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James Harland

@jmharland.bsky.social
5.4K followers 1.6K following 2.2K posts

Late Roman & Early Medieval History & Archaeology @unibonn.bsky.social Exploring what happens when empires die. Publications available at jmharland.hcommons.org www.igw.uni-bonn.de/de/institut/alt…

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Reposted by James Harland
Julia Hillner @writinghelena.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Back safely from our ancient history tour to Venetia et Histria. Day 9: a last minute panic over a lost document, the filing if a police report and a manic race through Venice airport to catch our flight. It’s never dull travelling with students 😉
Venice lagoon seen from a plane
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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Wasn't going to let a little old broken ankle stop me from enjoying our marvellous departmental excursion to Venetia and Istria.
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Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies @dependencybonn.de · 02/10/2026
The BCDSS invites applications for Heinz Heinen Fellowships 2027/2028, open to doctoral, postdoctoral and senior scholars and Alternative Knowledge Producers. Proposals on the period before 1900. Deadline: 10 January 2027. buff.ly/q7D1TvA @unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de
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Robert Wiśniewski @relicsclerics.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Warsaw Late Antique Seminar: Winter Semester 2026/7: lateantiqueseminar.historia.uw.edu.pl
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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Catching up with the lads.
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Giulia Zornetta @gzornetta.eurosky.social · 30/09/2026
when the only reason you agree to do reviews is the financial incentive of getting your friends’ books
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Robert Heinze @rheinze.myatproto.social · 28/09/2026
#Barocktheorie
Walter Benjamin with laser eyes
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Shin Megami Tension Headache @chakacant.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Totally unrelated but Hitler fell in with the Nazis because he was sent in to spy on the DAP by the German army. i mention this for no reason
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Ash @queerash.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"Oh you're a posh public school boy who joined the army and got medically discharged for a relatively minor injury? Then you got in with a bad crowd which led to a vague substantial-but-doable prison term? After which you immediately became close to the most notorious far-right agitator in the UK?"
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Ash @queerash.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I still absolutely don't believe it but Danny Tommo having an almost perfect background for an intelligence asset is so funny
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Simon Coupland @scoupland.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
A previously unknown early medieval church from the Norse period found by archaeologists on Greenland! www.nrk.no/vestland/uib...
nrk.no
UiB med på sensasjonelt funn på Grønland: Avslørte ukjend kyrkjeruin frå norrøn tid
Eit beinfunn under ei utgraving på Sør-Grønland stadfestar oppdaginga av ei norrøn kyrkje frå mellomalderen. Funnet kan gi nye svar på kvifor vikingane til slutt reiste frå øya.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The old line that analytic philosophy is answering questions that come naturally to toddlers via methods that come naturally to lawyers remains undefeated.
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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Not a bad climb for a man currently on crutches, imho.
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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
FT asking the big questions here - could Anthropic maintain its growth trajectory if AI destroys humanity? www.ft.com/content/96d0...
Investors are questioning whether
Anthropic can sustain its extraordinary growth as competition, price-sensitive customers and the potential for Al to destroy humanity cloud its blockbuster IPO.
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Anna Neumaier @annaneumaier.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Alter. 21627 Einreichungen auf ein Fellowship-Programm. Wer soll das alles begutachten? 😶‍🌫️ Wer jetzt nicht für mehr Grundförderung und weniger Drittmittel argumentiert, der ist doch nicht gescheit.
Text, dass bei einem Fellowship-Call 21627 Bewerbungen eingegangen sind, von der Webseite der Funding Agency.
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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
There remains nowhere near enough attention given to this study onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 18/09/2026
What on earth is happening?
  This had become the new normal. RNLI crew members had been forced to take their permits off their cars after their tyres have been repeatedly slashed. Most of them have been pilloried at the school gates or turned away from local pubs. One man who worked in search and rescue had been beaten unconscious and hospitalised, recognised for TV interviews he had done.
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WIRED @wired.com · 11/09/2026
Timnit Gebru argues that AI companies are stoking fears of extinction to avoid discussing actual harms, like autonomous weapons. www.wired.com/story/one-of...
wired.com
One of AI’s Fiercest Critics Says All the Doom Talk Is ‘Meant to Distract Us’
Timnit Gebru argues that AI companies are stoking fears of extinction to avoid discussing actual harms, like autonomous weapons.
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WOR$T GIRL IN ACADEMIA @medievaliste.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Once again, the median pay for an adjunct professor in the United States of America is $3,500 per course. Not per month, per course.
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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
How do we think about the "Fall" of Rome today? What can we do to frame it in a more productive way? Our new open access article tries to tackle these questions and offer a new view of the scholarly narrative of the end of Rome. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Towards and beyond the ‘Fall’: rethinking Rome’s end | The Journal of Roman Studies | Cambridge Core
Towards and beyond the ‘Fall’: rethinking Rome’s end
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Dr. Black's Medieval Remedies @winstonblack.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It's not Caturday, but here's a #medieval description of "cattys mynte" (catnip), from the Middle English #herbal of Henry Daniel, written ca.1380: “cattes louyn it souerynly, in so mykel þat þey walwen hem þat ar yn & þeron, & eten it by þe grounde, but if þer be þe more plente of....
static.klipy.com
Catnip Kitty Enjoys Catnip
ALT: Catnip Kitty Enjoys Catnip
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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
BREAKING: Boston University's English department (my dept) recently voted to approve new learning outcomes for the English major, including an anti-AI provision that requires students to “craft and revise writing that is sustained, original, and generated without the assistance of AI."
bu.edu
New Learning Outcomes Announced | English
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Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 16/09/2026
BIG NEWS for any pedestrians fuming at e-bike riders Lime have permanently banned a rider caught cycling on the pavement. City of London police says:
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REwadent Evil @ewacat.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
i really want to know what it was about this one instance that made them look into this
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Gilda Sahebi @gildasahebi.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Zum x-ten Mal in wenigen Wochen im verspäteten ICE. Wenn alle so wirtschaftsbesessen sind: Ich frage mich, wieviel Arbeitstage verloren gehen, weil Leute früher fahren müssen, später ankommen, nicht arbeiten können (schlechtes Netz & Wifi) usw. Bestimmt mehr als wegen telefonischer Krankschreibung.
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Sarah May @sarahmay1.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I'm really puzzled. If AI is 'revolutionizing workplaces' without any training for staff, I don't understand what UG students need to be taught in order to use it. Why does it need champions? Why does it need to be 'built into' courses? All this 'how to use it well' chat. What does it mean?
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Ed Wilson @eddwilson.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Public Order Act 1936 "... any person who in any public place or at any public meeting wears uniform signifying his association with any political organisation or with the promotion of any political object shall be guilty of an offence..." www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Edw8an... #R4Today
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Marc Morris @marcmorris.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Spat out my tea reading this review of The Uprising. The what of what now? Popular understanding of medieval history has taken a hell of a pounding in recent weeks. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/se...
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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Anyone who thinks that cats aren’t affectionate and don’t have personalities hasn’t witnessed one scream at you until you come and give her her cuddle on her special stool. And yes, it has to be *that* stool.
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Catherine Baker @cat-baker.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
My first solo-author article, Is the Far-Right Anti-Science?, is now published in Social Epistemology. It explores the far-right’s epistemic struggle to claim scientific authority, attacking and co-opting science to legitimise white supremacy & misogyny—an issue academia must increasingly attend to
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Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
According to the FT, Orr is acting as a live-in-landlord-cum-cult-leader to Cambridge students including those under his own supervision, whilst receiving formal complaints about his behaviour, and boasting publicly how the university is a recruiting ground for the party he might be doing crime for
in North Cambridge, and a daughter. The
outbuildings and at least two other flats on the same road, which are owned by the family,
are home to a select group of postgraduate students from a range of faculties including
divinity. In a podcast interview in December 2024, Orr described having “10 students living
with us. They’re mainly PhD students or postdoctoral fellows.” He explained that they
always gather for Sunday lunch and often for dinner. “That’s amazingly stimulating,” he
said. “They’re . . . the cream of their generation in their respective subjects.”
The residents pay rent and do chores. Helen has fashioned a small chapel from a shipping
container, in which she holds morning prayers.The housing of students raises potential conflicts of interest. Over the past academic year, there were three divinity scholars lodging at the Orrs’ community, according to several
people familiar with the living arrangements. One is a postgraduate student who is directly
supervised by Orr. Cambridge’s staff and student relationship policy stipulated that its
employees are “strongly discouraged” from entering into close personal relationships with
students. Any relationship which involves “any form of dependence, whether emotional,
practical, financial or otherwise”, must be declared.Among the complaints upheld by the investigator are that Orr allegedly made belittling
remarks to the student, and had demanded an “excessive” and “unreasonable” amount of
written work in an effort to refine a thesis proposal. The report also criticised “at worst
inappropriate and at best thoughtless comments made [by Orr] in the equally
inappropriate context of [Orr’s] own home”. This was in reference to a dinner that the
student, who comes from a Christian, conservative background, had attended at Orr’s
house.While the society was established long before Orr had any formal role in Reform, it has
taken on new significance as his political activities gathered pace. Orr has described
Cambridge as a useful recruiting ground for Reform, boasting last autumn in an interview
with The Telegraph that he had met “hundreds” of highly able students he thought would
make suitable allies. He has also, according to The Spectator magazine, been tasked by the
party with “building a pipeline” to bring talent to staff a future Reform administration.
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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
My new article has now been published in the 2025 volume of Traditio. I use a little examined episode on the lower Rhine in the late 350s with the aid of agricultural archaeology to reveal fiscal dependency relations between the Empire & Barbaricum, & the consequences of their rupture. #medievalsky
doi.org
JULIAN’S BATAVIAN CAMPAIGN, AN EMBEZZLEMENT TRIAL IN BRITAIN, AND BARBARIAN ACCESS TO THE ANNONA MILITARIS | Traditio | Cambridge Core
JULIAN’S BATAVIAN CAMPAIGN, AN EMBEZZLEMENT TRIAL IN BRITAIN, AND BARBARIAN ACCESS TO THE ANNONA MILITARIS - Volume 80
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Alex Harvey @alexharvv.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
NEW BOOK ALERT 🗣️🗣️🗣️🚨📢🎺 Releasing on the 15th of November this year, I am very happy to reveal the cover for something slightly different: a colouring book all about Norse mythology THE VIKING WORLD: A COLOURING BOOK, to be published via Amberley Publishing for £15.99 (or £14.39 via the below link)
The front cover of the Viking World
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Mark Pack @markpackuk.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Turns out, this was the lesser story about James Orr today.
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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Pretty spectacular timing for this and Channel 4’s investigation to drop at the same time.
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Marc Morris @marcmorris.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Canterbury, of course was famous for its paganism. Especially its nuns.
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Marc Morris @marcmorris.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Today's BBC radio drama about the Bayeux Tapestry sounds arrestingly original.
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Dr Rebecca Tyson @tyguson.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Come on BBC 🤦‍♀️
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Chris Millard @chrismillard83.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I feel myself turning into a fundamentalist against LLMs producing scholarship (bracketing wherher they can do other things well): scholarship requires *understanding* of other scholars’ positions & imaginative depth to understand one’s research subjects - imitating that doesn’t mean *doing* that
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Matthew J Kuiper @matthewjkuiper.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Yes. Those of us in the trenches are having to live in the destructive wake of higher ed policy by hype and fomo. It has fallen to us, instructors in the classroom, to figure all this out and mitigate the effects of this decision making — for no extra compensation.
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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
I appreciate that it’s as open and undisguised as this is. If Clinton was naked Arnie stepping out of the temporal rift, and Obama was slightly damaged Arnie with plasters over cuts on his face, then Trump 2 is the gleaming chrome Terminator skull.
I actually appreciate that it’s as open as this is. If Clinton was naked Arnie stepping out of the temporal rift, and Obama was slightly damaged Arnie with plasters over cuts on his face, then Trump 2 is the gleaming Terminator skull.
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Simon Strick @unddieregel.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Ok Re: Cofnas etc Wenn jemand "Kevin MacDonald" zitiert oder lange dessen "umstrittene" thesen referiert, liebe freunde im journalismus, dann handelt es sich um das Mainstreaming eines Top-Antisemiten der USA seit ca 1980. (This is a sign to be vehemently tapped later)
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
The thing I really hadn't expected was that racism's renaissance would be so....whiny.
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Charles West @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Did Charlemagne consider converting Muslims in al-Andalus to Christianity? New evidence uncovered by Lukas Dorfbauer, just published on Early View, suggests he might have - contrary to previous assumptions. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
A newly discovered Carolingian text: Candidus' <fi>Liber testimoniorum veteris testamenti</fi>, written for Charlemagne
This article presents a newly discovered Latin text: a theological treatise titled Liber testimoniorum veteris testamenti that was written by Alcuin’s friend Candidus (Wizo) at the request of Charlem...
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Pieter T. L. Beck @ptrbck.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Here in Flanders, Cofnas defends himself as someone just stating "scientific" truths. In the UK, Cofnas had to argue that his views are not "susceptible to change in light of evidence" in order for the legal strategy to work. /55
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Pieter T. L. Beck @ptrbck.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Since this false claim is repeated by almost everyone (even by BBC): Cofnas was not fired by Cambridge. His college did (Emmanuel) end its affiliation with him. But he remained employed at Cambridge until the end of his contract, no measures were taken against him www.cam.ac.uk/notices/news... /53
Statement on Disciplinary Investigation (Dr Cofnas)
Dr Nathan Cofnas published a blog which provoked considerable controversy and prompted a significant number of complaints which the University, as his employer, was duty bound to investigate. A rigorous inquiry concluded that his published views, while seen by many as offensive, did not breach the law and did not contravene University regulations designed to uphold free speech.

The University is committed to addressing racism, discrimination and harassment, and strives to be a welcoming place to people from all backgrounds. At the same time, the University must secure and promote freedom of speech and provide an environment for open and sometimes robust debate. This can be a difficult path to navigate, particularly when arguments, while remaining within the law, cause deep offence. All members of our community are encouraged to exercise their rights to freedom of speech, including to challenge ideas or theories they disagree with.
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James Harland @jmharland.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Just putting out there, in instances where a perceived slight has emerged because somebody hasn't referred to somebody with their doctoral title: before assuming malice do check if the perceived offender is German first...
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Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies @dependencybonn.de · 21/08/2026
Applications are now open for a W2 Professorship in Economic Anthropology with Tenure Track W3. Full job advertisement here: buff.ly/QNAxMgN @unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de
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Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies @dependencybonn.de · 21/08/2026
Applications are now open for a W2 Professorship in Cultural Heritage with a focus on German Colonialism with Tenure Track W3. Full job advertisement here: buff.ly/cCW52Ff @unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de
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Leonore (Lee) Carpenter @leecarpenter.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
In case you are an academic who is currently being gaslit into believing that you're a caveman who wants their students to be jobless if you resist allowing AI in your classrooms... I present to you Berkeley Law's response, which can be summarized as "Fuck off directly into the sun."
law.berkeley.edu
Artificial Intelligence Policy
Effective Summer 2026 Purpose Future lawyers may need to use artificial intelligence (“AI”) fluently. But the current state of the technology requires that AI use be coupled with the cognitive […]
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