Hey, have you heard of this thing called cancel culture? Read More I started this week off with a visit to a class on plague. Most of my work time was spent compiling manuscripts into an appendix that no one will ever read. And I’m taking out my mounting anxiety by sewing a coat. Read […]
This week I learned a valuable lesson about planning, remembered why imposter syndrome is a waste of time, and read some Arabic. Read More In my first week in the archive, I consider appropriate packing strategies for short trips, grapple with late medieval handwriting, and deal with not being an expert in manuscripts. Read More […]
Ph.D. expected May 2022 History M.Phil May 2018 Fields: Medieval Mediterranean, Pre-Modern Science, Material Culture, Modern Islam M.A. May 2017 Thesis: “Nearly Gold and Nearly Perfect?: The Cathedral Doors of Monreale” Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA M.A. May 2015 History Fields: Medieval Mediterranean, Medieval Islam Harvard University, Cambridge, MA Special Student and Student Researcher, […]
I’m sick of chef culture. If you like to cook and you are very online, chances are that in the last few years you have abandoned tv’s cooking show offerings (because, really, what the Food Network does now can hardly be called cooking) and fled to youtube. And upon your arrival at youtube, you have […]
Last week I stayed home and did some editing. This week I read more medieval writings about urine. So, pretty mundane stuff. Read More This week I learned a valuable lesson about planning, remembered why imposter syndrome is a waste of time, and read some Arabic. Read More In my first week in the archive, […]
The words “revise and resubmit” carry with them a particular emotional response in academia: a unique combination of hopeful self-satisfaction, anxiety, and existential dread. Its a trite truism that we all need to learn to accept criticism. Academia turns accepting criticism into an art, that also happens to be part of our daily workload. Revise […]
Insert joke about Jewish mothers here. Read More This morning marked a major success when I made it downstairs with both of my children by myself. This is going to be an interesting year. Read More At the end of high school, I became really interested in JM Barrie’s classic story of Peter Pan. This […]
This is almost more of a general PhD update than a dissertation update, but I thought I needed to write something about my work since it’s been a while. My dissertation is extremely close to being done. I feel like I’ve had a full draft of this thing for years, but maybe it’s only been […]
It’s just as unreasonable to think that a piece of paper gauze will stop you from getting sick as it is to think that a plaster mask stuffed with herbs will. But that’s the problem with how we remember major infectious disease events of the past – we remember that people died, but we don’t […]
My mom has a bit of a problem with experts. If you asked her, my mom would tell you that the problem with experts is that they don’t have to justify their opinions on the basis that they have implicitly earned that trust, and, in the reverse, other people who are not experts have not. […]
Hey, have you heard of this thing called cancel culture? Read More After I reacquainted myself with my sewing machine, learned a bit more fundamental sewing skills, and finally understood how to work from a pattern, I spent about a year filling in my wardrobe with everything I’d been missing. I’m still in process with […]
I can’t say that ancient cuisine sounds particularly exciting, even for someone like me. But I was surprised earlier this week when, after watching this video from the Historical Italian Cooking research group, I felt inspired to make a variation on an ancient Roman frittata. Read More The problem with spanakopita is that it’s a […]
We’re in a semantic age, when battles are fought over the words we use to refer to people or experiences, and lines are drawn through vocabulary. In a non-political arena, I’m having a similar fight over the specific words historians use. How important are these distinctions, really? Read More It probably won’t surprise anyone to […]
The US had an attempted coup on Wednesday. Read More As a progressive in 2020, you’d have to be willfully ignorant to think that there are no problems with Thanksgiving. But unlike, say, the former Columbus Day, this holiday isn’t just a day off. For a lot of Americans, myself included, this day has been […]
