Kathleen E. Kennedy
banner
themedievaldrk.bsky.social
Kathleen E. Kennedy
@themedievaldrk.bsky.social

manuscripts, early print, coconuts, nautiluses, media archaeology

Above: BL, Royal 18 D II, Lambeth MS 532
For more on the banner artist, read https://differentvisions.org/aging-artists-and-impairment-in-fifteenth-century-england/
.. more

Political science 28%
History 27%

That was my thought too! 😂

He just needed a wee rest it seems as he landed, decided I was not heading in the direction he wanted, and took off again

I guess it was going to happen at some point and really it could've been worse: today a pigeon landed on my hat.

Reposted by Kathleen Kennedy

Ah, Microsoft. I have a student who submits her stories by sharing them in the online version of Word 365. Incredibly, I can't export them as Word files. The closest is ODT. I can open them in OpenOffice and then re-export them as Word files, but that's pretty kludgy. (1/2)

Reposted by Kathleen Kennedy

Can’t get to London for summer school? In Jan we are running online courses. Forget the cold by exploring medieval manuscripts. Classes are small so book now! 👇
@ies-sas.bsky.social @warburginstitute.bsky.social @senatehouselib.bsky.social @ihr.bsky.social #MedievalSky
ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...
IES: LIPS & LRBS Winter School | 2026
ies.sas.ac.uk

boo

Reposted by Kathleen Kennedy

“we now have preliminary agreement that most things about universities need to be fixed”

yes, yes, and YES
The #OmneBonum leprosy image strikes again. Over the course of three years, me, @richardnevell.bsky.social, @medievalbadger.bsky.social & other colleagues waged a campaign to correct a visual "misdiagnosis": an image meant to depict sufferers from leprosy was being misinterpreted as plague.

At this point I mute those convos Fast bc yeah I just cannot

Reposted by Kathleen Kennedy

(hint: the answer wasn't, and isn't, white)

Vermeer: what color are the clouds?
- Girl with a Pearl Earring
cnn.com CNN @cnn.com · 1d
Capturing the cultural zeitgeist and trends for the year ahead is a tricky business. But every year, the Pantone Color Institute chooses a color to do precisely that. And it has settled on a shade of white, “Cloud Dancer,” as its Color of the Year for 2026. https://cnn.it/3MipgCr

Reposted by Kathleen Kennedy

CNN @cnn.com · 1d
Capturing the cultural zeitgeist and trends for the year ahead is a tricky business. But every year, the Pantone Color Institute chooses a color to do precisely that. And it has settled on a shade of white, “Cloud Dancer,” as its Color of the Year for 2026. https://cnn.it/3MipgCr

All the old rules and playbooks are obsolete now and I've absolutely no idea how to weigh these decisions w/o them. (maybe if I was wealthy I'd just go 'just bc I want to' but I'm not so decisions must be weighed and..idk)

I need to start planning next summer's research/conference travel (if any) and...like ok. a bit of Kzoo, yes. but Europe? is there even a point in more research/conferencing? is/will be int'l travel even advised? Will I get turfed out of English loos for looking too butch? wth are these even qs??

Reposted by Kathleen Kennedy

Part one of my post on Lastingham on the Genius Loci Digest is here - with lots of photos.. www.digest.andymarshall.co/andy-marshal...

really interesting distinction between those 2 orientations (not being snotty--going to keep thinking it through!)

well I've got a chunk of a chapter coming out in 26 on Margaret's importance so doing my bit to redress that her erasure at least, hopefully!

as an old who's missed a lot of the new terminology the QTed thread was useful (wasn't clear about that before sorry! hah), tyvm I feel like I understand a lot better now (and relate!)

damn. and those lovely decorated descenders too. most of the Sarum psalters were homemade rather than imported, so I guess it makes sense (though might've actually been a psalter-hrs originally). freaking sad.

Just the delivery though--the content is 100% neutral/normal. V hard to pin HR decisions on delivery.

ok but it can be leveled up to fake jocularity with such an offputting delivery that it deliberately unsettles the audience. THAT can be weirdly a useful skill.

yay but also boo! I hadn't realized he dismantled later medieval English codices--bad enough about the rest but there just weren't as many of those to start with!

goodness is that little book of hours leaf English?? (rare to find those cut up!)

Reposted by Kathleen Kennedy

Amazon is trying to do in the USPS, but the USPS is what made and makes the United States a country. All this is explored and explained in a new book on the history of the USPS. I wrote about it at my newsletter. biblioracle.substack.com/p/giving-tha...

also the color-scheme screams AI-gen : (

Reposted by Kathleen Kennedy

Esmarch bandages with DIY first-aid instruction diagrams printed on them are amazing and little known! I'll feature one made in Chicago in my Printing on Fabric exhibition at #NewberryLibrary (opens Dec. 2026), but they started as wartime aides in late 19th c. Germany, and were printed 2 at a time!

Copyediting and struck again by the heroic efforts required to get Edith and Margaret Rickert from Chicago across the country to New York, before sailing for Southampton, and then cross country again to London in 1923. But they did. And 2 fields of scholarship were never the same thereafter.

ouf 2nd Potosi brutal

I mean idk what the solution is--neither group will accept that our shared reality doesn't match w/theirs. I literally don't know how to manage that scenario.