iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Many thanks to Michael Burri for inviting me to write about my new article for the Blog of the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies: botstiberbiaas.org/what-the-ame... 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

When I first came to career choice as a topic for historical study, I was enchanted by George McClure's work on the "culture of profession in Late Renaissance Italy". Floored to see the article his work inspired–from which a dissertation grew–cited in his new book's conclusion. 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

From the life of Parisian tenants: 1. Eviction, 1912 2. Association: the inaugural meeting of the 12th arrondissement's tenants association, 1924

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

From the life of renters in Paris: 1. Eviction of tenants, 1912 2. The inaugural meeting of the tenants' association of12 arrondissement, 1924

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Please share this CFA with your graduate students. I am happy to sponsor applications. Nearby archives, including the Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People (located at the National Library in Jerusalem), host valuable collections—including a newly indexed collection on Yugoslav Jewry.

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

The great thing about teaching a grad seminar: after I shared my excitement with them, the students committed to writing their term papers on Sven Beckert's new, much-anticipated global history of capitalism — and we'll dedicate a portion of each session to progress reports. 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

So, you think calculus is hard? Good luck making sense of the right to vote in Habsburg Austria (from a wonderful article by Birgitta Bader-Zaar) 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Halldór Laxness is my spirit animal. So relatable at such a young age.

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

הזכרתי בכיתה השבוע את הנריק פונטופידן, סופר דני שזכה בפרס הנובל ב-1917. הבטחתי לסטודנטים שאתרגם להם קצת כי אין בעברית. הנה קטע קצר גם לכם, קצת אחרי שהגיבור הנוצרי וארוסתו היהודייה, בטיול בלתי מתוכנן אל האלפים, מגלים שהם חולקים סלידה, עוד מילדות, מפעמוני כנסייה:

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

I personally find it very cool that the National and University Library of Iceland allows you to browse its catalog in English, Icelandic, and... Polish.

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Grammarly rarely understands the metaphors I try to inject into my writing--but this paraphrase is really remarkably off the mark. Also: chronology! (I was talking about the end of serfdom + paternalistic ideologies of ruler-subjects relations...)

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

I needed to add a reference to one piece of legislation by Joseph II, which I thought would be easy to locate -- until I opened this book, candidate for the world's least helpful Table of Contents, that seems to mock me directly 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

The best postdoctoral fellowship in Israel is now open for applications. The money is entirely sufficient for subsistence, the facilities are utterly stunning, and the administrative staff is friendly and supportive. I am happy to answer questions... 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Surprisingly, I haven't been to Barcelona yet. I'll be expanding my article in JESHO, which asked whether guilds beyond Europe really had journeymen. Now I'll move from "Islamic" guilds to Russian guilds -- asking more explicitly how the Russian Empire shaped artisanal life in its borderlands...

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

This seems broadly applicable to me: perhaps I should let white ants serve as peer reviewers for my faltering article manuscripts... From the diaries of Swiss artist Alice Boner, Varanasi (India), 1941. 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

Tomorrow's the first day of classes, and I am very excited to open the semester with a graduate seminar, "Global and World History: Approaches and Recent Studies." Here's our reading list! 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

I am writing an article to convince American high school teachers to adopt recent historiography on nationalism in 19th-century Europe in their classrooms. This screenshot from an immensely popular test-prep book for AP World History demonstrates how confused and blurry the curriculum is.

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

"Passing through here, one feels for the first time that this segment of Europe is interwoven with those unknown, secret mysteries of life which France, England, or Spain have never touched." -- The Indian writer Nirmal Verma on Central Europe, the 1960s.

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

I even have a faculty photo and everything!

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

As a Habsburgist, I was *very* glad to find out during my walks around Delhi that some of my favorite buildings in the city, including the Yugoslav embassy and buildings in the Jamia Milli Islamia, were designed by an Austrian architect, Karl Malte von Heinz -- a Bauhaus refugee from Nazi Germany. 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

My friend in Thekkady, too, is worried about the state of humanity.

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

My morning walk in Kerala passed through 4 churches, a mosque with a madrasa, a hammer and sickle, an invitation to "Che's Martyrdom Day" celebrated by the Communist Party's youth wing, and a massage parlor presenting Jesus, the Ka'abah, and the locally revered Ayyappan together.

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Started my first morning in Delhi with a guided tour, perhaps a pilgrimage, to see the hotel's peacock. A staff member took me there after I expressed my excitement over the squirrels climbing over tables at the outdoor café...

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

Revisiting Lévi-Strauss on Indian cities. If one accepts his characterization of Calcutta and the underlying difference in European vs Indian urbanity, it must testify to the transformation of European urban life--his description would've rung familiar to many Europeans a century+ beforehand.

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Deepavali/Diwali season began at Singapore's Indian Heritage Centre. The museum is free on weekends, featuring festive activities such as free henna, tea/snacks, and dress-up opportunities. A wonderful place (best paired with Ar-Rahman's roti prata at Tekka Centre nearby).

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

The Straits Times, in Singapore, weighing in on Yugoslavia's fate, July 1991:

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

The best triangle of Singapore: the National Archives, the Children's Museum, and the Armenian Church/Street. Those who genuinely wish to be world historians -- in the sense of historians of everywhere -- should learn Armenian... 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Alas, another ancient craft has fallen prey to mechanization. At least it accepts Apple Pay.

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

The building behind me used to be Singapore's only private and Chinese-language university. The institution eventually merged into the National University of Singapore, whereas the building is in the territory of Nanyang Technological University. There's a small museum inside that's worth visiting.🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

Spent my first sunset in Singapore watching Malaysia from across the bridge. Hopefully, I'll be able to visit one day...

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

Ha! I uploaded the wrong screenshot. Now *that's* the research proposal I submitted this morning, hoping to fund a few M.A. and one Ph.D. students to work with me on the literary and political history of youth movements in nineteenth-century Europe... ("Non-Asian words" is such a bizarre metric.)

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

I am very pleased that I could find an online copy to order -- a bilingual edition! -- for my State, Society, and Science in the Atomic Age class this Spring...

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

Today, I had a Hindi lesson and gave a talk about exam anxiety & parent-child relationships in 19th-century Europe, so it's the perfect day to discover that the Prime Minister of India has written a children's book since then holds a yearly meeting with parents/teachers/children on this very topic

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Every time that I read about a nineteenth-century traveler who returned from faraway lands with hundreds of books, I certainly feel envious of the logistical assistance they must have enjoyed... Goodbye, Berlin!

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Master Mehmut's workshop in Athens, diligently working on creating new signs in the Latin alphabet, including the allegedly Latin-script enthusiast apprentices...

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

Is this sentence targeted explicitly at people practicing their Hindi at 11:00 p.m. on a Friday?

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

A fascinating letter from the National Archives of Suriname (1951): A Surinamese man who had recently left Indonesia, now independent, and sought employment in the Netherlands, asks the royal family to consider him for a position in Suriname. He wants a job in the Credit Bank. The problem? 1/2

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

The perils of digitization: one of the major providers of digitized journals in Germany is closing without any "successor platform." Only "a large part" of its holdings will remain available on other platforms. And the rest? Delete and empty the trash bin? 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

I keep a collection of reflections by scholars on what learning a new language did for their work -- to motivate myself and my students. Here is Peter Brown on Syriac's transimperialism & "a history of suffering unequaled in the ancient world for its compassion and concreteness." 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

I paid for one simit. While the bakery worker asked me about my Turkish, she filled the entire bag. "For your wife and children." I have none, but I did say "husband" just to make a point. "Let it be husband [Olsun, kocan]. He would love this pastry, cheese, olives..." 🇹🇷❤️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

To judge if a schoolmaster in 17th-century Amsterdam was capable, you examined the board he made to showcase his skills, sometimes including a short poem. Clearly, enough teachers hired someone to do it eloquently & neatly for them that not insignificant fines were imposed for deterrence...

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

I am gratified to see my chapter on the History of Secondary Education in Europe displayed as a featured article on the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education's homepage!

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Finally, my book collection now has some Upper Sorbian in it. And an autobiographical, coming-of-age trilogy! How exciting! And to think the publishing house sells them for 2–5 EUR a volume...

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

This is a really good article. 🗃️

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

The National Gallery in Berlin added cool info about provenance to the 1st floor. Poland donated this + 116 other works to the GDR in 1954, expecting in return the restitution of Polish pieces the Nazis had confiscated. The GDR found none, so they gifted an electronic microscope instead.

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

ה-guilty pleasure האמיתי שלי הוא עיצוב אתרי הקורסים, על אף שאני בספק שאפילו לסטודנטים אכפת

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

In 1810, Julius von Voß predicted in a novel set in 21st-century Berlin that Europe would become monolingual, having the "folly" of mastering its "dialects" "abolished." Much worse, he thought that few would be called "wise" then, "for wisdom was no longer considered a rarity."

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

The CIA could have easily launched its own university/program rankings. Their reports, usually after visits to universities outside their usual turf, are incredibly detailed: finances, hirings, intellectual environment, placement... Maybe too rose-eyed about students' perception of the CIA though.

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Orel Beilinson @orelb.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

I read this CIA invitation to a panel on "office automation" right after a news item about a man lured by Meta's AI to New York, where he then died???: It is wonderful how we progressed from "screens are bad for your eyes" to "irresponsible chatting might feed your psychosis."

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