AI generated! (Only kidding)

Virginia Woolf book cover designs by her sister, artist Vanessa Bell ( 1920's - 30's) #WomensArt

Wow, what an analogy! And 💯 on the nose. I follow some sci/med types who rave about it constantly. But for most of the world I inhabit, it's lethal--ethically & intellectually. #AI #histSTM #histmed

Genuinely angry with the constant targeting of MFL for cuts - for colleagues and students, first, but also the dangerous shortsightedness of becoming a country where the cultural openness and critical skills which are central to MFL degrees will be lost and regarded as irrelevant. c.org/N2cycpKrpB

Many thanks! There's actually more of her work known than is summarized in my edition of the *Trotula* ensemble from 25 years ago. In fact, it's been a treat re-engaging w/ Trota's authentic corpus, now that the Breslau Codex has been (photographically) recovered: bsky.app/profile/moni...

Very happy to have an entry in this fabulous beast of a collection. 'Women’s Poetry in Medieval Gaelic Scotland' discusses four poems by three women compiled c.1520s in the Book of the Dean of Lismore, the earliest #Gaelic compositions made in Scotland attributable to named female poets.

Look what arrived today, or at least the ebook did. This is the first encyclopedia devoted exclusively to medieval women’s writing globally,focusing on the thousand-year period between 500-1500. Entries on about 250 women writers plus longer thematic essays. You’re welcome.

This is a remarkable resource. A thousand years of women's writing, finally consolidated. The erasure was never complete - just scattered. Bringing it together changes what 'medieval literature' means.

Where is the Dark Academia novel in which Dark Academics spend 80% of their time writing grant applications to the Dark Funding Council and most of the rest being harrassed by Dark ResearchFish (RIP)?

Applications are invited for a Bloomsbury Doctoral Scholarship on Queer Meaning-Making in South Asian Literature: New Comparative Perspectives supervised by Anandi Rao at SOAS and me. Deadline 27 March. Full details in the link 🌈🎓 bloomsbury.ac.uk/queer-meanin...

Interested in Mary Magdalen? Look an article on her living in the wilderness in France! differentvisions.org/creating-the...

Look what arrived today, or at least the ebook did. This is the first encyclopedia devoted exclusively to medieval women’s writing globally,focusing on the thousand-year period between 500-1500. Entries on about 250 women writers plus longer thematic essays. You’re welcome.

Excavation of the tomb of Akhet-Hetep at Giza revealed a monument to his mother Peseshet, the "Overseer of Women Physicians." She is the world's earliest known woman doctor, and practiced at the time of the building of the great pyramids in Egypt, about 2500 BC. #CelebratingWomen

Ok, let’s do this🙄 We’ll start with an explainer covering: 🕒What is a 15-minute city 🏫What on Earth is going on with Oxford 👽Where the conspiracy theories have come from And then we’ll look at the Telegraph article 🧵 1/25

Isn’t it time we did this in academia? Hundreds from Met Police declare Freemasons links www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Hilarious. The Torygraph doesn’t like the way I teach medieval women’s writing, and digs up a university news story from about 6 years ago so it can pretend it interviewed me, If you want the full text without clicking let me know.

Solstice sunrise

Clay letters from ancient Mesopotamia are alive with idiom, sayings, and everyday language that I love. Here are just a few random ones so you can enjoy them too.

When I was in Camden Town yesterday getting my eyes tested, I saw that the historic ladies loo on Parkway now had a plaque (local Camden scheme, not blue, yet): www.blueplaques.net/show_images....

Linguists start compiling first ever complete dictionary of ancient Celtic www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

“we estimate employment-weighted share of Americans using AI at work has fallen by a percentage point & now sits at 11%. Adoption has fallen sharply at the largest businesses, those employing +250 people. 3 yrs into the genAI wave, demand looks surprisingly flimsy” www.economist.com/finance-and-...

H is for Hawk. Encountered this falconer and his Harris Hawk out hunting in the woods while we were on our morning run!

Yesterday at West Horsley Place aka Button House from BBC’s Ghosts. Seriously haunting! I was in conversation with local historian June Davey about its putative links to Juliana Berners and The Book of St Albans. Amazing event, fabulous audience.

Did medieval nuns care for their appearance? Rings, brooches, combs, manicure sets all found on the site of Barking Abbey.

A 4000 year old carved figure found buried in Dagenham marshes alongside the skeleton of a deer 🦌

This came out earlier this week! Thank you so much to Yale University Press for all their efforts getting it to publication.

Surrey in Autumn 🍂

The problem of course is that women will vote for misogynists, but men won’t vote for women.

🚨 THIS WEEK ON PATREON & APPLE 🚨 Not all of the five came from the stereotypes we’ve been fed. 🏰 Annie Chapman’s early life near Windsor and the royal world is a story few expect. Discover it with @hallierubenhold.bsky.social 🎧 www.patreon.com/post... #History #TrueCrime #Victorian

@bristolcms.bsky.social here you go: on a trip to the Ridgeway with John Burrow and Basil Cottle!

Vile stuff. At my own university all new staff are employed via a subsidiary company to avoid the TPS pension (remember: pensions are pay) and we all fear the costing staff will be next. Management think staff are so desperate that they’ll accept anything. Remember: university managements are so…

Pleased to see such a great selection of books shortlisted!

New analysis shows over 15,000 university job cuts and c. 4,000 courses "shuttered" www.ucu.org.uk/article/1422... #Highered #Edchat #students #research

Today is the feast of Leoba, d. 782, learned kinswoman of Boniface who began her life in religion at Wimborne Abbey and accompanied B. to Germany. BSB Clm 8112, a copy of the Bonifatian correspondence, includes Leoba's letter from Wimborne ca. 732 introducing herself to Boniface. 🕯️#nuntastic

Here's another copy of the same letter from Leoba to Boniface in Vienna, ONB 751: viewer.onb.ac.at/10B7BF3F Thanks to Diane Watt for this blog post, which signals the folio nos. for the Leoba letters and includes details of MSS of Leoba's Vita: blogs.surrey.ac.uk/early-mediev...

Thanks to Jo for an important essay giving a first hand insight into the impact of a sector in crisis on academics and students 👇

I wrote something on my time on returning to Goldsmiths as an associate lecturer, 17 years after graduating with my first degree. It’s a plea to Frances Corner’s successor to learn from mistakes made over the last 6 years and change course. #UCU #UKHE ucucommons.org/2025/10/06/c...

Pleased to announce @univeng.bsky.social small funding scheme now open to members. UE will fund up to 20 projects up to £250 each to support research/pedagogy/continuing professional development activities in Lit, Lang, Creative Writing. See details here: universityenglish.ac.uk/englishcreat...

The British Academy and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation are inviting applications from early-career researchers in the humanities and social sciences to attend a research collaboration symposium on the broad theme of Truth, Justice and Peace in Germany. https://bit.ly/4nyWsmv

Love it when a reviewer gets my book ❤️

T o celebrate the forthcoming print publication of our Encyclopaedia and Palgrave’s 25th anniversary this year, four chapters are free-to-view throughout October. blogs.surrey.ac.uk/medievalwome...

#histnursing - don’t we know it - invisible nurses wherever you look in the history of health care and culture

22 Sept 1693: d. Sr Mary Cary #Benedictine daughter of Falkland Lord Deputy of #Ireland & Elizabeth Tanfield Cary #writer at Our Lady of Consolation Cambrai #otd She was also a biographer of her mother.

Really enjoyed giving my talk at the #gloshistfest and @historyrage.bsky.social gave me this great mug! Love it 🥰

The talk by @dianewatt.bsky.social at the history symposium this morning was wonderful! I highly recommend her book about Margaret Paston!

The Little Book of Dragons is published today (though you wouldn't know it from the British Library shop website). But all good retailers should be able to supply, unless you're in N. America where you have to wait a whole month for lovely dragon pix ..

What a lovely location for the launch of my paperback yesterday—The Holloway in Norwich. Support your local independent bookshop.

The Matlaske reliquary pendant. This is the sort of ‘device’ Margaret Paston may have worn and it was found around 3km from her first marital home in Gresham. Now on display in the Gallery of Medieval Life in the Norwich Cathedral Museum. I saw it properly for the first time yesterday.

My paperback is being launched tomorrow at the Holloway bookshop in Norwich. Do come along!