The semester is approaching! If you’re teaching race & premodern contexts, check out throughlines.org - premodernist scholars across fields (including literature & other disciplines) with informational videos, reading lists, classroom activities, and much more! @acmrs.bsky.social

Throughlines — Race in the premodern classroom

Created by field-leading scholars, Throughlines’ pedagogical approaches offer accessible and critical ways to incorporate discussions of race in the premodern studies classroom.

throughlines.org

Montreal 1976 Olympic poster

When I first moved to SoCal and took my child to the city library (as one does, first thing), this book title had me confused for several minutes.

Might be as simple as "we still have lots of books from the Middle Ages (and they mostly look great)"

Ryan Cordell@ryancordell.org · last yr.

What’s something that’s a banal observation in your field, but which really blows students’ minds the 1st time they encounter it? I’ll go 1st—when we talk about how technological history gets narrated & I say "no human being has ever lived in a historical period—they’ve only lived in the present"

EARTHWORMS ARE INVASIVE SPECIES IN CANADA!

Ryan Cordell@ryancordell.org · last yr.

What’s something that’s a banal observation in your field, but which really blows students’ minds the 1st time they encounter it? I’ll go 1st—when we talk about how technological history gets narrated & I say "no human being has ever lived in a historical period—they’ve only lived in the present"

my latest: i can confirm there's been a concerted campaign to develop a data center in northern virginia within a historically important national park site relying on help from a senior advisor to the interior department under the first trump admin will the land swap happen? for @heatmap.news

How the National Park Service Wound Up in a Data Center Deal

The agency is reportedly considering a land swap that would allow AI infrastructure in one of northern Virginia’s largest green spaces.

heatmap.news

Me, nodding knowingly: The beaks.

My friend landed on my head, hopped around my hands and clothes, and refused to leave while I walked down a mountain for 20 mins, until I laid them gently on a flower

Late post, but I'm so proud of Erin O'Brien for publishing her work on queer joy and ace-ecologies. This piece emerged from our graduate seminar but takes a totally new form here, with embroidery!

NiCHE Canada@nichecanada.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Dancing with the Willow: Redefining the Erotic through Ace-Ecologies" by Erin O'Brien is the seventh post in the Succession IV: Queering the Environment – “Queer Joy” series. niche-canada.org/2026/06/20/d... #envhist #envhum #queerecology #queerjoy #pridemonth

I want people to understand the full impact of the devastation that First Nations in Canada are facing. It's NOT just that people and wildlife are losing their homes...it's the history that is being lost for generations to come.

I'M DYING OVER HERE 💀💀💀 THE CAT GOT AI SCAM EMAIL 🐈 Aeschylus, our orange tabby, got an obviously AI email about selling more copies of the Oresteia on A**zon

It is happening again

Dr. Jessica M. DeWitt@jessicamdewitt.bsky.social · last mo.

"Viewing this scene through smoky air, I considered the perennial question of how to live well in a flawed world, a world from which there is no turning back." - @malentendre.bsky.social niche-canada.org/2025/07/05/s...

Already 52 people on the waitlist for next winter. Book history is popular and every school should dedicate resources to it!

Aylin Malcolm@malentendre.bsky.social · last yr.

My undergrad book history course has 75 students registered and 37 on the waitlist. The students yearn for the books

Spent all day writing about erotic plant grafting and the Crucifixion. Weird how this is my job and not, like, the reason I'm in jail

"Why are you so mad? Are you choleric?" –my non-medievalist partner to the cat

Sorry for the self promotion, but I've written a blog post on alternatives to Google Scholar librarykirsten.wordpress.com/2026/06/18/t...

The Big List of Google Scholar Alternatives (and the Big Librarian Existential Crisis)

The Crisis I started writing this in summer of last year, intending it to be a nice little list of tools that would be handy if Google Scholar disappeared or got substantially worse, as a follow up…

librarykirsten.wordpress.com

Oh, look, the federal government is violating the Clean Water Act

Phil Yabut@philliefan99.bsky.social · 2mo ago

They're dumping slimy, green peroxide water from the Reflecting Pool back into the Potomac. #dc @popville.bsky.social

It! Is! Here! Open Access (and already hoovered up by the scrapers no doubt such is our world) UK/EU paper copies will be available eventually but until then, EVERYONE now has free access! press.library.concordia.ca/projects/ill...

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Hey hey, it’s now official on Concordia UP’s website, 20% discount code KENNEDY2026 at CUP (CAN) or Chicago (USD, link in next post) for Illuminating Media: Transmitting the Renaissance in England, 1400-1550! concordia.ca/press/illumi...

"Your mother asked why I was putting that sticker on the wallet...I thought it was a question that should be pitied rather than answered" –my dad

My dog is sick and I am struggling :( sorry if I owe you some writing

They’re called ‘academic journals’ because they’re where you write your private thoughts nobody else is allowed to read

1/ Right now, a bill called C-22 is moving through Parliament. It would let police pull information on who you talk to, when, and where, all without a warrant. It's at committee this week. 🧵

Come write with us at EHN! Graduate students and early career scholars who identify as women, trans, and/or nonbinary people (FLINTA*) are invited to submit abstracts for our next round of publications.

“Nazir’s selection is less about him using AI and more about the irony of Euro-American conceptions about the unintelligibility of postcolonial writing.”

Karl Steel@karlsteel.bsky.social · 3mo ago

This is a good read of the Granta / Commonwealth mess and quite a teachable essay for undergrads, so bookmark for your Fall syllabuses africasacountry.com/2026/05/how-...

Margaret Maurer and I noticed a ream wrapper – a sheet used to package stacks of paper – in a book at UPenn libraries. This raised one of my favorite questions: what can we learn from studying old trash (or old recycling)? uniqueatpenn.wordpress.com/2026/05/13/r...

Recipes and Recycling: A Dutch Ream Wrapper in an English Recipe Book

By Aylin Malcolm and Margaret C. Maurer Penn MS Codex 251 is a slim eighteenth-century recipe book with a distinctive binding made of thick, durable paper. The binding’s exterior is red with a stam…

uniqueatpenn.wordpress.com

"As the editors of an important collection on gender-variant saints have argued, medieval records challenge the idea that such identities are a 'modern' phenomenon and 'offer historically grounded refutation of theological transphobia.'" - @malentendre.bsky.social niche-canada.org/2025/04/30/t...

Trans Histories, Environmental Futures: Reading Silence Across Binaries

Aylin Malcolm explores how medieval texts, like Silence, reveal intersections of gender variance, environmental transformation, and resistance to binary norms.

niche-canada.org

So proud of my smart friend @yrliu.bsky.social for this deservedly glowing review! beforewegoblog.com/spfboxi-revi...

SPFBOXI Review: The Whisperer in White – Y. R. Liu

beforewegoblog.com

A cat is all the art you need

We are excited to announce the Call for Papers for our new collaborative series with Written in the Waves, Soil and Sea: Environmental Histories of the Atlantic World Proposal deadline: June 30, 2026 Series publication beginning September 2026 niche-canada.org/2026/04/30/c... #envhist

Call for Papers - Soil and Sea: Environmental Histories of the Atlantic World

We invite submissions on any topic related to environmental history of the Atlantic world.

niche-canada.org