Ruth Ahnert
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ruthahnert.bsky.social
Ruth Ahnert
@ruthahnert.bsky.social
Digital humanist; literary historian; early modernist; collaborator; feminist; parent; FEA. Queen Mary University of London: & The Alan Turing Institute, UK. She/her
Pinned
Hi to new followers, a bit about me: I’m an early modernist by training but I have worked more and more on collaborative digital humanities projects in recent years. Here’s a thread of a few things I’ve published recently.
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
I’m a little disappointed by some of the responses to this (not Matt’s, which I take to be plain wit). But there is obviously a long tradition of studying low culture, mass culture, kitsch, & etc., and we ignore this latest aesthetic category at our peril. To pretend otherwise is anti-intellectual.
February 4, 2026 at 10:38 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
🚨History Job: Assistant Professor in Early Modern British History (Permanent) 🗃️

Come work with us at Warwick! You will join a group of excellent early-modernists and one of the nicest bunches of historians around!
👇👇👇

@uni-of-warwick.bsky.social

warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/lang-en-G...
Assistant Professor in Early Modern British History (111286-0126) - University of Warwick
Title: Assistant Professor in Early Modern British History (111286-0126). Application Deadline: . Position Type: Permanent
warwick-careers.tal.net
February 4, 2026 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
Important! AHRC is looking for a new Executive Chair. A critical role for arts and humanities. £160k - £170k. Please share widely to help get the best possible field!
fa-evzn-saasfaukgovprod1.fa.ocs.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
February 3, 2026 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
Closing date for the Society's PhD funding scheme: 31 January 2026 #Skystorians
PhD funding for early career historians completing a doctorate.

Applications are invited for the Society's Centenary PhD Fellowships for the academic year 2026-27 bit.ly/49MzqmT.

Two awards of £8500 per student, held jointly with @ihr.bsky.social. Closing date: 31 January 2026 #Skystorians
January 30, 2026 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
Closing date for the Society's new Applied History Fellowships, jointly with @ihr.bsky.social and DC Thomson: 31 January 2026 #Skystorians
January 30, 2026 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
I think I might take one of these "under 20 minutes" AI skills courses the UK Govt. seems very keen on everyone doing and live-post it here... Maybe we can all learn something together! The press release sends me to aiskillshub.org.uk/aiskillsboost/ - let's go and see!
AI Skills Boost - AI Skills Hub
aiskillshub.org.uk
January 28, 2026 at 12:07 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
I want to say a bit more about our initiative to hire scholars to 3yr Research Associate positions.

None of us know what the twinning of humanities research support and employment will look like in another 5(?) years. But we do know that we need it. As a matter of social and cultural health. 1/
Please share widely!

The JCB is hiring two three-year research associates for collaborative work on religions and freedoms in the early Americas.

Details at jcblibrary.org!
January 28, 2026 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
[Job 📣] Are you curious about #AI applications in the #humanities? My Print and Probability research group (@print-and-prob.bsky.social) is hiring a postdoc! Come help us develop computational methods for identifying clandestine early modern printers!

cmu.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/CMU/job/Pitt...
January 22, 2026 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
The British Library’s PhD placement scheme for 26/27 is now open. My team are offering an exciting placement aiming to raise the profile of our illustrated newspaper collection: www.bl.uk/services/res...
PhD placement scheme
Our annual placement scheme offers doctoral researchers from all disciplines the chance to develop and apply skills and expertise outside the university sector.
www.bl.uk
January 27, 2026 at 9:29 AM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
One month left to apply for our 2026-27 senior/mid-career Fellowships, and three months left to apply for our postdoctoral Fellowship programmes!

www.iash.ed.ac.uk/fellowship-p...
Fellowship programmes | IASH
www.iash.ed.ac.uk
January 27, 2026 at 9:08 AM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
Today the @softwaresaved.bsky.social alongside our international partners launches the 2026 Research Software Engineering Survey. If you write code for academic research we want to hear from you - even if you have a different job title.

@society-rse.org @ukiedh.bsky.social @dariaheu.bsky.social
🔍 We are happy to announce that the 2026 International RSE Survey is now open for submissions. The survey will close on Friday 20 March, and can be completed in English, French, German or Spanish.

Find out more about the survey and how to participate at www.software.ac.uk/news/2026-in...
January 20, 2026 at 10:18 AM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
In case you missed it, here is a set of academic book proposals that I wrote and that succeeded. I do not claim them as exemplars of the genre, but offer them for any interested parties to see what form they took.
Here are 8 successful *proposals* for academic books/monographs. I am hoping that these help someone who is starting out trying to write one and wants to see what worked for me. They are provided as examples, rather than exemplars. A lot of it was just finding my own way eve.gd/2026/01/16/s...
Some example academic book proposal forms in case they help
A pivotal moment in my academic career, or at least one I remember clearly, was when a very senior professor in the US sent me his book proposal for an acade...
eve.gd
January 19, 2026 at 9:35 AM
Giving this a boost before the deadline Sunday!
January 16, 2026 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
3 x #dh roles at UCL; 1 week til deadline 🗃️
The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery (CSLBS) is excited to announce 3 new roles on our groundbreaking Valuable Lives project!

🔍 Open roles:
• 2 x Research Assistant (Digital Humanities)
• 1 x Research Fellow (Digital Humanities)

🗓 Closing date: 23 Jan 2026

shorturl.at/OCpLP
Opportunities
Find opportunities to join UCL History in academic, research, teaching and learning, admin and other capacities below.
shorturl.at
January 16, 2026 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
Interested to work on our collections? The Call for applications of the LECTIO – KU Leuven Visiting Fellowships 2026–2027 is now open. As in previous years, Special Collections offers a joint fellowship. We will be happy to welcome you!
Call for applications: LECTIO Visiting Fellowships 2026–2027
www.kuleuven.be
January 16, 2026 at 10:24 AM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
'hollowing out...the humanities is no longer a theoretical threat: it is an active, policy-driven dismantling, creating vast regional “cold spots”....we are burning humanity’s maps just as we enter the least charted psychological & philosophical territory in our history: artificial intelligence.' 1/
Humanities cuts leave us defenceless in the age of AI
It is vital to examine what chatbots’ behaviour reveals about their underlying structures – and human responses to them, says Agnieszka Piotrowska
www.timeshighereducation.com
January 14, 2026 at 7:48 AM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
Of especial interest for UK researchers, research institutes/organisations and/or partnerships with higher education expertise and the ability to measure social & cultural infrastructure.

Deadline 17:00 GMT 4 February; duration 10 months; value c. £60k. 1/2
Call for proposals - Measurement of social and cultural infrastructure in the higher education sector
The British Academy is commissioning a major new research element as part of its work theme on social and cultural infrastructure. The research will investigate how social and cultural infrastructure ...
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk
January 14, 2026 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
For anyone in or near Athens, GA, I'm giving a talk tomorrow (Thursday, January 15) at UGA on the conglomerate era in publishing calendar.uga.edu/event/dan-si...
Dan Sinykin: "Why These Books? The Conglomerate Era in Publishing"
calendar.uga.edu
January 14, 2026 at 12:20 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
Incredible article which points out that it often collectively costs more to apply for scarce research funding than the funds awarded to the successful proposals.

What an absurd system we've built in the service of efficiency and competition.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
January 13, 2026 at 8:55 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
A new #LewisCarroll Visiting Fellowship at Christ Church Oxford and @bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Looks like a wonderful opportunity to work with their marvellous #SpecialCollections following the acquisition of the ‘Michelson Alice’.
The Lewis Carroll Visiting Fellowship
www.chch.ox.ac.uk
January 14, 2026 at 10:29 AM
Really exciting postdoc opportunity in Cambridge on AI-humanities interface working with my better half on a collaborative project called SETS funded by @schmidtsciences.bsky.social
January 13, 2026 at 12:01 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
We’re hiring a two-year DH postdoc for our HAVI project, to work on a new type of knowledge graph architecture for the humanities (and beyond). Deadline soon (18 Jan)! www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...
Research Assistant/Research Associate (Fixed Term)
Applications are invited for a full time post doctoral researcher to work on an international collaboration to develop AI-based solutions for research on archival materials as part of the Humanities
www.cam.ac.uk
January 13, 2026 at 10:14 AM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
To say I am excited about this would be an understatement. To say I am a little bit terrified would not!

Actually, just really looking forward to it -- and really pleased to see SHARP continuing its accessible practices.

eve.gd/2026/01/10/i...
In conversation with Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
The inaugural SHARPIES, a global book history festival celebrating work in book history from around the world, will take place from July 7–9, 2026 (although ...
eve.gd
January 10, 2026 at 8:28 PM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
If you want to do an MA in London but have 'barriers accessing education or may face greater challenges while undertaking their degree' (specific criteria below), you can apply for a £3,000 tuition grant at Birkbeck. Lots of choices at @bbkhistorical.bsky.social:
www.bbk.ac.uk/student-serv...
January 9, 2026 at 9:31 AM
Reposted by Ruth Ahnert
6 February deadline. Obviously a very difficult time in the history of academia to ask for voluntary labour, but our ability to publish in peer-reviewed journals relies upon it, and it's a great way of both using and developing expertise. Open to current Fellows of the Royal Hist. Soc. #Skystorians
Society invites applications to join new-look 'Transactions' editorial board - RHS
The Royal Historical Society seeks to appoint new members to the editorial board of its academic journal, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, published by Cambridge University Press. These n...
royalhistsoc.org
January 8, 2026 at 12:29 PM