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Irina Dumitrescu

@irinadumitrescu.bsky.social

8.4K followers 2.2K following 490 posts

Writer and professor of medieval literature. I'm a columnist at the TLS, sometimes co-host a podcast with Mary Wellesley at the LRB, and am one of the editors of @creativecritical.bsky.social. irinadumitrescu.com

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Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · Nov 6

Doorbell just rang. A package from Australia. The bookseller Nicholas Pounder sent me a small press print of my Times Literary Supplement poem, "Criseyde." It's a private, gift copy, and it has brought tears to my eyes this morning, for so many reasons.

They said Cassandra
Was the cursed one
But every woman knows too much.
I am used by now
To my voice getting caught in my teeth.
It doesn’t help
That I can smell tomorrow’s burning.
No one is interested
In the geometry
Of a falling city.
I sit politely and fan myself
Listening to old philosophies
Trying not to show
I see the sparks of death in their eyes.
My soles feel the road to come
The cool boards of an enemy’s ship
The freedom of early surrender.

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savin dos louvadeus 🦗 @savcavalcante.behind.camera · Jul 1

fiquei obcecado, catei um catálogo do cara e vi tudo até esbarrar num louva-a-deus - é CLARO que ia ter um

temos um louvinha, uma efêmera e um inseto imaginário, muito simbolismo rolando

print de uma ilustração de Joris Hoefnagel contando um louva-a-deus verde, uma efêmera e um inseto imaginário que parece um dragãozinho de seus patas e quatro asas; todos em cores e feitos com realismo.

no topo, lê-se em latim:"privs locvsta bovem".

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Reposted by Irina Dumitrescu

Centre d’Études Médiévales Anglaises @cema-su.bsky.social · 5d

The Centre d'Etudes Médiévales Anglaises @sorbonne-universite.fr is convening the 2nd instalment of the André Crépin sessions on Saturday October 18.
@irinadumitrescu.bsky.social will give a plenary on the Chaucer's women and perfection, and we will read folios from a mystery manuscript together!

Fifteenth century woodblock of the Wife of Bath

David and Jonathan from the Vespasian Psalter

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Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · 12d

Thinking of inventing an app where you can tell it that you, say, made a phone call to complain in French, and then followed it up with a formal complaint email in French, composed with dictionaries, not AI, and it just plays ten minutes of applause and shows you videos of fireworks going off.

Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · 15d

I wrote a Substack post about garbage, and why I love it.

irinadumitrescu.substack.com/p/the-libera...

The liberating potential of trash

On recycling as creative process

irinadumitrescu.substack.com

Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · 15d

hahahaha!

Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · 16d

I just did a little more research and found out the goat deal was a myth. Disappointing, but good to know the truth. Karl Marx was indeed imprisoned in the university jail when a student tho.

www.uni-bonn.de/en/universit...

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Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · 16d

That is correct, I only asked for access to a green, as per tradition. But the negotiation took a turn and I was offered the goats.

Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · 19d

When I negotiated the terms of my current professorship, I asked the chair if it was true that professors at our uni were entitled to pasture land for their goats. He said I could have all the goats I wanted. I still do not have a single goat, though to be fair, I haven't put it through purchasing

Jack Lynch @jacklynch000.bsky.social · 19d

Gutenberg was paid “two large barrels of wine” each year for life by the Archbishop of Mainz, Chaucer received a gallon of wine a day from Edward III, and the British poet laureate received “a tierce of Madeira” every year.

I’m thinking I need to renegotiate my contract with Rutgers.

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Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · 22d

I'd never heard of that! I must see it.

Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · 22d

I know just what you're wondering: is there a French Bridget Jones' Diary with a lovable-goofy heroine, a brooding Englishman, a fantasy version of the literary world, and every beat both utterly predictable and knocked out of the park? I present to you: "Jane Austen a gâché ma vie".

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Digital Medievalist @digitalmedievalist.bsky.social · 27d

🚨Job Klaxon🚨

Open rank Professorship in History of the Middle Ages with consideration of digital Methods

📍Institute of History, University of Bern (🇨🇭)
📆Deadline: 19 October 2025
▶️ Information: tinyurl.com/56ywncuj

#Medievalsky #DigitalHumaniities

Uni Bern: Open rank Professorship in History of the Middle Ages with consideration of digital Methods

The Institute of History of the University of Bern is seeking to fill a full time professor position (open rank) in History of the Middle Ages with consideration of digital Methods, beginning 1 Februa...

tinyurl.com

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Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · Sep 7

Oh thank you!

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Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · Sep 7

Completely random I know! But it just occurred to me that I wish I'd known this stuff earlier, before I ruined a bunch of items I liked. Seems to me that part of sustainability should also be knowing how to care for items without destroying them.

Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · Sep 7

Meanwhile, a lady who sold me some of my better clothes told me I should wash them in liquid detergent. And (more of a Euro specific thing) a woman selling intimates said the detergents today disinfect well enough that a 60 C wash is unnecessary.

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Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · Sep 7

Those dishwasher tabs that promise to get everything off your dishes also destroy the actual dishes. Meanwhile, the powder costs less than two euros a bag, and you don't even need to fill up the container.

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Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · Sep 7

One thing about the German labor force is that sales people often have a *lot* of training for their jobs. So I've made a habit of asking them how best to care for purchases. This is how I learned you don't need fancy dishwasher tabs. Powder is fine, much cheaper, and gentler on dishes.

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Reposted by Irina Dumitrescu

Alexander Luckmann @aluckmann.bsky.social · Aug 20

Academia may not give you job security, flexibility, or wealth, but it will let you unexpectedly connect to eduroam in foreign cities

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Reposted by Irina Dumitrescu

Apollo @apollo-magazine.com · Jun 2

High fashion has met high art at the Louvre for the first time – and the results are so eye-popping, Irina Dumitrescu hardly knows where to look

The Louvre puts on its first fashion show | Apollo Magazine

High fashion meets fine art for the first time in an exhibition at Paris museum. Irina Dumitrescu finds it difficult to know where to look

buff.ly

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Reposted by Irina Dumitrescu

The TLS @thetls.bsky.social · Aug 28

'The ones who make the most difference are those who see us for who we are and for who we might become.'

Irina Dumitrescu: What makes a good teacher?

What makes a good teacher?

www.the-tls.com

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Reposted by Irina Dumitrescu

Rebecca Morrison @rebeccamorrison.bsky.social · Sep 6

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Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · Aug 30

"Exercise seemed to be the hallmark of people who had mastered the chaos of life, who had ambition and the discipline to meet it. As long as vacuuming was my primary aerobic activity, I was doomed to be a lesser kind of person, a dabbler, a loser."

www.the-tls.com/politics-soc...

What is the point of physical exercise? | The TLS

A couple of years ago I gave in to the inevitable and joined a gym. There was nothing particularly appealing about air that smelled of rubber,

www.the-tls.com

Reposted by Irina Dumitrescu

Hell-issa Johnson, PhD 🎃 @ladyhistorian.bsky.social · Aug 29

I would read an academic murder book in which the murder was solved by reading the syllabus

Hell-issa Johnson, PhD 🎃 @ladyhistorian.bsky.social · Aug 29

I love this idea and also want a list of academic murder books. Please reply with recs

Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · Aug 29

Hear me out: a dark academia murder book that opens at a department beginning-of-the-year celebration on a boat (I know a department that does this) and a professor goes overboard. The intrepid department chair must figure out who did it. Everyone is a suspect, including the chair herself.

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Anne Thériault @annetheriault.bsky.social · Aug 30

“He died — of uncontrollable laughter at a joke by his jester, having just eaten a whole goose — with no surviving legitimate heirs, and the line which had begun with Wilfred the Hairy, Count of Barcelona in the ninth century, finally died out.” - Sicily: A Short History by John Julius Norwich

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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · Aug 29

“Over the past 20 years, Paris has undergone a major physical transformation, trading automotive arteries for bike lanes, adding green spaces and eliminating 50,000 parking spaces.

Part of the payoff has been invisible — in the air itself.”

Leadership, strategy, real action, common sense. #Paris

Paris said au revoir to cars. Air pollution maps reveal a dramatic change.

Air pollution fell substantially as the city restricted car traffic and made way for parks and bike lanes.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · Aug 29

This might be of interest to some: my cherished colleague (once at Bonn, now in Tübingen) Uwe Küchler's book on an environmental humanities' approach to foreign language teaching is out on September 1!

www.narr.de/environmenta...

Environmental Literacy and the Teaching of English

How can foreign language education be a spark that ignites environmental awareness and sustainability? This book offers a humanities approach to environmental literacy, highlighting the potential of l...

www.narr.de

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