iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Folger Shakespeare Library @folger.edu · 10/09/2026

Shakespeare lived through climate change, too. Scholar Harry R. McCarthy says characters in the plays—from Titania to Viola to the courtiers in "The Temptest"—show the power in catastrophic times of turning "our thoughts to the collective over the individual." www.folger.edu/blogs/shakes...

folger.edu

Titania's warning to America | Folger Shakespeare Library

Folger Shakespeare Library is the world's largest Shakespeare collection, the ultimate resource for exploring Shakespeare and his world. Shakespeare belongs to you. His world is vast. Come explore. Jo...

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Beyond excited to be taking up a long-term fellowship at @folger.edu this fall!

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Me: Why do we think Little Lord Fauntleroy might have fallen out of favour with an American readership? Student: Is it because it's really boring?

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

Saw the Hamnet trailer last night. Looks wonderful, and sorry to be that guy, but… painted sets at the Globe?!

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Six years as Dr Harry. This guy wouldn’t have believed what’s happening now. Photo by @pascaleexeter.bsky.social minutes after @lucycmunro.bsky.social & Jane Milling gave me my laurels.

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

I’ve come to the conclusion that this really isn’t the site for me - so email for work (link in bio); Instagram for cocktails.

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Kerry Sinanan @kerrysinanan.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Why is it important to counter the Jane Austen 250th birthday frenzy in this moment? Because she is being used to promote neoimperial Brexit culture under the cover of white feminism as supposedly 'radical' 1/ theconversation.com/jane-austen-...

theconversation.com

Jane Austen at 250: Why we shouldn’t exaggerate her radicalism

Examining Austen as a radical genius misunderstands her art and misrepresents the imperial culture that she was part of.

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

Deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Peter Erickson - a leading light and the ultimate role model for white scholars working within the field of PCRS—and beyond.

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Hester L-J @starcrossed2018.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Stop doing this! Whoever is paying @timeshighered.bsky.social‬ for story after story is also funding environmental vandalism on a catastrophic scale. This isn't journalism, it's naive ethical bankruptcy - and intellectually and pedagogically obtuse.

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

I personally am taking this as an invitation never to write anything again 🙏

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety (32 today 🎈)

Harry is sitting at a restaurant table on a terrace, wearing a white silk shirt and black sunglasses, and sipping from a martini glass

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Great to see this year's Oxford World's Classics Shakespeare webinars making their way onto YouTube - here's @oldfortunatus.bsky.social and me in conversation about Titus Andronicus www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbQv...

youtube.com

English Faculty / OWC Shakespeare webinar with Professor Emma Smith: Titus Andronicus

YouTube video by Faculty of English, University of Oxford

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

EarlyModernista @ellierycroft.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

What a wonderful event we had at Bristol this evening with alum @harrymccarthy.bsky.social and Jayne Gold talking about their cutting-edge research. Followed by exceptional pasta/pizza at Moltobuono! - thanks to everyone who turned up on a rainy Thursday.

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Despite Everything Going On, my nonagenarian grandmother's principle concern about the move to LA is that I'll unconsciously adopt American spelling

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Reading this made my morning - so wonderful to see such thoughtful work on this hot mess of a play 🔥😈

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Jocelyn Leitzinger @jocelynl.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

This past semester was the most stressful of my academic career. I had 180 students and about half cheated at some point in the semester They submit weekly reflections where the questions are opinion-based, graded only on effort, don't care about grammar SO MANY students submitted ChatGPT essays

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

I think this is such a major driver of AI use in university assessments. And also just a real… disconnection between why we think students are here (to learn about history!) and why students think they are here (to get good grades, to get a job)

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

ALCS @alcs.co.uk · 03/06/2025

Last night, the House of Lords defeated the Government for a fourth time by passing an amendment establishing meaningful transparency measures for the use of rightsholders’ works in AI systems, many of which are being used without recognition, permission or remuneration. (1/3)

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

I don't know what I was expecting Helkiah Crooke to compare ejaculate to, but it sure wasn't 'a company of Antickes holding hand in hand' who 'vault upon a stage' [Mikrokosmographia, book IV]

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Seems a good time to remind that I'm talking about the question of boy actors, 'transvestism', and early modern trans studies in Bristol two weeks from now: www.tickettailor.com/events/unive...

'Cattle of this Colour': Boy Actors and Early Modern Trans Studies

Boy actors and the so-called 'transvestite stage' have an uneasy relationship with early modern trans studies. In a field dominated by explorations of gendered clothing and tantalising moments of 'reveal,' the insights of trans studies, and trans people, are all too readily elided. This paper will consider whether there is a place for boy actors in early modern trans studies by offering a reading of characters like Rosalind in As You Like It which extends beyond the easy slippage from one set of clothes to another and centralises the intersecting production of gendered and racial categories to which trans studies writ large has always been trying to direct our attention. In the process, it will offer a consideration of what the mutually constitutive fields of premodern trans and critical race studies have to offer to theatre history.

Harry R. McCarthy is the author of Boy Actors in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2022) and Performing Early Modern Drama Beyond Shakespeare (Cambridge, 2020). He recently published a new critical introduction to Titus Andronicus for the Oxford World's Classics Series (2025). Currently a Lecturer in English at the University of Exeter, in August he will take up the post of Assistant Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of Southern California.

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Trans* Book History @transbookhistory.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

On the one hand, Awesome. Sir Ian McKellen is an awesome ally. On the other hand, please read Early Modern Trans Studies (#EMoTrans). 1/2 www.attitude.co.uk/culture/sir-...

attitude.co.uk

Sir Ian McKellen to open historic all-trans and nonbinary production of Twelfth Night

Director Phoebe Kemp said: "Twelfth Night already toys with gender and performance – it feels like Shakespeare wrote it for us"

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

The @acmrs.bsky.social RaceB4Race Mentorship Network was transformative for me last year - apply by May 15 to be part of the Fall 2025 cohort: acmrs.asu.edu/RaceB4Race/m...

acmrs.asu.edu

RaceB4Race Mentorship Network | Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

PhD Studentship at Exeter: 'Remembering William Shakespeare'! www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin... The studentship is part of the new Leverhulme Research Project 'Shakespearean Graves: Literature and the Anglophone Way of Death' (launching in September). Please spread the word!

exeter.ac.uk

Award details | Funding and scholarships for students | University of Exeter

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

I wrote about this a bit in my last book but it really shakes me that a defining feature of this catastrophic era is that we just keep going to work. We work through pandemics, we work through natural disasters, we work through economic calamity, we work through coups, we work, we work, we work.

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Greg Jenner (Historian) @gregjenner.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Today UK authors are protesting against Meta for stealing our work to train their AI model. Authors earn an average of £7000 per year, we are not rich, and yet a trillion dollar company decided it didn’t want to license our work fairly as it was “too expensive” Theft is not a valid alternative.

META BOOK THIEVES - They Must Do The Write Thing

The Society of Authors are protesting Meta’s HQ today

This image shows illustrations of authors holding placards saying “make it fair” and “do the write thing”

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Thank you to everyone who has signed the petition which now stands at 10,000+! If you haven't added your name, #DoTheWriteThing -

change.org

Sign the Petition

Protect authors’ livelihoods from the unlicensed use of their work in AI training

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Callan Davies @callanjd.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

A brilliant reflection on and advocacy for humanities research, teaching, and engagement in these trying but urgent times for SHAPE academia, with a forceful intro from Regenia Gagnier and including @jennyrichards.bsky.social on English and @englishassociation.bsky.social work.

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

We've just published a thematic collection of essays in the Journal of the @britishacademy.bsky.social exploring the state of HE and of humanities and social sciences within it. I'll thread the pieces so you can find them all in one place. Intro here journal.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/articles/13/...

journal.thebritishacademy.ac.uk

Introduction: the state of the university, the university and the state

Today the purpose of a university education is under question Should it provide technicians and workers for productivity and international competition Should it be a liberal education, interdiscipli...

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

And that’s the door closed on my last seminar at Exeter - heading to the train to Cornwall with joy in my heart and a student-gifted bottle of Sémillon in my bag.

Harry is wearing a black and white patterned shirt with open collar, and black sunglasses.

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

A happy discovery: Boy Actors in Early Modern England is now available in paperback! www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...

cambridge.org

Boy Actors in Early Modern England | Renaissance and early modern literature

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Friends, you're all at SAA anyway, but if anyone's trying to email me then please note that nothing external is currently getting through to @exeter.ac.uk addresses

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Update: our isolationist phase continues! 'any emails sent to you externally today may not be received. You may have to request that the sender resends once this incident is resolved.' I have been doing it wrong all these years because I don't know who has sent me an email until I receive the email

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Sorry not to be at @saaupdates.bsky.social to celebrate the launch of this resource - we're very proud of it! Raise a cookie for me...

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

My Head of Department's young son has diagnosed me with both 'rizz' and 'aura.' What's the prognosis for these painful-sounding conditions?

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Harry R. McCarthy (offline) @harrymccarthy.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

So excited to be working on this collection with @ellierycroft.bsky.social and @susananderson.bsky.social! I won't be at SAA/RSA, but feel free to grab me virtually for more on Shakespeare/Movement!

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Reposted by Harry R. McCarthy (offline)

Shakespeare Bulletin @shaxbull.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Let's take a look at Katheryn Thompson's article, "Knives and Femininity on the Early Modern Stage"! 📰 : muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

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