In my experience, scholars of a particular historical period are the LEAST uptight about "accuracy" in fictional representations of their period, which is why, as a medievalist, I can assure you that A Knight's Tale is the greatest movie set in medieval England that has ever been made.

🚨Job alert!🚨 Salary's terrible, but you do get to hang out with Beowulf and Lindesfarne...

Carlo Ginzburg’s work on micro history and magic inspired generations of scholars: www.repubblica.it/cultura/2026...

What do the Vatican Library, British Library, and Buffalo & Erie County Public Library have in common? The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili! Did you miss the lecture on this mysterious and rare book last month? Catch Dr. James Russell’s lecture here: youtu.be/7GMitopMrws

Yesterday I had the opportunity to share some of my research at Arizona State University’s Melikian Center on the Baha’i translator and medieval scholar Marzieh Gail. I presented on how Gail’s work in translating texts such as the ‘Seven Valleys’ interacted with her research on the Avignon Papacy.

Giambattista della Porta’s Natural Magick at the Grosvenor Rate Book Room in the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library

Among the many treasures of the Grosvenor Room is an exceptional early printed book combining a love story and an alchemical treatise. Join us on Sat., April 25 at 12 pm at Central Library to explore the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili with rare book researcher Dr. James Russell!

The Ben Jonson 1616 and 1640 folios at the Grosvenor Rare Book Room, Buffalo & Erie County Public Library #B&ECPL

On April 25th 12-2 I’ll be sharing my research on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili in a public presentation at the Buffalo and Erie County Central Libra and they kindly made a reel about it! www.instagram.com/reel/DXNG7b-...

Less than a week to go until our virtual conference! Full programme here ceraejournal.com/programme/ #medievalsky #earlymodernsky #ancientsky

I do think this is true. I'm often guilty myself of underplaying what the work I do looks like or how much time and effort it takes. Research isn't 'just reading' or a question of sucking up summaries others have created. It's knowledge creation. So let me go through the process with an example 1/

On April 25th 12-2 I’ll be sharing my research on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili in a public presentation at the Buffalo and Erie County Central Libra and they kindly made a reel about it! www.instagram.com/reel/DXNG7b-...

A joyful event - the city of Mesa is opening a new library today! This is a hope-giving investment in literature and learning to celebrate. There is an accompanying farmers market too. Yeah for the humanities!

#SundayReads — @DemetraVg on Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, one of the strangest and most influential books of the quattrocento, at once a story of lost love and a fever dream of antiquity: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/hypnerotomachia-poliphili-and-the-architecture-of-dreams

A recipe for creating the elixir from Raymond Lull #alchemy #LindaHall

The skeletons are shown most frequently, so here is the nervous system from the 1453 first edition of Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica at the Linda Hall Library.

A poem by John Dee in the 1623 2nd edition of Robert Record’s “Ground of Arts”, a guide to arithmetic.

“One cannot at the same time affirm and negate”, taken from the chapter “On Rhetoric” in Martianus Capella’s “On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury” at the Linda Hall Library

Illuminated initial capital in the 1472 Jensen edition of Pliny’s Natural History at the Linda Hall Library

1515 first Aldine printed edition of Lucretius’ De rerum natura at the Linda Hall Library

I’m excited to start a fellowship at the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, working on alchemy.

I’m glad to share that I will be traveling to Kansas City this week as one of the fellows of the Linda Hall Library. www.lindahall.org/research/lin...

Happy Juneteenth! Do you know about pioneering Black Shakespearean Ira Aldridge? Born in NY in 1807, he acted with the African Grove Theatre, but with limited US opportunities, he moved abroad and found great success. This 1852 German playbill notes his starring role in Macbeth.

I just had my first visit to the Folger Shakespeare Library. The warm welcome and excellent research support were wonderful. Many thanks to the great team at the Library.

Is in DC for the Summer Teachers Institute of the American Bar Association.

This is an excellent paper. 'We teach our students to see the things that are human, to appreciate the unexpected, and to see the variation that breaks the pattern rather than repeats it.' The value of education is precisely opposite to the outputs of LLMs.

Talk to the hand

So it turns out that there is a Proto-Shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham (a major medieval and contemporary site of pilgrimage in the UK) at an Episcopal church in Sheboygan, WI!

At Green Acre in Maine for the conference of the Corinne True Center for Baha’i History. Tomorrow I’ll be presenting a paper on Medievalism in the Baha’i sacred Writings and historiography.

A fantastic time at the #RenaissanceSocietyofAmerica conference in Boston, presenting with Dr. James Russel! Already looking forward to next year's conference in San Francisco. And a special thanks to @routledgehistory.bsky.social for exhibiting my book at the Conference Book Exhibition!

Join me for a closer look at the new BLP editions (HC, PB) of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili youtu.be/v6bkU1Mg9BI

I am thrilled to say my book on the Hypnerotomachia has gone to paperback and is available in Waterstones and on Amazon: Routledge: shorturl.at/LJL50 Amazon: shorturl.at/rN2F3 Waterstones: shorturl.at/iFOch #Routledge #paperback #Hypnerotomachia #ItalianRenaissance #PhilosophicalDreamNarratives

Join me, Beth Morrison, and 700 #Voynich fans for this Zoom conversation on June 13: www.getty.edu/calendar/art...

Our conference ended 2 weeks ago, but registered participants can now view the recordings on our website. Read our review for more dreamy details. Didn't have time to register and attend? You can still register with a reduced rate of $10 AUD until the end of June. #medievalsky #earlymodernsky

I’m grateful for the opportunity to be interviewed on the Secret History of Western Esotericism podcast about the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...

On my way to the Renaissance Society of America conference in Boston

I’m glad that my paper on references to the Middle Ages in the Baha’i Writings and historiography has been accepted to the Green Acre Baha’i Studies conference this June corinnetruecenter.org/james-russel...

We're particularly interested in works in progress, burgeoning research questions, quirky archival finds that you're not sure what to do with, or broad methodological questions that others might have also encountered. This is a space for informal discussion rather than finished and polished talks!

I'm organising a series of flash talks on 26th March for Print Exchanges: a global research network for anyone working on early(ish) print culture, broadly conceived. If you'd like to join the network, come to the event, or share your work do get in touch at [email protected]

Happy UK publication day to the first of many amazing New Oxford Shakespeare plays! Here’s Julius Caesar (with my intro) pictured @shakespearesglobe.bsky.social! Thanks to @oldfortunatus.bsky.social for her brilliant work as general editor and to Sarah Neville for her precise editing of the text.

Hey friends, did you know we publish a free informational series called The Collector's Counsel? It's got a glossary of book terms (300+), a list of first edition points by publisher, a map of rare book fairs in the U.S., and more. Check it out! eveninglandbooks.com/collectors-c...

How does one learn practical skills from a book? Why were how-to books so popular in the early modern period, who used them and how, and can they even be considered a clearly defined genre? Find out the answer to these and other questions in our edited volume: brill.com/display/titl...

📢16th-CENTURY WILLS HAVE ARRIVED!📢 You can now help us transcribe wills from the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI on our Zooniverse site. I found money being left for the marriage of poor maidens dwelling with honest men - what will you find? www.zooniverse.org/projects/hjs... #EarlyModern 🗃️

🚨 Lost & Found! A 19th-century Irish translation of Paradise Lost by poet Tomás ‘an tSneachta’ Ó Conchubhair has been rediscovered in the University of Illinois collection! 🎉 Believed lost for decades, it's now live on ISOS. 📜 🌍 👉 Explore: www.isos.dias.ie/collection/u...

We've just listed a first edition in English, the American issue, of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus–one of the greatest philosophical treatise ever written. eveninglandbooks.com/product/0001... #rarebooks #philosophy

#BlackHistoryMonth: Not pulling up the ladder behind him - Prince Hall used his freedom to petition Massachusetts in 1777 to grant liberty to other African Americans. While they said no, Massachusetts did outlaw slavery in 1783. constitutioncenter.org/the-constitu...

Sometimes manuscripts share glimpses into their own history of migration. Dr. Ali Diakite & Dr. Paul Naylor, catalogers of West African manuscripts at HMML, share stories of manuscripts that took circuitous routes before finding a home with libraries in Timbuktu, Mali: hmml.org/stories/seri...

Hello new folks! I see a lot of "Hey, is there a starter pack to help me find [interest/group/my people]?!" Here's a big #directory of #StarterPacks so you don't have to reinvent the wheel! blueskydirectory.com/starter-pack...