I had a really great time in Stavanger last week. The students, staff and MARRI project are doing a lot of really cool work on modern medievalisms and you should all check it out here: www.uis.no/en/research/...

Markus Mindrebø@markusmindrebo.bsky.social · last wk.

Despite it being after hours and amidst stormy weather, we had a wonderful and highly successful lecture with @robehoughton.bsky.social at the UiS campus last night, through the MARRI project. Almost 50 students, staff and alumni came to hear about medieval video games and their academic uses!

the UK has three industries: higher education, whisky, and Games Workshop.

Despite it being after hours and amidst stormy weather, we had a wonderful and highly successful lecture with @robehoughton.bsky.social at the UiS campus last night, through the MARRI project. Almost 50 students, staff and alumni came to hear about medieval video games and their academic uses!

That's a historian at work: wearing big boots, looking confidently at the sources, and sitting on the back of Father Time holding scythe and hour-glass. Yes, we do fly at work. #skystorians

Good to see @historytoday.com making the case for history in universities.

Why Does Academic History Matter?

The study of history at UK universities appears to be under existential threat. Should anyone care?

historytoday.com

PPE Forum - bruken av viking-estetikk i dag! 2. nov. 12:15, universitetsbiblioteket UiS. Uttrykk for en inkluderende eller ekskluderende nasjonalisme? På panelet: Markus Eldegard Mindrebø, Institutt for kultur- og språkvitenskap; Ellen Hagen, Arkeologisk museum; og Inger Undheim, Garborgsenteret.

September is the time for treading the grapes. #Medievalcalendar BnF MS Latin 1156B; Horae ad usum romanum; 15th century; f.9r @gallicabnf.bsky.social

Haakon VIII is the first King of Norway to have two Norwegian born parents since King Magnus the Lawmender, who died in 1280. (Still part of the "immigrant population" though, as the statisticians define it - two foreign born grandparents.)

Check out TMW's Natasha Hodgson's (@nrhodgson-hist.bsky.social) article in today's @uk.theconversation.com on the women depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry 👇 theconversation.com/what-three-f... #blueskyhistorians

What three female figures in the Bayeux tapestry reveal about medieval women

The women of the Bayeux tapestry tell a story as compelling and important as the main depiction of the battle.

theconversation.com

“If you want research led teaching then at a minimum you have to allow teaching staff time to *read* and incorporate new research” I say every year as I object, again, to a workload model that allows 50mins prep per 1 hour teaching.

Marta Zboralska@marta-zboralska.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I remember being asked about “research-led teaching” in an interview for a full-time teaching-only job, and I really had to stop myself from saying “but you won’t be paying me to do any research!”

Ein ting som fascinerer meg, er òg dei folka som vaknar opp i 2026 og berre: "Hæ?! Profilerer Noreg seg i utlandet med VIKINGAR??? Kva nymotens påfunn er det?"

Doremus Schafer@doremus-schafer.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Dagens negative polarisering er at jeg blir stadig mer positivt innstilt til i utgangspunktet cringe viking-bilder jo flere Morgenbladet-anmeldere som får utslett av overdreven inderlighet og manglende ironi. #dax18

Either way, LLMs are useless for most humanities research. And I mean, fundamentally, structurally useless. Unfixable. Not the right tool for the job. Like trying to change your car tire with a pair of pliers.

Good times, and a fantastic audience!

Jonas Fossli Gjersø@jonasgjerso.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Really enjoyed listening to @markusmindrebo.bsky.social who delivered a magisterial lecture on the evolving cultural depictions of Viking women. An absolute treat on a Tuesday evening (at Stavanger Archaeological Museum)! @unistavanger.bsky.social

#Medieval #football #Norway

Kristel Zilmer@kristelzilmer.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Erling Braut Haaland and Snorri Sturluson in one sentence? Well, the Norwegian footballer has purchased a rare book from 1594, containing the Icelandic author's compilation of Norwegian kings' sagas - giving this as a gift to his home municipality of Time. More of this! www.nrk.no/sport/erling...

Maria Danielsen, Knut Ørke og Holger Pötzsch har skrevet et opprop om KI i høyere utdanning som jeg nettopp har signert. Signér du også om du ønsker en mer faglig og kritisk diskusjon av innføring av KI på universiteter og høgskoler! Oppropet skal sendes til Khrono. nettskjema.no/a/602234#/pa...

The Tune ship gets moved this week www.vikingtidsmuseet.no/english/news... #viking #ships

The Final Viking Ship on the Move - Museum of the Viking Age

23 February will be the starting point for the relocation of the third and final Viking ship, as the Tune Ship sets out on its journey from the former Viking Ship Museum and into the Museum of the Vik...

vikingtidsmuseet.no

Games and stories are imitations of life, ways of playing at life, sometimes ways of learning how to live. Some of the rules may appear both cruel and arbitrary. But if you want to play the game, or live the life, you have to follow them.

A rather beautiful view of the Ullandhaug tower upon returning to the office. Hopefully marking the beginning of a significantly better 2026!

Techbros seem to love Tolkien, so here's an analogy to help you understand what genAI is. GenAI is The One Ring. You think your use is justified, b/c you don't have evil in your heart. But it came from evil, it is intended for evil purpose, & anything you do with it will be twisted to that end.

I do find it interesting trying to explain to people that historians deal in arguments, not in facts. History isn’t a catalogue of dates and names, but what happened around those things, and how we now and those who were alive at the time perceived and responded to those events.

Another beer post for the evening: In 1241, Pope Gregory IX informed Archbishop Sigurd Eindridesson (r.1231-52) that children who are baptised in beer can not be considered to have been properly baptised.

He could not force himself to understand how banks functioned and so forth, because all the operations of capitalism were as meaningless to him as the rites of a primitive religion, as barbaric, as elaborate, and as unnecessary.

Trick or treat? 😈 #Halloween BL Stowe MS 17, f.200r

The Greenhouse @unistavanger.bsky.social is launching an international Masters Program in Public Environmental Humanities from fall 2026! Taught in English. Please share with all your students, #envhist #envhum colleagues! Learn more about the program here: www.uis.no/en/studies/t...

What HE managers fail to understand is that in the context of the Humanities, ‘employability’ isn’t teaching coding or carpentry, but skills around writing, presenting, reasoning, evaluation, analysis, research etc. In an 80% service economy, these are the skills that fundamentally matter.

There is a certain bleakness in finding hope where one expected certainty.

📅 Save the date! The University of Stavanger, invites you to a symposium entitled: Freedom of Expression in Times of Genocide 🗓 Wed. Nov 12, 5–7:30 pm | Sølvberget, Stavanger & online Speakers include: Sindre Bangstad, Raz Segal, Zoé Samudzi, Maha Abdallah & Martin Shaw More details to follow.

Medieval techniques to preserve mental health? Sage advice here (and a wonderfully written post). "Tao seemed forever struggling with the dilemma between living freely but poorly and working in the government but unhappily. Besides resorting to alcohol, Tao dealt with such struggles with poetry."

The Rise of Poetry Therapy in Eleventh Century China

How did literati manage their mental health in middle period China? Melancholy, depression, and down moods were as common among them as among us today. In the absence of antidepressants and therapists...

leidenmedievalistsblog.nl