinkific.com/courses/writ... #CreativeWriting #HistoricalFiction

Academic history colleagues, list all the different courses you teach. 🗃️ Mine are: 1. Reformation 2. Renaissance 3. Early Modern Low Countries 4. Women in Early Modern Europe 5. Europe and the World 1400-1700 6. Early Modern Europe 7. Western Civilization to 1500 8. Grad Seminar in Ren and Ref

"we are living through unprecedented times". bro these times have so much precedent. these are some of the most precedented times of all time.

This is a beautifully written piece- delighted to be a part of it!

#CfA Our institute journal #QFIAB covers a wide range of historical periods, from #medievalstudies to #ContemporaryHistory. #ItalianHistory, #MusicHistory Deadline for the next volume 106 (2026), is 31 January 2026 - more information: dhi-roma.it/index.php?id.... #skytorians @rmidura.bsky.social

@rmidura.bsky.social joins me on @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social to talk about her @cornellupress.bsky.social release #Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and #Communications Revolution in #EarlyModern Europe #skystorians #BookSky 📚💙 newbooksnetwork.com/postal-intel...

Job alert: www.usna.edu/HRO/jobinfo/...

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

In some personal news, I've got a new project debuting in January 😁

This storyline has been old for decades, yet it seems like every day there's another new installment.

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! 🗃️

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.