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Elise Wang

@elisewang.bsky.social
7.2K followers 1.4K following 1.3K posts

medievalist. law & history (old) | conspiracy theories (old and new) | taiwan (new and yet to be) | chicago —> los angeles carnegie fellow ‘24-‘26, writing a book on medieval conspiracy theories elisedwang.com

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Reposted by Elise Wang
southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
“Beyond two parking tickets for not moving his vehicle during snowstorms, Abdullah has no criminal record in Minnesota and was working legally as a mechanic while his asylum application was pending. He arrived in the United States in early 2023.”
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
As a medievalist, what is…”Olde English”? And if you mean Old English, who’s gonna translate Shakespeare’s thoroughly modern English? Hwaet! Can I volunteer??
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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 21/09/2026
The government moving or hiding jailed people to avoid review by courts isn't some loophole in our habeas corpus rights. This government behavior has been considered a violation of the people's habeas corpus rights since at least the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_...
Jailors were forbidden to move prisoners from one prison to another or out of the country to evade the writ. In case of disobedience jailers would be punished with severe fines which had to be paid to the prisoner.[5][6]
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I read this in college and I was like ohhhhhhh that’s what history does and long story short now I’m a historian
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Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 25/08/2026
My kids and their friends know Dolly Parton because she’s the person who sends books out to everyone in the post and that’s just really nice isn’t it.
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
The vagueness is the point, because it terrorizes all immigrants. I’m a citizen, but bc of my background all of this has made me change my behavior. I avoid land border crossings, I’ve canceled flights going through ICE-infested airports, and I carry my passport with me when I leave the house.
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Felipe De La Hoz @felipedlh.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
For @newrepublic.com I wrote about ICE's recent campaign of airport arrests, and the intentional vagueness about who is or isn't potentially subject to detention as part of the administration's broader narrative campaign of fear, intended to drive immigrants from public life
newrepublic.com
ICE’s Airport Crackdowns Are Designed to Spread Fear
The agency is snatching and grabbing travelers without any regard for their immigration status—and with no effort to be transparent about what they’re up to.
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Mitra Sharafi @mitrasharafi.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
The deadline for ASLH Projects & Proposals applications is now extended to Oct.1, 2026. It's unusual (and great) for a scholarly society to offer these small grants! Please spread the word and/or consider applying: aslh.net/award/projec... @elizabethdkatz.bsky.social
aslh.net
Projects and Proposals Funding | American Society for Legal History
The Projects and Proposals Committee of the American Society for Legal History invites proposals for the funding of new initiatives in the study, presentation, and production of legal historical schol...
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American Medieval Podcast @americanmedieval.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
another clip! here @elisewang.bsky.social reminds us how history can turn in a moment, how weird and possible everything really is... Enjoy #medievalsky! youtube.com/shorts/mHFrH...
youtube.com
Weird how history can turn in a moment. Change the world. Could've been otherwise. #podcast #history
YouTube video by American Medieval
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Reposted by Elise Wang
Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 10/08/2026
instead, read theory www.vatican.va/content/leo-...
vatican.va
Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026)
ENCYCLICAL LETTER MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV ON SAFEGUARDING THE HUMAN PERSON IN THE TIME OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE [ Multimedia ] ___________________________
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Kevin M. Levin @civilwarmemory.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Historians may have played a decisive role last week in a judge's ruling that overturning a school board's decision to change the names of public school honoring Confederate generals ignored its impact on Black students. Historians matter. #CivilWarMemory 🗃️ kevinmlevin.substack.com/p/what-the-h...
kevinmlevin.substack.com
What the Historians Proved in Shenandoah County, Virginia
Expert testimony from two historians helped overturn a school board's 2024 decision, and showed exactly why the profession still matters.
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American Medieval Podcast @americanmedieval.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
have a little taste of the episode! the brilliant @elisewang.bsky.social explains how conspiracy theories spread for the most banal reasons... youtube.com/shorts/gsTjd...
youtube.com
Conspiracy theories spread for the most everyday reasons, even in the Middle Ages. #podcast #history
YouTube video by American Medieval
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
This was so much fun to do! Matt has great questions and we have a good chat about stumbling into the medieval period (me) and accidentally traumatizing ourselves (also me)!
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Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 30/07/2026
next week on @americanmedieval.bsky.social i talk with @elisewang.bsky.social about the medieval origins of conspiracy theories
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Forget that we should all be forced to take 6th grade common core math so that the parents don’t have to suffer alone
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Law & History Review @lawandhistrev.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
We’re back! The Law and History Review is excited to announce the publication of our first article this year in our digital imprint, The Docket. Anna O. Law (@unlawfulentries.bsky.social) told us about her new book. End the week on a strong note—check it out! lawandhistoryreview.org/article/anna...
lawandhistoryreview.org
Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship: An Interview with Anna O. Law – Law & History Review
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Right. That’s how we know it’s a race argument, not an argument about culture. Because what makes you unacceptable is constant, inherited, and unalterable whether you’re born here or elsewhere.
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
In medieval England it was…everyone! In fact you could get in big trouble if you saw a crime and DIDN’T arrest them!
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
She’s five and she spent 118 days alone. What does your five year old like? Mine likes pandas and eating red peppers like apples and making elaborate “ships” out of pillows to sail to sea. She’s scared of loud noises and dogs and being alone.
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
She’s five and she spent 118 days alone. What does your five year old like? Mine likes pandas and eating red peppers like apples and making elaborate “ships” out of pillows to sail to sea. She’s scared of loud noises and dogs and being alone.
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Jay Rubenstein @medievaljay.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
One of the striking things seeing the Melisende Psalter in person is how much the gold letters glitter. This is a page from a litany -- a long list of saints' names. Some names are written in gold, so when read the page, those names sparkle. In the high-res PDF, they are all a dull brown.
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
To be a historian is to speak ill of the dead and the rest of you should take more history classes and join us.
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Before the Vikings descended on Lindisfarne in June of 793, the monks reported seeing “immense sheets of light rushed through the air" I’m just saying
Haaland running like a sheet of light
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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
It's Wed., & you need an eel. But you also deserve a stork. So enjoy this stork eating an eel from a 13th C. edition of Gerald of Wales' book on Ireland. (I know it doesn't look quite like a stork, but you can see a faded label below the bird. Sometimes that's what you get from monastic artists)
Medieval marginal drawing of a stork eating an eel. The stork is colored in dark browns and has one leg raised. It's one eye is wide open, and the plumes on its heard are immaculate. The stork has the eel's head in it's beak, with the tail still exposed. Beneath the stork you can faintly see, in a medieval hand, the word "stork" written in the parchment. You can also see where the parchment has been repaired.

I like to imagine that this bird is coming to a dish-to-pass party, and has brought an eel to share. It is raising a claw to ring the doorbell, and it's excited by the reception it knows it will receive. Bringing an eel to a stork party is always a good plan.

Image citation: BL Royal MS 13.BVIII, f. 9v
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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 06/07/2026
Everyone knows about the Renaissance book wheel, but I only today learned about the Holloway Reading Stand & Dictionary Holder, patented in the late 19th century by an Ohio company We used to be a proper country archive.org/details/holl...
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
The excommunication is automatic, the unusual aspect is how direct the Vatican has been about this. It signals a church that will not allow the fascist splinter groups that have always lingered at its edges (or encroached on the center) to maintain plausible relationships to the church.
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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
the official publication of the American Jesuits using the word "schismatic" is a sign that things are really popping off
americamagazine.org
Pope Leo makes final appeal to SSPX before schismatic ordination of bishops: ‘Please turn back!’
Pope Leo made a last-minute appeal to the SSPX to “turn back” from illicitly ordaining bishops, saying, “to tear the seamless garment of Christ is a sin of extreme gravity.”
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honor sachs @drhonor.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
You guys, seriously read the footnotes in Ketanji Brown Jackson's concurrence. It's, like, all historians: Jones, Masur, Blight, Guyatt, Foner. It's a beautiful thing.
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
“White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters: ‘This country doesn’t have a future if we don’t end birthright citizenship…. One way or another, this nation has to end birthright citizenship.’” That “one way or another” is ominous. open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...
open.substack.com
June 26, 2026
Wednesday night, after President Donald J.
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Nicholas Handler @nicholashandler.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
I don’t have much to say about Slaughter, and honestly I think we do too much justice to the Roberts Court by treating its opinions like serious judicial reasoning. But I will say that it’s striking how openly the court treats congressional oversight as somehow antithetical to democratic government
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Justice Sotomayor read her dissent from the bench. It reads in part: "Today, this Court undoes centuries of political practice and concludes that all three branches of Government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution all this time. Its conclusion is wrong."
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Tens of thousands celebrated Budapest Pride, the first since Viktor Orbán’s ousting.
pbs.org
Tens of thousands march in the first Budapest Pride since Viktor Orbán was voted out
Saturday's Pride march came a little more than a year after Orbán's nationalist-populist government passed legislation and a constitutional amendment to outlaw the event, drawing criticism from human ...
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morrismummer @morrismummer.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
The utterly glorious porch roof at St John the Baptist, Burford. Anyone who uses 'medieval' as a pejorative should be made to look at this until they promise never to do it again. Photo taken lying on my back shuffling around the floor until I was happy with the framing.
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Actuel Moyen Âge @agemoyen.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
En plus des 5 sens corporels (vue, odorat etc), les scientifiques médiévaux distinguaient 5 sens mentaux : sens commun, estimation, conceptualisation, mémoire et imagination. Ce dessin représente la localisation de ces sens dans le cerveau ! CuL MS Gg.1.1 (début du XIVe siècle)
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 24/06/2026
currently reading a whole bunch of petitions and editorials from black americans of the revolutionary era and it is so striking (and frankly inspiring) to see how the ink wasn't even dry on the declaration before black americans were demanding that the patriots live up to their stated ideals
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
This is the reverse of an impassioned argument with a Slavic speaker (for whom all ice cream is “sweet ice”) about whether or not a popsicle is “ice cream.” His position was yes, my position was that his was an offense against god. Agree to disagree.
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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
If you are a historian in Germany you know that the Strait of Hormuz is like a Kreisarchiv, open, yes, but only on Tuesday from 8:30 to 9:17 and (with previous appointment) on every twelfth Thursday for fifteen minutes after the lunch break.
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
The best protection against AI is that we write and make art for connection, not product. A heartening and warm philosophical take on AI and intimacy:
nautil.us
The Inventor of the Thinking Machine Didn’t Worry. Neither Should You
The Inventor of the Thinking Machine Didn’t Worry. Neither Should You: In this age of AI anxiety, listen to your heart
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
The best protection against AI is that we write and make art for connection, not product. A heartening and warm philosophical take on AI and intimacy:
nautil.us
The Inventor of the Thinking Machine Didn’t Worry. Neither Should You
The Inventor of the Thinking Machine Didn’t Worry. Neither Should You: In this age of AI anxiety, listen to your heart
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
RIP Mark Rothko. You would have loved how the hydrogen peroxide bleach is only turning the Reflecting Pool blue around the perimeter
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Cape Verde wins, 0-0.
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
“nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person WITHIN ITS JURISDICTION the equal protection of the laws.” Not citizens, not residents, anyone within the jurisdiction.
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
One of my favorite genres is trad caths discovering papal supremacy and getting really mad about it
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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
One of my favorite genres is trad caths discovering papal supremacy and getting really mad about it
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Helena Fitzgerald @hellafitzgerald.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
[taking the deepest possible breath] the Dutch East India Company was established in 1602,
headline that says “why is trump hosting a cage fight at the White House” with photo of same
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Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
humans have known how to construct a shoulder seam for thousands of years, but with AI, we are unlocking untold new ways to fuck it up
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Russ The Tedious Ghost @russ41.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Tell your friends about jury nullification.
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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
If you’ve been following the “rigged election” rumors from the CA primary and thinking, gosh, haven’t we seen this all before? Well, you’re right! Sounds like you’d be competitive in a friendly and frenetic game of “Rigged Election” Bingo! uwcip.substack.com/p/rigged-ele...
A satirical bingo card titled "Rigged Election" Bingo, designed in patriotic red, white, and blue with gold block lettering. The letters B-I-N-G-O run across the top of a navy card containing a 5x5 grid of cream-colored squares, each naming a common election-fraud claim or conspiracy trope, with small stars in the corners. The center free space shows a gold star with the words "Rigged Election" in red. Reading left to right, top to bottom, the squares are: Machines Switching Votes; Media Error Seeds Conspiracy; Slow Vote Counting; Mail-In Ballot Bonanza: Damaged/Destroyed Ballots; Mail-In Ballot Bonanza: Ballots in a Dumpster; Riddled Rolls: Many Registrations, One Address; Suspicious Setting: Urban Area; Non-Citizen Voters; Polling Site Disruption: Bomb Threat; Malfunctioning Machines; Remote Control: Satellite Interference; Riddled Rolls: Maiden Name Voters; the "Rigged Election" free space; Crooked and/or Biased Media; Polling Site Disruption: Closure; Suspicious Remedies: Extending Voting Hours; USPS Sabotage: Dumping Mail-In Ballots; Suspicious Statistics: Vote Dumps; Foreign Interference: China; Mail-In Ballot Bonanza: Stolen Mail w/ Ballots; Riddled Rolls: Voter(s) of Improbable Age; Mail-In Ballot Bonanza: Ballot Mules; Oversight Obstruction: Livestreams Down; Suspicious Statistics: Bullet Ballots; and Suspicious Containers: Black Duffel Bags. No squares are marked.
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