Matt Aiello

New Web Tool: Transcriptions and Annotations for Manuscript Research

Introducing TAMAR: our new open-access web tool lets you display digitised manuscripts side-by-side with transcriptions or additional info. Originally developed in a project on Biblia pauperum manuscripts, TAMAR is adaptable for a wide range of research purposes:
uhh.de/csmc-tamar

For LA residents who are not used to protesting, please remember to turn off location and Face/Touch ID on your phone. If you do not, police can legally force you to unlock it for them. US v Brown 👇🏽

A spec. iss. of EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH, ed. S Fein and T Goodmann, in honour of late Osage poet & medievalist Carter Revard, is now live!: muse.jhu.edu/issue/54946. (A stand-alone book version is forthcoming from @archumanities.bsky.social—but u can reach out if you need access.) So proud of this one.

Opinion | What I Learned Serving on My University’s AI Committee What I learned serving on a university AI committee.

“Preserving art, literature, and philosophy will require no less than the creation of an environment totally and uncompromisingly committed to abolishing the linguistic alienation created by AI and reintroducing students to the indispensability of their own voice.“

Title page for proofs of Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century

Table of Contents, page 1, for Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century, featuring the Introduction and Parts I and II on Scene Setting and Noticing, with contributors Oren Izenberg, Jane Hu, Beci Carver, Robert Stagg, Jeff Dolven and Joshua Kotin, and Adrienne Brown

Second page of TOC for Close Reading for the 21C, end of Part II, and Parts III and IV, with Katie Kadue, Summer Kim Lee, Julie Orlemanski, Lindsay Reckson, Natalia Cecire, Farah Bakaari, Omari Weekes, Elaine Auyoung, and Emily Ogden

Final page of TOC for Close Reading for the 21C, with the end of Part IV and Part V, and Practical Materials. Contributors: Pardis Dabashi, Brian Glavey, Noreen Masud, Stephanie Insley Hershinow, Kimberly Quiogue Andrews, and Christopher Spaide

Digital galleys are HERE for Close Reading for the 21C, which I co-edited with @johannawinant.bsky.social. You know you want it, want to review it. Write to barbara_tonetti [at] press [dot] princeton [dot] edu. Look at that gorgeous slate of contributors! Get it!

I’d say rather this confirms that Chicago is canon

Disability and Sanctity in the Middle Ages This volume significantly expands current understandings of both disability and sanctity in the Middle Ages. Across the collection, heterogeneous constructions, and experiences, of disability and holi...

Disability and Sanctity in the Middle Ages is available now! Please ask your libraries to order: www.aup.nl/en/book/9789... It’s been an honor to work with @aspencerhall.bsky.social and Stephanie Grace-Petinos on this collection of exciting and groundbreaking work in medieval disability studies.

This State University Has a Plan to Take on Trump Two professors from Rutgers University in New Jersey went out on a limb to write a “mutual defense compact” for Big Ten schools. Their effort is gaining steam.

“It’s understandable that some people may be fearful,” Professor Yarbrough said. “But what we’ve done is to focus on something that’s within our control: to ally with each other.” www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/n...

Futhark runic alphabet and a cipher

St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 270; Educational manuscript; second half of the 9th century; St. Gall; f.52 (e-codices.ch/en/list/one/...)

I snipped the tip of my finger off using a mandoline slicer and unfortunately for me that’s the finger that is attached to all of my Touch ID passwords

There’s actually 2 cottages and I stayed in the other one which is equally nice but for some reason not on Airbnb, that one had a shower instead of a tub but like every morning they brought in a breakfast tray full of pastries. On the canal so super serene, and they build you a fire in theafternoon

Bed and breakfast in Brugge · ★4.97 · 1 bedroom · 1 bed · 1 bath Romantic b&b along the canal.

This is a hyper specific recommendation but I stayed here and it was fucking magical

www.airbnb.com/l/AQLIpFpx

A Call for Constructive Engagement | AAC&U A Call for Constructive Engagement

NEW TODAY: 200 college and university presidents band together to condemn “unprecedented government overreach” in higher education and reaffirm the “essential freedom to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom.” www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-c...

I just attended a conference in the US. We had one speaker detained and two others turned away at the border.

A list of the 86 American colleges and universities (p. 8-9) that signed on to an amicus brief in support of the AAUP's lawsuit against "Arresting and Threatening to Deport Students and Faculty for Lawful Speech." Among them are Rutgers, Michigan State, and the whole Maryland system

Mayor Wu speaks from the stage to a large crowd at City Hall Plaza.

Thousands of people standing together around a stage on City Hall Plaza.

A close up shot of crowds on the plaza holding signs and rallying at the protest.

Boston is not a city that tolerates tyranny. We will not sit by while Donald Trump and his billionaire friends dismantle the protections that our families count on.

Thank you to the thousands of people who came out today to tell this administration #HandsOffBoston!

A note from the NEH that summer stipends have been cut

No NEH summer stipends this year. Shocked face.

Thanks for absolutely nothing, Columbia and Harvard. Two of the wealthiest universities with the most cultural clout in the world, but rather than fighting, they laid down like doormats and let the government walk over them to destroy the rest of the sector.

Harvard and Columbia in a race to see who can dismantle academic freedom fastest.

Cover for a book titled Network Analysis for Book Historians: Digital Labour and Data Visualization Techniques

Super excited to share that my book on network analysis and visualization as a method for book history will be out soon!! It's basically a how-to-start guide for book historians interested in networks 😃 www.arc-humanities.org/978180270268...

#dh #bookhistory #firstbook #medievalsky

you’re fired. wait you’re rehired. email us a list of things you’ve done today wait forget it you’re fired again. come back your job was important. you’re fired. or hired. come in to the office. wait the office has no computers go home. we are the department of government efficiency.

my superpower for predicting things? paying attention to what people with power say and do

I love this poster—the first time I have ever seen a faculty member’s position of a bargaining team listed so prominently!!

COALITION OF MAYORS ACROSS U.S. FILE AMICUS BRIEF IN OPPOSITION TO TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S DRASTIC CUTS TO FEDERAL RESEARCH FUNDING Led by the City of Boston, MA, City of Cleveland, OH, the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, TN, the Mayor of Gainesville, FL, and the Mayor of Salt Lake City, UT, over 40 mayors, cities, and counties argue that NIH cuts will cause job losses, economic disruption, and undermine U.S. competitiveness BOSTON - Thursday, February 20, 2025 - Late yesterday, Mayor Michelle Wu co-led a coalition of Mayors from across the United States in writing and filing an amicus brief in federal district court in Boston to stop the Trump Administration's drastic and illegal cuts to federal research funding and immediate job losses in cities nationwide. Over 40 mayors, cities, and counties from across the country joined the brief. These cities are home to universities and hospitals that employ hundreds of thousands of Americans in cutting edge medical and scientific research, and the federally-funded research in these communities has made the United States the global leader in scientific discovery. The brief seeks a temporary restraining order against the Trump Administration, alongside the research universities, medical schools, hospitals, and 22 states that are plaintiffs in the three cases filed last week in federal district court. “For decades, Congress has made a clear choice to use federally-funded research to invest in cities, build a broadly-distributed infrastructure for scientific discovery, create jobs, and drive economic growth in communities across the United States,” said Mayor Michelle Wu. “We join with cities across the country – in red states, purple states, and blue states – to stop this illegal action that will cause layoffs, lab closures, and undermine scientific progress in American cities. I thank Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell for her leadership on behalf of the research institutions of Boston.”

This amicus brief is in response to the abrupt February 7, 2025 announcement by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of an immediate reduction in funding for scientific and medical research institutions across the country. Under the NIH’s new policy, which temporarily went into effect on Monday, February 10, payments for indirect costs reimbursed to research universities would be capped at 15%, down from 30-70%. The brief makes clear that NIH funding cuts would devastate research institutions in cities across the county, cause job losses, create severe economic disruption, and undermine a critical pillar of strength and civic pride in cities across the United States. The cuts would also undermine critical medical and scientific research that residents are counting on, including cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, and jeopardize the cities’ and country’s position of global leadership on scientific advancement. “The Gainesville community depends on this highly efficient, dependable investment of our tax dollars back into our city’s innovation economy,” said Harvey L. Ward, Mayor, City of Gainesville, Florida. “I’m glad to join other mayors in highlighting the vital role NIH funding plays in the lives of everyday hardworking American families.” “The breadth and diversity of this coalition highlights the devastating and widespread impact of these NIH funding changes, from Alzheimer’s research to cancer clinical trials,” said Jill Habig, Founder and CEO of Public Rights Project. “We’re proud to partner with mayors, cities, and counties in opposing this threat to critical federal funding and the health and vitality of our communities.” On Monday, February 10th, twenty two states and associations of medical schools, hospitals, and universities, filed three related cases, and secured a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump Administration from slashing the reimbursement rates. That initial order will be revisited this week in a hearing scheduled for Feb. 21.

The Public Rights Project served as amici counsel. The full list of mayors, cities and counties who joined the brief is below. Local Governments and Mayors City of Boston, Massachusetts City of Cleveland, Ohio Harvey L. Ward, Mayor, City of Gainesville, Florida Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee Erin Mendenhall, Mayor, City of Salt Lake City, Utah City of Alameda, California City of Albuquerque, New Mexico Allegheny County, Pennsylvania City of Baltimore, Maryland Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, Mayor, City of Burlington, Vermont Township of Canton, Michigan Town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina City of Chicago, Illinois Sandra Welch, Mayor, City of Coconut Creek, Florida City of Columbus, Ohio City of Easthampton, Massachusetts Daniel Biss, Mayor, City of Evanston, Illinois City of Fairfax, Virginia Harris County, Texas Ravinder S. Bhalla, Mayor, City of Hoboken, New Jersey Quinton Lucas, Mayor, Kansas City, Missouri Indya Kincannon, Mayor, City of Knoxville, Tennessee City of Madison, Wisconsin Jeff Silvestrini, Mayor, City of Millcreek, Utah Anissa Welch, Mayor, City of Milton, Wisconsin Montgomery County, Maryland City of New Haven, Connecticut Dontae Payne, Mayor, City of Olympia, Washington Adrian O. Mapp, Mayor, City of Plainfield, New Jersey Sue Noack, Mayor, City of Pleasant Hill, California City of Pittsburgh and Ed Gainey, Mayor, City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania City of Providence, Rhode Island John Clark, Mayor, Town of Ridgway, Colorado City of Rochester, New York City of Sacramento, California City and County of San Francisco, California City of Santa Monica, California Constantine H. Kutteh, Mayor, City of Statesville, North Carolina Lisa Brown, Mayor, City of Spokane, Washington Tishaura O. Jones, Mayor, City of St. Louis, Missouri City of St. Paul, Minnesota Dennis R. McBride, Mayor, City of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin

The City of Boston is leading 40+ mayors, cities, and counties in an amicus brief against the Trump Administration's drastic and illegal cuts to federal research funding—cuts that will lead to immediate job losses nationwide.

Hundreds in Philly braved the freezing temps to rally for our healthcare, research, and jobs! ❄️💪

Workers & students from CCP, Drexel, UPenn, Rutgers, Temple, Jefferson, Arcadia, Rowan, Moore—alongside elected leaders & union presidents—made it clear: We won’t back down. #LaborForHigherEd

Opinion | Let Students Finish the Whole Book. It Could Change Their Lives. (Gift Article) Had they merely read the summary, my students would have seen many of the same words, but they’d have lacked the feeling part.

“The study of English involves more than reading. It includes written expression and the cultivation of an authentic voice. But the comprehension of literature, on which the study of English is based, is rooted in the pleasure of reading” www.nytimes.com/2025/02/16/o...

Opinion | There Is No Going Back The president’s opponents, whoever they are, cannot expect a return to the Constitution as it was.

Yeah so the Constitution isn’t really in effect right now

Republicans want you to hit your kids instead of giving them health care

The next four years feel like a technical challenge where the only instructions Paul Hollywood gave us were “survive” and the ingredients are Chuck Schumer.