And also: unpacking some boxes that I hadn’t checked last year, I found some files for projects that I thought I’d lost. So this was a great week!

In my other class, students are digging Aphra Behn. So that’s gratifying too!

I posted elsewhere about the great group of honors students in my first-year seminar/survey. We had the best discussion about Antigone this week! And I was thrilled that a student walked with me to my office hours to keep the conversation going. Such an energizing moment! But as part of the post 1/2

I'm horrified to hear that Charlie Kirk was shot at an event in Utah. Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence. Mark and I are praying for Charlie's recovery.

Saint Luke in his studio, with ox moseying on down the hallway for a visit. By Jean Fouquet, 1460s. His day is today.

Top tip: if you're planning a trip to London in the new year, Premier Inns are now offering rooms from *£42*!

Sometimes it’s easy to overlook just how good a poet Katherine Philips is: “O swift vicissitude of human joy”

Let's start a #TeachingTuesday tradition of talking about whose work we're teaching each week. Bonus points if you can tag them here. I'll go: teaching @sarannmcd.bsky.social's brilliant article on singlewomen and illicit pregnancy in medieval France. Use the #TeachingTuesday tag and play along! 🗃

Back to the academic year today (after Labor Day - an unusual start date!). Excited to be teaching the Honors Humanities Survey (starting with a piece from Antigone) and the Long Eighteenth Century (a bit of Johnson’s London and of Pope’s Essay on Man). Hope everyone has a great semester!

Lotto is so wonderful!

I don’t think I was familiar with Steenwyck. What amazing light in these paintings!

I’m a bit rusty and my grill is too, but the kids seemed to enjoy the barbecue at our new house

Enjoying my Labor Day (well, except for final syllabus tweaks) thanks to generations of organized labor. Happy Labor Day folks!

Died (possibly) on this day in 1528, Matthias Grünewald, German painter of some terrible wonders. Here, small crucfixion, 1510s.

The University of Southern Maine, just down the street from me, is hiring a medievalist. jobs.chronicle.com/job/37871743....

It’s the final Friday before our semester (belatedly) begins. Will I try to INCREASE my use of/posting on BlueSky, or will I decide I have so much to do that I should get rid of the app for a while?

idk if this is a thing, but are there historians with a specialty in the use of public transportation during war?

Offre d’emploi – Professor – Late Antiquity U of T Department of Classics / Centre for Medieval Studies rmblf.be/2025/08/28/o...

Happy birthday Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel! To celebrate we are highlighting some related SUP books. #ReadUP #OTD

Love this set.

Officers of the Saint Hadrian company of the Haarlem civic guard, having a grand old time in 1627 and immortalized doing so by Frans Hals. Cheers!

The study of Hals gives An Embarrassment of Riches.

Love me some Frans Hals.

historians of early modern England: how common was ear amputation as a criminal punishment? A text from the late 1630s is making a joke about it, and I'm wondering if it's necessarily a Prynne-specific reference or if there were other cases.

I imagine @peterpaulrubens.bsky.social might find this interesting.

You can check out the Boston Public Library’s unbelievable Special Collections in person at the newly renovated reading room: www.bpl.org/special-coll... We’re also working to digitize even more of these treasures & make them searchable & accessible from anywhere in the world. @bpl.boston.gov

📢 Restoration: Studies in Literature and Culture, 1660-1700 is looking for an Associate Editor to join our editorial team. 📢 Deadline is Sept. 5 and more info is linked below. Academic friends please share widely. DM @drerinnerung.bsky.social with questions. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Who is doing work on early modern (pre-1800) Black queer history? Nothing against Sweet (and passing mentions in Saunders) but I’d love to include some other voices in my syllabi! Feel free to shamelessly self-promote!

I have signed up to join this lawsuit; nearly all my published works, including even book reviews, have been appropriated without permission by LibGen. If you want to be part of this class action, the deadline to sign up is today (15 August).

This was an interesting thread!

Died (alas!) on this day in 1625, in Augsburg, Hans Rottenhammer. Painter of (mostly) small, delicate history scenes on copper plates. Here, Rest on the Flight into Egypt, 1595.

The Weekly Read is "Patriarchy Is the Crisis" by Rachel Gore Feed and Josh Leach. The article appears in Refuge and Displacement, a special issue of English Language Notes. Read it for free through 9/13: buff.ly/tDsBQXG

Fortune teller & her fascinating friend the fool in his striped hat. Like him a lot! By Lucas van Leyden, whose day has been today.

Died (alas!) on this day in 1533, Lucas van Leyden. In 1521 he went to Antwerp to meet the great Albrecht Durer, who was visiting that city, and Durer made this silverpoint drawing of him. Record of a great encounter.

Artemisia Gentileschi, (Self-Portrait as?) Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1618–19. Oil on canvas, 303/8 × 243/8 in. (77 × 62 cm). Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Just did some prep work with Anita for this today. Do come join us! We hope for a friendly, robust conversation in Denver this spring.

Pieter Coecke van Aelst visited Constantinople 1533. Here, from Customs & Fashions of the Turks (published posthumously by his entrepreneurial wife Mayken), procession of Sultan Süleyman through the Hippodrome.

Glorious main altarpiece in cathedral of Palencia, with sculpture by Felipe Vigarny and painted panels by Juan de Flandes, Flemish painter in Spain, whose day is today. Overwhelming!

I'm just a boy, standing in front of a world, asking it to look at my collections of newspaper cuttings

The fetishistic allure of the exotic, perfectly represented in Willem Kalf's amazing global still-life paintings, here from 1662. Today is his day.

Absolutely radiant still life with late Ming ginger-jar, 1669. A triumph of materials and their representation, by Willem Kalf. Who else could paint a carpet like that? (there is an answer here).

Study in textures and reflections: still life with porcelain bowl and nautilus cup, painted in 1660 by Willem Kalf. Today is his day.

Medieval History Job Alert! University of Tennessee, where I used to work. Unbelievably strong medieval studies. Unbelievable that they are hiring in this climate! Please share this post. jobs.chronicle.com/job/37862790...

Representation of the copyist/author holding a stylus and wax tablet BnF MS Latin 5748; Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Catilinae coniuratio, & Bellum Iugurthinum; 10th century (2nd half); France (North); f.1v @gallicabnf.bsky.social

Large miniatures from a book of hours made in Rouen, France, circa 1475. We have the evangelists, the Annunciation, Three Living and Three Dead, and many more. Can you spot the portrait of the original owner? Look for a woman with a 15th-century headdress. (UPenn Ms. Codex 1056) 🔗: bit.ly/4m0SpP7

Assistant Professor, Tenure-Track, Medieval History (Global), Baylor University (Texas, USA) #GlobalMiddleAges #medievalsky #medieval memorients.com/news/assista...

Postdoctoral Research Associate in Early Modern History (University of Exeter) #postdoc #earlymodern #history @exeter.ac.uk memorients.com/news/postdoc...