iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If the kitten were to make biscuits I think I’d need to call them ruff fluff because he is floofing up for colder times

Paz Trilliam Purrmann leaning back with his neck fluff going up his nose. Paz’s blue eyes are lazily open

Paz on a blue and light blue duvet, looking very fluffy

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Paz Purrmann finds your cat’s strategy acceptable

Paz Purrmann sitting in the garden surrounded by yellowing dogwood leaves and silvery bedding plants

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Are you even speaking at a British Library study day on the American Revolution if you’re not performatively dressed as the American Revolution? Asking for a friend

Photo of a foot wearing a flat red shoe, a blue and white polka dot dress, and a blue and white scarf covered in tiny pigs of knowledge

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I do not regret to inform you that I am bank holiday weekending hard

Two bronzed pastéis de nata on a balcony with Porto and the Douro River in the background

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Pleased with the heavily improvised fruit tart I made this weekend. Bravetart’s pie crust, blind baked, instead of the crust that goes with the rest(ish) of David Lebovitz’s recipe for summer fruit tart. Except I had no almond flour, and made up the weight with 90g flaked almonds and 40g pine nuts

A frangipane(ish) tart in a fluted tart pan on a round baking tray. The tart has sliced nectarines and between the nectarines are streaks of foraged berries. Paz Purrmann sits on a cabinet in the backround, head facing backwards, and his tail drapes lazily down

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Did you know that when you throw watermelon in the blender and strain it, it gets this foam, like egg white/aquafaba? This is watermelon juice blended again with a handful of basil, simple syrup, lemon, and gin

A pink drink with pink foam and a thin green layer in a short cocktail glass on a wood kitchen top. In the background, an open cabinet reveals a white salt pig

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Editing vibes: weeping angel (don’t blink)

Paz Purrmann sleeps with both black paws crossed over his face

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Great mail day! I was really pleased to get my copy of Food Production and Gender across the Early Modern World, ed. Melissa Calaresu and Marta Manzanares Mileo, which includes my chapter on Senauki and the “milk and honey meeting” www.routledge.com/Food-Product...

Book cover for Food Production and Gender featuring Vincenzo Campi’s “The Kitchen”

Table of contents (available in post hyperlink)

First page of chapter by Rachel B. Herrmann, “Vessels on a vessel: Senauki, water, and an anti-cattle protest in colonial Georgia”

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

The Global Food History Prize for an Emerging Food Historian is back! Tell your friends; tell your MA and PhD students; tell your ECRs: rachelbherrmann.com/global-food-...

Global Food History Prize for an Emerging Food Historian

The editors of Global Food History are pleased to announce that in 2027 the journal will once again offer a Prize for an Emerging Food Historian. Award winners will receive $100, the opportunity to have their contribution peer-reviewed and—pending successful reviews and revisions—published in the journal with an acknowledgment of the prize win. Articles should be 8,000 to 10,000 words (including notes), and should be based on primary source research. Articles should deal with at least one of the following historical concepts: time (change or continuity), causation and causality, context (historical and historiographical), or complexity. A full description of the journal’s aims and scope is available here.

This prize will be awarded to an early career scholar or an established historian who has not yet published in the field of food history. Early career applicants must be no longer than three years past receipt of a PhD by the stated submission deadline, but need not have received a PhD to apply. Revised seminar papers, MA and Mphil theses, and standalone dissertation chapters are all welcome. In the case of career breaks extending the time since earning a PhD beyond the three year limit, applicants may submit a 250-word statement making a case for inclusion.

To apply for the prize, applicants should remove all identifying information from the body and notes of their draft article, and submit it as a Word or PDF document to Dr Rachel Herrmann (HerrmannR@cardiff.ac.uk) by 1 November 2026. Applicants should also include a second, separate Word or PDF document containing a brief cover letter stating their name, email address, affiliation, and date of PhD (if applicable). The editors aim to return feedback to all authors by spring 2027.

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

"A @pennpress.bsky.social sale," you say? www.pennpress.org/2026-summer-... Where you might acquire a copy of our book? Where you might acquire more than one copy, with the discount below? And then attend this event? www.pennpress.org/events/rache... Who amongst us does not love books and chats?

A discount flyer for Claiming Land, Claiming Water: Borders and the People Who Crossed Them in the Early Modern Atlantic, ed. Rachel B. Herrmann and Jessica Choppin Roney. For a 30% discount order at www.pennpress.org and use discount code PENN-CLAIMING30 (outside the US order at order at https://mngbookshop.co.uk/ and use discount code UPPNN30)

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

As I prepare to cross back over the ocean to wrap up the semester, I’m posting snaps of our book in the wild at the @pennpress.bsky.social OAH book exhibit. What a joy to be in such great company and to catch up with friends old and new!

Photo of a grinning Rachel Herrmann, surrounded by books and book posters, wearing lavender octopus overalls and holding Claiming Land, Claiming Water: Borders and the People Who Crossed Them in the Early Modern Atlantic

Photo of a beaming Jessica Roney, surrounded by books and book posters, wearing leopard-print trousers and a blank tank and holding Claiming Land, Claiming Water: Borders and the People Who Crossed Them in the Early Modern Atlantic

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

If you’re headed to the OAH next week and have copious spare time, pre-circulated papers for our Early America session (feat. me and @chrisparsons.bsky.social) are now available to read: portal.oah.org/oah26/sessio... Come help @jlhill.bsky.social and Drew Lipman to ask good questions!

Downloadable paper links for Chris Parsons, “The Ordeal of the Longhouse on Trial: Early America, Canadian Courts, and the Articulation of Aboriginal Rights in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries” and Rachel Herrmann, “Rivers and Bays and Swamps, Oh My!: Thinking about Waterways in Creek and Seminole Homelands”

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

If you’re not barbecuing in the mizzle on a British holiday, you’re doing it wrong. I am making @smittenkitchen.bsky.social English muffins on the grill

12 English muffins with light browning lines on a barbecue with a dogwood, hydrangea, and rhododendron in the background

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

Claiming Land, Claiming Water: Borders and the People Who Crossed Them in the Early Modern Atlantic arrived at the houses of Pretzel and Paz Purrmann this week, and their humans (Jessica Roney, and me) were pretty jazzed @pennpress.bsky.social

Photo of Jessica Roney in a blue sweater holding a copy of our book. Pretzel, the cat, is in background right, with his white-gloved paw extended in an elegant pose.

Photo of Rachel Herrmann in a blue shell holding a copy of our book. Paz Purrmann stands at left, looking at Rachel/the book/his bag of food. Paz is white with seal pointing and his fluffy gray tail is elevated with interest

Table of contents featuring Rachel Herrmann and Jessica Choppin Roney, Edward Gray, Christian Koot, Alex Zukas, John Morton, and Paul Musselwhite

Second page of the table of contents featuring Kim Gruenwald, Karen Rann, Charles Prior, Chad McCutchen and Jennifer Monroe McCutchen, Rachel Herrmann, Harvey Amani Whitfield and Sarah Chute, and Samuel Truett

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

The only thing better than having your publication date moved up? Having your publication date moved up to your birthday! Claiming Land, Claiming Water is now due out on March 17th, and the kind folks at @pennpress.bsky.social have gifted us this discount code at www.pennpress.org/978151282925...

Discount flyer for purchase of Claiming Land, Claiming Water, with the discount code of 30% with code PENN-CLAIMING30 for orders in the United States, and code CSPENN30 for orders outside the Americas

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Holidays are over, and I'm motivating myself through the marking and emails by sharing the cover for Claiming Land, Claiming Water: Borders and the People Who Crossed Them in the Early Modern Atlantic with @pennpress.bsky.social. Please indulge me! www.pennpress.org/978151282925... #skystorians

Book cover depicting a map cartouche of four Indigenous people--two on land, two in a canoe--and a snippet from the map of yellow, pink, and green watercolor borders drawn by John Povey, clerk to William Blathwayt, on Robert Morden and William Berry’s A Map of New England New Yorke New Iersey Mary-Land & Virginia (ca. 1676).

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

What’s everyone making this weekend? I have gone very carby with the Smitten Kitchen sour cream and cheese biscuits, and ropa vieja and plantain empanadas

Square-shaped biscuits with many layers, golden brown on top. There are bananas and a bowl of garlic in the background

A generous portion of half moon-shaped empanadas that have been crimped with a fork and fried, on a paper towel on top of a plate

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

This Friday end of Week 4, I am grateful to Paz Purrmann for his support on edits and emails

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Yesterday I submitted the proofs for Claiming Land, Claiming Water: Borders and the People Who Crossed Them in the Early Modern Atlantic. This volume I’m editing with Jessica Roney is out next spring with @pennpress.bsky.social, but here’s a peek now at our table of contents!

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Please wish me luck attempting to have a research day today in light of the cute to-do list that Past Rachel left me for next week

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Timeline cleanse: meet Paz Purrmann

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

If you wait long enough into January, the news cycle will make clear what image your syllabus needs. Benjamin Martyn and James Oglethorpe, map from Martyn’s 2d edition of Reasons for Establishing the Colony of Georgia, available @jcblibrary.bsky.social: jcb.lunaimaging.com/ll/thumbnail...

A sepia-tone 1733 map of the places that became the southeastern United States, before the United States existed and when Spain claimed more territory than England. The sea below the Florida panhandle is labelled “part of the bay of Mexico.” The land to the north is falsely described as having no inhabitants.

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

Roll up, early rising Skystorians 🗃️. Hope to see you at our Saturday 8:30am AHA panel next week celebrating American Contact with @popcultureamerica.bsky.social, Alejandra Dubcovsky, Abimbola Kai-Lewis, Jessica Linker, Isadora Moura Mota, Daniel Radus, and Corinna Zeltsman

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

I’m visiting Mexico City for the first time this week for holiday, but of course the Floridas are following me. Encountered Bernardo de Gálvez in Castelo de Chapultepec

Portrait of Bernardo de Gálvez riding a horse with its two front legs in the air. Gálvez’a face and hands are skin-toned but his uniform and the horse are depicted with swirling white lines

Another portrait of Gálvez describing his activities in Louisiana and the Floridas. He wears blue and red with lace at his cuffs and gazes at the viewer

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

I was very lucky that Jessica Roney was in my class of fellows at @mcneilcenter.bsky.social, and now, many years and a grant later, I am luckier to be co-editing a volume with her. Stay turned for our volume on borders and the people who crossed them, now under contract with @pennpress.bsky.social

Publishing agreement with the University of Pennsylvania Press naming Rachel B. Herrmann and Jessica Choppin Roney editors for a volume provisionally titled Claiming Land, Claiming Water: Borders and the People Who Crossed Them in the Early Modern Atlantic

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Sunday kitchen scenes: mountains of butter and cream cheese

Kitchen island with a measuring scale, food processor, and two bowls heaped with softening butter and Philadelphia cream cheese

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Happy Saturday, food history folks! Please share this call for the Global Food History Prize for an Emerging Food Historian, with a deadline of January 1: rachelbherrmann.com/global-food-...

The editors of Global Food History are pleased to announce that in 2025 the journal will once again offer a Prize for an Emerging Food Historian. Award winners will receive $100, the opportunity to have their contribution peer-reviewed and—pending successful reviews and revisions—published in the journal with an acknowledgment of the prize win. Articles should be 8,000 to 10,000 words (including notes), and should be based on primary source research. Articles should deal with at least one of the following historical concepts: time (change or continuity), causation and causality, context (historical and historiographical), or complexity. A full description of the journal’s aims and scope is available [link]

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Rachel Herrmann @raherrmann.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Look, if you followed me because you missed the train and commuting updates, I’m pleased to share this gorgeous view from Temple Meads, which was followed pretty much immediately by my train being cancelled

Text from the Cross Country train app showing no train updates available

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