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Jill Burke

@jillburke.bsky.social

Author, historian, occasional curator - of art, material culture, bodies, beauty/cosmetics, 1400-1700 esp Italy. Research Director and founder of Historical Reconstruction Lab @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social

145 Posts3174 Follower924 Folgt
Jill Burke@jillburke.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Am playing The Game of the Goose tonight, one of the most popular board games in early modern Europe. I’ve printed out the 1598! Italian version from the British Museum. Like snakes and ladders except with gambling! And geese! Will report back….

Print out of a sixteenth century board game engraving.
Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · 3mo ago

To the extent that people are angry (as they very much should be!) about the horrific war on science, they also need to get angry about this outrageous war on the humanities. Both attack peer reviewed research that doesn’t happen to fit with a center-right worldview.

Royal Historical Society@royalhistsoc.org · 3mo ago

For further details of 100+ UK subject societies in history, please see our new resource bit.ly/43xhXw6 All are membership groups, offering support for historians from a wide range of backgrounds. If you seek fellow researchers in your field, we hope this guide proves useful #Skystorians.

Guide to UK history societies and networks, with text: "The Royal Historical Society works closely with a number of other UK and Irish societies dedicated to the study, communication and promotion of historical knowledge and understanding. Once a year, the Society hosts a half-day meeting of heads of UK history societies to discuss subjects of shared interest, such as publishing, membership and advocacy for the discipline. The Society also holds regular online meetings with its equivalent national organisations worldwide."
Royal Historical Society@royalhistsoc.org · 3mo ago

This afternoon @royalhistsoc.org hosts its annual meeting of heads of UK #history societies. We'll be joined by representatives of 35 subject societies which support and champion historians and our discipline. They, and other societies, are a vital part of UK scholarly and civic life #Skystorians

Assorted logos of UK history societies.
Jill Burke@jillburke.bsky.social · 5mo ago

@bryonycoombs.bsky.social and I have been making ink @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social historical reconstruction lab. My v. easy 1555 recipe is from Alessio Piemontese’s Secrets - it involves wine, very Italian - and made pretty good ink, even with my Scottish galls. Can’t wait til our workshop!

Dr Bryony Coombs@bryonycoombs.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Some really instructive (& fun) ink making experiments with @jillburke.bsky.social this afternoon in prep for a forthcoming ink & quills workshop. Scottish, English or Aleppo oak galls: which makes the best ink? we will tell you after the workshop! 😉 Many experimental ideas in the pipeline ✍️📜🍃

Jill Burke@jillburke.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I'm giving a talk! It's online for ePublic of Letters, on “Why were beauty tips so popular in sixteenth-century Italy? Readers, Makers and Realms of Knowledge in Early Modern Cosmetic Manuals". April 15th, noon eastern U.S., 5pm UK, 6pm continental Europe. RSVP here: forms.gle/DNLMPQuBGcEi...

Beauty recipe books – both manuscript and printed – crystallised as a distinct genre in sixteenth-century Italy, going on to be translated, adapted and plagiarised in many European languages. Usually explicitly aimed at a female audience, they largely consisted of compilations of recipes dealing with multifarious issues that affect the appearance – from hairstyles to scabies, from fatness to athlete’s foot. Long treated as a marginal element of the ‘book of secrets’ tradition, recent research has shown they make for fascinating reading, giving us insight into intimate worlds of anxiety about appearance and the everyday health concerns thought to mar attractiveness. This talk takes three complementary approaches. Analysis of dedicatory letters and verses show sometimes surprising ways in which cosmetic knowledge and practice were framed, and offers evidence for how authors imagined their readership. Text mining of several thousand recipes reveals recurrent beauty problems, as well as the range of ingredients, techniques and equipment expected from diverse users. Finally, an evaluation of the plentiful readers’ marks on around 80 copies of Giovanni Marinello’s Ornamenti delle donne (Venice, 1562, 1574 and 1610) suggests how readers actively engaged with the texts, the identity of readers and owners, and which recipes drew the most attention.
Holly Fletcher@drhollyfletcher.bsky.social · 6mo ago

So so pleased to see that my book ‘Body Size in Early Modern Germany’ is now available on Oxford Academic ahead of its print publication later this month: academic.oup.com/book/62409 🎉🎉🎉 To mark its online publication, I thought I’d share a bit more about the book and its contents...

Body Size in Early Modern Germany

Abstract. This book uncovers the significance of body size—of fatness and thinness—in early modern Germany. It explores how early modern people conceived o

academic.oup.com

Karen Desmond@karendesmond.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The ERC-BROKENSONG project at Maynooth University, Ireland, is hiring (two positions - this is the second)! I'm also looking a new research assistant/postdoc to conduct image analysis of the medieval Insular music corpus recovered within the project. See: www.timeshighereducation.com/unijobs/list...

Research Assistant / Post-Doc Researcher, Music - Maynooth, Ireland job with MAYNOOTH UNIVERSITY | 408256

The Music Department at Maynooth University invites applications for a 12-month position as either a Research Assistant (Level 2) ...

timeshighereducation.com

Mark Hailwood@markhailwood.bsky.social · 7mo ago

'I would set off, with some sense of what I might be looking for, and see what I stumbled across...' Is going for a walk a valid methodology for a historian? And if so, how much theory do you need to read before you start? Some thoughts in my latest blog post: manyheadedmonster.com/2026/02/10/i...

Is Walking Research? A Methodological Ramble

Mark HailwoodI needed to try something to get me writing again. Blessed with a period of research leave to resume work on my book – Everyday Life in the Seventeenth Century English Village &#…

manyheadedmonster.com

Erika Is Still Writing@bluetit24.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Women wore a bra already in the 15th century! Amazing discovery. Also: I highly recommend the book “How to Be a Renaissance Woman: The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity” by @jillburke.bsky.social 📖🌟💄

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Leverhulme Trust@leverhulme.ac.uk · 12mo ago

The Renaissance changed how people saw and understood the body. Cultural and art historian @jillburke.bsky.social @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social explores fashion and everyday life in Renaissance Italy, reflecting on the surprising history of bras in medieval times: www.joinexpeditions.com/experts/4582

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 12mo ago

We are offering up to £10k for researchers to seed collaborations, feasibility studies, application advice and training, partnership building etc for applications to Pillar 2 of Horizon Europe – Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

Horizon Europe Pump Priming collaboration between UK and EU partners 2026

This programme is providing pump priming funding to seed collaborations for applications to specific Horizon Europe topics in Pillar 2. The aim is to build collaborative activity between UK and EU/Ass...

thebritishacademy.ac.uk

Jill Burke@jillburke.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Oak gall wasps are my current obsession - galls are a key ingredient in European writing inks before industrialisation. Countless ideas on paper start with the relationship between an oak tree and a wasp. Marcello Malpighi observed galls to understand and illustrate their growth in the 1670s

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Mike Galsworthy@mikegalsworthy.bsky.social · 12mo ago

😮 “There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of different sorts of galls on oak trees. In Britain alone, more than 70 species of gall wasps are responsible, and each one creates a distinct structure.”