Seán Thomas Kane

Took a break this morning from #RenSa26 to visit the SF Zoo. Sharing the history of animals with readers everywhere. #earlymodern #histsci #animalhistory

It’s part of a pair of intriguing panels on “Animal and Interspecies Histories in the Early Modern World” this Thursday afternoon in Continental Ballroom 7.

I’m excited to present my paper “Parlaying Parrots and Sighing Sloths: Animal Utterances in Thevet’s Singularitez de la France Antarctique” about cultural interpretations of animal expression. Come hear my paper this Thursday at 14:30 PST at the #rensa26. #earlymodern #histsci

Will be there! Good reason to visit San Francisco.

Glad to hear these sessions with the editors have happened at the AHA. I was a bit worried in Chicago that there weren’t many early modern/hist STM sessions on the schedule. It feels like a better networking & professional development venue than anything else. Met a lot of UP acquisition editors.

Bhuail mé leis nuair bhí 14 bliana d'aois. Bhí guth aige a chaint sé chuig an anama.

I met him when I was 14. He had a voice that sang to the soul.

RIP, a Seáin Ó Sé.

A photo from the 2nd floor of the Field Museum looking towards the 3rd floor above.

I got the opportunity this morning to do some research in the Field Museum Library for an upcoming diss. chapter. I didn’t take any photos up there on the 3rd floor yet it was neat getting to see the professional side of the museum, somewhere I’d love to work if the opportunity arises. #histsci

If the Bears can win that game all of us ABDs can finish our dissertations and earn our PhDs and maybe even find a good job on the other side. From this Chicago area native at the #AHA2026, Bear down!

Spent the morning reading Guillaume Rondelet’s “De piscibus marinis” in the UChicago Library’s Special Collections. I’ve been working on sorting out what sort of marine mammal was Thevet’s “marousin,” when that name applied to dolphins, orcas, and porpoises alike. #earlymodern #histsci

This Friday @ 8:30 am, I’m presenting “Sufficiently Strange Beasts: André Thevet’s Catholic Comprehension of Neotropical Animals” in the @achahistory.bsky.social meeting adjoining the #AHA26 conference in the Chicago Hilton. A strange paper to write means it should be fun, right? #earlymodern

/2 I found Aidin Robbins's videos only a few weeks ago and I really like his style and method of storytelling. I've heard stories as long as I can remember about how Ireland used to be covered by forests, yet this film gives life to those old stories in a way that I haven't seen before.

YouTube video by Aidin Robbins Ireland's Invisible Rainforest

youtu.be/8Qq9MhGJv2A?... #envhist #irishhistory This video touches on a lot of questions that are central to my own research on what counts as native, and the impermanence of nature, and the colonial impact upon island ecologies which André Thevet discussed in his #earlymodern cosmographies. /1

/5 I had to leave because I was laughing too hard at the silliness of the situation.

/4 I’ve only used the translation headphones once: at the 2016 Eisteddfod in Abergavenny. I thought I was going to see some choirs but it turned out to be the Aberystwyth U-6 rap ensemble singing Bieber’s “Baby” while a 60-something guy in the booth translated the lyrics back into English.

/3 Yet this tech will work best with some education in the language. I need to have an inkling that the translation tech is accurate if I’m going to trust that I’m asking someone “where is the station” instead of insulting their mother à la Connery on SNL’s Jeopardy.

/2 On the one hand this is one of the sci-fi technologies that I’m most curious about from the Babel fish to the universal translator. It’s a natural outgrowth of having translators in a booth doing it live.

Can Apple’s AirPod Translation Get You Through Tokyo? We Tested It.

/1 Can Apple’s AirPod Translation Get You Through Tokyo? We Tested It. — A couple thoughts in this thread. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/t...

YouTube video by Seán Thomas Kane André Thevet's Ascension Island "Aponar" as the Confluence of Auks and Penguins

You can watch my recording of the talk here youtu.be/f888NWAuTL8

The International #Bibliography of #Humanism and the #Renaissance (IBHR) has been updated.
3,022 records were added
More Info: bit.ly/4o8eWKH

#EarlyModern #RenaissanceSky #HumanismSky #Bibliographies #DigitalHumanities

I always try to do something fun after a research stop. Today I was happy to learn that SUNY students get free admission to MOMA. Neat collection in a labyrinthine building. Along with neat art, I gave myself a strong dose of vertigo zooming my camera out to take the 2nd photo from the 5th floor.

Last day of this trip and I decided to make one final stop at NYPL to read their Parisian edition of Marco Polo published in 1556. Another fascinating mile marker in the history of the European perception of everyone else that will be useful in my dissertation. #earlymodern #skystorians

I'm making a quick stop on the way home from #HSS2025 in NYC to read the NYPL's copy of Vespucci's 1503 "Mundus Novus" and look through some of the objects on display at @amnh.org that relate to my current research. #earlymodern #histsci #skystorians

I’m making a quick stop in NYC 🍎 on the way home from New Orleans ⚜️ to see Alie Ward do her first @ologies.bsky.social podcast live show. This is one of my favorite science podcasts that’s been a regular feature of my weekly listening since the pandemic.

Join me online on Thurs Dec 6th! And a horror novel even for scaredy-cats Hallo, nerds with a conscience - and thanks for subscribing! This week’s newsletter: Event newsflashA horror novel recommendation, even for scaredy-catsNew...

I'm not at #HSS2025 but wrote a #NOLA -themed newsletter, anyway - with registration info for an online #histsci talk on HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY.

Fans of @danielkraus.com - this is for you, too!

#horror 💙📚 🗃

buttondown.com/surekhadavie...

This morning I presented a project about how André Thevet was partially responsible for the taxonomic confusion between the Great auk and Penguins. It was well received. #hss2025 #greatauk #penguins #histsci #earlymodern #animalhistory

An engraving of a Magellanic penguin from 1605.

A photograph of a stuffed Great auk taken by the author at the Field Museum in June 2025.

On Sunday at 11 am CT I will be presenting a fun project of mine concerning Thevet’s flightless seabird sighting on 26 Oct. 1555 which contributed to the taxonomic muddle between penguins (L) and the Great auk (R). Come see me at #HSS2025 in room Napoleon A2 (3rd floor). #histsci #earlymodern

I go to a fair few conferences. Along the chance to present my work to fellow experts the biggest draw remains getting that refresher that as isolated as I am in my daily life that I am not alone in this profession. Thanks, friends! #skystorians #earlymodern #histsci

Took a break from #SCS2025 to go to the Rocky Butte State Park to catch a glimpse of Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens in the distance. Coming from the prairies I do love seeing mountains.

A gallery of four early depictions of a three-toed sloth’s face dating from 1557 & 1558 (top left), 1558 (top right), 1560 (bottom left), and 1562 (bottom right).

I’ll be speaking tomorrow at the #SCS2025 conference in Portland about variations in the early printings of Thevet’s sloth’s face. Come see me at 15:30 Pacific in the Park Room as part of the Bodies, Nature, Knowledge discipline. #earlymodern #histsci #skystorians

Right. I have a pretty clear idea of the outbound voyage that the people I’m writing about took but the return route seems to go against the currents in several places. Appreciate the source!