Mateusz Fafinski

Looking at the rhetoric of the US administration right now and a) every media outlet should talk to a premodern historian right this minute; b) they lost their minds

fyi, i have a podcast and it's really great and fun. and there are a lot of super-smart people who've been on to talk about not just the Middle Ages but how and why it's studied here in the USA. please give it a listen.

AmericanMedieval.com

Greece sends warships, fighter jets to defend Cyprus after drone strike The deployment comes after a Shahed-type unmanned aerial vehicle hit Britain’s airbase at Akrotiri in Cyprus overnight.

So apparently Greece is sending ships to shield Cyprus from the Persians. This is not the start of 478 BC that we all expected but here we are

www.politico.eu/article/gree...

Want to know the date of the Tremulous Hand of Worcester, or why medieval documentary ‘forgery’ is, more properly, imaginative fiction? My book is now available in paperback! 🥳

www.arc-humanities.org/978180270086...

An oblong sheet of written parchment, formerly sealed.

The only surviving original Carolingian "littera formata", like a passport for a priest. Issued in Lucca, now in Pavia. archiviodigitale-icar.cultura.gov.it/it/185/ricer...

There used to be a joke in the East Block.

Dear Radio Yerevan, will there be a World War III?

No, but there will be such a struggle for peace that nothing will be left standing.

PENGUIN & CLASSICS AN ENTIRE FRAT SETS SAIL TO STEAL THE WORLD'S FANCIEST COAT

Jason is, admittedly, very on brand.

The post-apocalypse tv series have ruined our ability to understand who will actually fare well after a major societal crisis.

Looking forward to what ChatGPT makes out of the natures of Christ.

Do you want to get another schism? Because this is how you get another schism

A snippet of a painting of Christ at Capel-y-Ffin by David Jones. Shows mountains and the chapel at the house.

Ninth-century Evington bronze brooch, with a cross design and four quadrants of dragon-y interlace

The decorated engraved back of the tear-drop shaped gold Alfred Jewel (ninth century)

The gold Alfred Jewel, with a dragon terminal, and enamel face of a man holding two floriate staves

Really enjoyed giving a talk on Old English poetry, David Jones, Denise Levertov, and Ruth Bidgood at the Oxford English Medieval Seminar today. Thanks to a lovely audience for the feedback. Rewarded myself with the Alfred Jewel and Evington Brooch @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social

This has been a slog but I’m pleased to day that I’m currently checking the proofs, which means this book will soon be out in the wild!

non mihi prima haec rodeo est

Finally finished this excellent book by @garethdennis.uk, highly recommended to all interested in modern society! It got me thinking how do people doing infrastructures now and in the premodern period can have a conversation? There is clearly loads to talk about here, many similar observations.

A tool is always intrinsically simple, however elaborate its mechanisms may be, but a work of art, which is a complex of many stages and levels of crisscrossed intentions, is always intrinsically complicated, however simple its effect may seem.

Not all that Kubler wrote has stood the test of time (pun intended) but this is perhaps the most fitting diagnosis of creative endeavors for the times of AI

Schließung des Instituts für Archäologie an der HU-Berlin Die Archäologie gehört seit fast 200 Jahren zur wissenschaftlichen Tradition der Humboldt-Universität. Ihre Schließung bedeutet den Abbruch einer gewachsenen Forschungstradition und eine dauerhafte Sc...

The Institute for Archaeology at the Humboldt University of Berlin is threatened with closure and with it a two-century long tradition of archaeological research that shaped the entire discipline. Please sign the petition to oppose this plan: weact.campact.de/petitions/sc...

#medievalsky

vienna: escalators move fast

munich: escalators move slow

berlin: what do you mean an escalator that 'moves'

the stemma codicum of any texts that survive the Digital Dark Ages will be like

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12. Sommerkurs Paläographie. Lateinische Schrift in Heidelberg.
Der Kurs vermittelt die Grundlagen aus zwei Jahrtausenden Schriftgeschichte (Datierung, Lokalisierung & Lesekompetenz). Wir freuen uns auf die Bewerbungen (bis 31.05.2026) 📖
#medievalsky

A screen snip. At the top is a sentence pointing out that the Northern Line tube line closely follows the route of the Roman Road, Stane Street. Beneath are two maps, on the left Stane street is shown with settlements including Morden, Tooting, Clapham and Kennington marked. On the right is another map with the modern northern line shown. All of the settlements on the stane street map are duplicated on the tube map.

We've been on the Northern Line. The idea that it's 2000 years old seems completely reasonable.

I propose to make universal the old policy of the Blackfriars conference at the American Shakespeare Center:

If you do not end your paper on time, you will be forced to exit, pursued by a bear. Literally, a bear will come take your paper from you.

A plate full of rogaliki, yeast little horns filled with strawberry marmalade

We are baking here

A plate full of rogaliki, yeast little horns filled with strawberry marmalade

We are baking here

Great, now we also need the peer-review option and every post by an academic will be delayed by two to three years (or just desk-rejected by the moderation team).

Great, now we also need the peer-review option and every post by an academic will be delayed by two to three years (or just desk-rejected by the moderation team).

Leeds Institute for Medieval Studies Research Seminar poster that says Elaine Treharne (Stanford): Small Details, Big Data: Male and Female Scribal Communities in a Thirteenth-century Mortuary Roll Key words: Professional scribes in the Middle Ages. Women scribes and women’s literacy. Handwriting. Layout, punctuation, abbreviation, style, and decoration. Digital tools for ‘everyday writing’. Communities of literacy. Tuesday 10 February, 5.30 pm, Laidlaw Library, University of Leeds, Level 1 Seminar Room (hybrid) To attend both online and in-person please register at https://forms.office.com/e/iP5qRb5GSk

All welcome to our next research seminar. Elaine Treharne (Stanford) on handwriting, women scribes, digital tools and manuscripts. 10 February 5.30 pm GMT, Laidlaw Library (hybrid). To register: forms.office.com/e/iP5qRb5GSk #medieval #manuscripts #palaeography #digitalhumanities

Marc Bloch, historien et résistant juif, entrera au Panthéon le 23 juin La date du 16 juin avait été dans un premier temps pressentie pour son entrée au Panthéon, mais la cérémonie a dû être décalée de quelques jours en raison du G7 à Evian-les-Bains.

Marc Bloch, historien et résistant juif, entrera au Panthéon le 23 juin

Programme of Digital Digesta. Interpretation of Legal Codes and Data Structuring and handout of first talk

Such an honour to be at Nagoya University for this fabulous event, talking about a project I am conducting @dependencybonn.de using data from Connecting Late Antiquities

Facsimile narratives: Researching the past in the age of digital reproduction Taking a cue from the reflections and contributions made by manuscript, archival and historical studies, this paper proposes a new approach to the methodology of digital facsimiles. It asks how we res...

But of course!

works.hcommons.org/records/91sg...

Facsimile narratives: Researching the past in the age of digital reproduction Abstract. Taking a cue from the reflections and contributions made by manuscript, archival and historical studies, this paper proposes a new approach to th

"Data in itself is not knowledge. Even the greatest concentration of data will not on its own bring us closer to getting to know the past. Concentrating data does not write history." I wrote this five years ago and it is more relevant then ever in the age of AI.

academic.oup.com/dsh/article-...