i mean look i hate to say it but actually there is a part of being a historian that can be outsourced to an LLM and that is our social media posts about why AI can’t do history

Thanks to @djrgrey.bsky.social for this @genderandhistory.bsky.social special issue! My article is on visa bans for mixed couples in Morocco, but check out @emmakale.bsky.social on Mughal harems and @emilyncock.bsky.social on disabled convicts in Australia onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14680424...

one of the fundamental critiques of LLMs that has hardened in discussions on here (and one i should point out to which i am v sympathetic) is that the work is the point. new ideas and new art come from the (hard!) process of working things out. (1/2)

if the black cat videoed at stonehenge is deepfaked then this exact moment will be my villain origin story

imo, most AI skeptics nowadays actually have tried to use LLMs with some good faith and with the resources and training available to them, and are basing their skepticism on lived experience

hear me out: the snowpolar express (lord of the flies, but on a train racing thru a post apocalyptic snowscape)

Our tribute to Natalie Zemon Davis, in the Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte. Please share widely! www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...

“In February 1660, Pepys noted that the government was so unpopular that ‘boys do now cry “Kiss my Parliament” instead of “Kiss my arse.”’”

Strivetation - when you couldn't figure out how the requested piece fitted to the original subject, but did your best? 😉

As opposed to when you then cite it in a passive aggressive manner: a slightation.

this is the greatest feeling, when the cord box proves its utility to a family member

shoutout this morning to the small person who got unsupervised access to their advent calendar, ate all the remaining chocolate, including notably the Santa on Christmas Day and when asked about replied (this is heartbreaking) “I don’t want any presents” 😂

With Walliams it's important to separate the art from the artist and remember that whatever he's done in his private life, his books are still absolute dogshit either way.

i think another part of this worth mentioning too is that literally thousands of historians (many casualized or forced out) are MASSIVE details people in ADDITION to having the method and theory chops. military history buffs honestly got nothing on judicial procedure or fiscal administrative buffs

happy holidays all! 🗃️ the energy i am taking into 2026 (and thanks to notorious enablers and collaborators forcing the whole department to also take):

who is a worse writer: -olivia nuzzi -agatha wiggs they both have such intense “i am a v serious mind” energy and are both just, not.

ah! didn’t know this had a name, but did a few weeks ago point out that the time/costs “gain” across applicants to some big schemes (once we account for time applying across all applicants) could well be about 20%, if that

slow day in the office so figured we'd start some beef with museums

For anyone who would like to know more about my new chair in the Cultural History of the Body, see: www.uu.nl/en/news/from... If you are interested in working together, do get in touch!

“The historical record presents a more expansive category of woman that we might learn from, and the archives highlight solidarities between cis and trans women. It is my hope that trans and trans-inclusive feminists find something useful for the present in this history.” 🗃️

Its time for our annual end-of-year review. Highlights include creative histories, volunteering with impact & a lot of digitisation... archives.stir.ac.uk/2025/12/19/2... @artatstirling.bsky.social @isstirling.bsky.social @scotsarchives.bsky.social @arascot.bsky.social #CultureOnStirCampus

Here, for @historyworkshop.org.uk I discuss the history of a refuge for trans women. I show women’s shared experiences of violence across the spectrum of cis and trans. I highlight histories of solidarity against male violence by feminists and trans women. academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-...

happy “putting all the separate unfinished word documents into one big word document for your book manuscript because you promised yourself you’d have a rough first draft by the end of the year” day to all who celebrate

Hard no to this: French publisher Harlequin has told translators that their work will now be done by AI. They can ‘revise’ AI translations at much lower rate. It’s a subsidiary of Harper Collins so treat this as a test for rollout elsewhere

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 1726: Fiction hates coincidences. Just because it happens in real life doesn't mean it will work in fiction. In 1379, in Yorkshire, there was born a girl named Diot Coke. This, although actually true, still doesn't mean you can use her name in your historical novel.

ok sometimes i make an exception for my “WHY” rule on posting screenshots from X and this is mostly when said screenshots reveal that elon musk is broadly reviled even on his own damn app and despite his desperate efforts to be popular

People who aspire to be academics: I wish to live a life of the mind Actual academics:

Have I got a book for you!!! (no but seriously, one of my main arguments is that history of energy = history of Scotland, Wales, NI, and other marginalised places - hi, Cornwall - over a default 'England')

simply dreadful: "The Center for European Studies, the African Studies Center, the Carolina Asia Center, the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, the Institute for the Study of the Americas and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies are all slated to close"

Recently, we at @norskfolkemuseum.bsky.social had a visit from @ostfoldmuseene.bsky.social to look at the dragon we are keeping in our collection. Yes, we have A REAL DRAGON BONE IN OUR COLLECTION! #museumlife

is chalamet the esdeekid? haha what’s a chalamet

they should invent a kind of writing where it doesn't feel physically painful

Women workers pore over pages and pages of people's responses in the French census office in Paris in 1911 (Gallica, BnF) 🗃️

Belgian history is when you never use the words "Belgium" or "Belgian" when you are writing.

french history is when you write about paris, but note that many people who live there came from elsewhere

british history is when you write about england but your footnotes note “may have been different in wales, scotland and ireland”

me, every time i write “ontological and epistemological”, “heeehee, v smart, instant complexity. must remember to look up what they mean again”

my go to answer for try hard “history buffs” who approach me with a jocular version of “great man” history has become to ask them if they know much more about Carlyle’s views. say, for instance, just to pick an example off the top of my head, just the first that comes to mind… ummm RACE

It's a few weeks away - January 23rd - but it would be great to see a good turnout for this Dublin discussion of Averill Earls' important new book on male same-sex desire in 20th c. Ireland!

Beware natural scientists doing social science You wouldn't trust an economist doing physics or chemistry or astronomy. So don't trust the reverse

If all of your citations are men, that's a 'Guy-tation'.

When you write the perfectly evidenced paragraph and put a footnote at the end to your nemesis‘s article with the gloss ‘pace’, that's a spite-ation.

If you cite work that doesn't exist (looking at you, AI) that's a 'lietation'

if you cite your own work that's a "mytation"

If you cite someone hoping that they'll work with you in the future that's a 'hi-tation'

If you refer to someone without a good reason its a 'whytation'

If you refer to their work but damn it with faint praise, briefly, that is a 'slightation'.

when a reviewer asks you to cite their work in your revised submission and so you grudgingly insert a footnote but in no way discuss their ideas in your work, so that it’s there and you can’t be dinged for ignoring it, but also you did nothing to address it… this is called a “sightation”

Ooh I'm nicking that. I'll make sure I reference it properly though. Williams M (2025) 'Sightation: an analysis of satisfying Reviewer Two'. Internet: Bluesky

Sightation surely