HSJ: Assistant Editorship! The Haskins Society Journal is accepting applications for the position of Assistant Editor. The Assistant Editor will be involved in all stages of the review and editing process, including copy editing, communicating with authors and reviewers, and tracking the progress of manuscripts. Candidates should have strong skills in communication, language, ethics, and organization. To apply, please submit a letter of interest and a CV by April 27, 2026 to haskinssocietyjournal@gmail.com . The letter should discuss your interest in the position, current research activities, and any previous experiences that would be relevant to this position. If you have any questions about this position or the application process, please contact the editorial team at haskinssocietyjournal@gmail.com.

We're looking for an Assistant Editor for the Haskins Society Journal!

Applications due by April 27.

It is genuinely surreal to watch both the U.S. and Britain decide to destroy their own world-renowned and extremely profitable university systems at the same time.

A WHOLE CIVILIZATION WILL DIE TONIGHT My son needs lunch, and I have to put his backpack together, but a whole civilization will die tonight, so I'm wondering if they've closed their schools. Like, a snow day, maybe, except instead of snow it's "keep your children home so if you die, you die together" — instead of "well open back up once the plows have cleared" it's "we don't know if we'll be here tomorrow, hold your babies tight." It's just "talk" I'm told, which I've been told before. "It's how the president makes his deals." But I've never heard anyone talk about other human beings this way, and I'm not certain I can look my son in the eyes if we all agree to stomach it one more time. A civilization will die tonight, but as I zip up his backpack and kiss him off to school I think: if this is what we call leadership then I'm not entirely sure ours isn't already dead. @michaelfdubois Mukad A QuBoy @michacifdubois

Brutal.

Some good news - a new issue of Early Medieval Europe has dropped! And it's a bumper issue, with six articles, not the usual five. Here's a quick thread on the delights awaiting you: 1/9

Birds might not be real, but they help you do real history!

(This is extremely cool.)

The caliph and the falcons: a ninth‐century history from Iceland to Iraq In the late ninth and early tenth centuries, an extraordinary number of falcons were given to the ʿAbbāsid caliphs in Baghdad, many of which were white. Gifts from competing dynasties in the northern...

Then @medivalist.bsky.social and @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social on the Caliph and the Falcons, tracing connections from Iceland to Iraq from a bird's eye perspective (open access) 6/9 doi.org/10.1111/emed...

I‘m very happy to see that the latest issue of Early Medieval Europe is now out, featuring ‘The Caliph and the Falcons’, that I wrote with @medivalist.bsky.social, now with actual page numbers! Check it out for arctic falcons, adventurous Scandinavians, ambitious emirs and more!

Database on vikings in Irish Chronicles AD 794-902 which was completed as part of my doctoral research (a looong time ago) www.celt.dias.ie/publications... #medievalsky #archaeology #spéirghorm

"we need kids to get an early start operating machines that are routinely wrong and may try to coax them into suicide and/or psychosis" is a fun education perspective i disagree with actually

The first women being admitted as undergraduates at Columbia University is something that happened in my lifetime. There’s a lot we take for granted that is ~2-3 generations old, and people in power are actively trying to undo a lot of it.

This makes me angry. Not unreasonably angry. I feel quite justified. I am minded to post again a poem I wrote in the fall (and shared fairly recently, so sorry about that). This time, though, it's got some art.

a chart showing rising energy consmption for all companie s bar netflix

table of use

For some reason "AI is just like watching Netflix" is back in my feeds so I took that as a sign to update my data tracking for Netflix. The company's energy use rose 1% from 2021 to 2024.

Compare that to:

Google: 71%
Nvidia: 88%
Meta: 96%
Microsoft: 119%

Fascinating paper! Congratulations to you and @medivalist.bsky.social !

Sorry women who survive abuse don't talk about it on your preferred timeline and would sometimes prefer not to talk about it at all but feel forced to do so because they feel a moral urgency as they watch their abusers get platformed even though they know they're going to get horrific backlash.

It is *fascinating* to me how quickly some people have gone completely from “we all must work in the office! human collaboration is vital and only happens in person!” to “I can replace all these pesky people with chatbots!” Definitely some commentary there about our society and who gets to choose.

A senior HE director today: ‘in future HE will be technology and process-led, not academic-led’.

So what, exactly, is the point of universities beyond them being a cash machine for senior managers?

That's not a university. And why would any student come to a non-university?

As was pointed out this weekend: we know this is not what students seek, from hard experience in Lockdown. bsky.app/profile/vox-...

Wow, appreciate it!
Ha now that would be cool…

such a beautiful piece! tremendous erudition, worn light as a breeze

kudos to @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social and @medivalist.bsky.social

now we just need a manuscript variant of auðuns þáttr vestfirzka in which he traffics a gyrfalcon instead… árnastofnun folk, i trust you’re on it?

Job alert! Three late antiquity postdoc positions on an ERC funded project GREEKWEST here at Liverpool - come join an amazing department! #medievalsky

'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back.

"AI is not a magical tool built by people in San Francisco making millions of dollars a year and pushing their companies to insane valuations. Artificial intelligence is an extractive technology that relies on the brutal labor of underpaid workers around the world"

www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...

Lecturer in Medieval & Early Modern History
The School of History at the ANU seeks to appoint a Lecturer in History. Applicants working at the forefront of gender history between the 12th & 18th centuries, and on regions beyond Europe & Australia, are encouraged to apply. Applications due 19 April.

The corners that Ai wants us to cut are what make scholarship good!!

The caliph and the falcons: a ninth‐century history from Iceland to Iraq In the late ninth and early tenth centuries, an extraordinary number of falcons were given to the ʿAbbāsid caliphs in Baghdad, many of which were white. Gifts from competing dynasties in the northern...

I’m delighted to see ‘The Caliph and the Falcons’ take to the skies at Early Medieval Europe! I had a blast writing this with @medivalist.bsky.social as we followed the extraordinary journey of falcons from Scandinavia all the way to Baghdad. #medievalsky

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Appreciate it!

Absolutely fascinating new work by @medivalist.bsky.social & @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social on the possible trading of Viking Age Scandinavian gyrfalcons that were gifted to the caliphs in Baghdad.
"...by the end of the ninth century, the skies of Baghdad were filled with falcons."
#archaeobirds 🏺🪶

Heartbreaking

Do you know somebody who needs to learn Latin from scratch or improve their Latin to PhD standard? CMS Toronto's summer Latin program is now entirely online and a remarkable bargain for the intensity and quality of instruction. Details here: www.medieval.utoronto.ca/latin/summer...

#medievalsky

Oh if you insist 🤣 Thank you! It’s a bit of a change from last year when it was the Irish Eurovision entry (she’s Norwegian) but Jan Erik Rekdal had the role at some point before

A bit surreal but I am honored to have been asked to be the Grand Marshall of the St Patrick's Day Parade in Oslo this year www.irishsociety.no/socials/dr-c...