iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · 29/09/2026

Access to culture is a right, not a privilege. Keeping museums free means millions can continue to explore, learn and be inspired, regardless of their background or income. That's good for London, and good for ensuring cost is never a barrier to discovery.

theartnewspaper.com

Culture secretary confirms free admission for all at England’s national museums will remain

The announcement by Lisa Nandy, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, came after recent discussions of introducing admission fees for overseas visitors

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Nadine Akkerman @misswalsingham.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

These are gorgeous! New goal unlocked: have my research translated into biscuit 🍪🥠 form by @ellamchawk.bsky.social …

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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

‘Rumours are unreliable at the best of times, but they perpetuate themselves because, as Sir Francis Bacon observed, ‘man would rather believe what he wishes to be true.’ — Nadine Akkerman

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Nadine Akkerman @misswalsingham.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Spycraft made it to Ireland ! 🕵️‍♀️🫆🥳

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Nadine Akkerman @misswalsingham.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

For the weekend crowd 👇

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Nadine Akkerman @misswalsingham.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Spycraft made it to Ireland ! 🕵️‍♀️🫆🥳

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Susan Baddeley @sbaddeley.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Wish I was 40 years younger.....

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deborahhamer.bsky.social @deborahhamer.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

If only I could go back in time. Truly a fantastic opportunity.

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Nadine Akkerman @misswalsingham.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

📢Here's a fully funded 4-year PhD position at Leiden within the ERC project LangPro led by Dr Alisa van de Haar, and co-supervised by yours truly, on professional opportunities for women in the early modern language sector: careers.universiteitleiden.nl/job/PhD-Posi... Apply by 15 Oct 2026

careers.universiteitleiden.nl

PhD Position Women in the Early Modern Language Sector

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Matthew Symonds @polybiblion.com · 14/09/2026

ah what abbrilliant project for a PhD student!

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Emilie K. M. Murphy @emiliekmmurphy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This looks brilliant #earlymodern 🗃️

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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

<whimper> Oh my. What could a project do to be more attractive? This checks absolutely every reasonable box plus a few more you’d have discounted as wild dreaming. Whoever lucks out and lands this will, frankly, be my enemy for life.

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Nadine Akkerman @misswalsingham.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

careers.universiteitleiden.nl

PhD Position Women in the Early Modern Language Sector

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Tamlyn Dreaver @tamlyn.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Went out to dinner with friends and then, lo, there was a bookstore open next to the ramen place. We all bought books, of course.

Two books lying on a bed. The first, Spycraft, by Nadine Akkerman and Pete Langman, is black with silver and blue text and a historical spy. The second, In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune, is predominantly green with trees and treehouses.

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Vuurdistel ✏️🎨 @vuurdistel.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

🧵 Nog eens het zotte draadje over kleuren en pigmenten en de onwaarschijnlijke grondstoffen die de mens daar in de loop van de geschiedenis voor gebruikten! ... Iets over koeien, luizen, mummies, waaghalzerij, oneindig geduld en levensgevaarlijk vergif! 🎨😅 1/8

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Elise Watson @ewatson.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

#earlymodern #bookhistory Workshop Call for Papers: Women’s Professional Networks in the Early Modern Book Trade, University of Edinburgh 6-7 May 2027 Please feel free to share with anyone who might be interested!

Call for Papers
Women’s Professional Networks in the Early Modern Book Trade
University of Edinburgh
6-7 May 2027

Over the past two decades, women’s book history and feminist bibliography have exploded with renewed interest. Even so, women’s work is still to an extent seen as an exception or curiosity. It examines them from a gender history perspective, asking to what extent their relationships were influenced or determined by constructions of femininity. Proposals should therefore involve a dimension of gender analysis beyond simply the inclusion of female subjects.

This conference will seek to explore (but is not limited to) to the following themes and questions:

*Gendered Networks. To what extent were professional book trade networks gendered? How did these networks intersect with other types of women’s networks, whether they be familial, friendly, religious, political, or intellectual?
*Identity and Representation. Did women express professional solidarity with other women, and how did this manifest? How did women’s self-representation in imprints and paratext differ from men’s?
*Legal and Structural Considerations. In what ways were women’s professional networks dependent on legal structures of inheritance in their region, or participation in guilds? How did these networks stretch across economic and class divisions?
*Digital Approaches. Can digital humanities tools such as network visualisation effectively help document these relationships?

The conference will also host the launch of a new collaborative database sourcing biographical information about women in the early modern book trade.

Contributions will be published in a volume of conference proceedings, to be submitted by the end of 2027.

Proposals for papers of maximum 20 minutes, including title, an abstract of up to 300 words, and a biography of up to 150 words should be sent to Dr Elise Watson, elise.watson@ed.ac.uk, by 20 December 2026. While all papers will be delivered in person, virtual attendance will be available as well.

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Will Tullett @willtullett.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Londoners! 12th October at Waterstones Gower Street @cathamclarke.bsky.social and myself will chatting about my book Sniff, Catherine's excellent and soon-to-be-in-paperback History of England in 25 poems, and how smell and poetry offer us new routes into the past www.waterstones.com/events/new-w...

waterstones.com

New Ways Into History: From Smells to Sonnets | Events at Waterstones Bookshops | Waterstones

Events at Waterstones get you closer to the books and authors you admire most. Find information and tickets about New Ways Into History: From Smells to Sonnets today.

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Pete Langman @elegantfowl.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Released into the wild 31 July ... petelangman.bandcamp.com/album/dancin... in aid of SpotlightYOPD

petelangman.bandcamp.com

Dancing With Architects, by Pete Langman

10 track album

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Kathleen E. Kennedy @themedievaldrk.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

my week, in literature

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Nadine Akkerman @misswalsingham.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

My man releases an album today! All proceeds go to charity. Please have a look, listen & share widely 🙏

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Nadine Akkerman @misswalsingham.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

My man releases an album today! All proceeds go to charity. Please have a look, listen & share widely 🙏

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Nadine Akkerman @misswalsingham.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Sir Francis Walsingham tempered Queen Elizabeth I's emotions but also counterfeited her anger. The fab @sixteenthcgirl.bsky.social talks to @clodaghmurphy.bsky.social & yours truly about exciting discoveries that will change the way we look at Tudor history bit.ly/4fwBu6Q @erc.europa.eu #FEATHERS

bit.ly

New Discovery: Who Really Wrote Elizabeth I's Letters?

Podcast Episode · Not Just the Tudors · July 30 · 44m

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S J Alexander @5alexander.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Fascinating listen. Especially interesting about reading all the letters in a packet to fet the whole picture of their meaning.

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Nadine Akkerman @misswalsingham.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

bit.ly

New Discovery: Who Really Wrote Elizabeth I's Letters?

Podcast Episode · Not Just the Tudors · July 30 · 44m

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Julie Goldberg @juliegoldberg.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

“What AI actually does is accelerate access to the common answer, which means the students who’ve been trained to go past the common answer are the ones with the real advantage.” (I wish @chronicle.com had gift links!) www.chronicle.com/special-proj...

chronicle.com

Arts Grads Are Doing Just Fine, Actually

With AI driving algorithmic sameness, these students often have skills and creative perspectives that set them apart.

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Christina de Bellaigue @cadebellaigue.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Today, Filippo de Vivo, Martin Conway, @faridahzaman.bsky.social and I, along with 30 other members of the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford have written to the leadership of the University of Exeter to express our deep concern about the proposed cuts to Humanities and Social Sciences

We write to express our profound concern at the proposed redundancies at the University of Exeter...History at Exeter has built a global reputation in recent years through its outstanding scholarship, major international research projects, and research-led teaching./We in Oxford have benefitted enormously from collaborations and exchanges with colleagues at Exeter, including on the Socialism Goes Global project, and on a developing programme of research focusing on Downward Social Mobility, and we frequently draw on the excellent work that your department members publish. The Exeter Centre for Global History in particular, has been world-leading in the field and stimulated our work in Oxford, as has the department’s long-established excellence in European, Imperial and Military history, Economic and Social History and the History of Science. We note too, the recent election to Fellowship of the British Academy of Professor Jane Whittle and Professor Mark Jackson, whose work has also inspired and guided ours. We have seen our undergraduates go on to prosper as graduate students in Exeter’s School of Archaeology and History, and recruit Exeter students to our own graduate programmes with enthusiasm, knowing they will have had excellent preparation for their studies. These strengths have taken decades to establish but could be undermined in a matter of months. Such losses would diminish the University’s academic standing, weaken its ability to attract outstanding staff and students, and jeopardise the reputation on which the University’s long-term institutional success depends./The case for cuts of this scale is difficult to reconcile with the University’s own recent financial position or with the continued strength of the disciplines most heavily affected. Rather than protecting Exeter’s future, these proposals, and the consequent restructuring and generalising of the curriculum, risk causing lasting reputational and financial harm while reducing the quality and bread…

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Paul Baldowski 🔜 Furnace, Sheffield (Oct. 10–11) @paulbaldowski.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Unintentionally meandering read of the excellent Spycraft by @misswalsingham.bsky.social and @elegantfowl.bsky.social has finally come to a close. A great read about the dark artifice of Tudor/Stuart spies with a suitably dangerous appendix for the curious. www.amazon.co.uk/Spycraft-Tri...

The cover of Spycraft, featuring a figure with a lantern dressed in hat and cloak, the latter decorated with eye and ear motif. Black cover with white wording and illustration, bordered in pale blue. A bookmark from Blackwells in Oxford is visible beneath the book, which is leaning against the bottom edge of a laptop computer.

Two dozen coloured sticky tabs sticking out of the side of a paperback book.

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Steven Van Impe @svanimpe.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Sad news I've only just heard: Albert Derolez has left us. He was 91, and one of the foremost palaeographers and codicologists in the world.

Albert Derolez last year, holding his latest publication on the Liber Floridus, a Dutch popular science book.

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Uncle Duke @uncleduke1969.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

“Everyone say cheese!” “Cheese!” “Cheese!” “Cheese!” “Cheese!” “Fuck you, Theresa.”

A group of four fluffy white dogs and one fluffy white cat, all wearing red and festive patterned bandanas, posing indoors. The cat does not look amused.

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

My heart is heavy that we are making a collective miscalculation in undervaluing the humanities - from my FT piece www.ft.com/content/fbde...

Thinking is hard. Reflection is hard. Perhaps we will persist with our collective miscalculation and ignore all that philosophy, literature, classics and history have to offer us. The humanities have a word for this: tragedy.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

'In the past year, the University of Sussex shed 528 members of staff, with plans to increase that figure by 200.' 'In May, the University of Hertfordshire said it would suspend multiple undergraduate humanities courses.' 1/4

newstatesman.com

How to kill a university's reputation

After Exeter’s announcement that it will cut 150 academic jobs, is there any hope for higher education?

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Christophe Plantin printed a number of school editions, including Virgil’s Aeneid, with wide margins & generous line spacing for students’ notes. This copy is especially remarkable: it belonged to his grandson, the young Balthasar I Moretus. Judging by his aannotations, he was a diligent student!

Detail of two facing pages, on the left handwritten notes, on the right the heavily annotated printed Latin text

Title page of the book, reading ‘Pvbl. Virgilii Maronis Aeneidos Liber VI.’ It contains a woodcut engraving of Plantin’s printer’s mark and his imprint.

The first page of the main text with notes in between the lines and margins facing an interleaved page filled with handwritten notes.

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Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @peterpaulrubens.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

2/2 Still life of the five senses. Can you figure out what means what? Sebastian Stosskopf (#BTD 1593) liked these riddles.

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Kathleen E. Kennedy @themedievaldrk.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

And this has been true for 15 years--time and again they claim that it's necessary business, but the business world does (and trains) otherwise. Uni admin are a) lying b) applying business rules a generation out of date or c) both.

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yaoi gagarin @mel.bzky.team · 12/07/2026

well okay so the english won against the norwegians but in only a few days theyll have to face the french. anyway thats quite enough about September 25th 1066, lets look at some football news

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Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @peterpaulrubens.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Basket of fruit. But just flip it over, and it becomes a fruity fellow! Visual wit of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, whose day is today.

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