@francescabrooks
Lecturer in Old English at University College Cork. Writer of poetry & prose. Early Medievalist, Late Modernist, Feminist. Author of 'Poet of the Medieval Modern'. Find more of my writing at https://francescabrooks.com/
π’ Deadline extended: 30 April 2026βΌοΈ
π Theme: All Kinds of People
π TOEBI is a supportive and collegial conference open to anyone involved in the teaching of Old English at any level.
π« Host: University of Nottingham
π
Date: Saturday, 24th October 2026
#οΈβ£ #CfP #TOEBI #medievalsky #OldEnglish
The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer.
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Was not expecting to start my day with this good #20s30s history from @georgemonbiot.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The deadline for this has been extended to 27th April. Although it's not exclusively a creative medieval CFP, some creative medievalists might be interested in its framing via Jarrow, the Codex Amiatinus, and site-writing! @guildmedmak.bsky.social
The deadline for this has been extended to 27th April. Although it's not exclusively a creative medieval CFP, some creative medievalists might be interested in its framing via Jarrow, the Codex Amiatinus, and site-writing! @guildmedmak.bsky.social
The βmessyβ course returns to Londonβs palaeography summer school, 8-12 June. A chance to make your own medieval manuscript. Places are limited so book now (tell your friends)! #medievalsky taught by the amazing @saracharles.bsky.social @stevelawesarts.bsky.social ππ¨π«
palaeography.uk/study/short-...
This is a good point! I sometimes look at young people now, and feel a bit ashamed of not being more politically engaged when I was young (I think it took the 2010 election!), but there was perhaps a bit of a climate of comfort and complacency.
Wow! There's definitely an imbalance there!
Absolutely - all far too casual for something that will have an impact on future earnings & savings etc, even if it doesn't impact credit score.
But none of the people downplaying the debt had ever taken on a loan like this! Obviously, I have no regrets about going to uni, but I am very angry for people on Plan 2 loans (as someone with a much smaller loan to pay off).
I graduated in 2011, so luckily I'm not on a plan 2 loan, but this really fits with my sense of the discourse around student loans & debt when I was at school. I went to a state school where there was a huge push to try & get as many of us as poss into HE & everyone told us the debt was meaningless!
'The presentation was part of a series of "student finance tours" delivered to thousands of schools between 2011 and 2017, by graduates who were asked to speak to pupils and parents on the then-government's behalf.' 1/2
If it's feeling a bit springlike, Green Island CPH is a fun floating beer and pizza place on the river! I also second recs for Tivoli and the Glyptotek. Will you get to Billund and Lego House?
π¨ It looks like the UK government is gearing up to upend copyright law in favour of AI companies, legalising the theft of their work.
This is despite creatives' huge protests, and despite previous proposals being roundly rejected by the public.
Please spread the word.
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βThe worldβs top AI models can be prompted to generate near-verbatim copies of bestselling novels, raising fresh questions about the industryβs claim that its systems do not store copyrighted works.β
www.ft.com/content/e4b7...
A black and white glass plate negative of daffodils, ferns, and grasses, set amongst craggy rocks
St Davidβs Day/Dydd GΕ΅yl Dewi Sant: Ferns & Daffodils (c.1850s) by Welsh botanist & photography pioneer, John Dillwyn Llewelyn. His sister Mary Dillwyn was also drawn to photography & was probably the 1st female photographer in Wales. They produced many images of flowers, animals, people, & places.
Thanks to @thesowhat.bsky.social and @arthurianajrnl.bsky.social teams, wonderful to be in this great publication βΊοΈ
An opportunity for a medievalist to join the team at Cambridge: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQQ346/a...
Anyone whoβs followed me for a while will know that I love a good medieval mystic! Victoria Mackenzieβs βFor Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Painβ is the story of Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich; itβs concise, but incredibly vivid and moving. I loved the meeting between the two women!
It was such a pleasure to work with Susie on this post! Do check out the intriguing prompt too! π― And seek out Susieβs new book from Guillemot Press, WASTELANDS.
Throughout February and especially on Ireland Reads Day, February 28th, Libraries Ireland is calling on people across Ireland to get lost in a good book. It doesnβt matter what you read, where you read or how well you read, as long as you read.
www.irelandreads.ie
The study of the environmental impact of hanseatic trade and is a truely novel approach. If only you feel just a tingle of interest, do it. Not only is Sander quite a sharp thinker, Ghent is a great place to be, too!
Taking pre-orders for gorses 12 + 13:
gorse.ie/book/no-12/
gorse.ie/book/no-13/
(Double release, like Tom Waits' Alice + Blood Money.)
Just in case you haven't spotted this, @norseincork.bsky.social !
My review of the new book 'Runes: A Concise History' is out in the latest edition of the @historytoday.com magazine!
The review in brief: runes are great, so is this book, and it does a good job separating runic fact from runic fiction.
if circumstances were different I would 100% be applying for this gorgeous job β maybe you should?
@katherineweikert I haven't read SiΓ’n's new book yet, but it may touch on this too: www.pennpress.org/978151282705...
SiΓ’n Echard has written a brilliant chapter on facsimiles & access, which contextualises her argument with reference to the British Library hack. It's forthcoming in a book I'm editing for UCL Press - Beyond Medieval Archives.
On a totally different subject, this brilliant article on the legacies of Rorke's Drift is also currently free to read on History Today!
It was the anniversary of the battle this week.
Itβs #CfP time for the Association of Welsh Writing in English: this yearβs themes are Sites of Memory: Making, Remembering, Forgetting.
15th-17th May, hybrid and Prifysgol Aberystwyth University.
www.awwe.org/conference.h...
