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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · 9d

In both of my books the publisher's copy-editors were putting in extra work ... for me by randomly renaming my colleagues and the greats of my field.

a man with a mustache is sitting at a desk with the words `` so much fun '' written on his face .

ALT: a man with a mustache is sitting at a desk with the words `` so much fun '' written on his face .

media.tenor.com

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · 11d

I had the privilege to (peer-)review a version of this article last year and I'm so glad to read the final version — and to find out that the author is one of my long-time academic crushes 😍🥳😱.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · 11d

"Something happened in Northeast Africa in the early thirteenth century.

It was swift, violent, destructive, and perpetrated by non-Muslims.

It might have been accompanied by an outbreak of disease; it might have had apocalyptic overtones; it might have been several events rolled into one."

Screenshot of the article abstract: The Tatars of the Sūdān: Race, Place, and Power in Ibn Saʿīd’s Geography HannaH Barker Arizona State University Abstract Scholars in the medieval Islamicate world occasionally compared peoples of the far south and the far north, referencing their barbarity to illustrate the effects of extreme climate on human bodies and societies. This article discusses a specific north-south comparison: the portrayal of the Damādim as “the Tatars of the Sūdān,” introduced by Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī in his thirteenth-century geography. He used it to connect the Chinggisid devastation of Khwarazm in the thirteenth century with the Damādim’s devastation of the Nūba and the Ḥabasha in Northeast Africa. Analyzing this comparison in a historical and discursive context tells us little about the Tatars, Northeast Africa, or the Damādim. Instead it reveals Ibn Saʿīd’s work as a racemaker. His comparison emerged in a historically specific moment: it was shaped by the imposition of Tatar rule in the Islamicate East and the constructs of the intellectual community in which he participated. The fact that Ibn Saʿīd invented entirely new content for the term “Damādim” and that this came to be adopted by his peers illustrates how racial stereotypes could change. Finally, the comparison reveals the power dynamics of racialization, as Tatars and Turks holding power in the Islamicate world could intervene in Islamicate racial discourse in a way that Black Africans could not.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · 16d

Solidarity, and strength to you and your dad! ❤️♥️❤️ It's been a solid month of this on my end today, but things are finally really looking up. The bone-deep mental and physical exhaustion that creeps up on you is a beast to reckon with.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · 17d

Same. I even have a subscription (by accident! But yeah! And it's *not* cheap!), so it's doubly infuriating. Avoiding the inevitable for now by simply not accessing the page at all.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Sep 1

Yeah. Average survival time is 11 months. He was first diagnosed in October 2019.

Sheer single-minded obstinacy (Him: "well, this cancer hasn't met me yet, I'll show it a fight", me: "I'm not that kind of doctor, but you need to treat him with x, y, z!") on both out parts for the win.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Sep 1

Everything I've ever published was written against a steady backdrop of care work with intermittent bouts of sheer personal terror — made extra terrific by being on a fixed-term, contingent appointment.

All this to say, academics are not robots. Be kind when evaluating (junior) colleagues.

a woman says " everything hurts and i 'm dying "

ALT: a woman says " everything hurts and i 'm dying "

media.tenor.com

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Sep 1

Well, in retrospect, August was a 🤬 flaming dumpster fire of a month.

Spent most of it in various hospitals with my dad, fighter extraordinaire, now in his 6th year of obliterating Glioblastoma statistics. Things are looking up, but ... phew.

Man plans, God laughs, academic sabbatical edition.

Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 2

It's August, which means the semester break is finally upon us in Bochum (sorry, American colleagues!).

Starting my 14-month post-appointment sabbatical (🤯!) as befits my rural roots: with long rambling walks through the hilly Hessian countryside, my tried and tested method for starting a new book.

A hilly countryside, green grass, a cloudy blue sky promising drizzled of rain. A herd of highland cows, some huge and horned, with babys as tiny as a grown Labrador retriever, stare directly into the camera.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 21

The typo in the post is intentional to show you that I'm a real human being by the way.

Oh my lord, it's been a day or five.

a black and white photo of a man in a suit and bow tie .

ALT: a black and white photo of a man in a suit and bow tie .

media.tenor.com

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 21

I just did this—followed the steps below to stopAcademia's AI-fication of my work.

Thanks but no thanks. I've gone on enough real podcasts, done real interviews and written my own public facing essays that I really don't need an auto-generated version that likely distorts what I actually wrote.

Monica H Green @monicamedhist.bsky.social · Aug 20

Whoa! Thanks for the tip. For other folks wanting to do this, here are screenshots of what I just did. Start by going to you "Account Settings." Then follow the screenshots below. And yes, when given the option "Are you sure you want to proceed?," you better believe I hit that sucker!

disabling AI on Academia.edu: #1 - go to 'account settings' (flagged with red arrow).

Screenshot of instructions to disable AI on Academia.edu, #2: choose "AI Settings". Note that this was already "enabled" even though I had never opted for it. Note, too, this claim "Your uploaded works are eligible for Al-generated content." As if they're doing us a great favor!

Screenshot showing how to disable AI on Academia.edu - #3 - 'warning' that disabling AI will delete all AI products.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 21

Excellent, just did this.

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Reposted by Dr. Verena Krebs

Sophia Dege-Müller @sophiademue.bsky.social · Aug 20

Excited to share the article that @mmonier.bsky.social and I wrote on the Introduction to the Gospels by ibn al-Assal and its Arabic and Ethiopic traditions 🤩

brill.com/view/journal...

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 19

I tend to think my name's pretty basic — 'Verena' is very much an 80s girls' name from the German-speaking regions of Europe (although we're all named for a 4th-ct Coptic saint from Thebes in Upper Egypt— القديسة فيرينا).

And then there's weeks where I'm constantly called ...Veronika, Vera, Verona.

Photo of the Cairo metro mosaic of St. Verena (transliterated here as Verina), "the Egyptian nun who introduced personal hygiene to Europeans", Abbassia, Cairo, Egypt.

She's wearing bright red garb and staring judgingly at the onlooker, holding objects useful for personal grooming, hoping you'd get that smelling good is an option.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 19

Absolutely!

Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 19

Dare I ask if there's a specific Bluesky thing I missed?

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Reposted by Dr. Verena Krebs

Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 18

Well, it's finally *really* out:

habemus full citation — Krebs, V. (2025). ‘People and Things Have Always Been Mixed Up’: Notes on the So-Called Global Middle Ages. Journal of Medieval History, 51(4), 581–585. doi.org/10.1080/0304...

50 free downloads at: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RAEXD...

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 18

What. I have no words but impotent fury.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 18

Yes we are, I'm a fan of @rhaplord.bsky.social's page! It's an excellent public scholarship resource.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 18

Last week's big-splash news about the 7th-century Anglo-Saxon burial of a girl with partial West African genetic heritage dovetails pretty nicely with the larger argument I made in my essay above:

The 'medieval' world of Afro-Eurasia was always a "Geteilte Welt":

separate *and* shared all along.

Youths buried in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries carried West African DNA

Despite bearing remarkably far-flung genetic origins, a girl and young man were buried just like their peers

www.science.org

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 18

One day I'll learn what the purpose of all this "published as first view" (with effectively "wrong" bibliographic data) and "full final view" rigmarole is (maximum confusion for future altimetric data, I guess), but today is not that day.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 18

Well, it's finally *really* out:

habemus full citation — Krebs, V. (2025). ‘People and Things Have Always Been Mixed Up’: Notes on the So-Called Global Middle Ages. Journal of Medieval History, 51(4), 581–585. doi.org/10.1080/0304...

50 free downloads at: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RAEXD...

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Reposted by Dr. Verena Krebs

Isaac Samuel @rhaplord.bsky.social · Aug 17

In the year 1071 CE, an envoy from the East African island of Cengtan (層檀, ie, Zangistân/Zanzibar in Tanzania) named Cengjiani visited the court of the Song dynasty ruler Shenzong (r. 1067–85):
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/africans-i...

Africans in the Indian Ocean world and the autobiography of a Somali Globetrotter.

In 1944, a soldier on Australia’s most remote northern coastline discovered a handful of copper coins that were originally minted in the medieval Swahili city of Kilwa, Tanzania, between 1150 and 1330...

www.africanhistoryextra.com

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 15

Yeah, I've spent a good chunk of the last few years nostalgic for the earlier days of the internet. Not perfect by any means but also not this...

I'm an old, I'll see myself out now 😬.

a blue dumpster is floating in a flooded area near a sign that says narrows ramp

ALT: a blue dumpster is floating in a flooded area near a sign that says narrows ramp

media.tenor.com

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 15

Yeah, but it allowed a glimpse into a future where avoiding it is functionally impossible— & where reality is completely negotiable, & contingent on your personal algorithmic bubble (that you might not be aware of). That post had thousands of likes & comments, because people *wanted* it to be true.

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Dr. Verena Krebs @krebsverena.bsky.social · Aug 15

Not to be a Cassandra, but it's gonna get so much worse with the proliferation of AI slop. I saw a viral Facebook post about how a 15th French king was cured by a Songhai physician from Gao that was based on a ChatGPT Reddit post indexed by Google's AI summary, fed into Facebook, fed into the G-Ai.

a cartoon character from south park is sitting in a hospital room

ALT: a cartoon character from south park is sitting in a hospital room

media.tenor.com

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