Jan Machielsen
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janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen
@janmachielsen.bsky.social
5K followers 1.3K following 1.3K posts

Historian of early modern religion, working on witches and saints. Loves hikes and risotto.

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History 57%
Philosophy 17%
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janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 3d
Glad to see this out! It's a mighty tome, relevant to archaeologists, folklorists, #hextag peeps and more. And an impressive effort even if the functionalist argument doesn't always hold (I think, anyway).

Reposted by Jan Machielsen

princetonupress.bsky.social
Princeton University Press @princetonupress.bsky.social · 4d
“Killing the Dead has laid bare a subject of exceptional importance.” Great to see @janmachielsen.bsky.social’s review of John Blair's Killing the Dead in the latest issue of @thetls.bsky.social. Read more here:
High stakes
A dead body, as anyone who has sat with one will know, is an unsettling marker of the divide between life and death. The body is still the person we knew and loved, and yet no longer them. However much...
www.the-tls.com

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 4d
Trump is meer Henry VIII dan Filips II.

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 5d
Thanks, Theo! That was my last Covid project.

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 5d
Many congratulations, Holly! I really enjoyed our conversation and can't wait to see what you do next. 😊

Reposted by Jan Machielsen

webstermedieval.bsky.social
Paul Webster 🌈 @webstermedieval.bsky.social · 5d
Congratulations @janmachielsen.bsky.social on the publication of The Cambridge Companion to Counter Reformation Sanctity! Great to see this come out! #earlymodern #history #skystorians

Reposted by Jan Machielsen

hsbamford.bsky.social
Holly B 🌈 @hsbamford.bsky.social · 6d
I passed my viva with minor corrections!

A huge thank you to my examiners @janmachielsen.bsky.social and @profelainechalus.bsky.social for such a positive and constructive experience!

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 11d
Looks like they are on mushrooms. 😅

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 11d
#earlymodern

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 11d
Thanks! My partner's 95-year-old grandfather came up with it!

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 11d
Looking forward to a trip to Cambridge next month!
emodcam.bsky.social Cambridge Early Modernists @emodcam.bsky.social · 12d
Early Modern World History Seminar – Lent Term 2026 Programme 🌏

Reposted by Kevin O’Sullivan, Jan Machielsen, Renaud Morieux

emodcam.bsky.social
Cambridge Early Modernists @emodcam.bsky.social · 12d
Early Modern World History Seminar – Lent Term 2026 Programme 🌏

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 27d
This reminds of some of the material in the Jesuit archives where they laminated the pages but it caused the ink to leak…

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 27d
Not #earlymodern but this abandoned church served a leprosy colony in the 1940s. And the graffiti of the diabolical bishop is delightful!

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 28d
It's such a profound loss.

Just in case you're going, Katrina Olds and I are organizing an event marking Katie's life and scholarship at the San Francisco RSA.

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 28d
Highlight of today's home. View of La Gomera and El Hierro from the south side of Teide. The islands almost seem to float in the air.

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · 28d
I've never made a starter pack but I know others have. Anyone can post using the #earlymodern tag!

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 28
My mum, partner and I hiked a wonderful stretch of the Wales Coast Path today, in memory of my dad who wanted to complete it. Hopefully one day we will.

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 20
Just my sort of Christmas! 🤪
Festive four way socket adaptor

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 15
Ha. This feels so predictable somehow...

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/13/b...
U.S.-U.K. Trade Deal Hits Stumbling Block
www.nytimes.com

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 11
Very pleased that we got to publish this Comment in the TRHS! And many thanks @chriscampbell1.bsky.social for pitching it.

Further reflections on this and other subjects are certainly welcome. 😊

🗃️
royalhistsoc.org Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · Dec 11
What does Gen AI mean for the work of the historian and the value of historical experience, skills and craft?

'The Historian in the Age of AI' by @chriscampbell1.bsky.social.

New Comment article now available in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' bit.ly/4atErTB #Skystorians 1/2
Front page of 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' Comment article, title 'The Historian in the Age of AI', by Chris Campbell. Full abstract: "This comment interrogates the methods and conclusions of Working with AI, a recent report conducted under the auspices of Microsoft, which identified historians as the profession with the second-highest ‘AI applicability’. It finds that the authors’ conclusions are based on an erroneous simplification and misrepresentation of a historian’s typical professional tasks, which have been publicly amplified by extensive media coverage. This comment then offers a wider provocation about the report’s conception of a professional historian, and whether it is related to the public application of ‘historian’ to a number of different practitioners with varied training and qualifications. In particular, it seeks to highlight a paradox which the report exposes: that we cannot defend the specialist training and expertise of professional historians against the encroachment of AI without also separating the academic skills and qualifications of historians from those engaged in more popular forms of historical writing and communication. The comment questions how we might grapple with this paradox without reverting to academic elitism."

Reposted by Margot C. Finn, Michael H. Whitworth, Carmen M. Mangion , and 4 more

royalhistsoc.org
Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · Dec 11
What does Gen AI mean for the work of the historian and the value of historical experience, skills and craft?

'The Historian in the Age of AI' by @chriscampbell1.bsky.social.

New Comment article now available in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' bit.ly/4atErTB #Skystorians 1/2
Front page of 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' Comment article, title 'The Historian in the Age of AI', by Chris Campbell. Full abstract: "This comment interrogates the methods and conclusions of Working with AI, a recent report conducted under the auspices of Microsoft, which identified historians as the profession with the second-highest ‘AI applicability’. It finds that the authors’ conclusions are based on an erroneous simplification and misrepresentation of a historian’s typical professional tasks, which have been publicly amplified by extensive media coverage. This comment then offers a wider provocation about the report’s conception of a professional historian, and whether it is related to the public application of ‘historian’ to a number of different practitioners with varied training and qualifications. In particular, it seeks to highlight a paradox which the report exposes: that we cannot defend the specialist training and expertise of professional historians against the encroachment of AI without also separating the academic skills and qualifications of historians from those engaged in more popular forms of historical writing and communication. The comment questions how we might grapple with this paradox without reverting to academic elitism."

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 11
If anyone is wondering what the right time is to put up a Christmas tree, the Vatican is still busy putting up theirs.

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 9
They have been there for a while but they did work on them ahead of the jubilee!

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 9
Another public transport strike so I just had to walk to work today. 😋

(It's all going to be over by the end of next week so just let me be. 😅)

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 8
The Milvian bridge just now. No crosses in the sky unfortunately.

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 8
This feels very Amazon: the type of payment that doesn't cost anything.

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 7
Boo!

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 7
Jerome translating the Bible by Hendrick van Somer in the Palazzo Barberini. As the sign says, "the challenge of the text becomes hands-on combat".

One for @tntwining.bsky.social 😊

#earlymodern

janmachielsen.bsky.social
Jan Machielsen @janmachielsen.bsky.social · Dec 7
Saint Luke healing a child, while painting the Virgin and experiencing some sort of ecstasy. Who says that men can't multitask? 🤪

By Giovanni Lanfranco, in the Palazzo Barberini