Andy Kesson
@andykesson.bsky.social
Research, performance, history, creativity, wrestling and a lot of bears.
Reposted by Andy Kesson
With quotes from @eicathomefinn.bsky.social@eicathomefinn.bsky.social and me on the importance of the return of some element of portability for REF2029. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/half-ha...
‘Half in, half out’ approach to REF 2029 outputs ‘not enough’
Rollback of decoupling researchers from their work questioned despite policy U-turn on books
www.timeshighereducation.com
December 12, 2025 at 10:45 AM
With quotes from @eicathomefinn.bsky.social@eicathomefinn.bsky.social and me on the importance of the return of some element of portability for REF2029. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/half-ha...
A lovely little thread about 'micro texts' - and, if you look closely at this picture, you'll notice no bee swarms here, so the charm actually works
In the tenth century a charm to control a bee swarm was added, upside down, in the margin of an earlier mss. It's one of the earliest Old High German texts. Tim Hertogh argues in recent article it was intended as an amulet to cut out & place in a hive - explaining the margins excised elsewhere.👇
December 11, 2025 at 11:20 AM
A lovely little thread about 'micro texts' - and, if you look closely at this picture, you'll notice no bee swarms here, so the charm actually works
'There’s no profound joy to be found in being the only one unwilling to leave the real world behind'. A fascinating piece from @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com on the live experience of not enjoying pro wrestling.
went to watch pro wrestling for my sports column! I hated it! observer.co.uk/news/columni...
December 10, 2025 at 10:21 AM
'There’s no profound joy to be found in being the only one unwilling to leave the real world behind'. A fascinating piece from @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com on the live experience of not enjoying pro wrestling.
Reposted by Andy Kesson
With a department research exchange coming up tomorrow, instead of a paper I’m delivering some new writing… as a board game! Hoping some conversation starters in here, following street encounters with a host of fascinating (real) playgoers from 1611. #CurtainBook
December 9, 2025 at 10:13 AM
With a department research exchange coming up tomorrow, instead of a paper I’m delivering some new writing… as a board game! Hoping some conversation starters in here, following street encounters with a host of fascinating (real) playgoers from 1611. #CurtainBook
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Please do have a look at our CFP on 'Difficult Collections' and consider submitting a proposal to Paper Trails. We have flexible formats, exciting content, and a commitment to open access publishing!
(details at the link - any Qs get in touch!)
#skystorians 🗃️
(details at the link - any Qs get in touch!)
#skystorians 🗃️
CFP: 'Difficult Collections' Special issue of 'Paper Trails' @uclpress.bsky.social. Focus on challenges of working with troubling heritage collections (colonialism, eugenics, representation, etc). Proposals: 31/01/26; Submissions: 31/05/26. Details: blogs.ucl.ac.uk/special-coll... #GLAM ##HistorySky
Call for Papers: Difficult Collections | UCL UCL Special Collections
UCL Homepage
blogs.ucl.ac.uk
December 2, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Please do have a look at our CFP on 'Difficult Collections' and consider submitting a proposal to Paper Trails. We have flexible formats, exciting content, and a commitment to open access publishing!
(details at the link - any Qs get in touch!)
#skystorians 🗃️
(details at the link - any Qs get in touch!)
#skystorians 🗃️
FAO You, if This is As You Like It
CFP: Proverbs and Popular Wisdom in Early Modern Literature and Culture, 1-3 July, Hull
@proverbialculture.bsky.social
earlymodernproverbs.co.uk/events/confe...
@proverbialculture.bsky.social
earlymodernproverbs.co.uk/events/confe...
Conference
Proverbs & Popular Wisdom in Early Modern Literature and Culture An international and interdisciplinary conference July 1-3, 2026 University of Hull This conference explores the prevalence, fun…
earlymodernproverbs.co.uk
December 1, 2025 at 3:34 PM
FAO You, if This is As You Like It
Reposted by Andy Kesson
NEW ISSUE KLAXON: Shakespeare Bulletin 43.2 is now published via Project Muse! In this open-access issue, scholars and practitioners engage in conversations across time, media, and geographic distance.
📰: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55948
📰: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55948
November 24, 2025 at 3:04 PM
NEW ISSUE KLAXON: Shakespeare Bulletin 43.2 is now published via Project Muse! In this open-access issue, scholars and practitioners engage in conversations across time, media, and geographic distance.
📰: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55948
📰: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55948
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Friends, if you want to learn a bit more abt The Sweet Taste of Empire, watch this INCREDIBLE conversation with @triciamatthew.bsky.social w.bsky.social, Debapriya Sarkar, Jennifer Morgan, @kwazana.bsky.social & Tapiwa Gambura!
www.youtube.com/live/a-Npxq-...
Then you can buy it at 40% discount.
www.youtube.com/live/a-Npxq-...
Then you can buy it at 40% discount.
Kim F. Hall: The Sweet Taste of Empire
YouTube video by Barnard Center for Research on Women
www.youtube.com
November 19, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Friends, if you want to learn a bit more abt The Sweet Taste of Empire, watch this INCREDIBLE conversation with @triciamatthew.bsky.social w.bsky.social, Debapriya Sarkar, Jennifer Morgan, @kwazana.bsky.social & Tapiwa Gambura!
www.youtube.com/live/a-Npxq-...
Then you can buy it at 40% discount.
www.youtube.com/live/a-Npxq-...
Then you can buy it at 40% discount.
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Out now!
The Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Constance Crompton, @raysiemens.bsky.social , Richard J. Lane, and myself
And better yet? It's #openaccess!
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...
Order hard copies here: www.routledge.com/The-Companio...
Thanks to all contributors! 🎉
The Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Constance Crompton, @raysiemens.bsky.social , Richard J. Lane, and myself
And better yet? It's #openaccess!
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...
Order hard copies here: www.routledge.com/The-Companio...
Thanks to all contributors! 🎉
November 19, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Out now!
The Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Constance Crompton, @raysiemens.bsky.social , Richard J. Lane, and myself
And better yet? It's #openaccess!
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...
Order hard copies here: www.routledge.com/The-Companio...
Thanks to all contributors! 🎉
The Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Constance Crompton, @raysiemens.bsky.social , Richard J. Lane, and myself
And better yet? It's #openaccess!
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...
Order hard copies here: www.routledge.com/The-Companio...
Thanks to all contributors! 🎉
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Exciting news! Next August I'll deliver a keynote lecture at the conference 'Carousels and Other Colonial Spectacles: Performing Race and Racialization at European Courts, ca. 1500-1700' at Copenhagen University, alongside Noémie Ndiaye. Call for papers is open now lnkd.in/e2ad7u7H (deadline 15/12)!
November 7, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Exciting news! Next August I'll deliver a keynote lecture at the conference 'Carousels and Other Colonial Spectacles: Performing Race and Racialization at European Courts, ca. 1500-1700' at Copenhagen University, alongside Noémie Ndiaye. Call for papers is open now lnkd.in/e2ad7u7H (deadline 15/12)!
Very good news for people who like to plan ahead, but, like, backwards.
'A high-resolution digital map allows people to plan their routes along the ancient roads of the Roman Empire. Combining historical records with modern mapping techniques, researchers mapped hundreds of thousands of kilometres of roads. The findings nearly double the known length of Roman roads.'
‘Google Maps’ for Roman roads reveals vast extent of ancient network
A high-resolution digital map nearly doubles the known length of the ancient road network.
www.nature.com
November 7, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Very good news for people who like to plan ahead, but, like, backwards.
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Join us online this Monday evening as Professor Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social – President of the Marlowe Society of America, and former President of the Australian & New Zealand Shakespeare Association – uncovers the connections between ale houses and playhouses in early modern London.
Monday 10 November
@ 7.30pm online
PUB CRAWLING WITH PLAYHOUSES
Join Professor Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social for a ramble around the inns, taverns & ale-houses of Elizabethan London, to discover their role in the emergence of playhouse culture.
Book: www.roseplayhouse.org.uk/whats-on
@ 7.30pm online
PUB CRAWLING WITH PLAYHOUSES
Join Professor Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social for a ramble around the inns, taverns & ale-houses of Elizabethan London, to discover their role in the emergence of playhouse culture.
Book: www.roseplayhouse.org.uk/whats-on
November 6, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Join us online this Monday evening as Professor Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social – President of the Marlowe Society of America, and former President of the Australian & New Zealand Shakespeare Association – uncovers the connections between ale houses and playhouses in early modern London.
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Out now: "Digital Text Analysis and Early Shakespeare Bibliography: Using Voyant Tools with Bad OCR"
www.digitalstudies.org/article/id/1...
www.digitalstudies.org/article/id/1...
Digital Text Analysis and Early Shakespeare Bibliography: Using Voyant Tools with Bad OCR
Enumerative bibliographies are lists of scholarship that capture the state of a field. This article first evaluates digital texts of one such bibliography, Franz Thimm’s Shakspeariana from 1564–1864 (...
www.digitalstudies.org
November 5, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Out now: "Digital Text Analysis and Early Shakespeare Bibliography: Using Voyant Tools with Bad OCR"
www.digitalstudies.org/article/id/1...
www.digitalstudies.org/article/id/1...
Reposted by Andy Kesson
PhD position, project: LangPro Women in the Early Modern Language Sector
careers.universiteitleiden.nl/job/PhD-posi...
careers.universiteitleiden.nl/job/PhD-posi...
PhD position, project: LangPro Women in the Early Modern Language Sector
PhD position, project: LangPro Women in the Early Modern Language Sector
careers.universiteitleiden.nl
November 5, 2025 at 12:54 PM
PhD position, project: LangPro Women in the Early Modern Language Sector
careers.universiteitleiden.nl/job/PhD-posi...
careers.universiteitleiden.nl/job/PhD-posi...
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Voices of Thunder is one of ten books to look out for, according to Mathew Lyons in The Broken Compass 🤩 As he says, these “highly vocal women” have been “drowned out in much of the historiography” and make a “brilliant subject for a book”! 🌟 #earlymodern
November 4, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Voices of Thunder is one of ten books to look out for, according to Mathew Lyons in The Broken Compass 🤩 As he says, these “highly vocal women” have been “drowned out in much of the historiography” and make a “brilliant subject for a book”! 🌟 #earlymodern
Reposted by Andy Kesson
‘What I'm saying is, these PhDs are not a new sign confirming the decline of civilisation. They are civilisation. This is at the core of what civilisations do.’
Delightful from @mscaitlinmoran.bsky.social where she shares her excitement about humanities research
www.thetimes.com/article/09da...
Delightful from @mscaitlinmoran.bsky.social where she shares her excitement about humanities research
www.thetimes.com/article/09da...
October 28, 2025 at 8:55 AM
‘What I'm saying is, these PhDs are not a new sign confirming the decline of civilisation. They are civilisation. This is at the core of what civilisations do.’
Delightful from @mscaitlinmoran.bsky.social where she shares her excitement about humanities research
www.thetimes.com/article/09da...
Delightful from @mscaitlinmoran.bsky.social where she shares her excitement about humanities research
www.thetimes.com/article/09da...
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Just your periodic reminder that there is an early modern pub night once a month for PhDs and ECRs and anyone else who'd like to join in London. If you'd like to be added to the mailing list please DM me.
October 27, 2025 at 8:34 AM
Just your periodic reminder that there is an early modern pub night once a month for PhDs and ECRs and anyone else who'd like to join in London. If you'd like to be added to the mailing list please DM me.
Reposted by Andy Kesson
NEXT WEEK! Come and celebrate Halloween with us at the #LowCountries seminar with a paper on the Synod of Dort! (there's a (holy) ghost involved ok 👻) with Dirk van Miert @huygensknaw.bsky.social
FRI 31 OCT 17:30, @ihr.bsky.social or on zoom (register for link) #EarlyModern #AngloDutch #Skystorians
FRI 31 OCT 17:30, @ihr.bsky.social or on zoom (register for link) #EarlyModern #AngloDutch #Skystorians
The Synod of Dordrecht: binding the Anglo-Dutch orthodox Republic of Letters
www.history.ac.uk
October 24, 2025 at 2:46 PM
NEXT WEEK! Come and celebrate Halloween with us at the #LowCountries seminar with a paper on the Synod of Dort! (there's a (holy) ghost involved ok 👻) with Dirk van Miert @huygensknaw.bsky.social
FRI 31 OCT 17:30, @ihr.bsky.social or on zoom (register for link) #EarlyModern #AngloDutch #Skystorians
FRI 31 OCT 17:30, @ihr.bsky.social or on zoom (register for link) #EarlyModern #AngloDutch #Skystorians
THIS IS WHAT WE CALL SOME PRETTY MAJUSCULE INFORMATION
Printing presses kept their letters in cases.
Capital letters went in the upper case.
Smaller letters went in the lower case.
This is why we say ‘UPPER CASE’ and ‘lower case.’
Ok, but what did we call them before the invention of the printing press?
MAJUSCULE and minuscule.
Capital letters went in the upper case.
Smaller letters went in the lower case.
This is why we say ‘UPPER CASE’ and ‘lower case.’
Ok, but what did we call them before the invention of the printing press?
MAJUSCULE and minuscule.
October 10, 2025 at 3:09 PM
THIS IS WHAT WE CALL SOME PRETTY MAJUSCULE INFORMATION
Reposted by Andy Kesson
As you dig out your chunky knitwear from the back of the draw, I know you are wondering: 'How did people prepare for winter 400 years ago?'
Read today's post to find out (and whet your appetite for our new book The Experience of Work in Early Modern England)
manyheadedmonster.com/2025/10/07/t...
Read today's post to find out (and whet your appetite for our new book The Experience of Work in Early Modern England)
manyheadedmonster.com/2025/10/07/t...
The Experience of Work in Early Modern England I: Winter is Coming
This post is part of a series that marks the publication of The Experience of Work in Early Modern England. The book is co-authored by monster head Mark Hailwood, along with Jane Whittle, Hannah Ro…
manyheadedmonster.com
October 7, 2025 at 8:47 AM
As you dig out your chunky knitwear from the back of the draw, I know you are wondering: 'How did people prepare for winter 400 years ago?'
Read today's post to find out (and whet your appetite for our new book The Experience of Work in Early Modern England)
manyheadedmonster.com/2025/10/07/t...
Read today's post to find out (and whet your appetite for our new book The Experience of Work in Early Modern England)
manyheadedmonster.com/2025/10/07/t...
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Had a great time today chatting with @sixteenthcgirl.bsky.social for the Not Just the Tudors podcast on History Hit. Watch out next week for the episode on Voices of Thunder and radical 17th-century women!
October 6, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Had a great time today chatting with @sixteenthcgirl.bsky.social for the Not Just the Tudors podcast on History Hit. Watch out next week for the episode on Voices of Thunder and radical 17th-century women!
Reposted by Andy Kesson
As the first female Archbishop of Canterbury is appointed, it’s worth remembering that dissenting women were preaching to mixed sex congregations in London as early as 1645. My book Voices of Thunder has a whole section on 17th-century “she-preachers”
#earlymodern
#earlymodern
October 3, 2025 at 11:08 AM
As the first female Archbishop of Canterbury is appointed, it’s worth remembering that dissenting women were preaching to mixed sex congregations in London as early as 1645. My book Voices of Thunder has a whole section on 17th-century “she-preachers”
#earlymodern
#earlymodern
Reposted by Andy Kesson
During the course of this year, I am available to give invited talks at Departmental seminars, symposia and the like. My research is now developed enough to shed new light on the role of walking in theatre history, but still pliant enough to benefit from the input of scholarly conversation.
September 29, 2025 at 11:24 AM
During the course of this year, I am available to give invited talks at Departmental seminars, symposia and the like. My research is now developed enough to shed new light on the role of walking in theatre history, but still pliant enough to benefit from the input of scholarly conversation.
An important thread making the case for books being better than ostriches as places to put words
the booker prize judges make a lot of fuss about having to read 153 books. but assuming an average weight of 750g per book, that comes in at 115kg of literature - or just under the weight of a single adult male ostrich
September 25, 2025 at 9:24 AM
An important thread making the case for books being better than ostriches as places to put words
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Pretty momentous email to send just before lunch on a Monday morning. Second book appears to be...done! Watch this space for further news from me and @gregmw4.bsky.social as we approach publication.
September 8, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Pretty momentous email to send just before lunch on a Monday morning. Second book appears to be...done! Watch this space for further news from me and @gregmw4.bsky.social as we approach publication.