Eduardo Fernández

The εἰρωνεία of calling it collusus

A tweet of mine from Christmas 2021. It reads: I love the Radio 3 Christmas music selection because whenever it's starting to feel a bit too ponderous and northern European you're only moments away from a Catalan goatherd going ham on a tambour about how much he loves the Virgin Mary

Three Christmases later and I stand by this.

Medieval Philosophical and Scientific Manuscripts – an online short course taught by Anna Somfai This course will run online from 14:00-17:00: Monday 26 January – Thursday 29 January 2026. The course explores medieval Western philosophical and scientific manuscripts produced over the spa…

How have books shaped the way we think? In January Anna Somfai will teach an online short course on books about science and philosophy in the Middle Ages. Book now 👇 #MedievalSky @ies-sas.bsky.social @warburginstitute.bsky.social @sas-news.bsky.social palaeography.uk/study/short-...

The whole OU thing reminds me of when I took (at @univmalaga.bsky.social) Intro to Metaphysics and the textbook, written by the Opus Dei professor in charge of the course, read:
"With the irruption of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity into human history..."

Dialectic of Anti-Enlightenment

This is grim: ‘Professor Deborah Prentice revealed that counterparts at Russell Group universities had been "meeting with key people from Reform" and that "we've had people" doing the same, according to leaked comments made last week.’ VCs are already trying to please the far-right.

Ank: The Obsession with Purity. Blood, Faith and Social Order in the Ibero-Atlantic World (15th–17th Centuries)

https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-158995

Mainz, 02.12.2025, Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte (IEG) Mainz

I met my first Phillipps ms., and visited for the first time what I think might be the nicest manuscript reading room I have ever been too (after a slight detour)

La huelga universitaria en Madrid, explicada en cuatro gráficos: “No habrá paz para quienes nos asfixian” Los convocantes quieren presionar al Gobierno de Isabel Díaz Ayuso antes de que se voten los Presupuestos de 2026 para que aumente la insuficiente partida

“No habrá paz para quienes nos asfixian: clase a clase, departamento a departamento, facultad a facultad, vamos a construir una huelga que haga temblar a quienes maltratan el derecho a la Universidad Pública”. La huelga universitaria en Madrid, explicada en cuatro gráficos social.elpais.com/_zrpo6

The book cover to Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities

Coming soon -- early 2026: Critical Infrastructure Studies and Digital Humanities. I have a chapter in here called "Shadow Libraries and Pirate Infrastructures".

www.upress.umn.edu/978151791608...

Three 2-year postdoctoral positions in COLIBRI, the ERC project based at Sapienza on the reconstruction and study of Hernando Colón's library!

web.uniroma1.it/trasparenza/...

web.uniroma1.it/trasparenza/...

web.uniroma1.it/trasparenza/...

Deadline 12 Dec

Three 2-year postdoctoral positions in COLIBRI, the ERC project based at Sapienza on the reconstruction and study of Hernando Colón's library!

web.uniroma1.it/trasparenza/...

web.uniroma1.it/trasparenza/...

web.uniroma1.it/trasparenza/...

Deadline 12 Dec

And the news is... We're recruiting! Applications are now open for our 2026 @leverhulme.ac.uk Doctoral Scholarships. So, if you want to study at PhD level pre-modern handwritten cultures and the organisation of knowledge and power within them, do investigate our refreshed website.

It's time to remove laptops from classrooms.

24 experiments: Students learn more and get better grades after taking notes by hand than typing. It's not just because they're less distracted—writing enables deeper processing and more images.

The pen is mightier than the keyboard.

I'm giving a small presentation tomorrow about early modern gambling and magic in a very informal context and I am particularly happy with this slide

A close-up image of a printed playtext on a page in _Comedies & Tragedies_ (1647) where the inked impression of a piece of fallen type is visible. You can see the rectangular body of the typesort and make out that the letter on top of it is probably a lower-case 'r'.

seeking pointers to texts (academic or otherwise; primary or secondary; early modern or not) that discuss/theorize 'failure'?

bonus points if it specifically addresses _textual_ 'failure'.

here's an impression of fallen type for your troubles👇

"Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism" is quite poetic in itself

CALL FOR PAPERS ANNOUNCEMENT: Migration and the Early Modern Spanish Empire June 10th–12th, 2026 Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland __________________ Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Thomas O’Connor Professor (History) Maynooth University Mayte Green-Mercado Associate Professor (History) Rutgers University-Newark Leonardo Velloso-Lyons Assistant Professor (Spanish and Portuguese) Emory University _________________ Exile, diaspora, displacement, multilingualism. Although recent events have brought current issues of migration into sharp relief, the existential dilemmas arising from globalisation, cultural homogenisation, and territorial expansion are anything but new. These dilemmas are deeply rooted in the imperial projects of the early modern period in many ways — and especially so for migrants caught in the ever-shifting dynamics of the Spanish empire as it expanded across the world. In the early 1600s, for example, the Spanish Crown welcomed thousands of Irish refugees who would use their newfound positions and language skills to aid fellow migrants in some cases (such as converso communities facing persecution in Mexico or their own kin facing often violent political subjugation in Ireland) even as they assisted in upholding the status quo in others (such as morisco communities facing expulsion in Iberia). This conference aims to spark innovative conversations on the way such crosscurrents contributed to emerging conceptions of identity and belonging at the time. What roles did migrants, whose movements were shaped by varying degrees of coercion and agency, play in sustaining, resisting, or remaking community structures in local as well as global contexts? And how did this complicate their representation amid power and precarity? [not all information will fit here, so please contact laura.francis@mu.ie for a full text document!]

Proposals are thus encouraged, but not limited to, the following topics on the early modern Spanish empire: Migration & Community Migration & Naturalisation Migration & Solidarity Migration & Diplomacy Migration & Dissent Migration & Memory Migration & Multiculturalism Migration & Multilingualism Migration & Translation Migration & Book History Migration & Archives Migration & Materiality Migration & Racialization Migration & Religion Migration & Gender The conference also specifically aims to cultivate interdisciplinary debates and welcomes work from across fields, such as history, literature, philosophy, etc. Perspectives on understudied relations among multiple migrant communities and/or contact zones are especially desired. Application Information For consideration, those interested are invited submit a paper title (15 words max.), abstract (200 words max.), and brief biographical note (50 words max.) to this form by December 19th, 2025: https://forms.office.com/e/yzcmdrraee. Scholars at all career stages are highly encouraged to apply, and all applicants will be informed of acceptance by the end of January. [not all information will fit here, so please contact laura.francis@mu.ie for a full text document!]

After a short posting hiatus, I'm very excited to share this CFP...

📢 Migration and the Early Modern Spanish Empire
📆 Conference dates: June 10–12, 2026
📝 Application deadline: December 19, 2025

Submissions very welcome from all #earlymodern disciplines — please do consider applying and sharing!

Ethiopian Christianity, Islam and European Perceptions of Religious Sameness and Difference A UCL Early Modern Exchanges seminar with Eduardo Fernández Guerrero (The Warburg Institute) and Carlos Cañete Jiménez (CSIC)

I’ll be presenting my new postdoc project at UCL's Early Modern Exchanges seminar on December 10, join if you’re still around! The brilliant Carlos Cañete will also be discussing his recent article about early modern Jesuit evangelization in Iberia and Ethiopia.

www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...

✉️🌎On 20-21 Nov. we'll host the workshop Letters& emotions in early modern/modern empires.
With Carlotta Sorba-Mónica Burguera-Judith Farré-Xavier Andreu-M'hamed Oualdi-Alexia Yates-Pablo Hdez.Sau-Amelia Almorza- Elisa Heinrich-Ângela Barrero Xavier and our fantastic researchers and MWP fellows.

Hoping for the day the UK gets its own ICCU and its own Manus Online

I suspect I'm not the only person who will be downloading/copying swathes of the BL MSS catalogue once it's back online (if that's an option in the new form, of course).

"Given that the UK needs more graduates with languages qualifications, the task of universities is not to accelerate the decline of language learning but to find ways to bolster their student intakes."

#bookhistory #classicalreception

Fellowships at Royal Museums Greenwich Apply for funding to support research at Royal Museums Greenwich through our Caird Research Fellowships

Keen to explore maritime environments and histories without going to sea? The Royal Museums Greenwich Caird Fellowship deadline is 18 January 2026.

Manuscripts are stored on two glass shelves.

What role did manuscripts play in disseminating doctrine in 17th century Northwest Africa? Learn more in Caitlyn Olson's Gotha Manuscript Talk "The Circulation of a 17th-Century Theological Controversy in Northwest Africa".
Wednesday, 12 November 2025, 6:15 CET
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@csmc-hamburg.bsky.social

I use a VPN for work because, like many people, I work remotely. I also use a VPN because it's fundamental to managing online trust: it's none of my ISP's business what I connect to: their job is to provide me with the bandwidth I pay for.
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Research funding opportunity! This is an excellent bursary for those working on any aspect of women's studies - it's designed for those who need it most (ECRs, indie scholars, PhDs). Do check out the details at @wsguk.bsky.social and apply!

Distilling The Alchemical Feminine Please enable JavaScript in your web browser to get the best experience.

Distilling The Alchemical Feminine

📅 19 Nov, 6–8pm

Dr M.E. Warlick explores how changing ideas of gender and sexuality shaped alchemical imagery from late antiquity to the early modern period — marking the launch of The Alchemical Feminine (Fulgur Press, 2025).

Episode 5 - Publishing as an ECR: Rejection, patience and conversation ‘Publish or perish’ is something ECRs will hear consistently throughout their academic careers. But why is there such a pressure to publish early, and is it always the right thing to do? In this episo...

Why is there such a pressure to publish early, and is it always the right thing to do?

Leverhulme Early Career Fellow @fredpaxton.bsky.social and @ayeshaomardr.bsky.social discuss their different experiences with the publishing process as ECRs.

👉 Ep 5 #ConfessionsOfAnECR: tinyurl.com/yjkamh2a