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Joshua Rushton

@joshuarushton8.bsky.social
421 followers 492 following 44 posts

Historian of Catholicism, Italy, and environments | Lecturer and Leverhulme Fellow at Uni of Manchester | Reviews Editor at Journal of Religious History. research.manchester.ac.uk/en/person…

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Reposted by Joshua Rushton
Stefan Hanß @stefanhanss.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Truly delighted to see THE MICROSCOPIC MATERIAL RENAISSANCE (@manchesterup.bsky.social, 2027) announced: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781807076757/ Stay tuned! @uomhums.bsky.social @uomsalc.bsky.social Research generously funded by @britishacademy.bsky.social & @leverhulme.ac.uk
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Siobhán Jolley @siobhanjolley.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
First up this week we have @joshuarushton8.bsky.social, who is working on a @leverhulme.ac.uk funded project in @uomhistdept.bsky.social @uomsalc.bsky.social @uomhums.bsky.social Josh will present ‘Environmental Approaches to the Early Modern Catholic World’
THURSDAYS 2PM-4PM
Online via Teams - email for link!
Nazarene Theological College
Eschatology as Hope as Imagination: Propositional and
Poetic Utterance in Evoking the Christian Future
STEPHEN WRIGHT
08
OCT




RELIGIONS & THEOLOGY
RESEARCH SEMINARS - SEMESTER 1

The University of Manchester
Environmental Approaches to the Early Modern Catholic World
JOSHUA RUSHTON
Campbell University
Igniting a Fiery Imagination: Romanos the Melodist’s
Liturgical Poetry
JILLIAN MARCANTONIO
The University of Manchester Alumni
Embracing the Post-Secular: The Unique Positions of CASC
/ACSS Spiritual Care Practitioners in Canadian Health Care
SIMON LASAIR
Hanze University of Applied Sciences and University of Groningen
When Contemporary Art Meets Religious Heritage, or Where
to Find the Sacred in Times of the Postsecular
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is happening tomorrow! Still time to sign up if you’d like to Zoom in to us!
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Looking forward to hearing more Mattia!
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This is happening on 30th September online - do sign up if you have an interest in early modern, environmental, or Reformation history! 🍃🪾
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This is happening on 30th September online - do sign up if you have an interest in early modern, environmental, or Reformation history! 🍃🪾
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Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Oh no, the house dragon is vomiting again!
a scene from an illuminated manuscript, a bible, of late 14th century Europe, and a dragon is vomiting in front of an angel. page 501r of the "Bible historiale complétée Moyenne" (SBB Berlin PK, Ms. Phill. 1906).
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Lavinia Gambini @lavinia-gambini.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
🚨CFP: SRS, London, 30 June-3 July 2027 The deadline is TOMORROW! #EarlyModern friends and colleagues, don't forget to apply to contribute to our panel proposal for the 2027 SRS Conference (@srsrensoc.bsky.social)! 👇
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
@nicolemaceira.bsky.social and I are delighted to share the final programme for our online colloquium “Environmental Approaches to the Reformation World” - 30th September* (forgive my date error on previous now deleted post 🤦🏼‍♂️) Register Below: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/environmen...
eventbrite.co.uk
Environmental Approaches to the Reformation World, 1500-1800
Online colloquium
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Nicole Maceira Cumming @nicolemaceira.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
@joshuarushton8.bsky.social & I are very pleased to be able to share the fantastic programme (all credit to the speakers!) for our colloquium 'Environmental Approaches to the Reformation World, 1500-1800' Online, Wed 30 Sept 13:00-18:15 BST Register here www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/environmen...
eventbrite.co.uk
Environmental Approaches to the Reformation World, 1500-1800
Online colloquium
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Grace Murray @mazinggrace.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I’m thrilled to share officially that I’m returning to Birkbeck from September to begin a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. My project, ‘London’s Green Archive: Writing Plants, 1562-1612’, will explore how Londoners wrote about their everyday experiences of living & working with plants 🌳 (1/3)
A hand-coloured ‘double wallflower’ in a 1597 edition of Gerard’s herbal, from the Clark Library, UCLA.
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Nicole Maceira Cumming @nicolemaceira.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
1 week left to send us your abstracts!
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Just over a week to get abstracts in for this (1 September) - some wonderful submissions so far!
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
We are really looking forward to bringing together those working on environment and the global reformations - send in your abstracts!! 🌿✝️🍃🌍
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Rachel Winchcombe @rachelwinchers.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
What really happened during Jamestown’s Starving Time? In this episode, I help explore one of the most infamous crises in early American history. #academicsky #materialculture #history #earlymodern shows.acast.com/not-just-the...
shows.acast.com
Jamestown: From Colony to Cannibalism | Not Just the Tudors
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Mark Williams @mrfw17thc.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Indication of how news of natural disasters travelled in the #earlymodern period: A letter received by Samuel Pepys dated 2 March 1687/8 (N.S.) from Jamaica describing the 20 October 1687 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Peru and killed an estimated 5,000 people. #skystorians
A letter in 17th-century hand dated Jamaica 2 March 1687 reading 'The accot at large of the above Earthquake and Inundation is come from Porta Bella wth Large Packetts to be sent per the first shipp from hence for the King of Spaine.
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
We are really looking forward to bringing together those working on environment and the global reformations - send in your abstracts!! 🌿✝️🍃🌍
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Nicole Maceira Cumming @nicolemaceira.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
🚨 Call for Papers 🚨 @joshuarushton8.bsky.social and I are holding an online colloquium 'Environmental Approaches to the Reformation World' on 30 Sept 2026 🌳 🌊 ⛪ 🐄 Deadline for submissions 1 September.
call for papers text with woodcut image of 1607 flood
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
If anyone has published a recent book in the broad field of religious history and would like to have it reviewed in the Journal of Religious History then do let me know. Also, if there is anybody who would like to review a title then also really pleased to hear - DM or email (link in profile)! 📚
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CEMS KCL @cemskcl.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Delighted to announce our seminar - 'Race and the Early Modern' - now has a full schedule of events. We'll be convening monthly to discuss research on race, racemaking, and racialisation across #earlymodern studies. @kingsartshums.bsky.social @folger.edu kingsearlymodern.co.uk/race-and-the...
kingsearlymodern.co.uk
Race and the Early Modern — CEMS KCL Blog
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Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland @ercscot.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Critical win for the Ecocide (Scotland) Bill as MSPs vote to progress it to Stage 2 ⬇️ Congratulations and thanks to @monicalennon.bsky.social for her unrelenting work! We look forward to the next steps. Press release: www.ercs.scot/news/landmar...
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
Looking forward to this evening. A great venue to introduce my new project “Catholic Renewal and Environmental Change in the Early Modern World” and to share some of my thoughts on the role of shrines in this process
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Federica Gigante @fgigante.bsky.social · 31/10/2025
My book is now out! 🎉 Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court @edinburghup.bsky.social Very exciting to see it in the flesh ☺️ [Discount code: NEW30]
A book standing upright on a desk with a window behind
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Claire Turner @claireturner.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Excited to share that from October I’ll be working as a Bridging Fellow in Medical Humanities at Durham University! I’ll be developing my project on ‘The Sensescapes of Cancer, 1700-1950’ and publishing my PhD research on sensory experiences of plague in early modern London. I can’t wait to start!
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Claire Turner @claireturner.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
I'll be in Manchester regularly between May and July next year, so do let me know if you're planning on being in the city in any of those months!
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Sadiah Qureshi 🦈 @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
Love’s Labour Launches with a roar! Thanks to many roarsome people I’ve gone from peasant to PhD, to Professor, and Penguin author with Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction out today. 🐅 Pls share, read, and help create a worthwhile world. #WorldEnvironmentDay #BookSky #HPS #Skystorians 🗃️
Book cover for Vanished. Features a nineteenth-century print with a fossilised mastodon skeleton, Asian elephant being ridden by a turbaned man, Native and colonial figures looking on. In the background is a mountainous landscape and there is also a single passenger pigeon in the sky. The whole scene is framed by an ornate frame and foliage. 

Below the book is the following text: A love letter to the astonishing ways of being that have survived past extinctions, and an exhortation to create a worthwhile world.
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Claire Turner @claireturner.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
Rogue question of the day: does anyone happen to know of any references (primary or secondary) to feelings of disgust in relation to medical practice, past and/or present?
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Claire Turner @claireturner.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
I am beyond proud of my bestie @joshuarushton8.bsky.social on securing Leverhulme funding for his amazing new project! Can’t wait to see what comes out of it.
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
I’m so thrilled by this news and extremely grateful to the many people who have supported me with this! Looking forward to starting the project “Catholic Renewal and Environmental Change in the Early Modern World” in 2026! 🎉
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Bodies, Emotions and Material Culture Collective @bemccollective.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Congratulations to our very own @joshuarushton8.bsky.social who has been awarded a prestigious Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for his project "Catholic Renewal and Environmental Change in the Early Modern World". Read all about it here: sites.manchester.ac.uk/bodies-emoti...
sites.manchester.ac.uk
Dr Joshua Rushton wins Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship
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MancHSTM @manchstm.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Call for Papers #HistSTM #EnvHist: Planetary Futures - Rethinking Extinction and Conservation in the Anthropocene. Manchester, 18-19 Sept 2025. Organisers: @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social and @duncanwilson78.bsky.social blogs.manchester.ac.uk/chstm/2025/0...
blogs.manchester.ac.uk
Planetary Futures: Rethinking Extinction and Conservation in the Anthropocene
Conference, 18-19 September 2025, at the University of Manchester. Call for Papers
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Sasha Handley @sashahandley.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
Don't forget to submit your abstract in for our June conference, 'Bodies and Environments in the Early Modern World' - speaker expenses will be covered and we have two amazing keynotes in Marcy Norton & Sara Miglietti!
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Bodies, Emotions and Material Culture Collective @bemccollective.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Congratulations to @drhollyfletcher.bsky.social who has received a Wellcome Trust Early Career Award for 'The Fats of Life, 1500-1750: Matter in Multispecies Medicine', which she will take up at UCL in autumn 2025. Read more about this fascinating project here: sites.manchester.ac.uk/bodies-emoti...
sites.manchester.ac.uk
Dr Holly Fletcher Receives Wellcome Trust Early Career Award
Holly Fletcher, who is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the ‘Sleeping Well’ Project at the University of Manchester, has been awarded a prestigious Wellcome Trust Early Career Award for ...
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Bodies, Emotions and Material Culture Collective @bemccollective.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Congratulations to Joshua Rushton, whose article 'The Emotional Dimension of Shrine Formation in Early Modern Catholicism' is now out in Cultural and Social History. Read more about this fascinating work here: sites.manchester.ac.uk/bodies-emoti...
sites.manchester.ac.uk
New Cultural and Social History Article by Dr Joshua Rushton
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Thank you for this @bemccollective.bsky.social !
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Sadiah Qureshi 🦈 @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
And another on climate justice and the Anthropocene. Lots of others on the website, but these obviously resonate strongly with my own interests and expertise so sharing here. daily.jstor.org/climate-just...
daily.jstor.org
Climate Justice in the Anthropocene: An Introductory Reading List - JSTOR Daily
Justice discourse in the Anthropocene has shown us that perhaps we aren't as homogeneous of an “Anthros” as we’d expect.
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Sadiah Qureshi 🦈 @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
Just come across this really useful list on the links between natural history and empire, featuring moi as ‘essential reading’. Perfect if you’re interested in museums or science more broadly too. Also ideal for passing to students as a starting point. daily.jstor.org/natural-hist...
daily.jstor.org
Natural History: A Reading List - JSTOR Daily
This annotated bibliography samples scholarship on the rich—and difficult—history of natural history.
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Sadiah Qureshi 🦈 @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
This is long overdue. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
theguardian.com
Ancestral remains should no longer be displayed in UK museums, say MPs
Remains brought to Britain as part of colonialism, such as Egyptian mummies, should be repatriated, a report says
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Claire Turner @claireturner.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
I'm on the lookout for Wellcome Early Career Award applications that people might be willing to share with me. I've asked before on my other social media but not on here, so reaching out to see if I have any new connections willing to help. Please share!
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Hematopolitics @hematopolitics.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
CALL FOR PAPERS We are delighted to share the CFP for our second symposium, ‘The Politics of Blood Donation and Transfusion: Histories, Controversies, and Futures’. Details on how to apply, including a link to our submission site, can be found via our website: hematopolitics.org/symposium/
The Politics of Blood Donation and Transfusion: Histories, Controversies, and Futures
6 June 2025, Thackray Museum of Medicine (Leeds, UK) 
Keynote Speaker: Dr Jenny Bangham (University of Edinburgh)
From early transfusion experiments and wartime blood banking to contemporary controversies over donor eligibility and the global plasma economy, blood has been a site of both solidarity and division. At the same time, new developments in synthetic blood, xenotransfusion, and bioengineered alternatives challenge existing frameworks of donation and transfusion, raising questions about the future of blood governance, ethics, and access.
This symposium seeks to examine the historical, social, and political dimensions of blood donation and transfusion, focusing on how they have been governed, contested, and reimagined across time and space. We invite contributions from scholars in anthropology, history, sociology, medical humanities, Science and Technology Studies, bioethics, and related fields.
This symposium is held in conjunction with the special exhibition Blood: Ties and Tensions at the Thackray Museum of Medicine and will feature a keynote lecture by Dr. Jenny Bangham, author of Blood Relations: Transfusion and the Making of Human Genetics (2020, University of Chicago Press). Panellists will also have the opportunity to explore the exhibition, fostering further discussions around its curated themes. A limited number of bursaries will be available to support domestic travel for postgraduate, early career researchers, and independent scholars.Some key questions we seek to explore:
•	How have the politics of blood donation and transfusion changed over time, and how do these shifts reflect broader transformations in biomedicine, nationalism, and social imaginaries?
•	How has the history of blood banking shaped knowledge and discourses on race and ethnicity, class and caste, gender, sex, sexuality, and citizenship?
•	How do infrastructures of blood banking and the commercialization of blood products reproduce or mitigate global health inequalities?
•	What ethical and political challenges emerge with new blood technologies, such as synthetic blood, xenotransfusion, and stem cell-based alternatives?
•	How do patients, donors, and medical professionals experience and navigate the evolving landscape of blood donation and transfusion?
•	How do artistic, literary, and activist engagements with blood expose or reimagine the politics of donation and transfusion?
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
•	Historical and contemporary shifts in donor eligibility and exclusion
•	National blood donation policies and their political and ethical stakes
•	Racialised and gendered discourses surrounding blood donation and transfusion
•	Ethics and governance of blood banking, plasma economies, and commercialised donation
•	Technological futures: synthetic blood, xenotransfusion, and regenerative medicine
•	Stigma and discrimination in blood donation and patients receiving transfusion
•	Political, aesthetic, and activist engagements with blood donation and transfusion in media, art, and literature
To apply:
Please submit a 200–300 word abstract and a brief bio (100-150 word) via the Submission Point by 25 April.
We hope the symposium will lead to contributions to a special issue or edited volume. For any inquiries, please contact Dr Jieun Kim (j.e.kim@leeds.ac.uk) or Dr Claire Turner (c.o.turner@leeds.ac.uk).
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Claire Turner @claireturner.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
I had a wonderful time at the launch of 'Blood: Ties & Tensions' last night! @hematopolitics.bsky.social have been working closely with @thackraymuseum.bsky.social to put together a brilliant display of objects, stories, and art pieces that bright to light the significance of our blood.
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Claire Turner @claireturner.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
I'm looking to share some of my new research on the moral and medical dimensions of breastfeeding and breast cancer (1600-1900). If you know of any seminar series, conferences, or societies that might be interested in having me present, please let me know! I rarely see CFPs on here nowadays...
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Claire Turner @claireturner.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
save the date: I'm giving a paper on my new research project, 'Gender, Identity, and the Senses in Early Modern Cancer Cases', at @crems-york.bsky.social on Feb 20 at 12:15pm!
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IHR Italy 1200-1700 @ihritaly.bsky.social · 09/01/2025
For Bluesky thinking from our IHR Italy 1200-1700 seminar, check out our seminar programme: www.history.ac.uk/seminars/ita...
history.ac.uk
Italy 1200-1700
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Sasha Handley @sashahandley.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Please share the CFP for our conference: 'Bodies and Environments in the Early Modern World'. Our keynotes are Marcy Norton @marcynorton.bsky.social (Pennsylvania) & Sara Miglietti (Warburg Institute). Join us 9-10 June at JRRIL, Manchester. Further details at: sites.manchester.ac.uk/sleeping-wel...
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Sadiah Qureshi 🦈 @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
I’ve finally finished my book on extinction! If you’re interested in reading how ideas of race, empire, and extinction have shaped our world and left important legacies for thinking about just conservation and the future of our planet, preorder here. #skystorians uk.bookshop.org/p/books/vani...
uk.bookshop.org
Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction a book by Sadiah Qureshi.
Anyone alive today is among a tiny fraction of the once living: over 90 percent of species that ever lived are now extinct. How did we come to think of ourselves as survivors in a world where species ...
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Rachel Anderson @rach-anderson.bsky.social · 07/12/2024
My very first article has been published in the American Historical Review! ✨ In it I've transcribed a handful of petitions that help us to understand how people began to piece their lives back together following an outbreak of plague 👇 academic.oup.com/ahr/article-...
academic.oup.com
The Lancashire Plague Petitions: Life after the Plague in Early Modern England
Abstract. Historians typically explore the resilience of past societies in terms of large-scale outcomes like population levels. In contrast, this paper ex
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
Happy to see my review of Emily Michelson’s Catholic Spectacle and Rome’s Jews out in Cultural and Social History! A brilliant book which puts minorities at the centre of the Counter-Reformation. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Catholic Spectacle and Rome’s Jews: Early Modern Conversion and Resistance
Published in Cultural and Social History: The Journal of the Social History Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Joshua Rushton @joshuarushton8.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
Happy to see my review of Emily Michelson’s Catholic Spectacle and Rome’s Jews out in Cultural and Social History! A brilliant book which puts minorities at the centre of the Counter-Reformation. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Catholic Spectacle and Rome’s Jews: Early Modern Conversion and Resistance
Published in Cultural and Social History: The Journal of the Social History Society (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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