Highly interesting read this morning @boddice.bsky.social! www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

As part of my @leverhulme.ac.uk ECF on Emotional Architectures, I've just completed a two-day Classical mosaics workshop in Edinburgh. I've learned how to cut and assemble mosaics and used these techniques to recreate a quail from the 4th-5th C floor of the Basilica di S. Maria Assunta in Aquileia.

It's a glorious day at least.

Does anyone have any good recommendations of existing maps that I could use as a guide to design my own for the Merovingian Kingdom under Clovis I? The versions I've been using previously don't seem to be cutting it.

Had a fabulous time at the Architecture@York workshop this afternoon. The presentations inspired many questions that I now need to find answers to concerning architectural design and practice in late antique Gaul.

Thank you @imems.bsky.social for letting me cover your floor with sage leaves and present some thoughts about smells, atmospheres, and emotions in late antique churches this afternoon. Thank you to everyone who came and asked lots of inspiring questions too. 😁

Hyperlinks in academic cover letters. Yay or nay?

This looks very exciting. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Merry Christmas to everyone who is celebrating! ❤️

Happy 1,486th birthday to Bishop Gregory of Tours, born November 30th 538. 🍰

Friends and colleagues who study late antiquity, besides Peter Brown and Danuta Shanzer is there anyone else that has written on the use of scents and smells in the churches of Gaul and Italy 400-600?

Listening to the fabulous speakers at the Emotions of the Future Conference, I can't help but be struck by just how dominant fear and hope are. They've appeared in different contexts and periods, but they are the primary emotions. It says a lot. As does the diversity of attitudes towards them.

For fellow History of Emotions scholars there's a new and exciting Symposium on Emotions in Turmoil: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Painful Emotions happening on June 16-17th, 2025. More details are available via the cfp and SHE website. societyhistoryemotions.com/events/

My Leeds IMC paper is timed and ready. I've also finished carving this inscription from the 5-6thC Basilica of St. Martin at Tours. I don't know whether to add a decorative cross, dove, olive branch, or just leave plain.

Went on a two-day marble carving course last week to learn some new skills for my @leverhulme.bsky.social ECF on Emotional Architectures. Thanks to this, I can now recreate some of the mural inscriptions that adorned late antique churches and see how they interacted with different types of light.

Does anyone have any recommendations for historical literature on volcanoes and volcanic eruptions between the 4th - 6th Centuries? 🌋

Nov. 30th means its time to wish a very Happy 1,485th Birthday to Bishop Gregory of Tours. My paper for the Society for the History of Emotions' Unsettling Certainties conference may or may not have featured this slide...

Happy St. Martin's Day everyone!