Timothy Slonosky

Photo of paperback edition of Civic Reformation and Religious Change in Sixteenth-century Scottish Towns

Affordable, paperback edition of Civic Reformation just arrived! Very nice cover by Edinburgh UP.

I suppose that's the last book unboxing post for a few years. Time to think of new content ideas...

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🚨Call for Papers🚨

We are thrilled to issue a call for papers for our annual conference on 28th March 2026

We'd love to hear about the amazing sources you are using and can't wait to spend the day talking all things Scottish History 💙

Submit a proposal:
scottishhistorysociety.com/call-for-pap...

You can pre-order the paperback of Civic Reformations for 15$ USD or 12.50 GBP! Or get the hard cover right away for 50% off.

Our #StAndrewsDay sale is live!

We're sharing the celebrations with you by offering 50% off all published and pre-order books over the weekend!

Enjoy!
https://edin.ac/32O7hNr

Four days left until #nacbs2025 begins! St. Joseph’s Oratory is ready to welcome you!

Historian discovers new details in Canada's first documented 'demon possession' case | CBC Radio A demonic possession, a do-it-yourself exorcism, and the execution of an accused witch — welcome to daily life in Quebec City, circa 1660. Historian Mairi Cowan shares the story of Canada’s earliest r...

CBC Ideas is replaying the episode about my research on the case of witchcraft and demonic possession in 17th-century New France! Fun listening for spooky season! 👿🧙 👻https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/quebec-demon-possession-witchcraft-in-1660-1.6685584

I get a lot of mileage out of The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli. I also second anything by Eamon Duffy - much of his material is actually medieval.

My book publisher wrote to me to ask my permission for my work to be used to train generative AI.
I fundamentally disagree with this, but want to explain to them how wrong headed I think this is. Does anyone have experience of this or an example of how they responded to their publisher?

It depends on how it's done. Critical thinking, research, argumentation can all be considered skills or competencies that we can easily teach. But yes, we need a little discretion in how we assess them.

Fantastic ending to Baroness Kidron's speech in the House of Lords yesterday, which led to the government's defeat on AI & copyright.

Speaking the UK's creators: "Their property, their labour, is worthy of your protection - because apart from anything else, it is not ours to give away."

A Matter of Words | The Point Magazine Over the course of the past two years, university committees focused on the impact of artificial intelligence have assembled across the country. By now, nearly […]

I like when articles about the university reflect how universities actually work. I think this is a useful argument that one of the most impactful things humanities faculty can do is to be extremely annoying about AI on university committees. Let 'em hear it. thepointmag.com/examined-lif...

In huge news, the UK government was just defeated in the House of Lords for a second time over AI & copyright.

The government had removed amendments to the Data Bill that would require AI companies to disclose their training data. The Lords have now reinserted them.

🧵 1/2

IN CASE YOU MISSED IN: there IS a livestream for Alex Walsham's #Reformazing #GiffordLectures!

Free up your evenings for the next fortnight, #EarlyModern #Skystorians!

There's the work of Michel Mollat, especially Le commerce maritime normand à la fin du Moyen Age, though I can't recall how much 16thC material was in it.

Reminder: it's this evening!
(5C.1, though)

Invitation to a book launch party for Civic Reformation by Timothy Slonosky, on May 8 at 6:30 PM in the Dawson College Library, 6C.1 All Welcome

It took a year, but I'm finally holding a book launch party for Civic Reformation and Religious Change in Sixteenth-Century Scottish Towns. If you're in Montreal on May 8, come by!
@edinburghup.bsky.social

Drive through and you'll notice the empty space between the populated areas (Detroit-Windsor, Vancouver-Seattle might be the exceptions).

Economic decoupling will be a challenge for sure, but there are factors not always apparent on striking visuals and graphs.

2) Large scale visuals make it seem like there's an unbroken connection between the Canadian and US populations, but on the ground there's often much more going on in southern Canada than the northern US. Southern Quebec and Alberta, for example, are more developed than northern New York or Montana.

1) Politically, the Canadian confederation is essentially an anti-US defensive alliance, the same way that the Swiss confederation is essentially an anti-Habsburgh alliance (as far as I understand). The sudden sense of Canadian unity out of Quebec illustrates this nicely.

With the election tomorrow, various geopolitical types seem to have suddenly noticed Canada, and are marvelling at how closely integrated we seem to be with the US. A couple of points that seem to be missed from the high-level overviews

Sign the Petition Protect authors’ livelihoods from the unlicensed use of their work in AI training

Thank you to everyone who has signed the petition which now stands at 10,000+! If you haven't added your name, #DoTheWriteThing -

Society of Authors and Writers Guild protest outside Meta headquarters in London.

The irony, that Meta wouldn’t open its doors to take a 500 word letter of complaint from writers, when they’d already taken millions of words from us.

Apparently they’ve got enough now. Thanks.

My students absolutely do this. I catch the ones I catch..

I published a book on Scottish history and teach courses about monarchies, religion and politics, and the ethics of surveillance capitalism. I never thought those four items would converge the way they are at the present moment.

It has come to my attention that my 2020 book Classical Caledonia has been used by Meta and others for AI training without permission and in breach of copyright. As you can imagine, I am extremely unhappy about this. It seems to me that I can no longer justify using Instagram.

Why would I support a company that has knowingly stolen from me? I have been thinking about this for a while, but this discovery is surely the final straw. To any other writers or creators on Insta, I can only suggest that you also consider your own use of Meta platforms. For now, I am gone from there.

Goodbye Instagram...

A grid showing 8 different King James VI & I portraits, each one has a similar stoney expression, however we've cheekily labelled them with different emotions: happy, sad, proud, mad, anxious, excited, scared and bored.

Happy Monday! Based on King James VI&I's portraits, how is everyone feeling today?

Royston was one of King James' favourite residences. (We can see the former palace from our office!) We'll be sharing more about James' Royston in the run up to the 400th anniversary of his death later this month.

Dear media, please stop saying AI is “training” on copyrighted works. AI is “stealing” copyrighted works. It is “plagiarizing” copyrighted works. It is “breaking multiple laws.”

OpenAI declares AI race “over” if training on copyrighted works isn’t fair use National security hinges on unfettered access to AI training data, OpenAI says.

So it’s over then, works for me

Side view of the Edinburgh University Press stand, with 2 people seated at a round table in front of a well lit, white wall lined with books face out on bookshelves

If you’re at the London Book Fair, why not visit Edinburgh University Press? You can find AUPresses member @edinburghup.bsky.social in booth 7C40! #LBF25 #ReadUP