iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Celebrate #InternationalDayOfFriendship by becoming a Friend of Ceræ! You not only get great rewards thanks to our friends @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social, but you get to join our community and support new and emerging #humanities research. #ancientsky #medievalsky #earlymodernsky #history #journal

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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

Pope Leo on AI: “Within digital environments — structured to persuade — interaction is optimized to the point of rendering a real encounter superfluous; the otherness of persons in the flesh is neutralized, and relationships are reduced to functional responses.” This short thread is worth reading:

Pope Leo XIV
@Pontifex
X.com
#ArtificialIntelligence systems increasingly shape and permeate our mentality and social environments.
Like every great historical
transformation, this too calls not only for technical competence, but also for a humanistic formation capable of making visible the logic behind economics, embedded biases and forms of power that shape our perception of reality.
1:31 PM • 4/17/26 • 91K Views

Pope Leo XIV
@Pontifex
X.com
Within digital environments —
structured to persuade — interaction is optimized to the point of rendering a real encounter superfluous; the otherness of persons in the flesh is neutralized, and relationships are reduced to functional responses. Dear friends, you, however, are real persons!
Creation itself has a body, a breath, a life to be listened to and safeguarded.
1:31 PM • 4/17/26 • 209K Views

Pope Leo XIV
@Pontifex
X.com
When simulation becomes the norm, it weakens the human capacity for discernment. As a result, our social bonds close in upon themselves, forming self-referential circuits that no longer expose us to reality. We thus come to live within bubbles, impermeable to one another. Feeling threatened by anyone who is different, we grow unaccustomed to encounter and dialogue. In this way, polarization, conflict, fear and violence spread.
What is at stake is not merely the risk of error, but a transformation in our very relationship with truth.
1:31 PM • 4/17/26 • 696K Views

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

#medievalsky #earlymodernsky #ancientsky #cfp #booksky Hands up who wants to get involved with a cool online journal - or attend an equally fun online conference this April! #fame&fortune

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

🚨 Fame & Fortune CFP 🚨 The new themed #CFP from @ceraejournal.bsky.social for Volume 13 of our #openaccess #journal and the annual online #conference is finally here! Conference paper abstracts due 6 March. Themed journal submissions due 30 April. Tell your friends! #medievalsky #earlymodernsky

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Ceræ @ceraejournal.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

#medievalsky #earlymodernsky #academicsky #historysky Come read the twelfth volume of Ceræ - Dreams, Visions, and Utopias!

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Ceræ @ceraejournal.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

We have extended our call for new committee members to November 10th! This time around, we are especially looking for postgraduate students and ECRs with experience to fill our editor roles, as well as a social media manager. #medievalsky #academicsky ceraejournal.com/2025/10/02/c...

ceraejournal.com

Call for New Committee Members

Ceræ: An Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies is an open-access, award-winning, peer-reviewed journal directed by a committee of international graduate students and early caree…

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Hwæt #classicsky #medievalsky #earlymodernsky! 🗣️ Ceræ's annual EOI for new committee members is now open for next year's #openaccess Volume 13. 🗣️ Editorial experience not required - but enthusiasm is. 🗣️ Applications from graduates and ECRs prioritised. 🗣️ DM/email/visit website for more info.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Last week I said the hardest, most heartbreaking of goodbyes to my beloved Kiara. 17 years old, but in declining health for the last year or so, she passed peacefully in her garden, in the warm spring sunshine, held by her humans until the very end. We love you forever, darling little puss-face.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

A key point has been missed, and for once it's not the AI that's the issue. C-14 dating of MSS doesn't date a text, it only dates the medium on which a text was written. Parchment was valuable, rarely manufactured for a specific text, and frequently recycled. 1/🧵 #ancientsky #classicsky #medievalsky

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Wow. Unbelievable that this study passed #ethics approval at the University of Zurich, and ridiculous it was considered 'low risk'. The members of that ethics committee need to be disciplined alongside the research team. And no journal should go anywhere near this study or the research team.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Our opening @ceraejournal.bsky.social conference keynote, @jkeskiah.bsky.social, on the origins of dreams in Gregory the Great: dreams can be a product of a full (or an empty) stomach, and holy men can discern dreams by a secret taste. Well, I have just one response to that: MEDIEVAL CHEESE DREAMS!

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Most #medievalsky and #earlymodernsky conferences, even online ones, are expensive 🤑. Not so for @ceraejournal.bsky.social's conference! It really is just under $10 (USD), which is even less in £ and € (and only $15 AUD!) Our first session starts in just 30 minutes! ceraejournal.com/programme/

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

The 2nd annual @ceraejournal.bsky.social #onlineconference is this week, 26-27 April! 🎉 🗣️Heaps of fantastic papers over our unique 30-hour continuous schedule - which allows for equitable access to the conference irrespective of location. #medievalsky #earlymodernsky ceraejournal.com/2025/04/21/i...

ceraejournal.com

It’s Conference Week!

The 2nd annual Ceræ conference, organised around the theme of Dreams, Visions, and Utopias, will begin this weekend on 26–27 April! Because our conference is truly an international a…

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

🚨Open call for papers🚨 Attention #earlymedieval and #lateantiquity colleagues at all career stages! JAEMA accepts submissions from all disciplines and geographical foci - and the submission deadline for Issue 1 of the 2025 Volume is fast approaching. #medievalsky #ancientsky #CFP #skystorians

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Another day ... another #CelticStudies programme under attack. Please sign the petition to send a strong message to the University of Western Brittany that Breton is highly valued internationally: chng.it/cdStWfKmbz The Master's of Celtic Languages and Cultures in Contact blog: l3c.hypotheses.org

chng.it

Avez-vous une minute pour aider cette campagne?

Sauvons les études celtiques de Brest ! / Save the Celtic studies in Brest !

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Mixed feelings on this article. On the one hand, research about the educated female medieval experience is momentarily occupying the mainstream. But on the other hand, the closer you look at their methodology, the less helpful the results appear to be. #medievalsky #medievalwomen #skystorians 1/🧵

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Do you have 'spare' time in April? ✅ Looking for an #independent #medievalsky & #earlymodernsky #onlineconference to attend? ✅ Abstract submissions have been extended for just one final week! Our only submission limitations are chronological and thematic, (not geographic or methodological).

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Rad new #Bowie mural unveiled in my neighbourhood. Fellow #skystorians: if medievalism describes post-medieval adaptions of artistic and intellectual medieval concepts/artefacts, then why isn't there a single word to refer to the same concept but with antiquity? #neologism #ancientsky #medievalsky

Mural done in style of ancient greek pottery + david bowie in iconic 1973 Kansai Yamamoto outfit.

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Laurence Totelin @ltotelin.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Teaching and studying languages is one of the core missions of universities. These languages include ancient ones, modern ones, mathematics, music, and coding languages. À bon entendeur, salut.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

For reading other (non-fiction) books during class. More than once in primary and high school. But my coolest teacher in year 10 history, let my best friend and I read other stuff in class if it was broadly relevant - and that, dear reader, is how we taught ourselves rudimentary hieroglyphics.

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👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 01/02/2025

I made a list of these if you want to block them. I'm not sure that this will prevent them from working, but it might. bsky.app/profile/did:...

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

"The influence of the Ossian cycle has placed “Celts” at the heart of genre fantasy...this, in turn, has placed 18th- and 19th-century race science, British (and French) colonial expansion, and attempted cultural genocide at the heart of the fantasy genre." 👏👏 Brilliant! #CelticStudies #literature

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Sure, labret use is one explanation for the dental wear in this population, but one I think is unlikely. There is no serious discussion of dental wear resulting from continual use of the mouth/teeth as a defacto third 'hand', no reference to recent studies on the topic. #archaeology #skystorians 1/🧵

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Not only is this a splendid essay featuring charming 19th c illustrations and poems dedicated to wombats in all their hirsute, rotund glory, I just can't get over the hysterical illustration of 'the common or native catte'. #Victoriana #Australianfauna #skystorians #arthistory

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

This is the antidote to modern STEM exceptionalism and research chauvinism - a thorough literature review that looks beyond the last generation of research and shines a light on errors and mal-assumptions within the very foundations of a field. #ancientsky #archaeology

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Each contribution is fabulous (having read the whole volume through more than once during editing!), but i'm extra proud of 'Meet Me in My World', Roxanne Bodsworth's scholarly and poetic retelling of Aislinge Óenguso from the feminine POV of Caer. #medievalsky #celticstudies #feminist #literature

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

In recent weeks a whole bunch of new papers have been published in areas that are important to my research - with some amazing new insights ... and disappointments. One of my biggest let-downs has been the widely-shared article on ancient Peruvian #TattooHistory (www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...). 1/🧵

pnas.org

Hidden artistic complexity of Peru’s Chancay culture discovered in tattoos by laser-stimulated fluorescence | PNAS

Tattoos were a prevalent art form in pre-Hispanic South America exemplified by mummified human remains with preserved skin decoration that reflects...

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

#Dream narratives are some of the most ubiquitous yet diverse genres of #medieval text, and we want to hear about your research! Ceræ is a fully independent digital-only journal, and our #CFP is looking for BOTH conference submissions and journal submissions. #medievalsky #earlymodern #skystorians

ceraejournal.com

Conference 2025

Conference Dates & Venue The Ceræ Conference will be held on 26–27 April 2025. In 2024, the conference was organised in a unique continuous format over a 28-hour period in order to equitably ac…

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Even though my Glücksschwein is wonky and looks more like a plucked, zesty hedgehog than a piglet, here's to hoping that 2025 will be a fruitful and prosperous year!

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

A worthy petition to reinstate a worthy program. I was fortunate to have formally studied Latin at school in years 7-12, and I've used it constantly since. I would argue some knowledge of Latin is essential to undertaking any form of historical research. #academicsky #ancientsky #medievalsky

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

AI is not just poisoning society's capacity for critical thinking, knowledge creation, artistic and creative endeavour - those things which define our very humanity - its literal thirst for data is poisoning the environment and actively exacerbating and accelerating climate change. #toxicAI

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Hester Blum @hesterblum.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

Required reading on humanities research, by Christopher Newfield : www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

$8:59 cambridge.org Currently reading: Federal (Non) Funding of t... V business. Business looks for financial return on investment, not to make a contribution to human knowledge. Essentially all humanities scholarship is basic research, in part because it is almost always a non-commercial or non-pecuniary category. Given this non-commercial status of nearly all humanities scholarship, the amount governments spend on it is of burning interest. Of the $54 billion or so in research that the federal government funds in U.S. higher education, $69 million goes to the humanities. That is, the humanities receive 0.13% of the federal total. For every thousand dollars the feds spend on research, the humanities receive a dollar and 30 cents. This is a tiny slice of the overall federal research pie If you have looked at the budget for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), you will notice that this $69 million is less than the NEH's overall FY2023 budget of $207 million. That is because the NEH spends only a fraction of its funding on research—about $37 million that year by my calculation. The federal government appears not to consider the NEH a research funding agency, likely because it spends less than $100 million per year on research. The Congressiomal Research Service's$

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

Old news: @elsevierconnect.bsky.social charging unconscionable APCs and subscription fees while simultaneously undermining editorial oversight and scholarly integrity. Actual news: An editorial board finally takes a principled stand and effectively kills an AI-poisoned journal. #academicsky 1🧵

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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Behold, the Velociraptor of St John Stuttgart, HB VII 4, f131r

A red and yellow drawing of the eagle of John in a pose highly reminiscent of the velociraptors from Jurassic Park.

Clever girl.

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Dr. Jim Getz @jimgetz.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume? Assyriologist: Du[ring] grad sch[ool] I [took?] a position ... [13 lines illegible] ... now.

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Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Today, the UK government announced a proposal to change copyright law - for the benefit of AI companies - that would cause huge, irreversible harm to creators. More info below, but most importantly here's what you can do (wherever you live): 1. Email your MP. Template letter in 🧵 👇 1/10

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

If these pages could speak: 🗣️ "Slay!" 🗣️ "Nailed it!" I also love that this is an illustration from the Speculum Virginium - a didactic dialogue text written both for and about medieval female cloistered life. For an excellent discussion of this particular MS: books.openedition.org/obp/1011?lan...

books.openedition.org

15. Judith, Jael, and Humilitas in the Speculum Virginum

Note portant sur l'auteur *1IntroductionThe illuminated manuscript of the Speculum Virginum, or Mirror of Virgins, in the British Library, Arundel MS. 44, dated ca. 1140, contains at the right an imag...

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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Roses are redde Noble are the manatees Yf we wante a bettir future Teach artes & humanityes

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

Weren't we just talking about the #globalmedieval on #medievalsky? I love this type of research where the context and the purpose of the primary text is interrogated - and it becomes apparent that the text has been misunderstood by previous scholarship.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Really great #medievalsky OA article on the Global Middle Ages, its limits and limitations. What irks me about the GMA is it's seen from the POV of (often monolingual) English-speakers: both the audience and researchers. Research becomes visible to Global North scholars only when written by one. 1/2

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Thracian culture practiced #tattooing in antiquity, especially of women, as a mark of high social status (Xenophon). Domestically, Greeks would usually encounter Thracians as slaves. This woman's short hair suggests her status as a slave, the child suggests her occupation as a wet nurse. #ancientsky

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Latest entry in my niche collection of early medieval people whose album I would buy. #medievalsky

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Horrific news from across the ditch today. The #humanities are an essential pillar of higher education and of society in general. Without the humanities, #STEM is a soulless husk. This continuing global evisceration of knowledge and #research is intolerable. #academicsky

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Historical #films have an obligation to not misrepresent history, either actively or by omission. Numerous factual errors in the script notwithstanding, the 'colour' of #gladiator, from the scenery to the protagonists, perpetuates 18-19th c fallacies about Roman society. #ancientsky #badhistory

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Killackey Illustration @kjkillackey.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

This is one of my favorite, low-tech, ways of visualizing the past! Doesn't oversell the reconstruction, shows possible past and present in same view, works, rain or shine and without power.

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

A tour-de-force of scholarship and detective work: Fara Dabhoiwala reveals that a portrait of an 18th-century Black scientist, long dismissed as a caricature, is in fact a record of the man's mastery of Newtonian physics—and the only painting made in 1759 of the return of Halley's comet.

lrb.co.uk

Fara Dabhoiwala · A Man of Parts and Learning: Francis Williams Gets His Due

The only certainty about the picture is that it shows Francis Williams. No one has ever been able to discover who...

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

It's arguable that the later Victorian/Edwardian popular trend of cheap and accessible #tattoos using electric tattoo guns (a) led to the demise of aristocratic 19th c tattoos, and (b) prejudiced middle and upper class scholars against identifying tattoos in #ancient and #medieval European sources.

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Alexandra Sills @belovedofoizys.bsky.social · 10/01/2024

Obsessed with Emily Wilson saying that for most of the Iliad, Achilles' job was beach

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Fantastic example of a newly discovered #earlymedieval Christian #tattoo (or 'stigma' to use the ancient term) located on the foot of an adult male, interred nearby to a local monastery (suggested he may have been a monk) The other #medieval Nubian tattoo: www.researchgate.net/publication/...

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