Kate Cooper

A PowerPoint slide. On the left is the text: "Life-writing as History-writing. Dr Elizabeth Boyle, Maynooth University, elizabeth.boyle@mu.ie. Humanities Seminar, University of Suffolk, 24 January 2025." On the right is a generic image of a birdseye's view of a wooden desk or table with a computer keyboard, a notebook and pen, a plant, a cup of black coffee, and some paperclips.

A #CreativeWriting & #History 🧵

Yesterday I gave a seminar at the University of Suffolk on "Life-writing as History-writing", looking at historians who have used memoir as a way of writing history, & the relationships between (auto)biography, family history, creative nonfiction, memoir, etc. 1/9

Truly Universal Book Links | BookFunnel: the blog Hello, BFFs! Welcome to another edition of the BookFunnel blog. Hopefully, you’re all recovered from a massive turkey day (if you’re into that sort of thing), and you’re ready to keep writing! Or, may...

This is REALLY exciting news for authors - especially indies! Thanks, @bookfunnel.bsky.social 💙📚
#bookfunnel #indieauthor #authortools

blog.bookfunnel.com/2024/truly-u...

Colourful blue and red mosaic within an arched space showing a man with a halo dressed in flowing white robes running towards a flaming gridiron where he will be martyred for his Christian faith.

For #mosaicmonday 🏺 St Vincent of Saragossa rushing to the gridiron to be martyred, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna.

My late mother Gillian wrote a seminal re-interpretation of this work, challenging the long-standing orthodoxy it represented St Lawrence. drive.google.com/file/d/1n-EK...

So very disturbing

Iapyx removing an arrowhead from the leg of Aeneas, with Aeneas's son, Ascanius, crying beside him. Antique fresco from Pompeii.

A stunning fresco from the House of Sirico, Pompeii, showing Aeneas being treated by Iapyx as described in Virgil’s Aeneid. His tearful son Ascanius—who would become the first King of Alba Longa—at his side. You can see this today at the Archaeological Museum of Naples. #FrescoFriday #AncientBlueSky

Gorgeous!

Marlborough Mound is 19 meters high and was built in 2400 BC. It's often referred to as Silbury Hill's little sister and is located within the grounds of Marlborough College. Legend has it, this was the final resting place of Merlin, and was once called Maerla’s Barrow. 🧙‍♂️

Such a good article!

Wow! 💓

An outline of the *History for the 21st Century* (H21) module on the Black Death (2nd Plague Pandemic). A quick presentation about the project will be made at the Medieval Academy of America meeting at Notre Dame University, 16 March 2024.

#MedievalSky: if you'll be at the Medieval Academy (#MAA2024) meeting in March, do make a note that I'll be doing a lightning round presentation on my new teaching module on the Black Death/2nd Plague Pandemic. 1:30pm 03/16. Can't make the presentation? Grab me at coffee time for details.

A great choice!

Small fresco fragment with two women. The one in the foreground is looking downwards with a smile on her face, and the other one faces towards her and appears to have just said something, or is perhaps gazing at her with love. Mother and daughter, lovers, friends? Getty Villa Museum

“If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anyone, come and sit here by me.”

-- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (who had it needlepointed onto a pillow)

1st c. CE Roman fresco fragment with two women. #GettyVilla (96.AG.302). 📸 my own 🏺

Large tile with the letters IMP engraved upon it.

Excavations in a cricket club in Carlisle, north-west England, revealed an Imperial Bath House, built for Septimius Severus while he was in the city around 200 AD. 34 tiles with the letters IMP suggest the bath house was built for the emperor.
📸 Dot Boughton
🏺 Ancientbluesky

I'm really looking forward to speaking about women in 'Gnostic' Christian traditions as part of a day of talks at Southwark Cathedral on 2 March next year. Also featuring @kateantiquity.bsky.social, Helen Bond, and Sara Parvis.

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/womens-voi...

Wonderful news! 💓

This looks gripping!

What a lovely, helpful piece of wisdom to draw from your loss. Your mum would love to know that people she never met may experience kindnesses because her daughter helped the rest of us to be a little bit kinder x

New Books, by Dan Piepenbring

well hello *Gospel Thrillers* in the new books column of HARPERS MAGAZINE (!!!!!! ad. inf.)

harpers.org/archive/2023...

(that URL is awesome)

The Voice of Monnica Kate Cooper on Monnica's stories and the story of Monnica

Such a pleasure to join a virtual almost-conversation on the Augustine Blog, thinking about Monnica in Book 9 of the Confessions. Also: three cheers for whoever chose this window to evoke the Ostia vision - an inspired choice!
augustineblog.com/the-voice-of...

Are we happy they left out Aelius Aristides?

Why are fewer women using AI than men? The use of artificial intelligence appears to have a significant gender imbalance.

Bit of an odd story this one - the main analysis says women don't use AI because they lack STEM skills, confidence and value in the workplace. Yet the anecdotes suggest that women excel at communication, whether writing or interpersonal, and can spot ChatGPT's flaws
www.bbc.co.uk/news/busines...

Screenshot of a tumblr post that reads "getting a good grade in crab is normal to want and possible to achieve" related to finding a horseshoe crab with a scientific tag on it

What's some amazing phrase-ology that you first saw on social media and now use all the time in real life?

I'll go first: "Normal to want and possible to achieve"

Definitely a petition I would sign! 🥰

An archaeologist guiding a group of people wearing masks in a series of ancient Roman structures

An ancient Roman coloured fresco partially preserved of a person sitting

An ancient Roman coloured fresco partially preserved on a fragmentary wall

An ancient Roman coloured fresco partially preserved on a ruined wall with people standing in front of it wearing masks

Excavations underneath Basilica San Giovanni in Laterano (Rome) revealed vivid fresco in what were 2nd c. CE elite houses, followed by a complex sequence of spatial reuse and rebuilding ending up with the first ever cathedral.
🏺 ClassicsBlueSky

A floating female figure seemingly dashing across deep yellow ochre background; her white and purple garment flowing as she does. Her right arm is extended outwards and her left carries a torch

A black background with a red pointed arch framing a female figure in white and red garments. She holds a golden platter.

A nude male figure draped in a purple-brown shawl extends his left out outwards. He stands framed by a red arch against a black background decorated with a delicate band of vegetation and other decorative borders. In the register above him are a white and a red panel divided by a glowing golden column

A view in a fresco looking over a garden fence with two star-cross gates with a tree behind. The branches are thick but spindly at their ends and the greenery is a series of delicate fronds.

Almost too many fine details to digest. The flowing garments of the floating figure, the serenity and luminosity of the figures against the black background, the delicate greenery of the tree
What it must have been like to live with these decorations...
Villa San Marco, Stabiae

I'm writing up the final report of our (with @sebhth.bsky.social) Pompeii Artistic Landscape Project (PALP) - generously funded by a Getty Foundation's Digital Art History Grant - so I thought maybe I can share some of the results of that work to get started on here.

Boy would I love to understand what CW is trying to do with this - it has Perot/Nader written all over it and I find it hard to believe that is what he wants

So happy to hear this! 🎊

"📢📢In partnership with the journal Early Medieval Europe, the British School at Rome is pleased to announce the BSR/Early Medieval Europe Fellowship 📢📢"
bsr.ac.uk/bsr-early-me...