Periodisation is the bane of my life. I was trained in global history so feel all the nuances surrounding whether there was an ‘early modern period’. My PhD thesis falls into the 1670s-90s so not quite Late Stuart, or mid. Am I Restoration? When does that end?! 😂

Christmas 2025 shall henceforth be remembered as thesis-mas. All thesis for this meeses. Feb full draft, April final hand in.

Y2K Marie Antoinette is real, and she can hurt you. The final boss of jeans and a nice top.

No hidden document, but a thrill to see in person bills for making of a suite of furniture to be sent as a diplomatic gift from Charles II to Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif (r.1672-1727). Gerrit Jensen was a likely supplier of japanned furnishings to Ham House from 1672+ and features heavily in my thesis.

London-area friends: I’m looking forward to launching the UK edition of my book THE CROWN’S SILENCE at Waterstones @ Gower St on Jan 30th with Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy @bellribeiroaddy.bsky.social Please help spread the word! www.waterstones.com/events/the-c... www.waterstones.com/events/the-c...

Christmassy snaps from my visit to Ham House yesterday. I was on site (no burden!) to share my PhD work/tour my OU colleagues. A lovely, festive (kind of) break from the final stages of thesis writing.

I just wrote '11 December 1672' as a heading to my notes instead of '2025'.

Congratulations to Katie Donington, Abdul Mohamud, Robin Whitburn, Nicholas Draper and their contributors! Their #OpenAccess book Teaching Slavery published today. Read and download free at: bit.ly/48vnDdJ #Education #Colonialism #Slavery #Racism

The stationer's advert in front of the Duchess of Lauderdale's Domestic Book.

First draft of my final chapter? Sent to my supervisors. When I close my eyes, I see the words calico, Persian carpet, and lacquer/lacquer/Indian cabinet in secretary hand.

Do you know what sucks almost as much as baby loss? Spending nine months chasing various departments for confirmation of the extension of funding/deadline to which I am entitled.

I think if I could find a way to remain in this 1819 attic room forever, I could write the next Frankenstein.

Seventeenth-century Dukes 🤝 a conscientious student's GCSE/A-Level History answer book TURN OVER.

I saw today a woman offering ‘witch tours’ of Edinburgh. It’s nice to see a job that my undergraduate degree directly set me up for as I stare down the barrel of post-PhD unemployment 🤣.

The National Archives could never 😬

Very happy to be finishing my final (!!) chapter of my PhD this week, which includes the V&A's glorious Lady Clapham as illustrative material. Images: Lady Clapham, V&A The Duchess of Lauderdale, NGS

Exciting news! Next August I'll deliver a keynote lecture at the conference 'Carousels and Other Colonial Spectacles: Performing Race and Racialization at European Courts, ca. 1500-1700' at Copenhagen University, alongside Noémie Ndiaye. Call for papers is open now lnkd.in/e2ad7u7H (deadline 15/12)!

I don't want to say that my PhD is impacting me in odd ways, but I have bought myself a fruit bowl that I've gathered is genuine Delft this week.

Pip's six years in South London have not prepared her for the back garden fireworks arms race that is October to November in a well-to-do village on the Cambridgeshire/Essex border.

The world premiere of Native Bound Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery will be streamed live on YouTube this weekend. Watch live: Day 1 (NHCC - Albuquerque) www.youtube.com/live/xiA5Mp_... Day 2 (MIAC - Santa Fe) www.youtube.com/live/5r-vWjG... Follow @natboundunbound for updates and links.

Happy Halloween! Here's a thread of some of my monstery essays, and a link to register for my next book talk, hosted by the Linda Hall Library: Thurs Dec 4th, 7-8pm CST (8-9pm EST) 1/ 💙📚 🧪 🗃 #ancient #medieval #earlymodern #histsci #histmed #18thC #HAMH events.lindahall.org/humansamonst...

Some people played Pokémon Go, I play collect the dodgy 1920s memorials to the Pilgrims/early American settlers. Image: Begijnhof, Amsterdam.

If children who are not related to you do not call you “Aunt” or “Uncle” then you have no charisma and no light in your eyes.

The government of Jamaica has set up a portal for contributing to official relief efforts. I will update this thread if anything analogous opens up for Haiti, Cuba, or the DR supportjamaica.gov.jm

The feminine urge to install a box bed. Images: Museum Ons‘ Lieve Heer Op Solder/Our Lord in the Attic

My partner also enjoyed the ADE stuff going on, became best mates with our local barista, and was adopted by a table next to us in a restaurant in De Pijp because he is 100x cooler than me.

Had the pleasure this past week of my partner indulging my seventeenth-century monomania on a birthday break. Photos: my first time seeing Petronella O’s doll’s house (which I’ve studied from afar as a deeply global object) in the flesh. Look at the ceramics, the spittoons, the japanned cabinet.

Witnessed a fellow visitor attempting to touch a seventeenth-century ebony cabinet at the Rijksmuseum yesterday. The room steward was swiiiiift with the politest telling off. Me?

Our hotel room in Amsterdam has bathrooms papered in documents from the former City Archives. We won Rembrandt’s marriage certificate. I am trying to be on a break from seventeenth century handwriting. 😅

Out of office on, Dutch art from tomorrow on.

How was Robert Knox, son of an EIC Captain and captive in Sri Lanka for nineteen years, immediately identified as an outsider aboard ship when it was inspected on his arrival in England in September 1680? His beard was long and old-fashioned. #earlymodern #skystorians

Ned Blackhawk - How Native Nations Shaped the Revolution The Founders were inspired—and threatened—by the independence and self-governance of nations like the Iroquois Confederacy. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

This includes close-up images of the embroidered textiles that once adorned Queen Catherine of Braganza's state bed.

Do you like seventeenth century stuff? Then my Instagram (@kerrylouiseapps), which has zero engagement, but so many pictures of Ham House in empty periods might be for you. 🫠

Call me Alanis because I just got an invite to a free preview of the Rijksmuseum's 'Life in the Seventeenth Century' exhibition via the VVAK, but I've already paiiiiiiidddd (for tickets, flights, and hotel when it's open to the public).

Delighted to share some initial research that Stephanie Pratt (Crow Creek Dakota) & I have started at Knole @researchnt.bsky.social. How can its transatlantic connections also centre Indigenous presence? What new interpretation might such frameworks allow? www.historyworkshop.org.uk/indigenous-h...

The interest in firsts in history really fascinates me. I've just seen a London Museum post about Sam Pepys recording the 'first' cup of tea, but references exist in print early as 1615, & what of the rich cultural history of the drink in Asia? Firsts so often obfuscate a more complex history.

One thing I miss, having been in Cambridge for four years now, is a London fox. These two lived with their mum in our garden during lockdown. A cute highlight in a rough period.

Google will never kill my love of a paper guidebook.

I have an ongoing, intrusive thought that I will be burgled at night and lose three years of primary research and archival pictures. Annoyed I haven't called this folder PhD-Panicking! at the Disco.

One privilege of my PhD has been slipping into Ham House when the shutters are drawn and the rooms are quiet. In the half-light, for a moment, the seventeenth century doesn’t seem so far away and passing a jib door gets a little spooky.

After three years researching the influence of East Asia on seventeenth-century British culture my targeted ads are serving me modern Chinoiserie/japanning. OKA is an interior design company heavily inspired by historic interiors. NGL, I do like the side table.

NEW PROGRAMME! What an exciting one it is! We're looking forward to thinking with @eicathomefinn.bsky.social, Sari Nauman, @rogerleejesus.bsky.social & @araujohistorian.bsky.social Mondays, 17:30 @ihr.bsky.social & zoom. All very welcome! www.history.ac.uk/news-events/... #EarlyModern #SkyStorians

Teaching History is now up on JSTOR! I didn't know, but I love that it now makes me appear to be a far more accomplished scholar than I am 😭 (yet to publish from my PhD work).

PEM is a must-visit if you're ever in Boston/Salem. The trials gallery? The American gallery that centres Indigenous voices and art? One of the world's best Asian export art collections? Incroyable.

Bugs in salons?! Recent University of York graduate Mumia Douse-Bah's blog explores the colonial context of bugs and recounts a flea on a salon attendee's breast that spurred a 'poetic frenzy' 🐛🐜 @uoyenglishrl.bsky.social @laurenworking.bsky.social #StudentSalon blogs.york.ac.uk/student-salo...

I'm very pleased to announce that the call for proposed Special Issues of the Historical Journal is now live, with a deadline of 12th December. Please do spread widely among your networks — @saracaputo.bsky.social and I look forward to reading your submissions! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The deeper I’ve gotten into my PhD, the more I’ve fallen for export art. Plate Chinese Qianlong period, c.1745-60 with a phoenix above a grand English building - likely Burghley House. Fitzwilliam Collection, Cambridge

Register here! www.eventbrite.com/e/the-sweet-...

A project that I would have dreamed of taking part in as an undergrad 👇