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Dr. Barry Torch

@barrytorch.bsky.social
2.9K followers 1.4K following 494 posts

He/Him. Medieval and Renaissance Historian, Skeptical Optimist, Purveyor of Puns, and lover of Books, Fountain Pens, and Dogs. Settler on Treaty 13 Territory. Jewish. Queer.

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Reposted by Dr. Barry Torch
Jews For Racial & Economic Justice Action @jfrejnyc.bsky.social · 21h
PSA: Stop being weird about the Talmud, folks. Being weird about the Talmud is Nazi garbage.
static.klipy.com
The More You Know
Alt: The More You Know
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There is nothing like going to a museum exhibition that feels catered to you! That was my experience going to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library to go see the special exhibition, "Aere Perennius: The Classical Traditions of Homer, Cicero, Plutarch, and Apuleius," curated by Dr. Timothy Perry.
Exterior window display featuring large black-and-white illustrated portraits of classical figures and an exhibition poster reading “Aere Perennius: The Classical Traditions of Homer, Cicero, Plutarch, and Apuleius,” with dates and library information.
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I know I'm screaming into the void here. But I still maintain my Academia account to download papers on my topic (I currently lack institutional library access), and accessing it on a computer now, I discovered their new UI. And the homepage is now completely useless.
Screenshot of the Academia.edu webpage dated Tuesday, September 29, 2026. It reports 550 papers published in the last 24 hours across 25 disciplines, highlights three new papers in European Intellectual and Cultural History, and shows a “The conversation” section with a prompt to share a paper, thought, or question.
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Noel Blanco Mourelle @mourelle.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Coming to a bookstore near you this summer! Thanks to everyone who made this possible. [Link in comments 👇]
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Unboxing day! Over a decade in the making, NECESSARY INVENTIONS: ROGER BACON, THE MIDDLE AGES, AND THE MAKING OF MODERN SCIENCE (PENN Press) is a material object. Thank you to everyone who helped along the way. For sale on October 20. @pennpress.bsky.social
Photo of a box filled with multiple copies of the book. The cover is ochre, and has different images of Bacon, from manuscripts and printed books.
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S.J. Pearce @homophonous.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Germany: No, let’s please forget.
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Kathleen E. Kennedy @themedievaldrk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
It! Is! Live! (A friend sent me the heads-up bc I have The Best Friends!) English. Illuminated. Printed. Parchment. Bibliographical nerdery abounds. Read on!
liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk
Colouring in the Lines of Early Tudor Printed Parchment | The Library
While scholars have mined English printed books of hours for decades as sources for important research, a small proportion remain almost without study. Neither manuscript nor standard print, the present article examines books of hours that were printed ...
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Erika Gaffney @erikagaffney.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I am happy to see that this book is now published! At Home in the Early Modern Dutch Dollhouse Gender, Materiality, and Collecting in the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Netherlands by Michelle Moseley-Christian www.routledge.com/At-Home-in-t...
A book cover, of which the background image is an 18th-century dollhouse on a stand, open to show 9 rooms on 3 floors.
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Watching Central Synagogue's Yom Kippur livestream services, and I cannot tell everybody enough how full my heart is seeing both men and women reading from the altar and reading and singing Torah. And singing *terribly* (just like me!) TORAH BELONGS TO EVERYONE! Happy Yom Kippur, y'all.
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Gmar chatimah Tova, BlueSky. May we all be sealed in the Book of Life for 5787. May the new year be filled with community, justice, light, joy, and love.
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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
may we all be sealed for love, for showing up, for liberation, for truth + for joy. ♥️ gmar tov
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Jessica Minieri @jessicaminieri.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
My first article is out!! 🥳🥳 This article explores the role of relics in Alfonso V’s conquest of Naples. It’s OA and can be found here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epub/10....
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Between @hannah-historian.bsky.social being one of the few worldwide Thomas Hobbes defenders, and my love for (and fear of) Pope Sixtus IV? Our coedited history journal issue/history in general is going to be so much fun. #historyhillstodieon
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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Thread of things to read today and tomorrow. ❤️ If you’re fasting, don’t forget to hydrate like a mofo today (and drink extra caffeine if you’re not weaned- will help) + if there’s any health reason, mental or physical, NOT to fast, you’re REQUIRED to eat. Here, on Kol Nidre + abolition:
lifeisasacredtext.com
What one line in the Yom Kippur liturgy teaches us about transforming society
Plus: Survey results!
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Ennius @enniusredloeb.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Torah portion Ha'azinu contains the farewell song of Moses & concludes with his climbing Mount Nebo to gaze at the Promised land which he will not enter. #ParashahPictures Bodleian Library MS Kennicott 1; 'The Kennicott Bible'; 1476 CE; La Coruña, Spain; f.117v @bodleian.ox.ac.uk
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Lisa Fagin Davis @lisafdavis.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Just made a very pretty packet of Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic paleography handouts for my @simmonsuniversity.bsky.social LIS students. Anyone want some? Here you go! Feel free to use (but please credit me if you do)...
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Lisa Fagin Davis @lisafdavis.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
For Latin paleography, here's a general timeline:
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I cannot even imagine what a three year closure of the BAV would do, @janmachielsen.bsky.social!!! And thanks for sharing this news! This is so exciting! I can't wait to go back!
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Jillian @nogoodwyfe.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Has anyone written about the study of medieval literature and comparative literature in the face of the 5 year PhD program? (That’s UNC’s goal is get to 5—they’ve already cut to 6.) It seems to me to be literally impossible. How would you do classes, teach, learn 2+ languages, and dissertate?
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Rabbi Rachel Barenblat @velveteenrabbi.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
As we prepare for Yom Kippur, please remember that it is forbidden to fast from food and drink on Yom Kippur if so doing would be dangerous to one's health in any way. For expertise and wisdom on this, see A Mitzvah To Eat, specifically
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Another day reading humanist prefaces, another day I'm kicking myself for not doing more Roman history as an undergrad. BRB frantically googling all these orators being compared to Cicero!
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Glauco Schettini @gschettini.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I’m delighted to share my first book, THE INVENTION OF CATHOLICISM, forthcoming from Oxford University Press on December 1, 2026. Catholicism did not simply survive the Age of Revolutions: it was remade by it. glaucoschettini.com/book/
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Just got accepted to the @medievalacademy.bsky.social Toronto 2027 Annual Meeting and conference, with my paper/possible book chapter on the 1470s Pliny Affair in late medieval/early modern Rome! I'm very excited to share this work, and excited to work with medievalists - do I count as one yet?
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Matt Bors @mattbors.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It was exactly ten years ago today, on my 33rd birthday, that I posted this comic online.
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How-Sen Chong @how-sen.com · 11/09/2026
So to summarize: One of the largest private corporations in Canada that’s been found guilty of fixing prices, is using drones to pollute the night sky, to promote the use of an AI chatbot to disclose sensitive personal information, and is part of the privatization of the Ontario health care system.
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
To all the MoT: Shana Tova Umetukah. May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life for the upcoming year.
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Donna Trembinski @medievalatx.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Hey @canmedievalists.bsky.social, please join me in congratulating Dr. Shannon McSheffrey on being elected as a fellow to the Royal Society of Canada. This honour is well-deserved! Congratulations Shannon!
The formal announcement of Dr. McSheffrey's election. A red border around a headshot of Shannon with her name and a short paragraph which reads Shannon McSheffrey's scholarship has fundamentally altered the way historians think about late medieval and early modern culture. With her many books, articles and digital humanities projects, she has shed new light on issues that were important then and remain crucial today: immigration, the politics of popular dissent, law, gender, sexuality, and marriage. She is both a scholar's scholar and a public-facing historian of international renown. Underneath this, Department of History, Concordia University. Royal Society of Canada/Société royale du Canada, Academy of Arts and Science.
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Everyone who works with medieval books needs to run, not walk, to read @themedievaldrk.bsky.social’s “Illuminating Media.” Her knowledge of the making of books, the use of design technology and illustration, and her argument of illumination as media is SO good! www.concordia.ca/press/illumi...
concordia.ca
Illuminating Media | Concordia University Press - Concordia University
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Jesse Locker @jessemlocker.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Correggio is one of most important, influential, and underrated Renaissance painters. A rare exhibition of his works, "Correggio. Movingly Human," opens in Dresden Sept. 19. gemaeldegalerie.skd.museum/en/exhibitio...
Detail of Correggio's Nativity (Holy Night), 1528-30, Oil on canvas, 256,5 x 188 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. Portrays the Holy Family illuminated by an unearthly glow
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Claire E. Aubin @ceaubin.com · 08/07/2026
I’ve been hinting about my current project for a while, and am so excited to (finally) announce it! I’m writing FALSE IDOLS: HOW GREAT MAN HISTORY LEFT OUR PAST IN RUINS with @basicbooksgroup.bsky.social. Truly a dream come true, and I can’t wait for you all to read it.
Publishers marketplace screenshot, in a gold frame over a painting filled with marble busts. It reads:

Yale postdoctoral fellow and host of the podcast This Guy Sucked Claire E. Aubin's FALSE IDOLS, the story of how the Great Man Theory came to dominate history, spanning from antiquity to the 21st century as it uncovers the unscrupulous chroniclers who built a pantheon of larger-than-life heroes, and why these discredited myths and distortions continue to haunt us, to Brandon Proia at Basic, by Connor Brown at Andrew Nurnberg Associates (NA).
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Historians are always of their own world, and historical interpretations are products of when it was written, as they are the period being studied. In related news, I discovered a "Q. Haterius", which I know is pronounced as "Ha-TEE-rius" but I keep reading as "Hater-ius." The OG Classical Hater.
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I cannot get over how beautiful the new #Zelda Ocarina of Time remaster for the Switch 2 is. I cannot wait to play this game, and future Zelda games. #Nintendo really knocked it out the park (although I am still mourning the lack of a Twilight Princess remake)
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Sam Wetherell @samwetherell.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
My latest post: On the deindustrialisation of the university. And on being "in defence of history" at a time of extinction. thehistoryfactory.substack.com/p/the-histor...
thehistoryfactory.substack.com
The History Factory 2: The Deindustrialisation of the University
A few years ago, my employer, the University of York, commissioned a civil engineering firm named Tilbury Douglas to build a new nursery for the children of its employees and students.
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
“If classicists aren’t talking about reception of Aristotle…” this is why the history of the Classical Tradition is SO IMPORTANT to study, both the original Ur/Athens texts, and how we have worked with/used/abused them in the intervening thousands of years.
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Another day, another "why don't they let us add comments to footnotes in Microsoft Word" rant. #amwriting
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Hillary Monahan @hillarymonahan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
A BILLION DOLLARS of her Harry Potter money to decimating trans rights. www.theverge.com/report/90181...
theverge.com
There is no ethical consumption of HBO’s Harry Potter series
You can’t without supporting Rowling’s transphobic bigotry.
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Today in the "Barry shot himself in the foot" news, my self-loathing kept me from applying to *ANY* fellowships during my graduate schooling. And now, trying to write a fellowship app, I have absolutely NO idea what I'm doing. #amwriting. Is it still considered "FAFO" if I didn't "FA" to begin with?
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Andi Zeisler @andizeisler.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
It was even worse than this; Married women were often referred to not simply as “Mrs. [husband’s last name]” but as “Mrs. [husband’s first AND last name].” Both the title “Ms.” and the magazine were seismic.
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Sara Gwyn Beam @saragwynbeam.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Pleased to share the publication of my challenge to claims that Reformation Genevan authorities were skeptical of witchcraft! #hextag #earlymodern #16thC Check out: "Aggressive Prosecution of Witches in Reformation Geneva," Sixteenth Century Journal 57, 3 (2026): 639-655
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Virginia Reinburg @vreinburg.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
Our tribute to Natalie Zemon Davis, in the Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte. Please share widely! www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...
degruyterbrill.com
Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte - Archive for Reformation History Volume 116 Issue 1
Volume 116, issue 1 of the journal Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte - Archive for Reformation History was published in 2025.
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Once Upon A Time On The Internet @newgroundsdoc.newgrounds.com · 01/09/2026
23 YEARS AGO TODAY, @mrweebl.bsky.social posted BADGERS to @Newgrounds.com
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King Algamemnon @adamrothman.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
I loved listening to this interview with the great historian Anthony Grafton, whose awe-inspiring erudition is matched only by his mellifluous voice. 🗃 newbooksnetwork.com/divining-the...
newbooksnetwork.com
Divining the Past: How to Do Conjectural History with Anthony Grafton - New Books Network
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Greetings, non-Jews in academia! As we start another semester, here's your regularly scheduled reminder that the Jewish High Holy Days are coming up. If you wouldn't schedule an important meeting or exam on Christmas or Easter, don't schedule one on Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur.
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witchysara.bsky.social @witchysara.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
To be fair, in renaming a lake, Trump follows the tradition of white men across time who grant themselves authority to erase names for their own pride. And who see themselves as heroes. Which doesn’t mean that jackass belongs any place but a prison cell. For way more reasons than this. #LakeOntario
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Dr. Barry Torch @barrytorch.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
It’s Lake Ontario.
static.klipy.com
Bugs Bunny: 'What a Maroon!'
ALT: Bugs Bunny: 'What a Maroon!'
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okie (they/them) @okie.gay · 25/08/2026
Texas’s drag ban was found to be unconstitutional this morning and one of the plaintiffs who brought the suit was an Austin-based drag queen who often impersonates Dolly Dolly was named in the final judgement itself and after hearing about the lawsuit, she sent that drag queen a signed guitar
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Justin Zimmerman @jztidecat.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
It’s just so vapid to think that “are Black people naturally stupid” is a legitimate research question.
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William Shakespeare @shakespeare.lol · 25/08/2026
[Exit Queen.]
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I started my PhD program with an eight week old at home, sole income being my doctoral stipend, in a history program, in Knoxville, TN. And every month we got a new book to read to my son, free, mailed to us, so my kid, my kids, grew up in rooms full of books even when I had no money. That's Dolly.
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De Gruyter Brill Medieval & Early Modern Studies @dgb-mem.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
A Brill book for only $38? That’s dangerous indeed! Order your copy now at brill.com/display/titl.... #earlymodern
Cover of the book "Dangerous Books"
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