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Prof Laurie Johnson

@lostplayhouse.bsky.social
1.3K followers 1.2K following 217 posts

Professor of English and Cultural Studies @ University of Southern Queensland. Shakespeare scholar. Finder of lost playhouses. FSA FRHistS. He/him.

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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Going for a bargain -- my chapter on Dunwich as a major site for touring Elizabethan companies (even while it was disappearing into the sea) is in great company in this gorgeous volume!
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Pleased to report that my chapter on Dunwich as a major site for touring Elizabethan companies (even while it was disappearing into the sea) is in great company in this gorgeous volume!
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Pleased to report that my chapter on Dunwich as a major site for touring Elizabethan companies (even while it was disappearing into the sea) is in great company in this gorgeous volume!
edinburghuniversitypress.com
Reading the Coastline in Shakespeare’s Britain
Reading the Coastline in Shakespeare’s Britain
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Everybody just go about your business. There's nothing to see here.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Back at work after 5 weeks of adventuring, and pleased to see this story appeared while I was in absentia. www.thefieldguidetoowoomba.com/blog/bruce-d...
thefieldguidetoowoomba.com
The Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize 2026 — The Field Guide
For 27 years Toowoomba has been home to one of  Australia’s biggest poetry prizes, drawing thousands of entries from across the country for 27 years. Entries for 2026 are open now.
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Brepols @brepols.net · 31/07/2026
𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮 𝗰.𝟭𝟰𝟬𝟬–𝗰.𝟭𝟳𝟬𝟬 𝗦𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗱𝗼 𝘆 𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗼 𝗲𝗻 𝗹𝗮 𝗰𝗶𝘂𝗱𝗮𝗱 𝗱𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮 Edited by Eduardo Carrero Santamaría, Tess Knighton and Francesc Orts-Ruiz Available in Open Access More Info: bit.ly/4fw40Fv #UrbanHistory #Music #Renaissance #Baroque #Musicology #Valencia #History
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Not Sir Garry! RIP you magnificent cricketing god.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Not sure if calendar featuring cats of Rome … or hot priests.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Classical dude plays a mean air bagpipe at the MANN (Naples Museum)!
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Before the “His Master’s Voice” (HMV) dog there was this musical kittah from ancient Pompeii.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
If anybody in my network is still on the fence about attending the World Shakespeare Congress in Verona (kicking off in just 19 days' time), the convenors have announced registration is still open until 10 July -- come and join in the fun! www.wsc2026.org/registration/
wsc2026.org
Registration - World Shakespeare Congress Verona
Click here to register. Early bird registration: from 15 January 2026 to 31 March 2026; Regular: 1 April to 10 July 2026 FEES        Faculty 1     … Read more "Registration"
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
‘Unsettling Shakespeare’ ANZSA will be in Wellington, 10-12 Feb 2027! CFP: conference.anzsa.org
conference.anzsa.org
Unsettling Shakespeare – 2027 ANZSA Conference, Wellington, New Zealand, 10-12 February 2027
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Are you feeling okay, Australian Twitter?
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Sarah C E Ross @sarahceross.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
conference.anzsa.org ANZ Shakespeare Association conference, Wellington 10-12 February 2027! Save the dates, book your travel, be in touch — and watch our website for more info very soon
conference.anzsa.org
ANZSA 2027 Conference – Wellington, NZ, 10-12 February 2027
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Tim Hitchcock @timhitchcock.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
A call for papers. This looks like it will be a great conference: www.rmg.co.uk/call-papers-...
rmg.co.uk
Call for Papers | Maritime Histories from the Margins: People, Places, and Practices, 1500–Present
An interdisciplinary conference co-convened by Royal Museums Greenwich and the Centre for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures, University of Portsmouth
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Merchant Adventurers’ Hall @merchantshallyork.org · 24/04/2026
Let there be light! 💡
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Not sure about going to the open casket funeral. Remains to be seen.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
This is a dance off. If you see this, repost a dance, or you’re eliminated.
media.tenor.com
bart simpson is sitting in a chair next to a man in a suit and tie who is sitting at a table .
ALT: bart simpson is sitting in a chair next to a man in a suit and tie who is sitting at a table .
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Beyond Shakespeare @beyondshakes.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
🎭Dropping this week in our Exploring Sessions - it's All Fools by George Chapman. Solid structure, some interesting set pieces, but the syntax is not pleasing the room. #GeorgeChapman #EarlyModern #Plays #Drama #Theatre www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com
All Fools by George Chapman - YouTube
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David McInnis @dnmcinnis.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Can't tell you how thrilled I am to see my PhD student Mary Bellman's first article published! 🥳 'The Demetrius Dilemma: The Implications of Induced Love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream' in the British Shakespeare Association's journal, *Shakespeare*: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
The Demetrius Dilemma: The Implications of Induced Love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the use of the love-in-idleness enchantment is not confined to producing Titania’s comic union with Bottom but is also applied to Lysander and is the source of Demetri...
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Thinks we should simply rename the toilet cubicle to "The Pee-quad" ... and you can all call me Ishmael.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
RIP Dennis Cometti, the voice of AFL, who gave us the immortal line, "Liberatore went into that last pack optimistically and came out misty optically."
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Dear Dr Johnson, you are invited to submit a paper for "insert very important sounding Encyclopedia name here." You are very important. Accepted papers will attract a "insert value well over $2,000 here" processing fee after acceptance. Oh, how I laughed.
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World Shakespeare Congress 2026 Verona @wsc2026verona.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
The World Shakespeare Congress brings together scholars at every stage of their careers — from established researchers to early career academics. Verona 2026 will be a space for dialogue, discovery, and new collaborations. #WSC2026
Polo Zanotto building
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Remember when Doug McClure was on every second movie shown on midday Saturday television? Yes, I'm that many years old.
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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
📢 NEW Will of the Month Post! 📢 This is for everyone who followed our 'Eyrie of Swans' discussion last week, and with particular thanks to @hnewsome-chandler.bsky.social , @lostplayhouse.bsky.social and @tracelarkhall.bsky.social who helped us identify it! 🦢 1/3🧵 sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...
A photograph of an ornamental carved wooden swan, white with an orange beak, which is on a green ornamental wall bracket. The wall bracket is attached to the sandy coloured wall of a historic building, and flanked by two sash windows. The swan faces away from the wall, looking out towards the street. 

Image Credit: A Grade II Listed sixteenth-century swan. A carved wooden swan on an ornamental cast-iron bracket, 11 Sadler Street, Wells, Somerset. Image credit: Tony Cooper / Art UK, (CC BY-NC) https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/swan-281128
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Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 21/02/2026
Truly uncanny to see universities all doing the same suicidal things: centralizing decision-making, erecting bafflingly expensive new buildings, stacking the board with money guys, hiding info about the budget, throwing money at consultants. Atriums everywhere! They all got the same memo.
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World Shakespeare Congress 2026 Verona @wsc2026verona.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
This is the official Bluesky account of the World Shakespeare Congress, taking place in Verona from 20 to 26 July 2026 #wsc2026 #verona #shakespeare
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
To all the misogynists claiming "batsman" is the traditional term in cricket and that "batter" is a "woke" copout, I give you Exhibit A for "batter" being much older = in The Cricketer's Guide Being a Complete Manual of the Game of Cricket (1896), "Batter" is used throughout.
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Holly Brewer @earlymodjustice.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
An open letter to @theguardian.com about their article last week about the Crown’s Silence, requesting that the Black scholar of Caribbean heritage who did the years of archival research behind this claim, and published it in 1979, Roger Norman Buckley, be acknowledged as the source of this reveal:
OPEN LETTER TO THE GUARDIAN
Dear Editors,
We write in reference to a recent article published in the UK online edition of The Guardian on Friday, 23 January 2026, which carried the following misleading headline: "British crown was world's largest buyer of enslaved people by 1807, book reveals."
The article in question, by Chris Osuh, showcases a new book by Dr. Brooke Newman, The Crown's
Silence: The Hidden History of Slavery and the British Monarchy (Harper Collins, 2026). But Newman's book is not the original source of that claim. That claim derives from earlier scholarship, the painstaking archival work of a Black historian of Caribbean heritage: the late Roger Norman Buckley.
It is unfortunate that the silencing of his original scholarship appears in the profiling of a book advertised as uncovering silences. While it is great to see public attention brought to the history of the Crown's involvement in slavery through the new book and its profiling in The Guardian, the headline compromises The Guardian's efforts to address the legacies of slavery generally and its own institutional links when it extracts and reframes earlier work by a Black scholar as a revelation new to this book.
The relevant passage in The Crown's Silence draws on original scholarship by Roger Norman
Buckley in Slaves in Red Coats: The British West India Regiments, 1795-1815 (1979). Dr. Brooke Newman repeats Buckley's figures, which she cites (referencing page 55 of Buckley's book, see attached) while changing his "British government" to "Crown." She then converts his careful "perhaps the largest individual buyer" to a more conclusive claim, changing his "British government" to "king" but without citing Buckley for that claim which is on page 56 of his book (see attached) and which, uncited in Newman's book, is the Guardian headline.
There is room for popular histories that rely largely on the secondary scholarship of other historians. But other historians have not been silent. Page from Buckley’s 1979 book2nd page from Buckley’s 1979 book
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Classics for All @classicsforall.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
🎨This year, the @rijksmuseum.bsky.social smuseum in Amsterdam has opened a new exhibition on Ovid's Metamorphoses, featuring an array of paintings inspired by the ancient Roman poet. Comment your favourite artistic reimagining of Ovid's Metamorphoses below! 👇 #classicsforall #rijksmuseum
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
Hi. Do you look like I might have loaned you my copy of Rudolph Fiehler's Strange History of John Oldcastle (bought in a second hand bookshop in New Orleans in 2016, just like the one pictured below)? If you fit that description, I could really use it back. Thanks.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
After the year we’ve all had, if it’s okay with you, I think I’d just as well jingle only two-thirds of the way.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
Apparently the Barmy Army cheered the players leaving for rain -- they do realise, don't they, that a draw means the Ashes definitely stay with Australia? The only way for England to win the Ashes is to be on the field to bat for an unlikely, but still possible, win.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
The Indian crowds rioting in Kolkata because of Lionel Messi is bizarre but craziest of all is that Sunrise (in Australia) thought the best way to cover the story was to cross to their US Correspondent (in New York).
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
A wonderful scholar was taken from us too soon. Please help to ensure Meghan C. Andrews's book can be made more widely available via Open Access.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
In all the back and forward from press and crowds after the first Ashes test, I haven't seen anybody yet say a word of praise to Stokes and (I think it was) Brook, who shook Head's hand after he was dismissed. Fair play, gents, and a good sporting gesture.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Excitement at 6:30 am, as the last of a morning storm rolled past, I was in my study when lightning hit us = electricity surged through the house, a huge bang, lights flickered , and my study light blew. Animals spooked and family woke, but the only casualty was my light bulb.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Marjorie Taylor Greene in a pensive moment ahead of her big press conference.
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Shannon K. Supple @mazarine.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
JOB POSTING! Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Rare Books and Prints at the @folger.edu amherst.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/FSL_Em...
amherst.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com
Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Rare Books and Prints
The Folger Shakespeare Library knows that an exceptional staff is the backbone of any great organization. We hire exceptionally qualified individuals who are committed to the mission, vision, and valu...
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Well, looks like Rep. Clay Higgins just outed himself as being in the Epstein files! #427-1
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
That's the trouble with that pesky Muse. When she strikes at 4 am, there's no answer to it other than to get out of bed, get ready for work, and head into the office ... and write. So here we are at 4:30, me and my old friend the keyboard. Write.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Roll up, roll up! We'd love to have more entries just to make our job of judging this year's Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize all the more difficult! "It's the best part of my job" and all that. Entries close 21 November, this Friday!
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Must be the season -- another beautiful object arrived today, this one with my chapter on authorship and cognitive studies. Huge thanks to @loughnrv.bsky.social and @drwillsharpe.bsky.social for nudging this mammoth volume into reality!
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
✍ Introducing ✍ Sharpie, a letterform recognition game for beginner #EarlyModern #palaeontology gjhilton.github.io/Sharpie/ AKA What I Did Over Reading Week. #skystorians I’d be so grateful if you had time to share or take a look and tell me what sucks and needs fixing. Love g 🗃️
Sharpie!
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Bizarre interpretations of events on Cricinfo. Green takes 1/13 and the headline says he was "impressive with the ball as Test side takes shape" whereas Webster took 5/50 and headlines say he took a fiver "on a tough day for his Test chances" = sounds like Cricinfo writers have an agenda LOL
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Oh my word, how I hate calculating time zone differences. I was certain I needed to be in my office at 4 am for the Rose talk today, at 4:30 am. Well, I'm here, but the talk, well, it's an hour later. Heaviest of sighs.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
A little reminder for those playing along at home. :) Remember, this is UK time. Adjust accordingly for other time zones.
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Prof Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Another AI gaffe. Seeking an article by Grace Ioppolo that mentions John Cholmley, but AI overview said this "refers to a partnership between Professor Grace Ioppolo and the historical figure John Cholmley, who, along with Philip Henslowe, established the Rose Playhouse on London's Bankside in 1587"
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The Rose Playhouse @roseplayhouse.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Monday 10 November @ 7.30pm online PUB CRAWLING WITH PLAYHOUSES Join Professor Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social for a ramble around the inns, taverns & ale-houses of Elizabethan London, to discover their role in the emergence of playhouse culture. Book: www.roseplayhouse.org.uk/whats-on
Infographic, with headshot of the speaker:
Researching The Rose, Monday Evening online talks.
Professor Laurie Johnson – Pub Crawling With Playhouses.
7.30pm 10 November 2025
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