Everyone: ‘This is unheard of’

Historians: ‘ JFC, not again!’

I was consulted recently by an editor of an interdisciplinary journal who was ready to retract a paper based on hallucinated citations. It’s a real research integrity problem, and it’s arriving in humanities and social sciences publishing. (It’s already been a problem in STEM.)

Pomegranates, shells, and a stag beetle because everybody had to do one of those. By Maria Sibylla Merian, whose day is today.

apparently Wikipedia has more rigorous standards than every university on the planet, university administrators, edtech enthusiasts, (certainly more than) AI bros, several prominent academic journals, and too many professors and teachers

In Memoriam — SFHS

@profchrisadams.bsky.social and I remember two remarkable scholars, Elborg Forster and Patricia Ranum, "faculty wives" who never held formal positions but their generative scholarship made contributions to the field of French history. www.societyforfrenchhistoricalstudies.net/in-memoriam

The Public Scholar by David M Perry | Moon Palace Books A practical guide for scholars ready to write beyond the academy.Public scholarship should not be reserved for celebrity intellectuals or tenured faculty at elite institutions.

Did you know you could pre-order a copy of The Public Scholar from @moonpalacebooks.bsky.social? Help a local bookstore. Help a local author. And if you want it signed, I'll drive over.

We're about a month out. :)

moonpalacebooks.com/item/I12x_a-...

This is the same thing as saying modern Evangelicals aren't "real Christians".

My linocut portrait of Emmy Noether in front of a blackboard with diagrams and equations. Noether is printed in blue. She has her hair up and wears a pin-striped buttoned shirt with puffy sleeves, bow tie, tweed skirt with belt and is shown from waist up, turned slightly away from the viewer. The blackboard is green and shows a simple form of Noether’s equations at the top. On the left are three diagrams to represent translational symmetry (a frame of reference or 3 orthogonal axes and a straight diagonal arrow to a second frame of reference); rotational symmetry (a frame of reference and curved arrow to a second rotated frame of reference); and time symmetry (two simple clocks with an arrow between them and their hands at different places). On the right are the three associated conserved quantities: momentum (a p with arrow above it); angular momentum (an L with arrow above it); and energy (E).

Happy birthday to one of greatest mathematicians of all time Emmy Noether (1882-1935), here with her eponymous theorem, the backbone of modern physics. 🐡🧪👩🏼‍🔬🧮🎢 #histsci Noether’s theorem links any symmetry of a system with a conservation law. In my portrait, I chose to depict a young Emmy in front 🧵

Post from Andrew A.N. Deloucas @aandeloucas.com: In line with discussion about the job market, the latest majors being closed at Syracuse University: Nine majors "sunsetting": • Classical civilization • Classics (Greek and Latin) • Digital humanities • Fine arts • German • Latino-Latin American studies • Middle Eastern studies • Modern Jewish studies • Russian ALT

The First University in the Nation to Build a Center Dedicated to the Creator Economy Syracuse University is creating something that doesn't exist anywhere else in higher education. The Center for the Creator Economy is the first academic center of its kind on a U.S. college campus. Led jointly by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Martin). Whitman School of Management, the center reinforces Syracuse University's commitment to bold, forward-looking academic leadership. By aligning strengths in entrepreneurship, media, communications, athletics and digital infrastructure, the University is charting how higher education can prepare students for the 21st-century economy.

Another university getting rid of things you could only ever do at a university and replacing them with stuff a 13-year-old can do on a phone

In underfunded fields, people tend to do their own work. In overfunded fields, people pay others to do everything, including “their” research and writing.

It’s not an accident that AI is an overfunded field that grew out of other overfunded fields.

If only more people understood this

What happened in the consulting room of an astrologer physician in rural England 400 years ago?
Find out at CASEBOOKS THERAPY, Wed 25 Mar DM @laurenkassell.bsky.social for details @hagenilda.bsky.social @robralley.bsky.social @jakubochocinski.bsky.social #histmed #astrology @eui-history.bsky.social

Review of Minji Lee, The Medieval Womb: Hildegard of Bingen’s Views on the Female Reproductive Body (Arc Humanities Press, 2025) I teach a course called “Women and Medicine” that explores the history of women as medical practitioners, patients, and objects of medical knowledge from the ancient Greeks to the present. Early in…

In the first semester of my PhD, I wrote an essay about menstruation in Hildegard of Bingen's intellectual work, which is absolutely fascinating if you've never looked into it. If I'd had Lee's incredible book back then, the essay writing would've been much easier!

nursingclio.org/2026/03/18/r...

Review of Minji Lee, The Medieval Womb: Hildegard of Bingen’s Views on the Female Reproductive Body (Arc Humanities Press, 2025) I teach a course called “Women and Medicine” that explores the history of women as medical practitioners, patients, and objects of medical knowledge from the ancient Greeks to the present. Early in…

Today for NC we have a fantastic review of Minji Lee’s book THE MEDIEVAL WOMB. Read the full review here! nursingclio.org/2026/03/18/r...

Poster advertising a promo code for the book 'public health in the premodern world, dynamic balances.' More information about the book, including the table of contents, can be found at global.oup.com/academic. Use promottion code AUFLY30 to save 30%

Have you had your eye on “Public Health in the Premodern World” ed. by our G. Geltner with Janna Coomans & Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (@yoelitlalim.bsky.social) which illustrates the rich history of public health?

Check out the code below to get 30% off!

#histmed #medhst

For those wondering about the "overly simplistic narratives about the history of science & tech" referenced below, consider this "disclaimer" from an advertisement for the library's most recent exhibition...

(You can see the full ad on p. 18: kcstudio.org/digital-edit... )

#histSTM #histsci #AI 📜🗃️

Review of Minji Lee, The Medieval Womb: Hildegard of Bingen’s Views on the Female Reproductive Body (Arc Humanities Press, 2025) I teach a course called “Women and Medicine” that explores the history of women as medical practitioners, patients, and objects of medical knowledge from the ancient Greeks to the present. Early in…

Wonderful new open access book on Hildegard of Bingen by Minji Lee! #medievalsky #HistSTM

nursingclio.org/2026/03/18/r...

Just casually reminding everyone that my book comes out in a few weeks, it REALLY helps if you preorder, and if you want a signed copy, you can get one shipped to you from Loyalty Books in DC 🖖🏽

Early pregnancy care declines despite Trump’s pro-birth agenda - Salon.com As the Trump admin urges folks to have more kids, new data shows early pregnancy care moving in the wrong direction

Under this administration, there are both reproductive restrictions and decreasing access to prenatal care.

www.salon.com/2026/03/01/e...

The Book Everyone Read How an all-but-forgotten medieval astronomy book ushered in the modern age of science

Excited to share my latest project, due out early next year: The Book Everyone Read | Princeton University Press press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Galileo’s handwritten notes found in ancient astronomy text Discovery sheds new light on how famed astronomer came to lead a scientific revolution

A historian has discovered that a 16th century printing of The Almagest—a highly influential ancient astronomy text—contains extensive annotations from Galileo Galilei, the astronomer who later overthrew that text’s conception of a geocentric cosmos.

Learn more: https://scim.ag/4aMAwRm

"Galileo prayed each time he sat down with The Almagest." I like this idea that, when assessing the universe & the centuries of human endeavors to understand it, we are in the presence of something that is itself miraculous.

Galileo’s handwritten notes found in ancient astronomy text Discovery sheds new light on how famed astronomer came to lead a scientific revolution

I love everything about this! The conviction that a major figure was not struck by a bolt of lightning but worked to understand the system he would ultimately critique and help dismantle. The scholarly sleuthing rare books — all of it. 😎🤓
www.science.org/content/arti...

Screenshot of opening page of: US doctors withdraw from CDC vaccine committee, as RFK Jr appoints Bhattacharya as acting director BMJ 2026 ;392 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.s422 (Published 02 March 2026) Cite this as: BMJ 2026;392:5422

Even as a historian of medicine, I cannot fathom how much damage is being done to the healthcare systems in the U.S., or imagine what colossal efforts (& investments) will be needed to rebuild a fraction of it. www.bmj.com/content/392/... #histmed #vaccines

BREAKING: The DOJ has explained there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for dozens of Epstein files related to Donald Trump going missing. That reason is if they didn't go missing, they would incriminate Donald Trump.

what even is the fucking point

Folk thynke that innovacioun yn academia will come from technologye. It will come ynstead from settinge asyde olde assumptions and hierarchies and givinge people more chances to trulye and radicallye thynke wyth each othir wyth no specific outcome yn mynde.

It’s hard to describe to normal people the years and years of work that was scrapped over all of this.

Every uni that dismantled depts and offices did so because they wanted to. DEI was always window dressing for admin and faculty who did the work were labeled problems.

At best, unis believed complying in advance would save them from the fire directed at Columbia and Harvard. Cowards.

Thousands of institutions abandoned programs, ended or rewrote scholarships, closed down clubs and publications, all in pre-emptive compliance.

And you know why?

Mostly because they wanted to do it if they thought they could blame someone else for it.