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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Reposted by Erica Steiner

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 · 31/03/2026

It's disappointing that the word "plagiarism" wasn't explicitly used in the article or the Times' statement. It should be called out for what it is.

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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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Reposted by Erica Steiner

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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Reposted by Erica Steiner

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 · 14/07/2025

You'll have to wait for the thesis/articles to come out! 😉

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

As for my sources, i'm using the lives of St Brigit (she encounters tattooed warriors and rids them of their tattoos), the life of St Kentigern (possible reference to local tattooed woman and saint himself marked), and Adomnan's Life of Columba (Columba may have been tattooed).

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

It's hard to know what design iconography was in use pre-conversion as a point of comparison to post-conversion designs, and it also depends on whether post-conversion designs were simply imported or organic post-conversion ideas on what symbolised 'christianess' in a tattoo arose locally.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

What are 'christian' tattoos? Do they have to be christian symbols (that we recognise), or is it enough that the tattooed and tattooers identified as christians? Written sources include poetry and prose, in both latin and old irish. Potentially some MSS illustrations and tool/pigment artefacts.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

...Lumping the 'Vikings, Britons, and Celts' together is not in Malmesbury. Medieval people definitely did not identify them as similar. Tattooing was present in medieval Europe, but it was much more complicated than this fluffy piece suggests, and certainly nothing to do with individuality.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

...that don't have cultural continuity or connection with each other. The reference to St Francis' stigmata (even though the word did mean a tattoo) is incorrect. The author relies mostly upon Caplan's edited volume (seminal, but from 2000), and the author is not published in this field...

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

Thanks for the shoutout, @myriahwilliams.bsky.social! My short answer to the question is that it was likely in some specific areas, but not for much longer than the early/mid 9th c. The linked article unfortunately is pretty loose with its source material and jumbles together periods and places...

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

The authors suggest the chronology of the texts needs to be reassessed, but before this method is applied elsewhere, I think what needs to be looked at first is the historical context of parchment manufacture, storage, trading, and recycling. End/🧵 #ancientsky #classicsky #medievalsky

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

Results that I found interesting: 4Q201 appears to be paleographically dated at least 100 years too early; 4Q70 really is the oldest parchment; and Mur19 proves my point with a C-14 mean date 50-100 years older than the internal historical date of the text. 3/🧵 #ancientsky #classicsky #medievalsky

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

Parchment can be decades or even centuries older than the text it bears - exactly what the analysis here indicates. The majority of samples have a C-14 date decades older than a paleographic date, but most samples do overlap. 2/🧵 #ancientsky #classicsky #medievalsky

Graph from article: shows range of paleographic/historical and radiocarbon dates for 25 parchment samples.

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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 · 04/05/2025

100% disagree. Methodology is equally as important for the humanities as it is for the sciences. We just call it by a different name or don't have a named section. It's often hidden within an introduction, as scope and limitations, translation choices, theoretical approach. #skystorians

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

Actually not completely. Slovak, Czech, Hungarian, German, Moravian - all in fairly even proportions. My parents adopted my surname after they left and came to Australia. Knowledge and usage of German was not uncommon, but words like 'servus' would be used naturally by Slovak speakers.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

'Active eradication' probably depended more on your social circles - my parents are both from Bratislava. I've grown up saying it (though i've never lived there) in the family, just like they did in the 50s-70s. Everyone they knew used it as a familiar greeting.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

I would love to read about your work!!

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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

It would also depend on which organisation sponsors the conference. They cost money to run, and often the organising association isn't subsidised by the (university) venue. So we have to charge rego to pay for them. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Ceræ conferences have a small rego fee because we have zero institutional support!

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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

Conferences are free to attend in France? 🤯

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

Yeah, some conferences continue to be eye-wateringly expensive! But another one to keep in mind for being affordable (especially online attendance) is the annual @jaema.bsky.social conference. We keep our rego as low as possible (roughly $10/day online and around $50/day in person).

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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

It's not a student journal, but we do accept and publish authors at all stages of their career, from senior undergrad to full professor and everything in between: @ceraejournal.bsky.social

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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 · 16/04/2025

Perhaps a shield or a heraldic device? Likely either the noble crest of the Baronetcy of Dorito or the Earldom of Domino. It's hard to tell.

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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 · 18/03/2025

The most beautiful uni is free from political and corporate influence, has healthy student/teacher ratios, pays research and teaching staff what they are worth, has an excellent library, it's own academic printing press, and prioritises the freedom of speech, thought, and deed of all its people.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Intriguing. Is that a literary or iconographic association? And how early? If literary, was it Latin or Old Irish? Glas, covers a sort of blue-green spectrum, and might be a source of confusion, while the deep blue of gorm/caerulus was particularly associated with the Britons.

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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 · 13/03/2025

Not me - haha! But seriously, thanks for the praise! 😊

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

That's partly because Nature has this amazing (and overblown) reputation based on previous decades of research excellence - which the current journal regime is slowly undermining from within through a strong push to use AI within the peer-review process: bsky.app/profile/davi....

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Sorry that I missed that footnote! However, I don't necessarily think that it matters a great deal if the teeth are side or front, it's the wear pattern that is important, IMO. People have used the side of their mouth a textile tool as much as the front.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

🗣️ In both groups (named and anonymous) there are a number to which a gender cannot be assigned. 🗣️ There are indications that some women might have hidden their gender by writing “male” or gender-neutral colophons and that women were less likely to write colophons at all.

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Erica Steiner @ericasteiner.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

That's an excellent point, my bad. I read the same paragraph many times and didn't interpret the number correctly! 27.1% of the anon colophons use male pronous against 1.0% with female pronouns - leaving 71.9% gender neutral anon colophons. But the male named colophons aren't necessarily actual men:

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

Anyway, criticism aside, this article has useful data, I just wish that these important issues had been taken on board when designing the scope of the research, because the results are not as great as they will be described as being by people who won't look deeply into the methodology. End/🧵

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

✅ Data assumptions noted by authors as problematic: 🗣️ Male and female scribes had the same inclination to write colophons. 🗣️ MSS copied by males and females were equally likely to survive. 🗣️ Catalogue represents a random sample of total MSS written during the Middle Ages in the Latin West. 8/🧵

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

📷 ⁉️ Only Latin MSS included. Yet the high % of vernacular colophons written by women suggests women more likely to have written vernacular MSS. ⁉️ Buringh's flawed MSS-loss estimating method is used. Ignoring MSS genre, location, language, and size to suggest 14th c is peak MSS producing century? 7/🧵

Fig 3 (A) from article shows the year on the x-axis, number of MSS on the y-axis, and colour-coded entries for the colophon language.

Fig 3 (B) from article shows the century on the x-axis, number of MSS on the y-axis, and 2 bars for each century - one with the actual number of MSS and the other with the estimated number of MSS based on Buringh's (2011) MSS-loss estimate method.

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

🗣️ The compilers did not check the information derived from published catalogues against the surviving manuscripts... ⁉️ This is a big one. Ommundsen et al acknowledge this problem, but most readers will not. Even a random quality control check would have helped the data integrity. 6/🧵

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

🗣️ The catalogues only include work in institutional holdings, i.e. they do not reflect for example domestic literacy... 🗣️ Some names of female scribes may be found in a margin...making their contribution invisible in this type of study. ⁉️ Dedications, marginalia, correspondence - all excluded! 5/🧵

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