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Aylin Malcolm

@malentendre.bsky.social
1.3K followers 998 following 180 posts

Literature prof | currently writing on: medieval plant grafting; worm reproduction | they/them | science before 1700, book history, sci fi, whale facts 🐋 🌐 aylinmalcolm.com 📍Toronto

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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Me, yesterday, going to bed early after a wild evening of texting my brother about frogs
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Finally teaching a medieval grad class = I'm going to email a bunch of friends in a few months and tell them how much my students like their essays
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Hung my comically oversized teaching award up in my office today
Standing on a green lawn, The Poster accepts a torso-sized framed certificate from an associate dean. There was a skunk waddling around just out of frame but you'll need to take my word for itThe same certificate on a blank wall next to a thermostat and some books. Certificate declares that the Faculty Teaching Excellence Award has been presented to Aylin Malcolm by the College of Arts at the University of Guelph. Thermostat incorrectly, but optimistically declares that it's 70 degrees.
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Medieval studies is reading a weird 700 year old poem and then, ten years later, finding something original to say about it
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
The essay cluster I co-edited with Andrew Richmond on "Premodern Digital Ecologies" is out: academic.oup.com/dsh/issue/41... #MedievalSky @vickymcalister.bsky.social @linguistaria.bsky.social
academic.oup.com
Volume 41 Issue 3 | Digital Scholarship in the Humanities | Oxford Academic
An official journal of the European Association for Digital Humanities. Publishes original contributions on all aspects of digital scholarship in the Humanities including, but not limited to, the fiel...
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
The long-expected return of the aspidochelone
cbc.ca
An island mysteriously appeared — then disappeared — on B.C.'s largest reservoir | CBC News
B.C. Hydro says it's monitoring for the reappearance of a mysterious island first spotted by boaters 100 kilometres from the W.A.C. Bennett Dam in northeastern B.C.
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Jonathan Hsy 許維成 @jonathanhsy.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The semester is approaching! If you’re teaching race & premodern contexts, check out throughlines.org - premodernist scholars across fields (including literature & other disciplines) with informational videos, reading lists, classroom activities, and much more! @acmrs.bsky.social
throughlines.org
Throughlines — Race in the premodern classroom
Created by field-leading scholars, Throughlines’ pedagogical approaches offer accessible and critical ways to incorporate discussions of race in the premodern studies classroom.
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Benjamin Jancewicz @benjancewicz.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Montreal 1976 Olympic poster
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Sumita Pahwa @sumitapahwa.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
When I first moved to SoCal and took my child to the city library (as one does, first thing), this book title had me confused for several minutes.
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Might be as simple as "we still have lots of books from the Middle Ages (and they mostly look great)"
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no brain, only alison @alisonborealis.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
EARTHWORMS ARE INVASIVE SPECIES IN CANADA!
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jae holzman @jael.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
my latest: i can confirm there's been a concerted campaign to develop a data center in northern virginia within a historically important national park site relying on help from a senior advisor to the interior department under the first trump admin will the land swap happen? for @heatmap.news
heatmap.news
How the National Park Service Wound Up in a Data Center Deal
The agency is reportedly considering a land swap that would allow AI infrastructure in one of northern Virginia’s largest green spaces.
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Credentials, Dan @dancredentials.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Me, nodding knowingly: The beaks.
Headline of paleontology news article: Crocodiles can't fly. Birds can. Scientists have finally figured out why
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
My friend landed on my head, hopped around my hands and clothes, and refused to leave while I walked down a mountain for 20 mins, until I laid them gently on a flower
View of The Poster (shaggy short brown hair, black shirt) from behind, with an orange and brown butterfly perched on their orange and black backpack strap, surrounded by greeneryThe Butterfly perches on The Poster's index finger. Out of focus in the background are trees, sunlit clouds, and a mountain peak
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Late post, but I'm so proud of Erin O'Brien for publishing her work on queer joy and ace-ecologies. This piece emerged from our graduate seminar but takes a totally new form here, with embroidery!
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Johnnie Jae @johnniejae.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
I want people to understand the full impact of the devastation that First Nations in Canada are facing. It's NOT just that people and wildlife are losing their homes...it's the history that is being lost for generations to come.
A photo of the wildfires in canada. Fire rages through forest area with vright orange flame and dark gray smoke.
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The Haunted Bookshop @thehauntedbookshop.com · 16/07/2026
I'M DYING OVER HERE 💀💀💀 THE CAT GOT AI SCAM EMAIL 🐈 Aeschylus, our orange tabby, got an obviously AI email about selling more copies of the Oresteia on A**zon
This is a photo of an email addressed to "Aeschylus" via our general email inbox infodesk@thehauntedbookshop.com

Hi Aeschylus,
I just finished The Complete Plays, and the moment in the Oresteia when the Furies are transformed into the Eumenides vengeful spirits of the old order persuaded to become guardians of justice in the new stayed with me for hours. What you were really writing about underneath the bloodshed and the curses the fragile, terrifying shift from vendetta to law, from chaos to the rule of reason, and the birth of civilization itself came through clearly. That's the kind of story that deserves to be found.
I'll be honest with you up front, because I know your inbox is probably full of people promising to make you a bestseller overnight: I can't promise that, and anyone who does is lying to you. What I do is quieter and real I help authors make sure their book is actually findable by the readers who would love it.
Here's something I noticed on your Amazon page: the description is just a plain list of the plays. A modern reader scrolling by might see only a dry table of contents, not the thunderous drama that invented tragedy itself. Small things like that quietly cost authors sales every single day and they're completely fixable.
So before I ask you for anything, I'd like to give you something: a free scan of your book's Amazon page, showing exactly what's working and what's holding it back checked against the things the best books in your genre all have:
A scroll-stopping cover is it instantly signalling your genre and earning the click?
A blurb that hooks in the first line not the third.
Keywords & categories are you showing up where readers actually search?
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
It is happening again
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Already 52 people on the waitlist for next winter. Book history is popular and every school should dedicate resources to it!
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
"Why are you so mad? Are you choleric?" –my non-medievalist partner to the cat
A grey, white, and orange cat with maniacal green eyes lies on her back, grabbing a rainbow ribbon
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Kirsten the (ex) Librarian @librarykirsten.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Sorry for the self promotion, but I've written a blog post on alternatives to Google Scholar librarykirsten.wordpress.com/2026/06/18/t...
librarykirsten.wordpress.com
The Big List of Google Scholar Alternatives (and the Big Librarian Existential Crisis)
The Crisis I started writing this in summer of last year, intending it to be a nice little list of tools that would be handy if Google Scholar disappeared or got substantially worse, as a follow up…
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Padraig2112 @isomorphism.net · 19/06/2026
Oh, look, the federal government is violating the Clean Water Act
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Kathleen E. Kennedy @themedievaldrk.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
It! Is! Here! Open Access (and already hoovered up by the scrapers no doubt such is our world) UK/EU paper copies will be available eventually but until then, EVERYONE now has free access! press.library.concordia.ca/projects/ill...
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
"Your mother asked why I was putting that sticker on the wallet...I thought it was a question that should be pitied rather than answered" –my dad
A basic, battered black leather wallet with a large circular sticker on the front reading CREAM CHEESE
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
My dog is sick and I am struggling :( sorry if I owe you some writing
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noam @noamchompers.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
They’re called ‘academic journals’ because they’re where you write your private thoughts nobody else is allowed to read
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Avi Lewis @avilewis.ca · 27/05/2026
1/ Right now, a bill called C-22 is moving through Parliament. It would let police pull information on who you talk to, when, and where, all without a warrant. It's at committee this week. 🧵
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EHN. @envhnow.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Come write with us at EHN! Graduate students and early career scholars who identify as women, trans, and/or nonbinary people (FLINTA*) are invited to submit abstracts for our next round of publications.
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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
“Nazir’s selection is less about him using AI and more about the irony of Euro-American conceptions about the unintelligibility of postcolonial writing.”
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cait (and adonis) @cait.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
I DON'T WANT THAT
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Margaret Maurer and I noticed a ream wrapper – a sheet used to package stacks of paper – in a book at UPenn libraries. This raised one of my favorite questions: what can we learn from studying old trash (or old recycling)? uniqueatpenn.wordpress.com/2026/05/13/r...
uniqueatpenn.wordpress.com
Recipes and Recycling: A Dutch Ream Wrapper in an English Recipe Book
By Aylin Malcolm and Margaret C. Maurer Penn MS Codex 251 is a slim eighteenth-century recipe book with a distinctive binding made of thick, durable paper. The binding’s exterior is red with a stam…
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NiCHE Canada @nichecanada.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
"As the editors of an important collection on gender-variant saints have argued, medieval records challenge the idea that such identities are a 'modern' phenomenon and 'offer historically grounded refutation of theological transphobia.'" - @malentendre.bsky.social niche-canada.org/2025/04/30/t...
niche-canada.org
Trans Histories, Environmental Futures: Reading Silence Across Binaries
Aylin Malcolm explores how medieval texts, like Silence, reveal intersections of gender variance, environmental transformation, and resistance to binary norms.
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
So proud of my smart friend @yrliu.bsky.social for this deservedly glowing review! beforewegoblog.com/spfboxi-revi...
beforewegoblog.com
SPFBOXI Review: The Whisperer in White – Y. R. Liu
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
A cat is all the art you need
Curled on a rustic wood shelf, a cat yawns, head and shoulders dramatically illuminated by a beam of light
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NiCHE Canada @nichecanada.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
We are excited to announce the Call for Papers for our new collaborative series with Written in the Waves, Soil and Sea: Environmental Histories of the Atlantic World Proposal deadline: June 30, 2026 Series publication beginning September 2026 niche-canada.org/2026/04/30/c... #envhist
niche-canada.org
Call for Papers - Soil and Sea: Environmental Histories of the Atlantic World
We invite submissions on any topic related to environmental history of the Atlantic world.
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Dr. Jessica M. DeWitt @jessicamdewitt.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Heyo! - @tinaadcock.bsky.social, Sarah, and I decided to extend the deadline for Succession IV: Queering the Environment – “Queer Joy” to APRIL 13th!! It's hard to focus on joy right now. That's why we chose the theme. niche-canada.org/2026/02/28/c... #envhist #envhum #queerecology
niche-canada.org
Call for Submissions - Succession IV: Queering the Environment – “Queer Joy”
We wish to build off of scholarship and lived knowledge that envisions queer joy as an affective or emotional way of knowing, specifically a way of knowing and being in relation with the environment a...
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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Today in AI: Canada rejected the PR application of a McMaster postdoc from the Sorbonne who works in the immunology of aging because the generative AI being used to process applications (😱) entirely hallucinated her credentials. Everyone involved should be fired. archive.is/ELrCI#select...
Kémy Adé was shocked by the immigration refusal letter she received.
In rejecting her permanent residence application, the Immigration Department cited her current job duties, which included wiring and assembling control circuits, building control and robot panels, programming and troubleshooting. The department said these duties didn’t match the Canadian work experience she claimed.
Well, no, they didn’t. Adé is a post-doctoral research fellow and guest teacher at McMaster University — and those skills are not part of her repertoire. Nor are they what she submitted in her immigration application a year ago.
“I saw this language about this job description that has nothing to do with me,” said the health scientist from France, who has a PhD from Sorbonne University in the immunology of aging. “I was disoriented how this could happen.”
But a disclaimer at the bottom of the refusal letter might provide a hint.
It’s believed to be the first time that the department explicitly referred to the use of generative AI to support application processing in immigration refusals. The disclaimer also noted that all generated content was verified by an officer and that generative AI was not used to make or recommend a decision.
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
In these troubled times, my mental fortitude depends so much on one angry little nugget
A small, sleepy dilute torbico cat (with a white fluffy belly and white mittens) half smiles, half grimaces while receiving neck scratches
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
So, um... this is bad. Really bad. I looked at the letters that were translated by the AI, and the very first one I found was almost entirely hallucination. Thread:
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Amy Earhart @aearhart.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Years ago our admin did a red and black report. It took salaries & how much $ each instructor made in tuition $ for classes we taught-you were in the red or black. They released numbers once & shut it down bc humanities were producing huge $ for uni & engineers, business and scientists were losing $
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
extremely relatable
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NiCHE Canada @nichecanada.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
"Alberta’s right-wing Social Credit government fed anti-communist sentiment; the rat, like communism, had the potential to dismantle the province’s economic structure and way of life." - @fvreilly.bsky.social niche-canada.org/2016/09/01/r... #envhist #alberta #cdnhist #animalhistory #coldwar
niche-canada.org
Rats and Communism: Protecting Alberta from Invasion in the Early Cold War
Alberta’s rat-free status resulted from a Cold War–inflected surveillance campaign, framing rats as communist infiltrators threatening agriculture, society, and security.
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Fire Angel @fireangelbrc2fl.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
A picture of an adorable calico cat with the words
"4 years ago I lived in a bush and hunted my own meals. Now I have 2 passive incomes, my own house, and a personal chef. Follow me for more financial advice.
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
EXCITING UPDATE: The "Trans Natures" collection is now fully open access! Read it here: scholarworks.wmich.edu/med_ecocriti... #MedievalSky #EnvHum
scholarworks.wmich.edu
Medieval Ecocriticisms | Vol 4 | Iss 1
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Dr Basil Arnould Price @basilaprice.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
The Trans Natures special issue (ed by @malentendre.bsky.social and Nat Rivkin) of Medieval Ecocriticisms that I contributed to is available open access ! Enjoy ! scholarworks.wmich.edu/med_ecocriti...
scholarworks.wmich.edu
Medieval Ecocriticisms | Vol 4 | Iss 1
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Dr. Leonard Bright @drleonardbright.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Texas A&M decided to publicly cancel my Ethics class, and share a false statement that I declined to provide information, which made it impossible for [them ] to request an exemption. See for yourself, if this statement is true. They are getting creative!
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Aylin Malcolm @malentendre.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
Applications are open for MA and PhD positions in my department. Quite honestly, I think it’s a great place to do grad school in English. Tell your friends! MA: www.uoguelph.ca/arts/sotec/g... PhD: www.uoguelph.ca/arts/sotec/g... #AcademicSky
uoguelph.ca
Admission
Admission Requirements Admission to the MA program is the equivalent of an Honours degree in English from a recognized post-secondary institution, with at least a high second-class standing (78%) in t...
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The Conversation AUNZ @aunz.theconversation.com · 26/11/2025
Modern researchers know about the cuckoo’s cross-species brood parasitism – but one Roman emperor observed this more than 700 years ago.
theconversation.com
Bird sex fascinated medieval thinkers as much as people today
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U of G McLaughlin Library @uofglibrary.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
Drawing from many items in the U of G archives, Michael Dawson explores Jell-O in Canadian and American history. Curious to learn more? Explore our Archival and Special Collections: www.lib.uoguelph.ca/archives/our.... #UofG
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