James Fisher
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jamdanfish.bsky.social
James Fisher
@jamdanfish.bsky.social
1.4K followers 420 following 68 posts
Historian of work, knowledge and capitalism (C16-18th) | Lecturer at Uni of Exeter | Author of THE ENCLOSURE OF KNOWLEDGE (CUP, 2022)
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jamdanfish.bsky.social
James Fisher @jamdanfish.bsky.social · Jun 13
My 2nd article on the serfdom-like compulsory child labour schemes in C18th southwest England is now available (open access) doi.org/10.1017/S026...

It was distinctive not merely as a type of unfree labour, but as a centralised method for allocating servants to farmers
Reposted by James Fisher
timhitchcock.bsky.social
Really pleased to announce the launch of the all-new, all-dancing, London Lives website - www.londonlives.org It has been thoroughly re-engineered to facilitate more types of search, and redesigned for phones and tablets. The team very much hopes peope like it. 1/
London Lives
www.londonlives.org
November 5, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Reposted by James Fisher
mwpalen.bsky.social
So grateful to have received the Elise M. Boulding Prize from the Peace History Society for Pax Economica. What a tremendous honor!

@princetonupress.bsky.social
uoearchhist.bsky.social University of Exeter Archaeology and History Department @uoearchhist.bsky.social · 8d
📚 News from the world of peace and economic history ☮️ Dr Marc-William Palen’s Pax 'Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World' has just received the Elise M. Boulding Prize in Peace History🏆 for groundbreaking work that rethinks how free trade once carried hopes for ending empire and war🌍
November 11, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Reposted by James Fisher
duncanbell.bsky.social
JOB
Assistant Professor in the History of Knowledge Pre-1400,
University of Cambridge

www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...
Assistant Professor in History of Knowledge Pre-1400
Applications are invited for the position of Assistant Professor in History of Knowledge Pre-1400, in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. Please note
www.cam.ac.uk
November 1, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
katrinanavickas.bsky.social
A reminder that my book on the history of protest is now published. It is superbly produced with a great cover. Buy it now from @reaktionbooks.bsky.social
Contested Commons Formidably erudite, compellingly argued, and dryly humorous, Contested Commons will change the way you think about the politics of space, the "myth of the commons", and the history of England since the eighteenth century: MATTHEW KELLy, author of The Women Who Saved the English Countryside "Starting with Kennington Common, and ranging from Steeple Bumpstead to Sheffield, Stonehenge and Brixton, and with a cast that includes ramblers, ranters, revolutionaries and ravers, this is a superb, sweeping but fine-grained history. It's also a highly necessary, politically urgent reminder of what public space is - places for everyone, owned by everyone, accessible to everyone, whether carefully tended or wild - and what it isn't, the tradition of pseudo-public space that runs from Victorian parks to privatised malls.' OWEN HATHERLEY, author of A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain
October 27, 2025 at 8:59 AM
jamdanfish.bsky.social
This is heart breaking. Such a wonderful and generous chess teacher, absolutely loved his videos.
nytimes.com The New York Times @nytimes.com · 29d
Daniel Naroditsky, a chess grandmaster, the highest title given to competitors by the International Chess Federation, and a former Junior World Champion, has died at 29.
Daniel Naroditsky, Chess Grandmaster, Dies at 29
He earned the highest title in the chess world as he built a career as an accomplished chess teacher, commentator and author.
nyti.ms
October 21, 2025 at 10:28 AM
Reposted by James Fisher
timhitchcock.bsky.social
Very much looking forward to Polly Lowe @polly-lowe.bsky.social speaking this Wednesday on bound labour and Scottish miners in the 18th c. @long18thsem.bsky.social @ihrlibrary.bsky.social Everyone welcome - either in person or hybrid, but please register at www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
Bound Labour, Narratives of Nationhood, and the Rhetoric of Slavery: Liberty, Identity, and Scottish Coal-Miners in the Long Eighteenth Century
www.history.ac.uk
October 20, 2025 at 9:27 AM
Reposted by James Fisher
aucointaylor.bsky.social
Delighted to share that my first book The Experience of Work in Early Modern England (co-written with the fantastic @jwhittle.bsky.social, @markhailwood.bsky.social, and Hannah Robb) has been published and is available free and Open Access! doi.org/10.1017/9781...

#earlymodern #economic #history
The Experience of Work in Early Modern England
Cambridge Core - Economic History - The Experience of Work in Early Modern England
doi.org
September 22, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
redpenblackpen.bsky.social
What's in yer basement?
October 15, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
brodiewaddell.bsky.social
Who did what in early modern England?

New #OpenAccess book, 'The Experience of Work in Early Modern England' by @jwhittle.bsky.social, @markhailwood.bsky.social, @hkrobb.bsky.social & @aucointaylor.bsky.social, based on thousands of #EarlyModern court depositions 🗃️

Read it: doi.org/10.1017/9781...
This book applies the innovative work-task approach to the history of work, which captures the contribution of all workers and types of work to the early modern economy. Drawing on tens of thousands of court depositions, the authors analyse the individual tasks that made up everyday work for women and men, shedding new light on the gender division of labour, and the ways in which time, space, age and marital status shaped sixteenth and seventeenth-century working life. Combining qualitative and quantitative analysis, the book deepens our understanding of the preindustrial economy, and calls for us to rethink not only who did what, but also the implications of these findings for major debates about structural change, the nature and extent of paid work, and what has been lost as well as gained over the past three centuries of economic development. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core. Cover of Whittle, Jane, Mark Hailwood, Hannah Robb, and Taylor Aucoin. The Experience of Work in Early Modern England. of Cambridge Studies in Economic History - Second Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025.
October 2, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Reposted by James Fisher
post-doc-club.bsky.social
Great news!
JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month

www.jstor.org/action/showL...
September 29, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
theverge.com
Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer scratched bullets with a Helldivers combo and a furry sex meme
Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer scratched bullets with a Helldivers combo and a furry sex meme
The suspected shooter left a hodgepodge of extremely online taunts.
buff.ly
September 12, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
brodiewaddell.bsky.social
What can petitions to magistrates from London apprentices tell us about gendered violence in #EarlyModern England?

New addition from Hilary Taylor to the #PowerOfPetitioning annotated bibliography:
petitioning.history.ac.uk/2019/05/13/p...
Screenshot of the first page of Hilary Taylor, 'The gendered dynamics of violence in English apprenticeship: apprentices’ petitions to the Middlesex and Westminster Sessions, c. 1690–1830' Abstract: This article offers the first systematic analysis of the role that violence played in the management of apprentices, and the gendered dynamics of violence in English apprenticeship more broadly. It does so through an examination of 195 petitions that apprentices or their supporters submitted to the Middlesex and Westminster Sessions, which sought the cancellation of their indentures on grounds of ‘immoderate correction’. It offers a quantitative overview of the surviving petitions, examining the proportion that featured allegations of violence, the terms and level of detail in which violence was described, and its relationship to apprentices’ other stated grievances. It moves on to reconstruct the factors that could prompt masters and mistresses to mete out correction (as well as their commentaries on their perceived right to do so) and the tactics that petitioners used in crafting their complaints to legal authorities. Although female apprentices complained about violence at a disproportionate rate to their male peers, the material considered here suggests that their petitions did so in comparatively formulaic and restricted terms. The final section considers what implications this might have for our understandings of violence, gender and apprenticeship, and a genre of document – the petition – that provides access to these issues.
September 12, 2025 at 10:42 AM
jamdanfish.bsky.social
A clarifying summary of different ways of thinking about AI and culture >

I hadn't come across the final 'role play' framing, which is very useful
August 18, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
mkirschenbaum.bsky.social
Instead of regurgitating the bromide that LLMs are just "autocomplete on steroids" (even by people who know better), maybe we can actually engage in some public education. The problem with genAI is better expressed through a classic computer science concept, known as SYMBOL GROUNDING. 🧵
August 12, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
davidwearing.bsky.social
It is inherently absurd to proscribe a group as terrorists based on acts the public doesn't know about. Terrorism *by definition* involves violence intended to intimidate a civilian population. How can the target population be terrorised by acts they know nothing about?

www.bbc.com/news/article...
Yvette Cooper: Some 'don't know the full nature' of Palestine Action
Defending the group's proscription under terror law, she said the organisation was "not a non-violent organisation".
www.bbc.com
August 12, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
biblioracle.bsky.social
I certainly share all the worries about students outsourcing their writing and thinking to generative AI models, but the core question for me is "Why do they see this as a good thing to do?" We have to meet the challenge of that question and the challenge dates back to long before ChatGPT showed up.
August 8, 2025 at 12:44 PM
jamdanfish.bsky.social
The revealing phrase here is "feels like", because what matters is how the product feels to its user, not it's actual capabilities

"GPT-5 is the first time that it really feels like talking to an expert in any topic, like a PhD-level expert."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
OpenAI claims new GPT-5 model boosts ChatGPT to ‘PhD level’
GPT-5's release comes as tech firms continue to compete in an effort to claim the world's most advanced AI.
www.bbc.co.uk
August 8, 2025 at 8:21 AM
jamdanfish.bsky.social
I highly recommend this free online course on AI, which neatly distils the most pressing cultural concerns and generally strikes the right note in terms of critical engagement

thebullshitmachines.com
Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines: Introduction
A free online humanities course about how to learn and work and thrive in an AI world.
thebullshitmachines.com
August 7, 2025 at 5:02 PM
jamdanfish.bsky.social
"OpenAI has come for education on all fronts, through the students, through the teachers, through the institutions, through the government.... OpenAI is now presenting itself as the saviour of the problems that it caused in the first place."

leonfurze.com/2025/07/31/o...
OpenAI Has Come for Education
OpenAI's recent partnership with Instructure's Canvas Learning Management System furthers its aggressive entry into education. While claiming to support students and teachers, I'm worried about the ef...
leonfurze.com
August 7, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Reposted by James Fisher
emilymayvine.bsky.social
Delighted that the print copies of my first book 'Birth, Death, and Domestic Religion in early modern London', just published with @universitypress.cambridge.org, have arrived! 📚📚📚
A photo of the author holding up a copy of her book, which has a red cover.
August 7, 2025 at 7:23 AM
jamdanfish.bsky.social
I don't know what the psychological impact will be of reading and marking endless textual equivalents of "glossy but with 13 fingers" will be, but it can't be good
August 6, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
caitlindeangelis.bsky.social
I’m staring at the sentence about using “generative AI to produce a historical image.”

What does the word “historical” mean in this sentence? Vibes?
historians.org American Historical Association @historians.org · Aug 5
The AHA has published Guiding Principles for Artificial Intelligence in History Education, offering a disciplinary approach to AI that focuses on the specific needs and challenges of history educators. 🗃️
Guiding Principles for Artificial Intelligence in History Education
These 14 foundational principles are meant to assist educators and administrators in crafting AI policies suited to local circumstances and the specific needs of students.
www.historians.org
August 5, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
bsecs.bsky.social
***CALL FOR PROPOSALS***
Routledge Studies in #18thC Cultures & Societies (eds. @profelainechalus.bsky.social & Deborah Simonton) seeks proposals for book-length studies on aspects of British, European, or transnational culture and society c.1680-1850. Full details: www.bsecs.org.uk/news-and-eve...
New History Book Series Call for Proposals: Routledge Studies in Eighteenth- Century Cultures and Societies - BSECS
Series Editors: Elaine Chalus, University of Liverpool, UK and Deborah Simonton, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark Routledge Editor: Max Novick The long eighteenth century sits as a pivotal poin...
www.bsecs.org.uk
July 28, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
lottelydia.bsky.social
All famines are man-made, all famines are political. Historians of empire and humanitarianism have known this forever. Gaza is not starving, Gaza is being starved, by Israel, and this starvation is enabled by our government and by every other government that does not step in to force food and aid.
July 24, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by James Fisher
owenjones.bsky.social
A tipping point has been reached.

Gaza is now starving to death in front of the whole world.

Those who facilitated and justified this abomination were given ample warning for 21 months.

You have no excuses, and nowhere to hide: you will be held to account for what you've done.
Gaza health ministry says 33 people dead from malnutrition in last 48 hours
New figures from the Hamas-run ministry include 12 children who have died, as the UN says Israel must allow aid into Gaza.
www.bbc.com
July 22, 2025 at 12:03 PM