Stefanie Shackleton, PhD

Closing dates for next application rounds: Mondays 13 October and 15 December 2025 The Royal Historical Society represents the interests of historical researchers in universities, libraries, archives, museums, heritage and broadcasting, as well as those engaged in public, community and family history research.

The RHS is a membership organisation of 6500+ historians. We welcome applications to join us at any time. Our next closing dates are 13 October and 15 December.

We offer categories for all kinds of historians and at all stages of research, from Postgraduate to Fellow: bit.ly/46V8WOQ #Skystorians

My take, which I’ve banged on about before, concerning the state of young people reading these days is that reading is a rhythm. It’s like a mix of slow breathing and being pleasurably bored. We need to bring back spaces and times where our young people can breath and think and get lost in a world.

"We're going to create superintelligence" How about making outlook search work first. How about that

That sounds amazing.

Advertisement for celery coffee which states that it is a great nerve and brain strengthener and restorer. Prepared solely from celery, guaranteed pure and unmixed. By royal letters patent. Features in 'Our Own Gazette' July 1892.

Fancy a pleasant change from your ordinary drink? We give you “the great nerve and brain strengthener and restorer.”

Yes, celery coffee was a thing in 1892.

This advertisement is from the Young Women’s Christian Association’s ‘Our Own Gazette’.

#InternationalCoffeeDay #WorldVegetarianDay

In this lecture, Catherine Clarke will re-visit the question of what makes history radical, asking what kind of radical history we need in our public life and contemporary context today. In particular, she’ll explore ways in which popular history – trade publishing for a wide public audience – has the capacity to be radical, drawing on experiences and examples from her own new book A History of England in 25 Poems (Penguin Allen Lane, September 2025). Catherine’s lecture will move towards a manifesto for how research-led, scholarship-driven popular history can and does make necessary, vital public interventions – from opening inclusive conversations and confronting the rise of AI, to modelling radical empathy and imagination.

I'm hugely honoured and very excited to be giving this year's Historical Research #Lecture at @ihr.bsky.social, on 'Can popular #history be radical? Historical research and writing for the #public'. Tuesday 4 November, all welcome. More info in AltText. Book here: www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Giving students thoughtful, personalized feedback and instruction is not a problem that originates from the difficulty for an instructor to generate feedback, it is a problem that originates from institutions pivoting to student:instructor ratios where that dynamic is not logistically feasible.

To read the university’s triumphant all-campus email about restored NIH funding, you’d think UC administrators made it happen. But that’s not true. In fact the UC *Faculty Association* organized the lawsuit; administrators kept their heads down and hoped it’d go away.

1817 map snipping, "Well. Well. Well."

Look what we have here then.

This year’s programme for our IHR seminar in Contemporary British History is coming together

This side of Xmas we’re excited to welcome @katrinanavickas.bsky.social @garylove.bsky.social @evansmithhist.bsky.social @dohertyta.bsky.social

If you’d like to present next spring/summer, drop me a line!

How a secret recording of a gender identity lecture upended Texas A&M Officials have struggled to detail the exact reasons for the A&M professor’s termination, citing a technical issue with her course description. Faculty say the move was politically motivated.

This is an absolutely terrific piece from @texastribune.org and reinforces my belief that the best coverage of right-wing cancelations occur at the local level, after years of the national media focusing on threats from the left.
www.texastribune.org/2025/09/19/t...

To ‘ultra-crepidate’ (19th century) is to lecture others on subjects you know very little about.

Black and white photo of a fluffy white medium haired cat standing in profile with a worried expression on its adorable face. The words “His Majesty” are written on the bottom of the photo in tiny letters and a bow has been painted on his neck during the photo post-processing.

His Majesty. Postcard from my collection, mailed 1907.

#journorequest - looking to talk to adults in Ireland who live at home with their parents due to lack of affordable housing. DM today if any thoughts. Shares appreciated.

I cannot express how much joy this would bring me, even if I have to sell an organ to afford one.

Please go vote. beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

gonna make my students start a necromancy journal in addition to a reading journal for class

Truly, this man has shaped our digital lives in important ways far out of our CTRL.

Yesterday's piece from @jamellebouie.net is the only high-profile piece I've seen that specifically discusses the watchlist, its effect on academics, and its effect on public attitudes toward academia as a whole. (gift link)

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/13/o...

I am 42. I tripped over a box. I expect to be immobile for the next 4+ days.

BL Egerton MS 747 Tractatus de herbis c. 1300 on display at the British Library exhibition ‘Medieval Women in Their Own Words’. Various plants are carefully drawn with accompanying text.

The Richard III Society offers bursaries to help younger scholars gain academic experience by presenting papers at The Fifteenth Century Conference. One of last year’s bursary recipients was Caitlin Williams who has just completed a PhD at Queen Mary, University of London. 1/2 #Medievalsky

Went to a fantastic talk by @robyninpink.bsky.social at the PRONI today on the workhouses of Northern Ireland. It was great to get to hear about a subject really close to my own field - especially by a genuinely good speaker for a mixed audience.

Vacancy: the Society seeks to appoint an Events and Academic Engagement Officer - RHS The Royal Historical Society seeks to appoint an Events and Academic Engagement Officer (0.6 FTE) to join its professional Office based at University College London. The post will help support and dev...

Royal Historical Society vacancy: Events and Academic Engagement Officer bit.ly/3V8q5PC

We look to appoint an Events and Academic Engagement Officer (0.6 FTE) to join our professional Office to help us support history and historians. £36,433 pro rata.

Closing date: Sunday 5 October #Skystorians

Back at the British Library! And forgot the readers room was closed on bank holidays. Oops. I guess we'll renew tomorrow and enjoy the members' lounge today.

Juvenile unrest in the Irish workhouse causes some anxiety (Zozimus, 12 April 1871)

To whom it may concern, and it should concern the editor: I was quoted in your publication: https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/oceans/can-we-engineer-our-way-out-of-ocean-acidification/ Still, others aren't convinced that good intentions are enough. Dr. David Ho, Professor of Oceanography at University of Hawaii at Manoa, a cofounder and the Chief Science Officer of |C|Worthy, a non-profit that works on verifying ocean-based carbon dioxide removal, believes carbon removal efforts like ocean alkalinity enhancement shouldn't be left solely in the hands of private companies. "They have no way to prove that what they're doing is effective - that's a big problem," Dr Ho said. The crux of the dilemma, he explains, is that we are fighting a planetary-scale problem, but are doing it with tools that are still being built and tested. Geoengineering is not inherently good or bad, but it is inherently powerful. And power, especially when exercised in ecosystems as complex and fragile as the ocean, must be handled with caution. However, I have never spoken to your reporter, nor would I have said those things. I would like you to remove my quote from your story, and issue a public correction and apology. Furthermore, you should look into whether the other parts of the article are also factually correct. Thanks. d.

WTF? I was quoted in this story but I have never spoken to the reporter nor would I have said those things. Is everything just generated by LLMs these days?

cosmosmagazine.com/earth/oceans...

Can someone please point me in the direction of people working on philosophy and religion in the long eighteenth century..?

#18thC #18C #C18th #18thCentury

Leggings and ferrets, oilcloth and jewellery: the relentless thefts of Alfred Scandrett By Roger Jennens, cataloguing volunteer The Record Office holds a substantial collection of 18th and 19th century conviction certificates. These certificates are the focus of my current volunt…

One of our volunteers was curious about a young offender he came across on a conviction certificate of 1881, who'd stolen a pair of leggings and two ferrets. He managed to trace young Alfred's story to its fatal end: recordoffice.wordpress.com/2025/07/15/l...

#Victorian #history

Statue of queen Victoria before the Belfast city hall building, with a seagull on her head.

Two awkward historians in front of a curved glass greenhouse with cloudy skies.

Dark stone corner building with carving and pointed arches on the roof. Modern sign for a coffee shop on the door.

Settling into our new life in Belfast has been rocky (immigration is hard), but I couldn't imagine a better place - or a better fellow traveler - for this new adventure.
And we've had such a warm welcome from everyone we've met. @witchhunthistorian.bsky.social

Image of badges with logo: This is what a historian looks like with overlay text: Associate Fellowship of the Royal Historical Society Associate Fellows are recognised for their contribution to historical research, including completion of a PhD in history or a related discipline. Many Associate Fellows are early career historians. Associate Fellows also work in history: for example, as teachers, archivists or curators. Applications to join are welcome at any time Next closing dates: 11 August and 13 October 2025

Our Associate Fellowship category is for those at an earlier stage their research careers - for example, completion of a #History PhD - or History professionals (teachers, curators, archivists etc.) who make research possible.

Applications are welcome at any time bit.ly/44r8NTg #Skystorians

Finally made it back to the PRONI, one of my absolute favorite places to work.