Rebecca Merkelbach
@beccamerkelbach.bsky.social
Doctor of trollology. Saga fangirl. Assistant Prof of Old Norse at Uni Tü. Lefty nerd💚 Powerlifting yoga teaching harpist. She/sie🏳️🌈 #SkandiRetten
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Hard Times and Trial Approaches: Old Norse-Icelandic Studies Between Precarity and the Future
Dr Rebecca Merkelbach reflects on her keynote speech at the most recent Saga Conference. Held every three years, Saga Con is the most important meeting of Old Norse scholars, bringing together acad…
difficultmedieval.com
My blog post with the ADAM network has now been published. It's about precarity, the future of small subjects, and communal approaches to academic work. I hope it will resonate with some. #IchBinHanna #KleineFaecher #SkandiRetten
difficultmedieval.com/2025/10/23/h...
difficultmedieval.com/2025/10/23/h...
Reposted by Rebecca Merkelbach
Ordningen med Norgeskunnskap i utlandet har i mange år vært en viktig brobygger mellom Norge og mange andre land. Jeg har selv vært student og deretter underviser ved et lærested som fikk ta del i dette tilbudet. Støtt en god sak slik at ordningen ikke fjernes.
November 9, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Ordningen med Norgeskunnskap i utlandet har i mange år vært en viktig brobygger mellom Norge og mange andre land. Jeg har selv vært student og deretter underviser ved et lærested som fikk ta del i dette tilbudet. Støtt en god sak slik at ordningen ikke fjernes.
Friday mood:
Hyge sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað.
God I miss OE heroic poetry sometimes. It helps arouse my prime motivation: spite, persistence in the face of sheer overwhelm and exhaustion, laughter in the face of utter defeat.
Hyge sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað.
God I miss OE heroic poetry sometimes. It helps arouse my prime motivation: spite, persistence in the face of sheer overwhelm and exhaustion, laughter in the face of utter defeat.
November 7, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Friday mood:
Hyge sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað.
God I miss OE heroic poetry sometimes. It helps arouse my prime motivation: spite, persistence in the face of sheer overwhelm and exhaustion, laughter in the face of utter defeat.
Hyge sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað.
God I miss OE heroic poetry sometimes. It helps arouse my prime motivation: spite, persistence in the face of sheer overwhelm and exhaustion, laughter in the face of utter defeat.
Reposted by Rebecca Merkelbach
Veränderung der Personalstrukturen an deutschen Hochschulen ist notwendig - so der Wissenschaftsrat im Juli 2025. Wie aber ist sie möglich?
Über Wege dazu vor Ort diskutieren wir am 19.11. in Tübingen mit Tobias Rosefeldt (HU Berlin), Rektorin Karla Pollmann und Sebastian Kubon von #ichbinhanna.
Über Wege dazu vor Ort diskutieren wir am 19.11. in Tübingen mit Tobias Rosefeldt (HU Berlin), Rektorin Karla Pollmann und Sebastian Kubon von #ichbinhanna.
November 5, 2025 at 10:28 AM
Veränderung der Personalstrukturen an deutschen Hochschulen ist notwendig - so der Wissenschaftsrat im Juli 2025. Wie aber ist sie möglich?
Über Wege dazu vor Ort diskutieren wir am 19.11. in Tübingen mit Tobias Rosefeldt (HU Berlin), Rektorin Karla Pollmann und Sebastian Kubon von #ichbinhanna.
Über Wege dazu vor Ort diskutieren wir am 19.11. in Tübingen mit Tobias Rosefeldt (HU Berlin), Rektorin Karla Pollmann und Sebastian Kubon von #ichbinhanna.
In case you want to admire my students’ acting skills (and mine🙈) and see how deranged I look on camera, please check out this reel which we produced as part of our project on kaleidoscopic narration in the sagas
www.instagram.com/reel/DQrW2Qz...
www.instagram.com/reel/DQrW2Qz...
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November 5, 2025 at 3:29 PM
In case you want to admire my students’ acting skills (and mine🙈) and see how deranged I look on camera, please check out this reel which we produced as part of our project on kaleidoscopic narration in the sagas
www.instagram.com/reel/DQrW2Qz...
www.instagram.com/reel/DQrW2Qz...
We see the same thing happening in Germany, with all the Stadtbild debates and people saying you basically can't leave the house in Köln or Frankfurt or Hamburg.
1. In the wake on Mamdani’s win, we’ll see a lot more far right anti-urban sentiment. Here’s a thread on its roots and evolution.
The idea that the city is evil and corrupt, and the countryside innocent and pure, goes back a long way: to Theocritus in Alexandria, and to the Old Testament. 🧵
The idea that the city is evil and corrupt, and the countryside innocent and pure, goes back a long way: to Theocritus in Alexandria, and to the Old Testament. 🧵
November 5, 2025 at 8:24 AM
We see the same thing happening in Germany, with all the Stadtbild debates and people saying you basically can't leave the house in Köln or Frankfurt or Hamburg.
Eigi skal höggva
"Mister Sturluson, I presume?"
"You can call me Snorri. Mister Sturluson is my father."
"You can call me Snorri. Mister Sturluson is my father."
Just discovered that a show based on Sturlunga saga is apparently in the making? It fills me with dread.
deadline.com/2025/10/bene...
deadline.com/2025/10/bene...
November 4, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Eigi skal höggva
Just discovered that a show based on Sturlunga saga is apparently in the making? It fills me with dread.
deadline.com/2025/10/bene...
deadline.com/2025/10/bene...
Benedict Andrews & Truenorth Team For Icelandic Epic ‘Fury’: “It’s Iceland’s Answer To Shakespeare & ‘Game Of Thrones’ Rolled Into One”
Benedict Andrews To Direct TV series 'Fury,' A Brutal Tale Of Power & Betrayal In Medieval Iceland from Truenorth
deadline.com
November 4, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Just discovered that a show based on Sturlunga saga is apparently in the making? It fills me with dread.
deadline.com/2025/10/bene...
deadline.com/2025/10/bene...
Awesome news!
www.sciencenorway.no/cultural-his...
www.sciencenorway.no/cultural-his...
Eight pages bound in furry seal skin may be Norway's oldest book
The little book is so rare that the National Library of Norway is bringing in experts from around the world to learn more.
www.sciencenorway.no
November 4, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Awesome news!
www.sciencenorway.no/cultural-his...
www.sciencenorway.no/cultural-his...
Ich bin die lesbische Sidekick-Freundin, die eigentlich zynisch und abgeklärt sein will und die Heten für verrückt erklärt, aber am Ende sentimental und glücklich mit meiner Frau vor dem Weihnachtsbaum sitzt.
Welche Rolle spielt ihr in einem Weihnachtsfilm?
Ich bin die kinderreiche Freundin der Hauptfigur in einer abgelegenen Community, die ihr hilft die Freude an Winter und Weihnachten wiederzuentdecken.
Ich bin die kinderreiche Freundin der Hauptfigur in einer abgelegenen Community, die ihr hilft die Freude an Winter und Weihnachten wiederzuentdecken.
November 4, 2025 at 9:57 AM
Ich bin die lesbische Sidekick-Freundin, die eigentlich zynisch und abgeklärt sein will und die Heten für verrückt erklärt, aber am Ende sentimental und glücklich mit meiner Frau vor dem Weihnachtsbaum sitzt.
Reposted by Rebecca Merkelbach
"He’s been dead since at least 1896. How long until we give him a second chance?"
I Am Just Trying to Have a Civil Online Conversation About Vampires
Whoa there! That’s a pretty extreme claim. Surely you don’t mean to call ALL vampires “blood-sucking ghouls?” Have you ever donated to a blood bank...
buff.ly
October 31, 2025 at 2:30 AM
"He’s been dead since at least 1896. How long until we give him a second chance?"
Reposted by Rebecca Merkelbach
It's a Ponzi scheme. And these people at our universities have got us involved.
"Many of the deals OpenAI has struck — with chipmakers, cloud computing companies and others — are strangely circular. OpenAI receives billions from tech companies before sending those billions back to the same companies to pay for computing power and other services." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
How OpenAI Uses Complex and Circular Deals to Fuel Its Multibillion-Dollar Rise
Here are seven unusual financial agreements helping to drive the ambitions of the poster child of the A.I. revolution.
www.nytimes.com
October 31, 2025 at 7:09 PM
It's a Ponzi scheme. And these people at our universities have got us involved.
Reposted by Rebecca Merkelbach
Interesting paper! When you ask people about the most important issue "facing the country," they often say immigration. But when you ask them about issues facing them personally, it doesn't crack the top 10.
This indicates that voters are reacting to media narratives, not their own experience.
This indicates that voters are reacting to media narratives, not their own experience.
October 31, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Interesting paper! When you ask people about the most important issue "facing the country," they often say immigration. But when you ask them about issues facing them personally, it doesn't crack the top 10.
This indicates that voters are reacting to media narratives, not their own experience.
This indicates that voters are reacting to media narratives, not their own experience.
Oooh fun!
(as in is anyone interested in doing a Norse/medieval volume with me I shouldn't take on another editing project but this would be great aaah)
(as in is anyone interested in doing a Norse/medieval volume with me I shouldn't take on another editing project but this would be great aaah)
Announcing a brand new series launching this #Halloween 👻
Manchester Studies in the Supernatural explores how the #supernatural shapes human experience across time and place.
Bridging disciplines and challenging boundaries, it welcomes bold new research on the #occult and the #unseen
Manchester Studies in the Supernatural explores how the #supernatural shapes human experience across time and place.
Bridging disciplines and challenging boundaries, it welcomes bold new research on the #occult and the #unseen
October 31, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Oooh fun!
(as in is anyone interested in doing a Norse/medieval volume with me I shouldn't take on another editing project but this would be great aaah)
(as in is anyone interested in doing a Norse/medieval volume with me I shouldn't take on another editing project but this would be great aaah)
Trying to work on a paper I'm supposed to present in 3 weeks and my brain is just not cooperating. Every time I try to read something or think about what I want to say, it shuts down, reaches for distraction, shouts at me to run away. Why has doing research on something new turned into a threat?
October 31, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Trying to work on a paper I'm supposed to present in 3 weeks and my brain is just not cooperating. Every time I try to read something or think about what I want to say, it shuts down, reaches for distraction, shouts at me to run away. Why has doing research on something new turned into a threat?
Reposted by Rebecca Merkelbach
"these arrangements are not 'partnerships' or 'collaborations' but contracts that bring profit and publicity to AI firms, while making universities complicit in the continued empowerment of tech oligarchy and expansion of their 'AI Empire' (Tacheva and Ramasubramanian, 2023; Adams, 2024; Hao, 2025)"
New preprint alert! 🚨
“Let Them Eat Large Language Models: Artificial Intelligence and Austerity in the Neoliberal University”
“Let Them Eat Large Language Models: Artificial Intelligence and Austerity in the Neoliberal University”
October 30, 2025 at 7:10 AM
"these arrangements are not 'partnerships' or 'collaborations' but contracts that bring profit and publicity to AI firms, while making universities complicit in the continued empowerment of tech oligarchy and expansion of their 'AI Empire' (Tacheva and Ramasubramanian, 2023; Adams, 2024; Hao, 2025)"
As someone who was told never to use Wikipedia as a student, I now proudly recommend Wikipedia to my students. So yeah.
"Listen, in some ways, I get it. When I came on the scene in 2001, I probably seemed pretty unsavory compared to the competitors. But that was when academic research happened in libraries and George W. Bush was considered the stupidest president."
Hi, It’s Me, Wikipedia, and I Am Ready for Your Apology
“Wikipedia, the constantly changing knowledge base created by a global free-for-all of anonymous users, now stands as the leading force for the dum...
buff.ly
October 29, 2025 at 7:18 PM
As someone who was told never to use Wikipedia as a student, I now proudly recommend Wikipedia to my students. So yeah.
Another thing that bothered me was the film's construction of a generic European Past(TM). It's one thing to scramble the historical setting "enough that it's safe to assume [the film] eventually drifts into fantasy", as the NYT reviewer wrote, but what is it with the medieval-y peasants?
Went to watch Frankenstein last night. It was visually stunning and the score was fantastic, but it lost me during the last bit. I have to admit it's been years since I read the book, but it felt like the moral ambiguity of the monster was flattened? Also wtf was that Byron quote at the end???
October 28, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Another thing that bothered me was the film's construction of a generic European Past(TM). It's one thing to scramble the historical setting "enough that it's safe to assume [the film] eventually drifts into fantasy", as the NYT reviewer wrote, but what is it with the medieval-y peasants?
Reposted by Rebecca Merkelbach
I cannot tell you how many tech journalists at prominent media organizations do not understand this
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
October 27, 2025 at 3:32 PM
I cannot tell you how many tech journalists at prominent media organizations do not understand this
Went to watch Frankenstein last night. It was visually stunning and the score was fantastic, but it lost me during the last bit. I have to admit it's been years since I read the book, but it felt like the moral ambiguity of the monster was flattened? Also wtf was that Byron quote at the end???
October 27, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Went to watch Frankenstein last night. It was visually stunning and the score was fantastic, but it lost me during the last bit. I have to admit it's been years since I read the book, but it felt like the moral ambiguity of the monster was flattened? Also wtf was that Byron quote at the end???
Reposted by Rebecca Merkelbach
My blog post with the ADAM network has now been published. It's about precarity, the future of small subjects, and communal approaches to academic work. I hope it will resonate with some. #IchBinHanna #KleineFaecher #SkandiRetten
difficultmedieval.com/2025/10/23/h...
difficultmedieval.com/2025/10/23/h...
Hard Times and Trial Approaches: Old Norse-Icelandic Studies Between Precarity and the Future
Dr Rebecca Merkelbach reflects on her keynote speech at the most recent Saga Conference. Held every three years, Saga Con is the most important meeting of Old Norse scholars, bringing together acad…
difficultmedieval.com
October 24, 2025 at 6:56 AM
My blog post with the ADAM network has now been published. It's about precarity, the future of small subjects, and communal approaches to academic work. I hope it will resonate with some. #IchBinHanna #KleineFaecher #SkandiRetten
difficultmedieval.com/2025/10/23/h...
difficultmedieval.com/2025/10/23/h...
Reposted by Rebecca Merkelbach
"[My job as Juniorprofessorin] was created in 2021 after attempts at closing the Department [...] failed. Its purpose was to stabilise the department’s situation and ideally to develop a plan for the future. But to this day, we don’t know if we will even have a future." #IchBinHanna
My blog post with the ADAM network has now been published. It's about precarity, the future of small subjects, and communal approaches to academic work. I hope it will resonate with some. #IchBinHanna #KleineFaecher #SkandiRetten
difficultmedieval.com/2025/10/23/h...
difficultmedieval.com/2025/10/23/h...
Hard Times and Trial Approaches: Old Norse-Icelandic Studies Between Precarity and the Future
Dr Rebecca Merkelbach reflects on her keynote speech at the most recent Saga Conference. Held every three years, Saga Con is the most important meeting of Old Norse scholars, bringing together acad…
difficultmedieval.com
October 24, 2025 at 4:35 PM
"[My job as Juniorprofessorin] was created in 2021 after attempts at closing the Department [...] failed. Its purpose was to stabilise the department’s situation and ideally to develop a plan for the future. But to this day, we don’t know if we will even have a future." #IchBinHanna
I didn’t even address the fact that I’m also chronically ill in my piece, so this is a very important addition…
... & the way that the precaritization of the academy leads to disabling of more & more scholars
[from www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi..., pp. 100-01]
[from www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi..., pp. 100-01]
October 24, 2025 at 5:37 PM
I didn’t even address the fact that I’m also chronically ill in my piece, so this is a very important addition…
Reposted by Rebecca Merkelbach
This also feels relevant, echoing @beccamerkelbach.bsky.social's piece, on the way in which precarity on an individual and systemic level leads to the loss of diverse scholarly voices...
[from www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi..., pp. 97-98]
[from www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi..., pp. 97-98]
![And it certainly is not enough for those of us without permanent positions, with all
the instability and financial hardship that entails, who must work harder than any-
one to “prove” themselves worthy of a “real” job, alongside working all hours sim-
ply to earn enough to survive. This means the reality, or so it seems—and feels—to
many of us is, in the words of one casualized lecturer sharing his fears, that “the
only ones who get permanent academic jobs are those able to tough out several
years of fraught, unstable work.”115 Not everyone can “tough [it] out” for long, if at
all. The people who are able to are those “with considerable financial privileges,
without caring responsibilities, without financial dependents and those mentally
resilient enough to cope.”116 With integral politics of exclusion, the praxes of pre-
carity are not just ableist but also discriminatory along intersectional lines.117 They
are a catalyst for the wholesale loss of “non-normative” scholars—read: not cisgen-
der, heterosexual, middle- or upper-class, non-disabled, white men without care re-
sponsibilities—from the Academy](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7vjfb3adzw3h2avd2wyc2fta/bafkreiakda3gti3jgc2cyjxovl3ks3tq6znlc4b2n76uni4rzeavkpvzuq@jpeg)
October 24, 2025 at 3:23 PM
This also feels relevant, echoing @beccamerkelbach.bsky.social's piece, on the way in which precarity on an individual and systemic level leads to the loss of diverse scholarly voices...
[from www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi..., pp. 97-98]
[from www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi..., pp. 97-98]
Reposted by Rebecca Merkelbach
A reminder that we're collecting books, chapters, and journal articles by non-TT historians for publication in our year-end lists. Anything with a 2025 pub date is eligible and you can submit for your friends/colleagues! contingentmagazine.org/yearly-pub-l...
Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians
Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...
contingentmagazine.org
October 24, 2025 at 12:09 AM
A reminder that we're collecting books, chapters, and journal articles by non-TT historians for publication in our year-end lists. Anything with a 2025 pub date is eligible and you can submit for your friends/colleagues! contingentmagazine.org/yearly-pub-l...