Guido Ubaldo Abbatini, Pope Alexander VII with Bernini's skull (1655-56), Art Collection of the Sovereign Order of Malta, Rome. Pope Alexander VII sits in an elaborately carved chair, carved with the Chigi coat of arms, and rests his hands on a carved skull on the desk in front of him and looks out at the viewer
A realistic, life-size marble skull with teeth missing, carved out of marble by Gian Lorenzo Bernini(1655)
On his election in 1655, Pope Alexander VII commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini to sculpt a skull in marble, which he kept on his desk as a reminder of death's omnipresence. The sculpture was rediscovered in 2021 at Schloss Pillnitz, Dresden
11.10.2025 17:10 — 👍 164 🔁 36 💬 4 📌 6
A thousand yeses to this from Cole Arthur Riley.
08.05.2025 15:07 — 👍 434 🔁 134 💬 7 📌 5
A screenshot of a ChatGPT conversation reading: "can you write something about robert e. lee in the voice of washington post staff writer gillian brockell?"
"Certainly! Here's an excerpt written in the voice of Gillian Brockell, a staff writer at The Washington Post, reflecting on Robert E. Lee's legacy:
The Complicated Legacy of Robert E. Lee: A Figure Divided by History
By Gillian Brockell
When Robert E. Lee's name is invoked, it is often as a symbol of Southern pride military brilliance, or a tragic, doomed cause. But history has a way of shifting its lens, and in recent years, the image of Lee -- the Confederate general, the hero of lost causes -- has become increasingly more fraught. The man who stood as the face of a rebellion that tore the nation apart now stands at the center of an ongoing reckoning over the Confederacy's legacy, and our struggle to reconcile memory with reality."
When I left the Washington Post in 2023, my colleagues and I were worried AI would hoover up our work and enable "zombies" to churn out stories based on our reporting and writing styles.
Today WaPo announced a partnership with OpenAI. And here it is: Zombie Gillian Brockell. I DID NOT WRITE THIS.
22.04.2025 18:23 — 👍 10180 🔁 4235 💬 260 📌 478
Black and white photograph of John Casteen speaking from a podium and holding a copy of the 1989-1990 University Report (1991 - RG-30/1/10.011) and quote: “Special Collections protect our civilization’s primary unwashed memory of itself, and in this regard they differ from all else, which is secondary, which is to say calculated, positioned, analyzed with an eye towards what posterity is desired to believe as opposed to what it must know.”
Casteen’s 1993 speech ”Special Collections and the Public Good” offered: “Special Collections protect our civilization’s primary unwashed memory of itself, ...
16.04.2025 15:55 — 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
John Casteen photographed sitting at table with a book (Dan Addison, UVA Communications, 2021).
Today we remember the late John Casteen—UVA’s seventh president from 1990-2010 who passed away last month. Casteen was a library student assistant while studying @uva in the 1960s and an avid supporter of the @uvalibrary system throughout his career.
16.04.2025 15:55 — 👍 3 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
Say Goodbye to Small-Town Libraries and Museums, Thanks to Trump’s Latest Cuts
The NEH budget is tiny. The loss is huge.
My Slate piece on the widespread NEH grant cancellations is live. So much gratitude to everyone who took the time to talk with me these past few days while fighting fires on every side.
#humanities #highered #neh
slate.com/news-and-pol...
10.04.2025 21:45 — 👍 639 🔁 394 💬 7 📌 43
Save the NEH! – National Humanities Alliance
On Monday, March 31, 2025 we learned that DOGE is targeting the NEH with the aim of substantially reducing its staff, cutting the agency’s grant programs, and rescinding grants that have already been awarded.
Learn what steps you can take here: nhalliance.org/federal-fund...
01.04.2025 22:19 — 👍 93 🔁 85 💬 0 📌 19
Duke Says ‘White Lotus’ Went ‘Too Far’ With School References
In a show that features an array of disturbing story lines, the actions — and wardrobe — of a character have gone “too far” for the university.
Yes it’s all fascism right now but holy cricket on a cracker, let’s all God’s children gather round to make fun of Duke being the saddest, most pathetic privileged whiners in the history of institutions:
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/s...
27.03.2025 16:46 — 👍 535 🔁 80 💬 11 📌 18
Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal | Vol 19, No 2
Today is publication day! Check out our new issue with four articles, a conversation on race, an exhibition review, and many book reviews #EarlyModern www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/emw/curr...
20.03.2025 14:59 — 👍 28 🔁 13 💬 1 📌 2
He was, as he once described me, "a splendid colleague and friend." I will always be grateful that our paths crossed, and for the generous mentorship that he provided to me and to many others who worked for him. 3/3
20.03.2025 15:47 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
He remained a mentor until his final illness, checking in on my both my career progress and my personal life: serving as a reference, taking me to lunch to celebrate career moves, sending me books to read as it struck his fancy, and answering my ongoing questions about saga literature. 2/3
20.03.2025 15:47 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
A nice reminder that, to find queer people in the Renaissance, all you need to do is play the hits. It is in fact comphet that distorts the historical record!
06.02.2025 21:42 — 👍 35 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 0
This is a typically brilliant thread, & yet another reminder that when we delve into the unedited & non-canonical sources, the lives of women in the past are much more visible than we are often led to believe.
22.12.2024 19:51 — 👍 106 🔁 35 💬 1 📌 0
After decades, tiny 500-year-old royal portrait is identified as Mary Tudor
Art historian says miniature is of Henry VIII’s daughter – not his sixth wife Katherine Parr
After decades, tiny 500-year-old royal portrait is identified as Mary Tudor
Art historian says miniature is of Henry VIII’s daughter – not his sixth wife Katherine Parr
by Richard Brooks for The Guardian
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024...
17.11.2024 14:09 — 👍 183 🔁 48 💬 4 📌 7
Historian of religion & gender in the 19th c US, drinker of tea in the 21st c US. Museum educator at MTH&M. Wrote some quit lit you may have read. Founder & editor at contingentmagazine.org. Former academic. Sings with Voices of Concinnity. She/her.
Book: Royal Marriage, Foreign Queens,& Constructions of Race in Early Modern England, under contract @ACMRSPress | 23-24 Long-term Fellow, @FolgerLibrary | Arab | dilettante
Renaissance and early modern material culture. Writing on skin, dogs with earrings, and some of the other more surprising oddities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe. All posts my own personal views.
I live in the past. I write for the present. 16th and 17th c. English Lit. Critical Race Studies.
If we have sense, we're outlaws in TX.
Bad Humor: https://www.pennpress.org/9780812298352/bad-humor/
Professor of English Literature ; Old books, women and libraries, early modern book storage; book trade, English literature, drama, cats, horses, bees, and little furry critters
U of Toronto Associate Prof. | early modern lit-sci-phil | women writers, esp. Margaret Cavendish | editing, esp. M. Cavendish | (premodern) asexuality and aromanticism | She/her. Views my own.
New book: Wild for Austen (St. Martin’s Press, 2025).
Professing feminist history, early modern women and queer stuff at King’s College London, History Workshop Jnl and around town.
Historian | France| Gender| Global Early Modern| Views my own | Writing: An Intimate History of Racial Capitalism in Old Regime France | Sex in an Old Regime City (OUP, 2020). Order here: http://bit.ly/2YYXPTn
liberalarts.utexas.edu/history/facult…
The official account of the Journal of Women’s History, edited by Sandie Holguín and Jennifer J. Davis. Book Review Editor, Ronnie Grinberg. Website: jwomenshistory.org journal site: https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/100
Ahorangi @ Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington | early modern women, poetry, politics | complaint
Curator of rare books and manuscripts at Museum Plantin-Moretus ❦ Doctor in early modern history ❦ Book historian and bibliographer ❦ Research on the materiality of early modern books
Professor of English at Vincennes University - interested in #UDL, First Year Composition 📒, EdTech 💻, Inclusive Teaching, Instructional Design, Open Educational Resources, Online Learning
Instructional Designer and college educator. PhD in English. Interested in course design, digital pedagogy, and digital literacy. also digital humanities, public humanities/history, poetry, horror, comics, aesthetics.
https://linktr.ee/jimmc_grath
A better world is possible, together.
Instructional design, humanities/Cultural Studies, pedagogy, open ed (OER/OA), library work, ADHD.
https://www.ryanpatrickrandall.com/
https://hcommons.social/@ryanrandall
Hollis Summers Poetry Prize: Larks (Ohio U Press, 2025). What Pecan Light (BCP, 2021). Co-Editor: @riverriverbooks.bsky.social EIC: @moistpoetryjournal.bsky.social Host: @ofpoetrypodcast.bsky.social Southern. PhD Duke. they/them. Durham, NC. 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🇵🇸
The largest international academic society devoted to the study of the era 1300–1700. Use #RenSA26 to join the Annual Meeting conversation and #RenTwitter (still!) for all things Renaissance studies.
Assistant Prof of Italian & Renaissance at the University of Toronto. Working on forgery and women's literature; transregional encounters; drama, gender, race in #earlymodern Italy. book in progress: #FraudulentMuse
Pedagogical approaches to palaeography, codicology, and early print. Organisers: Mary Boyle (@maryrboyle.bsky.social), Tristan Franklinos, Jessica Rahardjo, Seb Dows-Miller (@sebdm.bsky.social)
