Justin Stearns

A detail from the opening page of a 13th-century copy of Avicenna's Canon of Medicine. The page is written in dark brown ink, with red rubrication of the title, and blue and red ink filigree decorations. Madrid, BN, MS 1193, f. 1r.

In need of a timeline cleanse, I opened up this beaut of a manuscript. Gerard of Cremona's (d. 1187) translation of Avicenna's. (Ibn Sina, d. 1037) Canon of Medicine. Couldn't you just get lost in that filigree?

Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS 1193, f. 1r.

In the Spring 2025 issue of ArabLit Quarterly (GRIEF) -- coming in five days -- we make a shared space to grieve and to build together from that grief.

"May what we mourn propel us toward our collective liberation." - guest editor Abdelrahman Elgendy

Associate Professor in History, 1000-1500 at University of Oxford Looking for a new job opportunity in academia? Check out this job opening for a Associate Professor in History, 1000-1500 on jobs.ac.uk!

New job at Oxford - do please share widely!

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMS153/a...

Shao-yun Yang sharing his primary source translations on Ethnic Identity in Imperial China: An Online Sourcebook, on Academia.edu.

Translated primary sources for teaching the history of ethnicity in medieval China. A fabulous resource! #GlobalMiddleAges #MedievalSky www.academia.edu/community/ln...

Assistant Professor in the History of the Medieval Mediterranean World at Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Discover Assistant Professor in the History of the Medieval Mediterranean World jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.

Assistant Professor in the History of the Medieval Mediterranean World
Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin #skystorians 🗃️www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMQ287/a...

My review in Der Islam of Norman Cigar's edition and study of Dukkali's chronicle of Fas in the 18th century – which is a substantial achievement and of interest to students of Moroccan History and of Urban History.

www.academia.edu/128778417/St...

My review of Abigail Balbale's excellent The Wolf King: Ibn Mardanīsh and the Construction of Power in al-Andalus is out in Speculum. This was a real joy to read and is highly recommended for many reasons. Read the review! www-journals-uchicago-edu.proxy.library.nyu.edu/doi/full/10....

A comparison of income inequality in the Roman and Chinese Han empires - Nature Communications The authors estimate income inequality in the Roman Empire and the Chinese Han Empire. They find that the Han Empire was, overall, more unequal and extractive than the Roman Empire, with the respectiv...

Want to do some history reading this weekend as we contemplate the fall of empires? Here are 3 top economic historians weighing in on inequality in the Roman and Han Empires: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🗃️

HIU Community Mourns Passing of Emeritus Professor Yahya Michot, Highly Regarded Scholar At Hartford International, you’ll join an interfaith peer group and professors who broaden your perspective and, in turn, deepen your ability to make a difference in a world where the roads no longer ...

A real loss. A wonderful scholar. www.hartfordinternational.edu/news-events/...

Harvard CMES: Support for Academic Freedom Letter Dear Colleagues, we have drafted a letter addressing the removal of Cemal Kafadar and Rosie Bsheer from the leadership of Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Please review the letter below an...

For all the academics out there who care about Harvard firing the heads of its Center for Middle East Studies, you can sign here to register your concern: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Whoa! Here's the link to the English version of the database: projects.tuni.fi/viabundus-fi... #MedievalSky

Too good not to share.

A suggestion for "Hug a Medievalist Day" 2025: write to your favorite medievalist and tell them which of their works (book, article, blogpost, tweet/skeet) you've used in teaching or shared w/ friends/family/community. What inspired you to think about the world differently?

::Roundtable:: From Manuscripts to Digital Corpus: Structuring Islamic Data Sources for the Future of AI Jurisprudence By Ezieddin Elmahjub Introduction Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly large language models (LLMs) and generative AI, is poised to revolutionize how we approach and interact with Islamic jur…

A useful overview of we are now on AI and Islamic Legal sources: islamiclaw.blog/2025/03/27/r...

‘They Even Assassinated My Library’ However, for me, the most precious of all the manuscripts in my library were the six stories I wrote in Israeli jail. These were the first stories I ever wrote, penned during a few months of incarceration following my participation in the First Intifada in 1992. I wasn’t quite 19 when I wrote those stories. I “published” them by hanging them on the wall of the prison.

‘They Even Assassinated My Library’

However, for me, the most precious of all the manuscripts in my library were the six stories I wrote in Israeli jail. These were the first stories I ever wrote, penned during a few months of incarceration following my participation in the First Intifada in 1992.…

Evocative piece by @mannahattamamma.bsky.social. Art is for dark times.

Frankenstein in Baghdad: A Novel for Our Present Dystopia An NYU professor who has frequently taught this Iraqi novel finds that two months into Trump 2.0, its significance has shifted considerably.

themarkaz.org/frankenstein...

Collectivism and new identities after the Black Death Pandemic: Merchant diasporas and incorporative local communities in West Africa Merchant diasporas have significantly influenced local and interregional processes in world history, but archaeology is only starting to understand th…

Wow, this needs to be investigated further. Stephen Dueppen has been developing a theory the past several years that plague (or some other major infectious disease) DID reach West Africa. Most recently, he's published with (w/ Daphne Gallagher): www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Mixed feelings on this article. On the one hand, research about the educated female medieval experience is momentarily occupying the mainstream. But on the other hand, the closer you look at their methodology, the less helpful the results appear to be.
#medievalsky #medievalwomen #skystorians
1/🧵

An update to my #WorldLeprosyDay post from January. New piece in Nature Medicine recounting Jordan's success in eliminating leprosy following @who.int protocols: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wonderful to see this!

Islamicate Environments Cambridge Core - Global History - Islamicate Environments

I don't know how long it's going to be in its "free download" phase, so hurry up and get your copy of D. Fairchild Ruggles, Islamicate Environments: Water, Land, Plants, and Society, www.cambridge.org/core/element.... #GlobalMiddleAges #MedievalSky #skystorians #EnvironmentalHistory

The Bellagio Center Residency Program

A magical experience. All academics and artists should apply! www.rockefellerfoundation.org/fellowships-...

GLC@Lunch with Chris Halsted: “Systems of Slave-Taking and Slavic Ethnogenesis in Early Medieval Rus’” Wed, Mar 5 2025, 12 - 1:15pm | Chris Halsted (GLC Visiting Scholar) The spread of Slavic identity within early medieval Rus’ remains poorly understood, with most models privileging some manner of expl...

#MedievalSky An event of importance for #GlobalMiddleAges studies. On March 5, Yale's Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition is sponsoring a talk on slave-taking in early medieval Rus'. Sign up here: macmillan.yale.edu/glc/events/2...

125 years of the plague in Brazil: lessons learnt, historical insights and contemporary challenges - PubMed The history of the plague, caused by Yersinia pestis, is marked by some of the most devastating pandemics. Its arrival in Brazil on the turn of the 19-20th century led to significant public health cha...

Grateful to scientists in Brazil who maintain surveillance of plague there: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40008699/. These international surveillance networks are what keeps this disease at bay. #PublicHealth

Three-Year Visiting Position in Public History at NYUAD: “ New York University Abu Dhabi invites applications for a visiting professor (Open Rank) position in Public History, with an appointment term of up to three years beginning in the Academic Year 2025-2026.” apply.interfolio.com/163644

The Afro-Eurasian Middle Ages - Arc Humanities This series presents the integrated study of the Afro-Eurasian “Old World”, in its formative millennium between ca. 500 and ca. 1500. After the end of the

Excited to announce I'll be editor for a new series at @archumanities.bsky.social, The Afro-Eurasian Middle Ages, presenting 'the integrated study of the Afro-Eurasian “Old World”, in its formative millennium'.

Share widely, & get in touch if you have ideas!

www.arc-humanities.org/the-afro-eur...

DRC: 'This is our war, not some distant, irrational outbreak of violence in Africa' OP-ED. American researcher Jason K. Stearns condemns inaction on the part of Western countries in the face of the offensive by M23 rebels and Rwandan forces in the east of the Democratic Republic of C...

My brother on what's happening in the Congo right now: www.lemonde.fr/en/le-monde-...

My co-author, @FancyNahyan.bsky.social, and I are happy to announce that, after an 8-month delay, our essay “Plague History, Mongol History, and the Processes of Focalisation Leading Up to the Black Death” has finally been published. It’s open-access: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #histmed 🧪