@faraiunvers
Historian of late medieval/early modern religious conflict and diplomacy. England and Christendom, the crusades, and the Reformation. Also: digital humanities, early music, historical theology, and public history. www.charlottegauthier.com
Looking forward to being deported for having the temerity to study at theological college (and thus briefly dropping below the earnings threshold, even though I've been a net contributor for a decade+).
Came here to say the same. Apparently anyone who already has ILR will be deported if their income falls below a certain threshold at any time, for any reason. Very Christian to see people as purely units of economic productivity.
x.com/Katie_Lam_MP...
If you’re in London this Friday and want to hear me talk about why the past really matters to how we live (and worship) today, and what we can learn from the more difficult bits of history, come join me at the Angel pub in Rotherhithe at 6:30 for a drink and a bit of a chat. Should be great fun.
The Turkish stuff made for Turkish people is. The Turkish stuff made for tourists, on the other hand...
Post-service takeaway is the only sensible ending to the evening.
The people who don't like it might have unwittingly subjected themselves to the bad stuff. Can't stand the gelatinous stuff in the grocery store boxes. Fortnum's, on the other hand, is firmer, and so delightful that I only buy it at Christmas, lest massive weight gain ensue. (Not the point I know.)
Recent decades have seen significant advances in our understanding of the later crusades (post-1291). This session aims to showcase the latest research on this fascinating topic. We invite proposals for 20-minute papers exploring new perspectives on the later crusades. Topics are not limited to, but might include: Diplomacy and statecraft Crusading and Reformation Logistics, financing, recruitment, and volunteerism Crusading in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic, and Iberia Crusades against ‘heretics’ Intellectual history of crusading Submit your paper title, abstract (250 words) and a brief biography to charlotte.gauthier.2017@live.rhul.ac.uk by 25 October 2025.
Join me next year at the #SSCLE conference in Porto, from 29 June-3 July 2025. Do please share this #CFP with anyone who studies the Later Crusades (post-1291) and would like to share their research with an enthusiastic and perceptive audience. #skystorians #medievalsky #earlymodernsky
William Chester Jordan. Read this beautiful article - which was recommended to me years ago when I asked the same question: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
There’s hope for us all.
Which is, frankly, the point of the assignment. It will be salutary to give them a visceral experience (assuming they do the assignment) of AI slop falsifying records.
Apologies for the sheer amount of CO2 the exercise will generate, however.
A screenshot of a completely factitious bibliography on the sinking of the Lusitania generated by ChatGPT.
I've just tried this with ChatGPT about a well-known event: the sinking of the Lusitania. The book references it spit out were actually real - though with the US rather than UK publishers. But it completely hallucinated all 5 of the "journal articles" it referenced. (No surprise there!)
Setting up Moodle for my digital history class this term and considering what to do for an assignment on the week I talk about AI slop and fake historical records. I've settled on a bibliography assignment. Use your favourite AI to generate a bibliography, then verify the references.
The French don't do tea, Francis. Why do you think they fought so many wars with England?
Sign for the Dove pub, which gave its name to the Dove Press next door
Blue plaque for Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson on Dove Cottage
One of William Morris’s presses at Kelmscott House
Blue plaque for Emery Walker on his Hammersmith Terrace house
On this, the final weekend before what’s shaping up to be a brutal term, I’m in Hammersmith on a sort of pilgrimage.
Fair!
Now Nic, tell us how you’d defend it from an attack from the sea, and then conversely how you’d besiege it. We want battle plans. 😉
Humanities Who needs history? Literature? Languages? Art? Philosophy? These can only help you to better understand our humanity. Best to let machines read your books. And write your books. Do your art for you. You will never need to think. Never need to learn. You’ll learn to like it. And when the end comes you’ll have never burdened down your soul with any growth. Someone selling this sees profit in destroying your humanity. -- John Wyatt Greenlee
A poem from this morning.
Everyone in the Middle Ages wore nothing but brown and went around permanently dirty and dishevelled. Also, there was no sunshine so even daylight had a permanently blue cast to it.
Bland, inoffensive, and (low be it spoken) sometimes insincere niceness, designed to entice people to join a Christian community in which they can then be 'discipled'. The 'winsome' are often well-meaning, but whether 'winsomeness' brings anyone to a robust faith is a matter of some doubt.
The NRSV is a never-ending fount of modern clangers. It's ageing just about as well as some of the 1950s/60s 'modern language' translations, some of which are now unintentionally hilarious.
This. I wince whenever I hear any of the following:
'have a heart for'
'having a season [of/for] x'
'winsome'
'being church'
'growing younger'
'discipling'
...amongst others. Ironically, such phrases have sometimes been sold as "reducing jargon" and "speaking the "language of the people". Well... 🤷♀️
This is why the comma after 'both' is so important. 😂
I too am agog to hear this tip.
Yes! When I worked in tech I never hired comp sci graduates. Musicians, historians, and physicists always made the best programmers.
Always delighted to get in the way of such people.
Some people obviously saw Agent Smith and were like - “Yeah, let’s build that!”
ACADEMIC READING ALREADY COMES WITH A SUMMARY IT IS CALLED THE ABSTRACT
Yeah pretty much.
Let’s just call it “saunders” as the Victorians did, and skip the controversy altogether.
Sod’s Law of Research Days: As soon as you request the manuscripts you want to see at the library hours away from your home, several different people will email you wanting to set up urgent meetings for that very same day.