The Courtauld is offering a a new fully funded Peter Fergusson PhD Scholarship in English Medieval Architecture for eligible projects focusing on England from the eleventh to the early sixteenth centuries. Statement of intents are due by 17 November 2025.

In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write to a famous author & ask for advice. KURT VONNEGUT - born 103yrs ago today - was the only one to respond. His reply was a doozy.

11th November is the feast of St Martin who is here depicted sharing his cloak with a beggar. BL Stowe MS 17; 'The Maastricht Hours'; 14th century; f.98r

Inside the Roman Catholic chapel at Biddlestone in Northumberland is an intriguing remnant from life on the home front during the Second World War. 1/6

guys I was able to access a British Library digitized manuscript today for the first time in years. Check it out. www.bl.uk/collection/d... click on the pdf [save that!] and use its hyperlinks! + for the post I wrote for today's MEDIEVAL NATURE class

How else to spend my birthday? Queuing for the British Library on a rainy morning to touch the old books.

Going to stamp my nerd foot, and complain that this meme doesn't include Late Caroline (doo doo doo). Made you sing it.

We're hiring in history of science at UW Madison! TT Assistant Professorship with a focus on water. Joint appointment between the History and Integrated Liberal Studies depts, and part of a university-wide hiring cluster on earth/sustainability science. jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/profess... #STS #HSMT

If you know anyone who works on medieval Judaism, please send them this! Binghamton is hiring a Talmud/Rabbinics assistant prof: half in Judaic Studies, half in the Med/Ren center. A killer R1 job for the right person, and not a ton of applicants so far....

Reminder 𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐭' 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞! csmbr.fondazionecomel.org/events/onlin... #CSMBR #OnlineLectures #CompoundMedicamentes #ConstantinetheAphrican

This post and picture and graffiti and building all bring me much needed joy on this rainy November morning, when most that is good seems dead. There are still people who look and think and laugh and share and compare and write and love.

I think it's the Teen Vogue news that has finally made me lose hope. They're going to destroy every iota of thought, caring, constructive criticism, and planning for a better future. Death by a thousand blows on the easy targets, death by a million cuts on the privlieged who can hold out longer.

Five years, four authors, one book. Out now (fully open access), our new book on local priests in the tenth century 🌟 www.cambridge.org/core/books/l... @jbwaagmeester.bsky.social

The Good Samaritan, by Joseph Highmore, 1744, 📸 by @patricksmith04

JOB Assistant Professor in the History of Knowledge Pre-1400, University of Cambridge www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House. Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity. They are not the same.

A handy guide to the upcoming holiday: If a kid is on SNAP and you've decided this is the one moment you're going to care: give them the candy If a kid can't verbally say "trick-or-treat" : give them the candy If a kid looks too old to be trick-or-treating: give them the candy Hope this helps!

Nothing to see here? Well, this is a slow moving 🧵 for #skystorians and others about #eyeglasses of the past, about how to read in the past, where to buy eyeglasses, and how to do with them in general. The hashtag is #HowToDoWithGlassesInThePast Let's roll.

Join us tomorrow (29 October) for #casebookstherapy!! @jakubochocinski.bsky.social @robralley.bsky.social @hagenilda.bsky.social @laurenkassell.bsky.social #histmed #astrology #histsci #earlymodern

Gossip, paleography, and "a massive, almost unstudied source" in @rayclemens.bsky.social's latest post: open.substack.com/pub/raymondc... #medievalsky

The Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University seeks applicants at the rank of Assistant Professor (tenure-track) whose scholarship focuses on histories of medieval (ca. 500s-1400s) European art and architecture in the world. apply.interfolio.com/174923

CFP for HSS/ESHS 2026 - The Science and Medicine of Bodily Habits. I am excited to be working with @wraggem.bsky.social to co-organise symposia on bodily habits from the medieval to modern periods. From sleeping to eating and urinating, how much do we control our bodies? Abstract deadline 21st Nov

New book! So pleased to get my author copies of our edition, translation, and study of Gregorio Dati's "La Sfera", a fifteenth-century Florentine poem on cosmology and geography. This was the brainchild of the unstoppable Carrie Beneš. It's profusely illustrated and will be great for students.

Thrilled to have completed my first turtle patrol for the Canadian Sea Turtle Network. Volunteers look for stunned or (sadly) dead sea turtles on Nova Scotia beaches in the fall after high tide. If nothing else it gives a great reason for a morning walk on gorgeous beaches. seaturtle.ca

For Indigenous People's Day, spend some time getting to know the paintings of Kent Monkman (aka Miss Chief Eagle Testickle) one of Canada's greatest living artists. www.kentmonkman.com/paintings-ga...

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

On Indigenous Peoples' Day I'm re-sharing the episode of @thisguysucked.com on which I spoke with host @ceaubin.bsky.social about why, even in his own day, people thought Christopher Columbus sucked. 💙📚 🗃 #medieval #earlymodern #histsci #renaissance #maps #geography #cartography #empire 1/2

“I’m worried about my community… I’m out here in a frog costume to show how ridiculous the notion that we’re violent terrorists is, and showcase how that narrative is wrong…” Serious Q: is it too late to give this dude the Nobel Peace Prize? 🐸 🏆

#CFP : Star Gazing: Astrology and Astronomy in the Medieval and Renaissance Imagination cmrs.osu.edu/events/cfp-s...

Assistant Professor in Irish and/or European Medieval History Dublin City University - School of History & Geography #skystorians 🗃️www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOY744/a...

#histmed #MedievalSky Minji Lee's book, The Medieval Womb: Hildegard of Bingen’s Views on the Female Reproductive Body, has just been released #OpenAccess: library.oapen.org/handle/20.50...

Getting great support as a professor in 2025. One part of admin tells us they take AI writing very seriously and will treat it as plagiarism if not allowed in the course. Student submits an all-AI essay and I begin the plagiarism investigation, only to be told AI writing can't be proven. Sigh.

New in open access #medievalsky: Bede's Medical Books! www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Keepin' it Old School this time

MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

She is holding a book! 📖 Currently writing a section on visual evidence for book use in medieval Scotland - so this could not be better timed... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Yes, the Anthropic settlement is go. If you've written a book, check the website and database-- easy to use. One of my books is listed, and I filed a claim. Make sure you know what kind of "owner" you are of a book (I'm a "beneficial owner" meaning the press holds copyright but I get royalties).

Rest in peace, Jane Goodall. You taught us that kindness is a form of strength and that respect for life in all its forms is the truest measure of humanity. You will be dearly missed.

Will-o’-the-wisps, the fleeting flames occasionally seen above swamps and graveyards, may be tiny lightning bursts jumping between microscopic bubbles of methane. That and more of the best from @science.org and science in this edition of #ScienceAdviser: www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪

15,000+ searchable charters from the early Middle Ages...

Sudden late summer shower, glowing cathedral, and full sky rainbow. It’s okay.

📣 The Earlier Middle Ages seminar @ihr.bsky.social is now on Bluesky! Here's our autumn term schedule. First up is @rorynaismith.bsky.social on 8 October, giving the annual David Wilson Lecture (with @uclarchaeology.bsky.social). All welcome! Please sign up here: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Interested in letter-writing in early medieval Britain? A three-year postdoc on @francescatinti.bsky.social’s and my project is now available. Apps close on 17th Oct. Let me know if you have any questions and please circulate! 🙂 jobs.kent.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Oooh, an important talk by Anna Gili, with new evidence for elements of Constantine the African's attempts to salvage parts of al-Majusi's Kitab al-Malaki. November 11. csmbr.fondazionecomel.org/events/onlin... #MedievalMedicine #Pharmaceutics #MedievalSky #histmed

Time to update your Palaeolithic palettes... 🔵 Very proud to share our new research on the OLDEST use of blue pigment! We identified traces of azurite - a vibrant blue mineral - on a stone object around 14-13,000 years old. Why is this so exciting? 👇🏺 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

It's all happening for us train enthusiasts (or is it just me?) as today marks 200 years since the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened in 1825 - the birth of the modern railway. So here are some of the many railway linocuts I have done over the years - too many, I hear you say? Surely not… 😂

[Call for papers] FuMaSt – The Future of Manuscript Studies Fifth edition, Firenze, 5-6 February 2026 (no later than 30 October 2025). www.irht.cnrs.fr/sites/defaul...

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin ✨ figured out what stars are made of ✨ when she was just 25. 🔭🧪 Her PhD thesis basically established the Harvard astro department — at a time when Harvard didn't officially allow woman students. I wrote this little profile to mark the 100th anniversary of her thesis: