Erin A. McCarthy
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erinannmcc.bsky.social
Erin A. McCarthy
@erinannmcc.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1.3K following 740 posts
Professor. PI of the ERC-funded @stemma.bsky.social project. Basketball superfan/player/coach and sometime softball shortshop. "Mad for the books."
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erinannmcc.bsky.social
Erin A. McCarthy @erinannmcc.bsky.social · Nov 9
Hello new followers! I’ve published on early modern English poetry in manuscript and print, women writers, and quant approaches. I’m currently running a project where we are computationally modeling the circulation of verse in MSS. We’re working on an exciting application of AI to support that work.
erinannmcc.bsky.social
After seeing Mat Ishbia in the celebrity game, I think the NBA should consider adding a coaches and ownership (or coaches vs ownership) game next year. Could be an opportunity to see Mazzulla play too. youtu.be/GQG4qLMKUbg?...
Suns owner, 5'10'' Mat Ishbia, drains a shot over 7’6 Tacko Fall
YouTube video by MrBuckBuckClips
youtu.be
February 14, 2026 at 7:10 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
kyamamoto.bsky.social
Let me share this again. If interested, please drop me a line by the end of February.
kyamamoto.bsky.social Koji Yamamoto @kyamamoto.bsky.social · 19d
Looking for a postdoc opportunity outside the UK/US? I'm happy to support up to two JSPS postdoc applicants for the coming round for two-year posts starting from Sep./Oct. 2026 onwards at UTokyo. The application to be submitted before the end of March. 1/n
February 14, 2026 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
ruthahnert.bsky.social
New article for my pinned thread: bsky.app/profile/ruth...
February 13, 2026 at 12:37 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
theo.io
I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself!

bluesky-map.theo.io

I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail
Bluesky Map
Interactive map of 3.4 million Bluesky users, visualised by their follower pattern.
bluesky-map.theo.io
February 8, 2026 at 10:59 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
imems.bsky.social
Why did 17th century letter writer Katherine Thimelby use this curious patchwork style? ✒️

📅 Find out more about women's letter-writing in the new IMEMS online short course 'Working with Early Modern Letters'! Available to book from Monday 9 February 2026.
February 6, 2026 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
kjhealy.co
Ian McKellen performs “The Strangers’ Case” speech from “Sir Thomas More” on Colbert.
February 5, 2026 at 1:07 PM
erinannmcc.bsky.social
It doesn’t matter how long I’ve lived overseas. If I get sick, I am eventually going to get frustrated and upset that I can’t buy chicken noodle soup.
February 5, 2026 at 2:49 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
kimgilchrist.bsky.social
Early modern friends - what’s your favourite, oddest, or most obscure onstage animal or creature? Play, pageant, masque, etc.

Thinking of Cymbeline’s eagle, Dog in Witch of Edmonton, crocodile and snake in Locrine, Henslowe’s animal props, snakes in St Patrick, swans in 7 Champions, all the bears…
February 5, 2026 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
thejournal.ie
It’s not just football tricks that President Catherine Connolly has up her sleeve – she can also score an impressive backwards basketball shot.

jrnl.ie/6946030
February 4, 2026 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
literaturegeek.bsky.social
New project+page started: "Home for Broken Wood Type". Celebrating: collecting, mending+understanding, preserving, printing w/broken wood letterpress type. Part of my printing+research during my Jan. artist residency+fellowship. Better+more photos+info to come. enthusiastictype.com/brokenwoodty...
Screenshot of the top of the "Home for Broken Wood Type" project webpage. The title says "Broken Wood Type" with lightning emoji interrupting or breaking the word "Broken" between the K and E, and E and N. A backdrop image shows some broken wood type pieces assembled into a letterpress lockup to spell "'Broken'", under the digital text "using, mending, saving 'broken'letterpress wood type". There are buttons to jump to parts of the page: view gallery, about collection, broken type prints. The top of the photo gallery is visible, where there are buttons to see all or filter to just broken type photos from the Penland or my personal (Visconti) collections. Photos of broken pieces of wood type, in an organic masonry grid formation, follow; there are purple tags above each indicating what collection a piece is from. Screenshot of part of the broken wood type webpage, showing "Penland's Home for Beloved Broken Wood Type" and three photos of a double-height typecase where one case has a neon-yellow label for "Penland's Home for Beloved Broken Wood Type: mend, or use gently—don't trash!"; and a closeup photo of the broken wood type pieces in that case. Captions: "I created a new case, lining, and labels (with some of my non-traditional letterpress color palette...) for Penland's broken wood type, in January 2026 during a monthlong fellowship & artist residency in the Letterpress Studio. Shelving alongside whole wood type encourages use & discourages throwing broken type away (or filing it into a missable "what do we do with this" pile). Sections for recognizable sorts, large pieces, and unrecognizable (when printed on their own) pieces." Screenshot of the text-heavy "about" section of the broken type webpage. It reads: " About the Home for Broken Wood Type I love how wood type carries the story of its human use; broken type is part of that visible story of our printing communities. If you have pieces of broken wood type you aren't using: please email me! I'll pay for shipping to get these to a good next home in my broken-type collection (and send you a print made from broken wood type if you're interested & I have any left). I'm interested in all kinds of broken wood letterpress type: they *really don't* need to have all the pieces of a whole sort, be an identifiable typeface or character, nor be mendable. Send me your unfathomable type-high wood shards, as well as things broken but closer to original form :) I'll take better photos of them, too—most of the current gallery is from type I didn't have a chance to photo up close before a winter storm closed the studio. In early 2026, I started a broadside print project using Penland School of Craft Letterpress Studio's broken wood type. I then cleaned a case to make a new safe storage home for them that suggests mending, gently printing, and preserving rather than tossing into the dreaded Hell Bucket (Penland's is a whole bucket, not a jar/box; love it). I’ll be printing with more broken wood type, including to encourage folks not to discard it. I'll also document the different ways different kinds of wood type has broken (e.g. material, character, typeface, size, ???), and get practice mending and protecting such type when it's in mendable condition. In case anyone is worried—no type is being deliberately broken! 😱 I have a background in book history, librarianship, and preservation. Any type that looks at risk of further breakage is *not* being printed with. Printable broken type is treated with extra care—e.g. not overtightening the quoins, attending to what the broken edges are against, etc. My goal is type preservation over print use <3. Whe… Screenshot of the "Printing (carefully) with broken type" section of the broken wood type project page. It shows a printing press bed where broken type has been assembled and blocked to roughly spell "'Broken' is a relative term", inked in redurple gradient ink. Next to that is a photo of the resulting letterpress print, on white paper, captioned "This broadside will eventually include further text, but a harsh winter storm ended the Winter 2026 Penland artist residencies early, so the rest of the print is delayed. It currently contains only text made using broken wood type from Penland, arranged to say "'Broken' is a relative term"." There are pastel rainbow buttons underneath pointing to back to the main site, contact, about, and gallery; as well as greyed-out "coming soon: conservation research" and "soon: mending"
February 4, 2026 at 12:37 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
jwherrman.bsky.social
once you start looking for it, you see evidence and consequences of online desocialization everywhere nymag.com/intelligence...
n the mundane course of modern life, you might occasionally find yourself glimpsing the dark abyss - that is, catching a few seconds of a stranger's phone screen. A peek over a shoulder, through a car window at a dash-mounted phone, or perhaps, pointedly, at the hands of a distracted person whose eyes you're trying to raise, will likely reveal a version of the same thing: not, in 2026, a wall of text, a feed, or even a slideshow of stories, but an endless scroll of tall videos. Taken together, the videos sometimes tell a simple story in algorithmic silhouette, with one bikini video after another, a cascade of talking sports heads, an unbroken flow of clothes to buy, or influencers talking over the News with a particular political orientation. Just as often, though, a stolen screen glance reveals a dismal anti-story, in which an AI model has guessed, in a whole bunch of different directions, what the user is "most likely to be interested in or engage with." It has done so by following, to borrow Meta's language, a series of steps: "Gather inventory," "leverage signals," "make predictions," and "rank reels by score." To the intended viewer, the resulting mix of videos is incoherent but probably also intuitive, at least on an individual basis. To you, the screen peeper, the spectacle is profoundly uncomfortable, not just because you're eavesdropping the output of an intimate machine-learning profile gleaned from private and often passive "signals" provided by someone you don't know, but because you know, deep down, that your chained-together clips — and the chains of people you know, love, and respect — would be exactly as alien, and alienating, to anyone outside of your narrow algorithmic cone. You're seeing yourself. You're really just sitting there, recreationally A/B testing content for hours in order to help Meta and TikTok find videos — any videos, about anything — that are a little bit harder for us not to watch.
February 3, 2026 at 4:35 PM
erinannmcc.bsky.social
So, if I'm understanding correctly, Anne Bradstreet's son Simon invented spongecase around 1672?
February 3, 2026 at 2:49 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
earlymodernjohn.bsky.social
My new article, 'Selling Education in England, 1650-1715' is now out (open access) in the English Historical Review! academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...
Selling Education in England, 1650–1715*
Abstract. In the period 1650–1715, a growing consensus emerged that educational culture in England did not meet the needs of the population, and that chang
academic.oup.com
February 3, 2026 at 11:27 AM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
infinitescream.bsky.social
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
February 3, 2026 at 9:42 AM
erinannmcc.bsky.social
Not at the same institution, but this sounds familiar
melissaterras.bsky.social Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 18d
Our expense system at work is now so complicated that it took me an hour to file 5 receipts. Is this the best use of my time? but that's what "efficiency" looks like in the modern university.

First World problems. But it takes as much energy as writing good useful words, or a student supervision.
January 30, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
nbacobwebs.bsky.social
January 30, 1985: Bulls rookie Michael Jordan drives and dunks on Rick Mahorn in Landover.

Jordan finished with 38 PTS (12-19 FG/14-15 FT)/8 AST/7 REB/4 STL but Chicago lost at Washington, 106-95. Gus Williams had 29 PTS/6 AST and Greg Ballard had 19 PTS/9 REB for the Bullets.
January 30, 2026 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
tomhulme.bsky.social
£42k for a lead (I.e. extensive experience) curatorial post - with management responsibilities - at a national library in one of the most expensive cities in the world? no wonder they’ve been on strike!
January 28, 2026 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
tomgauld.bsky.social
A recent cartoon for @theguardian.com
title: The Writer in January Panel 1. “A short stroll...” says the writer aleaving the house. The sun has begun to peek over the horizon. Panel 2. “Then back to my desk for a good day's writing in the winter sun.” The sun has risen a little higher. Panel 3. “Surely it's not going down yet?” The sun is indeed on its way down. Panel 4. “Perhaps I'll catch the last rays.” Says the writer breaking into a sprint. Panel 5. The writer is back at home sitting at a desk saying “Damn!”. The sun is gone. The sky is gloomy.
January 26, 2026 at 11:53 AM
erinannmcc.bsky.social
I think I’m going with 1!
2 considered villainy but ultimately avoided it.
3 are jointly more stupid than evil.
4 was just too fragile for this world.
(I make these claims as an early modernist who has read this book only once, and for entirely non-professional reasons, in 2026.)
mariaa.bsky.social Maria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · 22d
the true villain of wuthering heights is

📊 Poll:
1️⃣ nelly dean
2️⃣ mr. lockwood
3️⃣ dr. kenneth and mr. green
4️⃣ edgar linton
mariaa.bsky.social Maria Antoniak @mariaa.bsky.social · Jan 18
so are we all rereading wuthering heights this month, or are we all rereading wuthering heights this month?
January 26, 2026 at 8:21 PM
erinannmcc.bsky.social
This seems like a great idea! PGRs and ECRs: maybe check it out.
revelsoffice.bsky.social Revels Office @revelsoffice.bsky.social · 22d
Just a reminder that our January 'Bring A Problem' session will take place at 4pm tonight! Hope to see you there :)
revelsoffice.bsky.social Revels Office @revelsoffice.bsky.social · Jan 16
Our January meeting will take place on Monday 26th and will be a 'Bring A Problem' session!

Come and have a chat about anything that's bothering you - a tricky critical framework, an issue with a supervisor, a dead end research path, a worry about workload - we're here to support you🫶
January 26, 2026 at 9:30 AM
erinannmcc.bsky.social
Might have to keep my new SAD lamp on all day today
A bleak picture of a dark and overcast sky over the University of Galway
January 26, 2026 at 9:23 AM
erinannmcc.bsky.social
A large spider has taken up residence in my campus office. I have named him Donovan Mitchell.
January 26, 2026 at 8:22 AM
erinannmcc.bsky.social
In case anyone was wondering, Vivaia flats really are machine washable. Mine came out looking like new. Now I want to be able to put more things in the washing machine.

(This is what passes for an exciting Friday night these days.)
January 23, 2026 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
ellierycroft.bsky.social
As a follow-up, I was dismayed to learn that abuse and harassment actually affects our brains, leading to cortical thinning that disproportionately affects girls and women. There is no such thing as just 'banter': 'Brain scars': The hidden forms of sexism that harm women share.google/gUnWU5zZS8yq...
'Brain scars': The hidden forms of sexism that harm women's health
Subtle sexism that pervades everyday life often gets shrugged off. But research shows it can still have lasting psychological effects – including "thinning" parts of the brain.
share.google
January 22, 2026 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Erin A. McCarthy
stemma.bsky.social
The @uniofgalway.bsky.social
's Digital Humanities Reseach Centre launches this afternoon! Come along and have a cup of tea with the STEMMA team (and some of our #dh friends).
January 21, 2026 at 1:33 PM