Aidan Holtan

It always sets a good tone for the week when you start with a productive Monday. Much better than last week's "Hey class, we had a tornado on Sunday. Extensions for all!" Totally necessary, but man it was hard to get going.

First full day at Kzoo! I present this afternoon, and the rest of the weekend will just be enjoying listening to panels and perusing the bookshop <3 So excited to be here!

Waiting to board the second half of my flight to Kzoo, and I’m fairly sure most of this flight are medievalists 🎉So excited!

“I asked ChatGPT” well I asked Trebeard and he said hrum hoom burárum

Flight confirmed--very excited to fly to Kalamazoo tomorrow for IMC!

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.

In the center foreground is a white mug with a stroopwaffle laid on top. The mug has an image of a dark blue paint splash, in the center of which is a inaccurate Viking helmet (in great and blue, inaccuracy is due to horns) and the text “Grayson College Student Life.” This mug is set on a dark brown desk, and plants and baby photos are out of focus in the background

It’s a really rainy day, so I’m enjoying a cozy treat this morning

Hogbacks Ahoy!

We reopen at 11am on Tuesday the 1st of April! After that, we're open 11am until 4pm, 7 days a week, until the end of October.

See you soon!

Cartooning the Medieval A symposium exploring the potential of comics and narrative art to create new opportunities for engaging with medieval culture.

Medievalist-friends! Interested in learning about comics and narrative art and meeting cartoonists for potential collaborations? Apply to join us in Chicago from 5-6 June 2025 for a crossover workshop at the Newberry Library entitled “Cartooning the Medieval”!! www.newberry.org/calendar/car...

Just a bunch of people going to each other's houses.

Much as I like Pride & Prejudice I find it impossible to deny that this is the greatest review of it of all time.

Joined an online webinar from home (Spring Break! Woo!) and just realized I'm drinking from an "Addie's Mommy" mug, instead of my usual college swag mugs that I try to use for "professional" Zooms. Ah well. It's spring break, so you get what you get haha

Background is a woman with brown curly hair and a black shirt. Assume she is smiling, but you can’t see it because there’s a tabby cat laying diagonally in front of her. The cat’s ear is blocking most of the woman’s face.

“Here, let me help. I’ve got a great idea for your syllabus” -Vin

a woman sitting at a desk with the word okay written on the screen Alt: a woman (Alexis from Schitts Creek) sitting at a desk with “okay, that’s very rude” written on the screen.

Just realized that my jury duty summons falls on the first day of spring break

a man wearing a suit and tie is standing in a field of yellow flowers Alt: a man wearing a suit and tie is standing in a field of yellow flowers

One week to Spring Break!

My Medieval World classes are both fantastic. It's a really nice way to start and end the week.

Also, Cahokia and the Mississippians remain the undefeated coolest thing I get to teach about. Medieval America is amazing.

The dragon students are also going to read The Dragon of Wantley—we’ll do the broadside ballad and watch a short clip of the opera 😁

We’re doing a quick highlight reel (it’s an 8-week class), so students are going to choose between dragons, werewolves and revenants. The main texts are Beowulf, Bisclavret, and two shorter excerpts of revenant ones (De nugis curialium and The Life and Miracles of Saint Modwenna)

a cartoon of batman with big white eyes Alt: a cartoon of batman with big white eyes

This is my hero, Bulf. He’s trying, okay? 😂

I don’t know why this made me laugh so hard, but my auto captions decided to go with “Bolf” instead of “Beowulf”

a drawing of a red dragon standing next to a small man Alt: a drawing of a red dragon standing next to a small man. Both are wiggling side to side

Small joys: putting together my lecture for next week’s class on medieval and early modern monsters. So much fun!

For #FindsFriday three of the objects in the fantastic gold hoard from Hoen in Norway: Scandinavian armring, Anglo-Saxon finger ring and Frankish (Carolingian) trefoil mount, made into a brooch. Photos: Kulturhistorisk Museum, CC BY-SA 4.0: no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoenska...

Hey so we’re losing another press and a great new book is caught in the middle. Consider this for your media history courses - selling is the only way this IP doesn’t disappear with the press 😕

Three plants in foreground. To left is a small Chinese money plant in a pink planter. The planter has an electronic face with two circular eyes and a small mouth. In the center is an air plant in a white ceramic llama planter. The llama is decorated with painting of blue and red flowers. To the right is a succulent planted in a tall grey planter. The planter had a small, cozy home scene inlayed at the bottom, stairs zigzagging up, and a hedgehog with a little green travel pack at the top

My office plants are multiplying 👀

This AI summary might as well read, "In The Man of Law's Tale by Geoffrey #Chaucer, a rumor spreads that Bevis has died. This false report reaches Butthead after a battle in London." #MedievalSky

Bottom of picture is a blue mug with a golden rim, and the picture is taken from above. Inside the mug is a brown, frothy hot chocolate and a mound of small marshmallows. In the upper right corner of the picture is a light pink planter with a digital face, eyes squinting in judgement

Got a lot on my plate, so today’s hot drink of choice is hot chocolate with lots of mini marshmallows. My planter is definitely judging me haha

Planter on a bamboo disk with white cords in the background. The planter is light pink and has a black, digitally animated face. Its expression is an open smile and eyes squeezed shut (like the >.< emoji but happy). The plant on top has circular green leaves

This little cutie has been brightening my office 😁

a man with a beard wearing a chain mail helmet and a crown Alt: a man with a beard (King Arthur) wearing a chain mail helmet and a crown. The white text at the bottom of the screen says “A DUCK” in all capitals

Movie night with Sigma Kappa Delta/Writer’s Unlimited! On the docket tonight: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

A man in blue awkwardly holds a bow in front of him. He appears to have misfired the arrow, which is up near his face and facing the wrong way. Reference: British Library Add MS 70000

Medieval Hunting Deaths: A Thread

Hunting could be very dangerous (not just for animals) in the Middle Ages. Accidents happened and everyone from kings and earls to lowly peasants could be killed by a stray arrow, a hanging branch or a wild animal defending itself. 🧵7

Fun adventures in captioning: my speech to text software kept recording “the homilies of Aelfric” as “the homies of Alfred.” 😂

this meeting could have been a visit to The Museum of English Rural Life