Alexia Mandla Ainsworth 🦇
@alexiamandla.bsky.social
PhD Student at Stanford | Studying the literature, theatre, and games of the (very) long eighteenth century | Gothicist | Game Studies | she/her
Bought myself a nice 1820s edition of The Mysteries of Udolpho (with illustrations) before #IGAHull. Previously owned by Gervase Bushe (not the MP, but his son). He also owned a volume of poems by William Mason that I've come across previously - small world, even across centuries!
Enlightenment and (In)equality 17th International Congress for Eighteenth-Century Studies Zaragoza, Spain 12-16 July 2027 The submission period for for thematic sessions and roundtables is now open! All the information is available on the Congress website: www.isecs-zaragoza2027.net/en/
What's this I see before me... a Romancing the Gothic online conference!!!! With discounted tickets for the next two weeks!!!! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/more-terro...
'More Terrors Than Her Reason Could Justify': An Online Gothic Conference
This year we celebrate 200 years since Ann Radcliffe's posthumous publications with a conference on marginalised genders in the Gothic
eventbrite.co.uk
I wrote about the issues with this 6 years ago so I am excited to have to keep saying the same thing until I die www.historytoday.com/archive/hist...
What’s in a Name?
Erasing women writers in the name of uplifting them.
historytoday.com
Dr Sam Hirst@romgothsam.bsky.social · 4w agoOk, so, I see another 'women writers who used male pseudonyms' list and it remains frustrating. Some of these people used that name in their professional and personal lives. Once again, queer lives and queer choices get erased.
Has something come up since 1 April that you want to propose an MLA session on? Post a CFP for a Just-in-Time session, and you could still be on the program for the LA convention (although the program is already super-jam-packed, we'll still be taking some Just-in-Times) www.mla.org/Events/2027-...
Proposing a Just-in-Time Session
What Is a Just-in-Time Session?Most sessions at the MLA convention have to be completed and submitted by 1 April. This works well for many topics, but sometimes an organizer wishes to create a session...
mla.org
We are delighted to announce the shortlists for this year’s two IGA Book Prizes: the Allan Lloyd Smith Prize for the monograph and the Justin D. Edwards Prize for the edited collection best advancing the field of Gothic studies: www.globalgoth.org/blog/iga-boo...
IGA Book Prizes 2026: Shortlists Announced - Gothic Association
We are delighted to announce the shortlists for this year’s two IGA Book Prizes: the Allan Lloyd Smith Prize for the monograph best advancing the field of Gothic studies, and the Justin D. Edwards Pri...
globalgoth.org
What edition of Frances Burney's The Wanderer are people buying? I've been looking at the 5 volume set from Scribe, a used edition from Oxford's World's Classics imprint, or a new paperback from Mint Editions. I'd like to avoid the floppy 11+ inch tall printings many obscure novels get - hate those.
Elizabeth Blackwell (c.1707–1758) created ‘A Curious Herbal’ to support her family, drawing, engraving, and hand-colouring over 500 medicinal plants. Her work was praised for its accuracy and beauty, and became a landmark of 18th-century botanical illustration. #FolkloreSunday
An open letter, to readers, about Charity and Sylvia. I am very pained to feel the need to write this. #queerhistory #pride
I consider it my prerogative to use Bsky experts to nerdsnipe my family, so if any musicologists want to weigh in on the latest tiff between me and Spousal Unit, have at: Porgy and Bess—opera? Musical? Some secret third thing? And why/how do you figure that?
This is astonishing, please send to all your hometown friends and parents and second cousins and academic administrators: lareviewofbooks.org/article/dang...
A Better World Is Not Possible | Los Angeles Review of Books
Did the Weather Underground have a point?
lareviewofbooks.org
A lot of media coverage of the ‘AI’ reading of the Herculaneum scrolls really fails to understand what’s happened here. There’s no language processing happening, the AI/ML is not trained on a corpus of texts or language. It can detect ink to see shapes. HUMAN EXPERTS are then transcribing the text.
First #bookhistory post of the year. Some books simply scream for a thread! We have two copies of the same #EarlyModern edition. Why would we want to collect two copies of the same book, you ask? Read on! EHC Antwerp, K 54092 copy 1 and 2. [1/16] 📜 💙📚
As it is Pride Month, I thought people might enjoy a list of the many queer themed talks that Romancing the Gothic has run over the years. Whether you want to explore trans rage in Polish cinema, explore the history of gay Gothic pulp, or lean about lesbian vampires, we've got it all! 1/
"The funniest possible outcome of the AI mandate era is about to be HR departments discovering that 'sincerely held religious belief' under Title VII has a much lower bar than they assumed, and Pope Leo handed every Catholic employee a written excuse" www.businessinsider.com/worker-got-r...
She won an exemption from using AI at her tech job. The Pope's remarks could fuel similar appeals.
Legal experts say employers must take AI-related religious objections seriously, as a 2023 ruling raised the bar for denying such accommodations.
businessinsider.com
I found a new-to-me woman publisher this morning, so that means going back through all the records attached to the publisher when we didn't know who they were and reconfiguring them with the extra care we give women in the WPHP. She's in the archived BBTI: bbti.grubstreetproject.net/details_trad...
Hawes Lacy
bbti.grubstreetproject.net
Bread-binding: 18th century almanac housed in a wooden case meant to look like a Vienna bread roll! Images courtesy of the Rare Book School
ISLE, a leading journal in the environmental humanities, is seeking 2 Associate Editors to begin on July 1, 2026. Read the call for applications (deadline June 15) at www.asle.org/stay-informe...
The final solution for AI in academia is a scenario where students are submitting AI-generated homework to be graded by AI-generated faculty using AI agents, all of which is being overseen by highly paid administrators who are extracting money from the students in exchange for a degree. The end.
They also completely destroyed "[x word] synonym" searches, which were the bulk of my googling. My weak brain can never remember the word I want, but it can always remember the word just to the left of what I want... and now, thanks to AI™️, I am bereft of even tedious synonym hunting!
Grosdoriane@grosdoriane.bsky.social · 2mo agoYou used to be able to google the time of the sunset, and Google would give you the exact time right on top every single time. Thankfully, with artificial intelligence, you can now ask Google what time the sun will set and it will conveniently tell you "I don't know."
On the eve of our submission window opening, we felt we should add an AI policy
For those in Toronto, a nice exhibition at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library until 14 August #c18 #c18th #18thc library.utoronto.ca/exhibit/popu...
Popular Culture in Early Modern English Household Print, 1660-1800 - Exhibits | University of Toronto Libraries
Now Open! Featuring print materials of household manuals, religious works, and light entertainment.
library.utoronto.ca
HBD to the legendary joyful/angry feminist and superlative filmmaker Agnès Varda (1928-2019)!!! 🎊🎞️
We've all had performances fall short of our expectations before, but have you ever had one directly undermine your legitimacy as ruler of a nation? No? Well Queen Mary II did! Read about her experience here: blogs.uoregon.edu/londonstage/... #digitalhumanities #18thc #theaterhistory
Lecturer in English (Teaching & Scholarship) Queen Mary University of London - Department of English Salary: £51,755 to £60,901 per annum www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRR618/l... #HigherEd
In Shelley Puhak's (fantastic) discussion of her new publication "The Blood Countess" on the New Books Network, she mentions that there was a famous German serial killer whose escapades were being published in broadside publications in the early modern period- anyone know who that serial killer was?