Nicholas Scott Baker
@renhistorian.bsky.social
540 followers 680 following 150 posts
Historian of Renaissance Italy and other things; latest book: In Fortune's Theater: Financial Risk and the Future in Renaissance Italy; Australian football tragic.
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renhistorian.bsky.social
Like many others, it seems, you can no longer find me or my work on Academia.edu. You can still find my stuff on Hcommons, or as always just email or DM me if you don't have institutional access to an article or chapter I have published and I'll send you a PDF.
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
ladygiada.bsky.social
Call for Papers📣: Gender, Violence and the Early Moderns. Join us in Florence. We look forward to hosting you in May 2026😎☀️ @eui-history.bsky.social #skystorians #academicsky #earlymodern
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
onslies.bsky.social
AN #EARLYMODERN POST!! They still exist! And a lovely one at that, for five years and with the brilliant people at KCL who have turned that place in quite the hub of exciting early modern research.

Run, don’t walk.
Lecturer in the History of Early Modern Europe and the World at King's College London
Discover an exciting academic career path as a Lecturer in the History of Early Modern Europe and the World at jobs.ac.uk. Don't miss out on this job opportunity - apply today!
www.jobs.ac.uk
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
karinsennefelt.bsky.social
The Word made Flesh is out today! I've not seen it in the flesh myself yet, but this is a happy day after many years of work.
#EarlyModern #medhist #histmed #bodyhistory
Cover of the book The Word made Flesh: Lutheran Bodies, 1600-1720 by Karin Sennefelt. The over image shows an etching of a young woman in a dress but bare foot flying through the air during a lightning storm.
renhistorian.bsky.social
Classical music, always and only. Probably not the first thing you thought of when I said classical music, but something more contemporary. Stephen Glass maybe.
renhistorian.bsky.social
Like many others, it seems, you can no longer find me or my work on Academia.edu. You can still find my stuff on Hcommons, or as always just email or DM me if you don't have institutional access to an article or chapter I have published and I'll send you a PDF.
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
erikagaffney.bsky.social
Coming up Sept 16 at @notredame.bsky.social -

Art, Politics, and Ritual in the Clementine Jubilee Year 1525
A talk by by Sheryl E. Reiss

arts.nd.edu/events/2025/...
Digital event poster with black text on a beige background. At right is an oval framed picture of a late medieval pope in a yellow robe, in the act of mounting something (a crucifix?) onto a wall.
renhistorian.bsky.social
"These companies might even lay off workers or slow their hiring because they are convinced—like the software developers from the METR study—that AI has made them more productive, even when it hasn’t."
jbhall56.bsky.social
If there is any field in which the rise of AI is already said to be rendering humans obsolete—in which the dawn of superintelligence is already upon us—it is coding. This makes the results of a recent study genuinely astonishing. www.theatlantic.com/economy/arch...
Just How Bad Would an AI Bubble Be?
The entire U.S. economy is being propped up by the promise of productivity gains that seem very far from materializing.
www.theatlantic.com
renhistorian.bsky.social
"Why worry about actually learning anything when you can get an A for outsourcing your thinking to a machine?"
damonberes.com
Excited to present this great essay by Ashanty Rosario, a talented young journalist who attends Newtown High School in Queens, about how she's experienced the arrival of AI in the classroom.

"These programs have destroyed much of what tied us together as students."
I’m a High Schooler. AI Is Demolishing My Education.
The end of critical thinking in the classroom
www.theatlantic.com
renhistorian.bsky.social
I have been assigning episodes of In Our Time as additional listening for students for years: a smart, accessible conversation between scholars. Melvyn Bragg can be a little annoying (to me anyway) but he never lets the discussion flag or get sidetracked and he keeps the guests honest!
earlymodernjohn.bsky.social
A huge moment -- Melvyn Bragg steps down from In Our Time after over a quarter of a century. What a programme and what a legacy! Just a model for how to make great, clever, engaging radio, and a twenty-seven-year experiment that proves there's a huge global audience for smart, scholarly programming.
Melvyn Bragg decides to step down from presenting In Our Time
After 26 years on the programme, the legendary presenter bids farewell to the series
www.bbc.co.uk
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
alexandreklein.bsky.social
(Call for applications) Assistant Professor, Tenure-Track, Medieval History (Global), Department of History, Baylor University histoiresante.blogspot.com/2025/08/post... #histmed
renhistorian.bsky.social
A group of economists train AI to prove what art historians have already established: more non-historians producing naïve, simplistic work b/c they have no understanding of historical methods or analysis.
news.artnet.com/art-world/ai...
How Economists Are Mining Art With A.I. to Track Major Social Shifts | Artnet News
Economists trained an A.I. to detect emotion in 600,000 paintings spanning six centuries, revealing how art mirrors consumer sentiment.
news.artnet.com
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
millerprosser.bsky.social
Technologist Miller Prosser sees a future where students expand creativity and critical thinking by reading and writing, all without a single subscription to a faulty techbro app.
npr.org
NPR @npr.org · Aug 29
Technologist Victor Riparbelli sees a future where students interact with AI avatars rather than read and write. We ask teachers and kids what they think and how they're using AI right now.
Will AI avatars eventually teach our kids?
Technologist Victor Riparbelli sees a future where students interact with AI avatars rather than read and write. We ask teachers and kids what they think and how they're using AI right now.
n.pr
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
tudorwench.bsky.social
The inner circle of every historian…
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
alexdecampi.bsky.social
There are tons of graphic novels, academic papers, film and TV scripts, & prose novels/nonfiction on the LibGen list Anthropic used.

As settlement approaches, make it easy for the class action lawyers to contact you! Here’s how

Part 1: is your work in Libgen?

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.
www.theatlantic.com
renhistorian.bsky.social
"Almost half of Australia’s universities have restructured in the past year, leading to the merging or disbanding of more than 50 schools of study and drastic reductions in course options for students, particularly in the humanities."
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Australian universities to cut about 2,400 jobs and hundreds of courses as sector blames ‘confused’ government policies
Vice-chancellors say they’ve been forced to restructure but critics point finger at ‘unaccountable’ university management
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
rebellionuhh.bsky.social
🎺 Job alert! 🎺
Durham University is advertising for an Assistant Professor in Histories of the Islamicate World (Medieval/Early Modern), permanent and full-time!
Great department, lovely colleagues, beautiful historic city! Deadline for applications is 28/09/25!
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOJ050/a...
Assistant Professor in Histories of the Islamicate World (Medieval/Early Modern) at Durham University
Discover Assistant Professor in Histories of the Islamicate World (Medieval/Early Modern) jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.
www.jobs.ac.uk
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
michellewitte.bsky.social
For the cynics who think it doesn’t matter, that the compensation for authors whose work was stolen will be so low it’s not worth fighting, I personally think it’s worth making the monetary punitive damage these companies suffer as big as possible to deter similar theft in the future.
authorsguild.org
A federal court ruled that ANTHROPIC illegally copied MILLIONS of books to train its AI.

All authors and publishers whose books were downloaded by Anthropic from pirate websites are subject to receiving compensation. This could involve your work.

For more info: authorsguild.org/news/anthrop...
"Graphic with 'Anthropic' logo on left, circuit-like design. Right text reads: 'Authors: You May Be Part of This Class Action Lawsuit. Anthropic AI Lawsuit Explained.' Modern, tech-themed design."
Reposted by Nicholas Scott Baker
rachelschine.bsky.social
When unis say “we won’t fire you humanities professors, we’ll just take your majors away and merge your department with two others and rename it all,” what they’re doing is they’re making humanities expertise increasingly invisible and inaccessible…
renhistorian.bsky.social
This is happening now at my Australian institution.
renhistorian.bsky.social
A serious question: why are you using ChatGPT to transcribe (or as an example of poor AI transcription) rather than Transkribus (a tool designed for and by historians expressly for archival research)?