iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

That's a three times' increase in as many years, and about 12,000 more than the year I submitted mine in 2024.

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Sara Ellis-Nilsson (she/her), PhD 🕊️ @ellisnilsson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Interesting (and important) example that once again reminds us of the need to dispell the (seemingly neverending) myth that the digital equates to speed in all areas.

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Annalisa Nicholson @apuddleofmuddle.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

It's just weird isn't it when the British Museum is running a sold-out exhibition, when The Odyssey reports $1billion at the box office, when the V&A has just opened the most innovative and accessible museum model in Europe....and this is what our minister for research comes out with.

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Less disappointed than just baffled by noticing this ?new aspect of a SOLO entry (the online catalogue of the Bodleian libraries) - note the acknowledgement in the last line of AI use to populate metadata, apparently to create the most useless description of a book I've ever seen 🤔

Screenshot of a Bodleian library catalogue entry for a book called Anatole France en Pantoufles: the 'description' field reads "This book appears to be a detailed examination of a specific subject matter, potentially involving scientific, technical, or academic content. The dimensions and pricing suggest it might be a formal publication, possibly targeted at professionals or students in a particular field. Without additional context, it is challenging to determine the exact topic or the author's intent. However, the structured nature of the book implies a focus on providing in-depth information or analysis to an audience seeking specialized knowledge."

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Interested in any thoughts on this image...

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Shaily Patel @vox-magica.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

i sometimes wonder if academia brought some of this efficiency BS on ourselves with our endless grind mindset. there’s always been value in slow, deliberate scholarship. when we truncated the process, we tend to most truncate the deliberating part.

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Calling anyone & everyone interested in saints: Saints Outside Hagiography has *two* calls open for you to consider! First, for our next series of monthly online workshops: get in touch to propose a source from your research about saints and sanctity to discuss in an informal setting, by 25 Sept.

We invite expressions of interest to participate in the Saints Outside Hagiography workshop series 2026–2027. Our group examines how saints and holy people are represented outside the classic form of the single-text hagiography.
Sessions so far have examined texts including: visual art, poetry, mortuary rolls, chronicles, liturgical texts, didactic literature, and objects. We offer an informal, work-in-progress format focused on discussion of primary sources and key methodological questions in the study of saints.
Meetings consist of 1-2 brief presentations, discussing a text or object
precirculated along with a short description and the speaker’s guiding questions.
If you have a source related to sanctity that you would like to discuss, please get in touch with Laura Moncion (laura.moncion@philosophie.uni-tuebingen.de) and Alicia Smith (alicia.smith@uib.no) by 25 September 2026 with a brief description of the source, career stage, and institutional affiliation if any.
Guidelines:
• Chronological and geographical scope are open.
• Participants are free to contest whether a text is ‘outside hagiography’ – we aim to study saints and the construction of saint/sanctity beyond canonical textual forms, including troubling our understanding of those forms.
• If your source is not in English, we will need an English translation.

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International Medieval Congress Leeds @imc-leeds.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

🎊 Look at how many CfPs are on the #IMC2027 Padlet page! 🎊 Check out the IMC Padlet by clicking the link here: tinyurl.com/IMC2027Padlet If you’d like us to add your CFP to the Padlet, please tag us on bluesky at @imc-leeds.bsky.social, or email us at imc@leeds.ac.uk #MedievalSky

The IMC Padlet page full of many different Call for Papers

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Nathan Melson @nsmelson.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I did this years ago on Twitter, but, here's a list of tools/utilities that every medievalist show know about and have bookmarked: #medievalsky

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Saints Outside Hagiography is going to Leeds 2027! Co-sponsored by the Hagiography Society (www.hagiographysociety.org) we are planning a panel series to go deeper into the issues our online workshop has opened up this year. Paper proposals can be submitted here: forms.cloud.microsoft/r/Qqv6AA7q4K

Saints Outside Hagiography Leeds 2027 Call for Papers

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THAISIS @thaisisproject.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

One of my favourite images of Thais: something of a sly smile, and what is she looking at? 👀 Bibliothèque Nationale Française, MS Esp. 44, f.219v.

A medieval manuscript page with an illuminated initial T showing a woman with a wimple looking out of the window of a small building.

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Amalia S. Levi, PhD @amaliasl.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

📢 Once more for the people in the back: - Most [more than 95%] of archives have not been digitized. - Most of humanity's knowledge and memory is *not* reachable by LLMs. - Believing that AI can provid you with comprehensive, definitive, "intelligent" results is folly.

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

My work at the moment is funded by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoc fellowship, and I've posted some updates in this thread on the project's own bsky @thaisisproject.bsky.social - will probably cross-post some here, but do follow if you're interested in all things 'harlot saints'!

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Seems like sth for #medievalsky: this (interesting!) BBC article about the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry in London states that it is 'not actually a tapestry' but a wool embroidery; but my seamstress mother thought that wasn't right because embroidery with wool is broadly called tapestry in the UK.

bbc.co.uk

Bayeux Tapestry delivered to British Museum in dead of night

The famous artefact depicting events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England will go on display in September.

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Hope to see anyone interested in Latin poetry, medieval education, and manuscript transmission at our session at @imc-leeds.bsky.social in the 14:15 session 📜

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Looking forward to @imc-leeds.bsky.social starting Monday! I'm co-organising a panel presenting new manuscript research on the works of Marbod of Rennes. You may never have heard of him but come along if you're interested in poetry and education, manuscript compilation, & odd accidents of reception!

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

The first series of the Saints Outside Hagiography workshop has been a fascinating set of discussions on sources from murals to tombs to birth girdles - we have one more meeting left this summer, so join us if you want to hear about St Nicholas and music teaching + Jain monasticism and ritual!

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Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

A lot of media coverage of the ‘AI’ reading of the Herculaneum scrolls really fails to understand what’s happened here. There’s no language processing happening, the AI/ML is not trained on a corpus of texts or language. It can detect ink to see shapes. HUMAN EXPERTS are then transcribing the text.

A screenshot from here: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-02-07-inside-herculaneum-scroll-seen-first-time-almost-2000-years

It explains that the machine learning involves only the detection of ink

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Make it stop!!!! Sign below 👇😠

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

After experimenting with a low/no-screen environment last semester, I'd also like to hear about others' experiences!

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medieval marginalia @medievalmarginalia.com · 25/03/2026

I LOVE WHEN PEOPLE LEARN THIS

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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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Steffen Hope @hopesteffen.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

This is an excellent thread on the need for grinding through the sources in order to know them. There is no shortcut to this kind of work. It is only through intensive source analysis that we are able to recognise patterns & - just as important - recognise what is not a pattern.

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Rebecca Menmuir @rebeccamenmuir.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Next Friday 27th, I'll be speaking at the Birkbeck Medieval Seminar - a day thinking about medievalism and 'Whose Middle Ages?'. Should be a great day, and it has been organised excellently by Daniel Sawyer (@danielsawyer.bsky.social) and Nick Evans. All welcome! www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...

bbk.ac.uk

Birkbeck Medieval Seminar 2026: Whose Middle Ages?

Join us for our annual interdisciplinary medieval research day. This year we will be discussing claims people make on the Middle Ages today.

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Alice Wickenden @awickenden.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

digital tools are going to change the world! btw that database you rely on no longer exists; that website you got a grant for will be gone in 3 years; have you considered doing an online edition instead?; we only do PDF review copies, For The Planet; would you like me to summarise that PDF for you?

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Do you know somebody who needs to learn Latin from scratch or improve their Latin to PhD standard? CMS Toronto's summer Latin program is now entirely online and a remarkable bargain for the intensity and quality of instruction. Details here: www.medieval.utoronto.ca/latin/summer... #medievalsky

medieval.utoronto.ca

Summer Latin Program | Centre for Medieval Studies

Find out about studying Latin at the Centre during the summer. Includes application information, fees, and available courses.

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Our first session of Saints Outside Hagiography is today! @lgisseleire.bsky.social on mortuary rolls and me on the Throckmorton prayer roll. Excited to get started!

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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Students had it tough during the worst of covid. But their education continued and they were able to get their degrees, despite a global pandemic and dysfunctional government. Like 1000s of colleagues, I worked way over the odds, while dealing with domestic pressures. This action feels very cruel.

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Dr Hope Doherty-Harrison @hdohertyharrison.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

#medievalsky does anyone know if there are any texts (biblical, medieval, or anything in between) about whether Judas was thought to have been born before Jesus, or the other way around? Grateful for any advice!

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Talking about postcolonial literature and magic with my Masters class this week has me thinking back to my brief (as in, one-off!) pandemic-era venture into podcasting - if you don't know Elizabeth Knox's work and you're at all interested in SFF, worth a listen! podcasts.ox.ac.uk/elizabeth-knox

podcasts.ox.ac.uk

Elizabeth Knox

An analysis and discussion of the contemporary fantasy writer Elizabeth Know, by Dr Alicia Smith.

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North Ages @northages.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Feb 11: Feast of Cædmon (†680), monk of Streanæshalch (Whitby). Cowherd who, in his advanced years, was divinely endowed with a gift for poetry and song. Bede says the scriptures were interpreted for him and he would create religious compositions beyond compare. #medievalsky

Stone memorial to the saint in St Mary's Churchyard, Whitby, showing Cædmon clutching a lyre as an angel touches it.

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

A lovely email to receive first thing on a Monday: my article 'Poet-Bishop and Harlot Saint: Marbod of Rennes's Life of Thais in Context' was selected as Feminae's Article of the Month! inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/Arti...

inpress.lib.uiowa.edu

Feminae - Article of the Month

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Diane Watt @dianewatt.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Look what arrived today, or at least the ebook did. This is the first encyclopedia devoted exclusively to medieval women’s writing globally,focusing on the thousand-year period between 500-1500. Entries on about 250 women writers plus longer thematic essays. You’re welcome.

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Saints Outside Hagiography starts next month! A new workshop-style series, discussing work in progress on saints in unusual sources. Come and join us ❤️‍🔥 drive.google.com/file/d/1-BPc...

Announcement: Saints Outside Hagiography
Winter-Spring Series 2026
Where do saints appear outside the classic genre of the hagiography? How do they show up in art, literature, teaching texts, and everyday religious practices? This group brings together scholars interested in saints and sanctity across global history and culture, to explore how
they are constructed in forms other than the single-text hagiography or ‘sacred biography’. In our online workshop sessions, we discuss two pre-circulated short excerpts from historical sources, briefly presented by scholars working on them.

Friday March 6 – Saints on a Roll (or Two)
Alicia Smith: Reclusive Saints as Models on the Throckmorton Layman’s Prayer Roll
Laura Gisseleire: The Mortuary Roll of Lucy of Hedingham

Friday March 27 – Saints in Images and Murals
Marianne Kupin-Lisbin: The Miraculous St Mary of Olovo
Maia Man-Abramiuc: The Transylvanian Mural of St Margaret

Friday April 24 – Representations of Saints in Prayers
Jenny Bledsoe: Prayers to Quiricus and Julitta in the Medieval Birth Girdle Tradition
Iliana Kandzha: A Prayer to St Apollonia from De Speghel der Sammiticheyt

Friday May 15 – Saints in Unlikely Places
Fawaz Abdul Salam: The Sultan as a Saintly Figure in Early Ottoman Poetry
Heather Blurton: William of Norwich Keystone in Girona, Spain

Friday June 26 – Saints in Annals and Anti-Hagiographies
Hope Doherty-Harrison: Extracts from Biographies of Judas
Steffen Hope: Annalistic Hagiography? The Case of Margareta of Roskilde

Friday July 31 – Saints in Teaching Texts and Epigraphs
Mary Channen Caldwell: St Nicholas in the Musical Hand
Kshitij Jain: Monastic Figures and Sacred Places in Jain Ritual Texts

All meetings take place on Zoom, at 4pm-5:30pm CET / 3pm-4:30pm GMT / 10am-11:30am EST unless otherwise indicated.

If you would like to attend these sessions, please email Laura
Moncion (laura.moncion@philosophie.uni-tuebingen.de) or Alicia Smith
(alicia.smith@uib.no).

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Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

And later this term, we'll be hosting ‘Whose Middle Ages?’, the Annual Birkbeck Medieval Seminar, with Daniel Sawyer, Rebecca Menmuir, Olenka Pevny, George Bartlett. More information about the event and booking here: www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event... www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...

Birkbeck Medieval Seminar 2026: Whose Middle Ages?

When: 27 March 2026, 10:00 — 17:00
Venue: Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square

Book your place

The Middle Ages are all around us. As the philosopher, medievalist and novelist Umberto Eco pointed out 30 years ago, 'before rejoicing or grieving over a return of the Middle Ages, we have the moral and cultural duty of spelling out what kind of Middle Ages we are talking about'. Since then, we have seen a diversification of scholarly approaches to the Middle Ages, including global and decolonial approaches. But how have these academic discussions related to discussions and representations of the Middle Ages in the wider culture?

At the 2026 Birkbeck Medieval Seminar, join us for a day of discussion about the claims that are placed upon the Middle Ages, in poetry, art and the wider culture. Taking up the question asked by Andrew Albin et al. in their 2019 book, Whose Middle Ages? Teachable Moments in an Ill-Used Past, Birkbeck's Dr Daniel Sawyer and Dr Nick Evans will be joined by Dr Rebecca Menmuir (University of Oxford), Dr Olenka Pevny (University of Cambridge) and Dr George Bartlett (Courtauld) to assess the continued power of ideas from and about the Middle Ages in contemporary culture.

Full programme to follow.

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New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

This is fundamentally shite of Google, and it's a good moment to recall that archive.org holds about 900K public-domain books originally digitised by Google, and that IA's metadata may be lousy but their search is good.

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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

I hate to tap the sign but again: this is all made to make in-person education and access to knowledge transfer a preserve of the elite. Human education for the few, bots for the many.

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Check out the CFP for the Gender & Medieval Studies conference in Oxford in Sept! Theme is ✨GENDER & CREATIVITY✨ Conf generously support by University College, Oxford; the John Fell Fund (Oxford University); the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship; the GMS group; & @guildmedmak.bsky.social

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The Parker Library @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Exciting news for fans of Richard Rolle of the 'The Fire of Love' fame ❤️‍🔥 Dr Timothy Glover, recently Parker Library Early-Career Research Fellow, has made a once-in-a-lifetime discovery that brings us closer to the beloved mystic, hermit and author Richard Rolle (d.1349) tinyurl.com/e3266str

Screenshot with a banner text 'The hermit's best-seller' in pink and 'The only surviving original version of one of late medieval England's most popular works of literature reveals its secrets' in white on black background and a medieval painting of two men. Below the banner is an image of Dr Glover on the right and text 'Parker Library Research Fellow reveals the secrets of one of England's most popular works of medieval literature' on the left.

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

I like the point here that anchoresses (and anchorites too, but maybe particularly the women?) seem to have a special quality of confusing, and I'd say even upsetting, modern people - demanding we reflect on our own perspective / assumptions about life.

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

The deadline for expressions of interest is approaching (15 Jan) - please do consider getting in touch!

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Interesting PhD opportunity! Flood stories are some of the climate-related scifi that stayed with me the most from childhood - 'Exodus' by Julie Bertagna, 'The Kraken Wakes' by John Wyndham (where sea levels rise because of creatures in the deep, rather than global warming, but still relevant...)

jobs.ac.uk

PhD Studentship - Flooded Futures: Exploring Sci-Fi Imaginings to Develop Future Flood Resilient Communities at University of Hull

Explore a PhD Studentship - Flooded Futures: Exploring Sci-Fi Imaginings to Develop Future Flood Resilient Communities. Apply today and discover more PhD opportunities at jobs.ac.uk.

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Attention creative medievalists! Eleanor Barraclough & I are co-editing a special issue of Public Humanities entitled CREATING THE MEDIEVAL NOW! See the cfp for details: essays of 2,000-3,000 words due 1 May 2026. (Amazing artwork by @hellomizk.bsky.social). 1/ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Kirsty Bolton @lusignanmermaid.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Another call for abstracts for our sessions at the UArctic Congress in May. It's on the Faroe Islands and I'm really excited! Deadline for abstracts 15/12/25 medieval.ox.ac.uk/uarctic-cong...

medieval.ox.ac.uk

UArctic Congress 2026 – Oxford Medieval Studies

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Calling anyone interested in saints, sanctity, and the weird and wonderful world of primary sources outside the conventional hagiography form! ❤️‍🔥

New Workshop Series: Call for Participants
Saints Outside Hagiography

We invite expressions of interest to participate in a new series of online workshops examining how saints and holy people are represented outside the classic form of the single-text hagiography, what Thomas J. Heffernan calls the ‘sacred biography’.

This group aims to bring together scholars interested in saints and sanctity across global history and culture, to explore how they are constructed in other forms—poetry, visual art, sermons, letters, monuments, drama, chronicles, liturgy, objects, didactic literature, and others—in an informal, work-in-progress format focused on discussion of primary sources from any historical period.

We envision each meeting consisting of 1-2 brief presentations, with the text or object and a short description or summary (max 500 words) circulated in advance along with one or two questions for discussion.

If you have a historical source or item related to sanctity that you would like to bring to an interdisciplinary forum, please get in touch with Laura Moncion (laura.moncion@philosophie.uni-tuebingen.de) and Alicia Smith (alicia.smith@uib.no) by 15 January 2026 with a brief description, your career stage and institutional affiliation if any.

Guidelines:
• The chronological and geographical scope is intentionally open. We are happy to receive proposals that argue for definitions of saint / sanctity outside the mainstream.
• Speakers are free to contest whether a text is ‘outside hagiography’ or ‘not a classic hagiography’—the goal is to study saints and the construction of saint/sanctity beyond canonical textual forms, including troubling our understanding of those forms.
• If your source is not in English, you will need to include an English translation.

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

"What is easier than reading a book? Not reading a book. What is easier than writing code? Not writing code. What is easier than solving an equation? Not solving an equation. What is easier than having a single independent and original thought? Well, I’m sure you get it by now."

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

I'm excited to speak at this week's instalment of the 'Staging the Middle Ages' project in Cambridge - Fri 24th Oct 5:30pm - reflecting on what I learned from the reading of 'The Conversion of the Harlot Thais' which I hosted last year @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/session-2-...

eventbrite.co.uk

Session 2: Redeeming medieval drama?

Dr Alicia Smith will give a talk on 'The Conversion of the Harlot Thais', and the St Just Ordinalia host a performance workshop.

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Alicia Smith @timekeptcity.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

I've been in Bergen for a couple of weeks now, getting used to a new city and new institution. It's really exciting to have two years in front of me for research! I'll be digging further into the figure of Thais in medieval culture, & thinking through modern responses (and responsibilities) to her.

A fountain built into a flight of steps in Bergen, Norway

A detail of a medieval manuscript initial Q with Thais depicted inside, in an elaborate dress, with a long-necked bird at her feet.

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