1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
@johnmkuhn.bsky.social
English prof. 17th century stuff. Prairie son. Working on a cultural and material history of the birchbark canoe in the early modern Americas.
Pinned
Towards a history of the hammock: An Indigenous technology in the Atlantic world - postmedieval
When Europeans arrived in the Western Hemisphere beginning in the fifteenth century, they learned that Indigenous groups across the Caribbean and South America valued few technologies as much as the h...
link.springer.com
if you would like to read about early modern hammocks, it's publication day for the article the brilliant @marcynorton.bsky.social and I wrote about them! (open access)
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
do you know who would have been really into gun control? John fucking Milton, who presents gunpowder as literally invented by Satan (also: George Herbert wrote a Latin mini-epic--Inventa Bellica--about how the invention of artillery was a curse on humanity!)
When coming towards them so
dread they saw
The bottom of the mountains
upward turned;
Till on those cursed engines'
triple-row
They saw them whelmed, and all
their confidence
Under the weight of mountains
buried deep;
VI, 648-652
dread they saw
The bottom of the mountains
upward turned;
Till on those cursed engines'
triple-row
They saw them whelmed, and all
their confidence
Under the weight of mountains
buried deep;
VI, 648-652
February 14, 2026 at 5:49 AM
do you know who would have been really into gun control? John fucking Milton, who presents gunpowder as literally invented by Satan (also: George Herbert wrote a Latin mini-epic--Inventa Bellica--about how the invention of artillery was a curse on humanity!)
wild detail I learned while working on a footnote: Dick Whittington, a famous medieval mayor of London, was later reputed to have gotten his wealth by selling a cat. The story became so popular that ~1600, an engraving of him with a memento mori skull was reworked to have a cat in place of the skull
February 14, 2026 at 5:26 AM
wild detail I learned while working on a footnote: Dick Whittington, a famous medieval mayor of London, was later reputed to have gotten his wealth by selling a cat. The story became so popular that ~1600, an engraving of him with a memento mori skull was reworked to have a cat in place of the skull
Reposted by 1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
Sorry, it was Willow the cat’s fault. We tried to stop her.
February 14, 2026 at 3:40 AM
Sorry, it was Willow the cat’s fault. We tried to stop her.
reading an alcoholic (!) wigmaker's (!) diary (!) from the early 18th century (!) that records basically every time he had sex with his wife, and typically he sorts these acts into either doing it "new style" or "old style" (!!!!!!)
February 14, 2026 at 4:30 AM
reading an alcoholic (!) wigmaker's (!) diary (!) from the early 18th century (!) that records basically every time he had sex with his wife, and typically he sorts these acts into either doing it "new style" or "old style" (!!!!!!)
Reposted by 1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
Taking my Book Theory seminar to the Houghton next month & found this amusing record . . . The students often get the chance to view fragments, but a fragment of a HOUSE? of William Caxton's HOUSE? Not so much .. .
February 13, 2026 at 5:34 PM
Taking my Book Theory seminar to the Houghton next month & found this amusing record . . . The students often get the chance to view fragments, but a fragment of a HOUSE? of William Caxton's HOUSE? Not so much .. .
seed packet season!!!!!! #bloomscrolling 🌱
February 14, 2026 at 4:08 AM
seed packet season!!!!!! #bloomscrolling 🌱
went on a long hike in the snow with my colleague, which was beautiful up to the point where we found a deer carcass emerging from a slowly ebbing snow drift, its ribs gnawed mostly clean but its head still somehow be-furred, staring at nothing. Not ominous at all!
February 14, 2026 at 4:07 AM
went on a long hike in the snow with my colleague, which was beautiful up to the point where we found a deer carcass emerging from a slowly ebbing snow drift, its ribs gnawed mostly clean but its head still somehow be-furred, staring at nothing. Not ominous at all!
Sir William Coventry having a normal 1669
February 14, 2026 at 4:03 AM
Sir William Coventry having a normal 1669
this ROCKS
As some of you may know, I’m writing a book on the history of high school English in the United States, and I’m excited to share a new article from that project—“High School English and the Making of American Readers”—out today in American Literary History! 🧵
academic.oup.com/alh/article/...
academic.oup.com/alh/article/...
High School English and the Making of American Readers
Abstract. The high school English classroom is the most influential literary institution in the United States, and the most overlooked by literary scholars
academic.oup.com
February 14, 2026 at 1:47 AM
this ROCKS
Reposted by 1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
Newspapers used to employ ppl to tweet. This is from the The Binghamton Press, NY in FEB 1926.
February 10, 2026 at 4:58 PM
Newspapers used to employ ppl to tweet. This is from the The Binghamton Press, NY in FEB 1926.
need a content filter to protect me from these toxic and damaging PICTURES OF CROCUSES AND DAFFODILS that people in Europe are starting to post, while we are still snow-bound. Just you all wait til the gulf stream collapses, we’ll see who is laughing then!
February 13, 2026 at 2:34 PM
need a content filter to protect me from these toxic and damaging PICTURES OF CROCUSES AND DAFFODILS that people in Europe are starting to post, while we are still snow-bound. Just you all wait til the gulf stream collapses, we’ll see who is laughing then!
Reposted by 1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
My wife says that guys will just sit around and name their favorite years in history and have a great time
February 13, 2026 at 1:57 AM
My wife says that guys will just sit around and name their favorite years in history and have a great time
Reposted by 1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
Is there really such a thing as a "novel of ideas"? Is that not just a category people have made up for novels they think are bad?
February 13, 2026 at 3:11 AM
Is there really such a thing as a "novel of ideas"? Is that not just a category people have made up for novels they think are bad?
Reposted by 1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
my new job at the EPA is to hunt and destroy every last goddamn bee they’ve ever saved
February 12, 2026 at 10:45 PM
my new job at the EPA is to hunt and destroy every last goddamn bee they’ve ever saved
Reposted by 1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
well i for one couldn’t be more excited for the possibilities of AI. finally a technology that answers the age old question ‘what if clippy was wormtongue’
February 12, 2026 at 1:10 PM
well i for one couldn’t be more excited for the possibilities of AI. finally a technology that answers the age old question ‘what if clippy was wormtongue’
CUNY (and Cal State) perpetually lead rankings of colleges that offer students social mobility (with Baruch typically on top). SUNY-Bing is #70 (we used to be higher). Yale is #567 lol
Co-sign from CUNY where ~54% of Brooklyn College receive Pell Grants, and/or state tuition assistance. Most graduate with no student loans, thus making CUNY a major mover of peeps into the middle class--more than all the Ivies combined.
February 12, 2026 at 1:17 PM
CUNY (and Cal State) perpetually lead rankings of colleges that offer students social mobility (with Baruch typically on top). SUNY-Bing is #70 (we used to be higher). Yale is #567 lol
Reposted by 1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
one new irritant in academic life: if you are an organizer or facilitator for anything, ppl a. feel emboldened to demand the event occur in multiple formats and b. expect you to do all the AV work involved. And this is not viewed as a "nice, additional, specific favor" but a core audience right
February 11, 2026 at 6:51 PM
one new irritant in academic life: if you are an organizer or facilitator for anything, ppl a. feel emboldened to demand the event occur in multiple formats and b. expect you to do all the AV work involved. And this is not viewed as a "nice, additional, specific favor" but a core audience right
Reposted by 1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
My favourite captcha, recently reposted.
February 11, 2026 at 12:36 PM
My favourite captcha, recently reposted.
this is so passive-aggressive and I love it
English-only California: the golden state with Spanish place names removed. First map I ever commissioned, to commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, whereby the US made Mexico give up its northern half, adding California and the Southwest to the Union.
February 11, 2026 at 5:04 AM
this is so passive-aggressive and I love it
me cheering on and taking pictures of my junior colleague giving a talk tomorrow.
a woman is standing in front of a crowd of people holding a microphone
ALT: a woman is standing in front of a crowd of people holding a microphone
media.tenor.com
February 11, 2026 at 3:10 AM
me cheering on and taking pictures of my junior colleague giving a talk tomorrow.
Reposted by 1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
No son, they are not "magically delicious." The workers made them delicious. This is a slogan meant to mystify the social conditions of labor
February 11, 2026 at 1:46 AM
No son, they are not "magically delicious." The workers made them delicious. This is a slogan meant to mystify the social conditions of labor
a puzzle for the early modernists of Bluesky, about an insufficiently glossed set of lines in the Bevington edition of Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607). At the play's conclusion, the apprentice Rafe comes out with a (hilarious!) fake arrow in his head, bemoaning 1/2
February 11, 2026 at 1:32 AM
a puzzle for the early modernists of Bluesky, about an insufficiently glossed set of lines in the Bevington edition of Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607). At the play's conclusion, the apprentice Rafe comes out with a (hilarious!) fake arrow in his head, bemoaning 1/2
Reposted by 1-800-MARLOWE-FACTS
Jesus has an opportunity to do the funniest thing, while also making a fucking killing on Polymarket.
February 10, 2026 at 9:41 PM
Jesus has an opportunity to do the funniest thing, while also making a fucking killing on Polymarket.
looking through some (not great) Edward II scholarship and it illustrates a historiographical problem I've noticed recently: scholars who desperately want queer or trans histories taking what are essentially slurs at face value
February 10, 2026 at 10:38 PM
looking through some (not great) Edward II scholarship and it illustrates a historiographical problem I've noticed recently: scholars who desperately want queer or trans histories taking what are essentially slurs at face value