Karen Smyth
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karensmyth.bsky.social
Karen Smyth
@karensmyth.bsky.social
550 followers 400 following 47 posts
Hon. Professor in Medieval & Early Modern Literature at UEA. Dabbling in literary criticism, critical and applied heritage studies, creative adaptations of the pre-modern, creative-critical writing methods, Creative Health research & autoethnography.
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karensmyth.bsky.social
Karen Smyth @karensmyth.bsky.social · 26d
karensmyth.bsky.social
October 22, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
museumsassociation.org
Tender opportunity 💡

As part of a review of the Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund, we're commissioning some impact research to explore where our funding has most impact.
October 22, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
vch-home.bsky.social
These are great - but we love manorial documents more than most!

Many of this collection in Chicago are digitised (and should anyone be interested in supporting a history of any of these Norfolk or Suffolk parishes, please get in touch...):
October 22, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
arodsan95.bsky.social
So pleased to launch the CfP for the III Colloquium on Late Medieval and Early Modern Cities!!

Looking forward to your paper proposals 🤗🥳

Deadline 31 Jan 2026

@ebenbow.bsky.social @emmaolson5.bsky.social

#medievalsky #skystorians #medieval #cfp #earlymodern #history #urbanstudies #callforpapers
October 21, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
jfwinters.bsky.social
We’re delighted to be advertising for a Community & Advocacy Manager to work with the UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association @ukiedh.bsky.social. It’s a full-time position (fixed term) and we’d love to hear from you #DigitalHumanities
Community and Advocacy Manager, UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association:London Senate House - Hybrid
The University of London is a leading UK provider of distance and digital education internationally, offering programmes to 45,000 students in 190 countries around the world. Although proudly rooted in London, our community and impact are global.
www.jobs.london.ac.uk
October 22, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
monicamedhist.bsky.social
Many thanks to the @rsaorg.bsky.social for sharing a notice of the new #OpenAccess teaching module on the Black Death. www.rsa.org/news/709728/.... I will be attending the RSA meeting in February, so get in touch if you want to plan to talk teaching strategies! #MedievalSky #EarlyModern #histmed
www.rsa.org
October 22, 2025 at 2:06 PM
karensmyth.bsky.social
Been having fun resourcing medieval costumes, jewellery, games, craft and herbal props for @beinghumanfest.bsky.social interactive 'Creative Walking Between Past and Present' immersive experience on Nov 14 and 15th! Watch this space for more details ... www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-w...
Creative Walking Between Past & Present Norwich
A sensory Norwich adventure. Your walking tour guides are John Paston & Margery Brews, who share their tales of passion, plague and protest.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
October 22, 2025 at 10:08 AM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
royalhistsoc.org
We look forward very much to taking part in #HistDay25 on Tuesday 4 November, hosted @ihr.bsky.social and @senatehouselib.bsky.social, and featuring more than 70 organisations that enable historical research.

It's chance to discover the rich infrastructure that can support your work. #Skystorians
ihr.bsky.social Institute of Historical Research @ihr.bsky.social · Sep 25
What can you expect to find at #HistDay25 our celebration of history collections with @senatehouselib.bsky.social? Come along and find out on 4 Nov. Book your free space here www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...
October 21, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
ihr.bsky.social
Final call #HAP26
October 22, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
cathamclarke.bsky.social
What kind of #AdventCalendar do you want this year? Join me and #AHistoryOfEnglandIn25Poems for a #TimeTravelAdvent: one chapter (and a time machine into #history) for each day of December, right up to Christmas Day. I'll be posting on here as you read along.
The Drake No / Yes Meme No: Fancy face creams Yes: Time travel
October 22, 2025 at 9:27 AM
karensmyth.bsky.social
Delighted to see my work 'A Heritage Trail Bio-adaptation of Rebecca Paston's Letters: Presence and Process in Conversation with Renaissance imitatio' published in Adaptation: academic.oup.com/adaptation/a...
October 10, 2025 at 6:14 PM
karensmyth.bsky.social
As Margaret Paston might say about the heatwave: “I beseech you, good folk, beware of your health in these perilous times, for the [heatwave] doth spread swiftly through the town and no man can be sure. I pray God keep thee from such a fate.”
August 12, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
doclb2.bsky.social
Happy New (Academic) Year 📖
😭😭😉
August 9, 2025 at 10:28 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
hellomizk.bsky.social
Wonderfully thoughtful blog post about “Cartooning the Medieval” from Anne Le, a postdoctoral fellow who joined us at the Newberry in June for the event! sites.nd.edu/manuscript-s...
August 8, 2025 at 2:36 PM
karensmyth.bsky.social
Writing on heritage, diagnosis, and the ethics of analogy (with reference to the Creative Health agenda in the heritage industry)
August 8, 2025 at 9:39 AM
karensmyth.bsky.social
Spent 5 minutes trying to figure out why, on my latest article draft, I had written the note 'Put eggs in'. Why eggs? In what? (writing has nothing to do with food). Then realised typo of double 'g'. Think I need to take a break from the writing and refresh my old mind. Off to look at real clouds...
August 8, 2025 at 9:35 AM
karensmyth.bsky.social
Chatting to my neighbours back from holiday: 10-year-old son saw a book on the Pastons at a National Trust property. Boy "look, Mum, we can get this for Karen". Mum "she probably has every book on them!" So sweet - even the kids think of me on hols when the Pastons are about!
August 7, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
jonathanfruoco.bsky.social
There's still time! Check our CFP and let's talk about Chaucer and medievalism in Nancy. Please share widely.

Poke @creananterre.bsky.social, @saesfrance.bsky.social, @globalchaucers.bsky.social. #ESR #medievalsky
January 28, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
sonjadrimmer.bsky.social
Getting ready to teach my medieval manuscripts class this semester. First week of class we learn...the beautiful, condensed language of catalogue entries. I made this annotated graphic of one to show everything we learn from this brief entry.
A screenshot of a catalogue entry from the Cambridge University Library illuminated manuscript catalogue. I have overlaid this with my annotations. Here I will describe the original text and then my annotation on it, which I will precede with the word, NOTE. It goes like this: 178. Note: number of the manuscript as it appears in this catalogue Add. 4086. Note: Shelfmark see also Pl. LIX. Note: "plate" means an image, usually in color, elsewhere in the catalogue Horae. Note: Contents or title of the text in this manuscript, in this case a book of hours Use of Sarum. Note: Use refers to the rites as practiced ina certain region; here Salisbury (Sarum is Latin) England, London. Note: place where the manuscript was made S. xiv with a superscript 4/4. Note: S means century from Latin for saeculum; xiv is the 14th century; and 4/4 means the fourth quarter of the century. This whole thing means the manuscript was made in the fourth quarter of the 14th century. Parchment. Note: the writing support (what the pages are made of) ii + 121 + 1 fols. Note: this manuscript starts with two flyleaves, has 121 folios, and ends with 1 endleaf. 165 x 122 mm (133 x 90 mm). Note: these two separate measurements refer, respectively, to the size of the folios and the dimensions of the area on each ruled for text. ruled in red ink, below top line. Note: below top line is a method for determining whether a manuscript was copied before or after c.1220. rubrics, catchwords, 2o folio ipse est. Note; Secundo folio means the first words on the second folio of the manuscript, often the way a manuscript was catalogued in the Middle Ages.
January 27, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
royalhistsoc.org
New: 'The Holograph Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1489-1541)' bit.ly/4mtRQgS

The Society's latest Camden volume of primary sources presents the 115 holograph letters of Margaret Tudor. This new edition, by Helen Newsome-Chandler, is an unprecedented epistolary archive 1/2 #Skystorians
The Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots: new Camden volume published - RHS
The Society is very pleased to announced publication of its latest Camden series volume: The Holograph Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1489-1541), edited by Helen Newsome-Chandler. This vol...
bit.ly
August 6, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
dianewatt.bsky.social
This is a fantastic post about a fantastic research project by @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social — it could be an episode in AS Byatt’s Possession! It also highlights the importance of serendipity in research and also how online research will only get us so far. thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/posts/blog/2...
Finding Two Missing Thornton Manuscripts
Blog article - 23 June 2022
thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk
August 6, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
memrn.bsky.social
CALL FOR PAPERS!!! The MEMRN Committee are delighted to share the call for papers for our second annual Winter Conference: Fragmented Worlds, Shared Histories.

Please share widely! Sponsored by @chase-dtp.bsky.social
We, the committee of the CHASE Medieval and Early Modern Research Network (MEMRN), are overjoyed to announce the return of our Winter Conference this year between the 14th and 16th November. Join us at the University of East Anglia and online for three exciting days of workshops, papers, social events, and adventure through the historic cathedral city of Norwich. We welcome papers on a range of topics within medieval and early modern studies for this interdisciplinary conference, including: * History and politics * Philosophy and theology * Literature, drama, performance culture and music * Latin and vernacular languages * Art history, architecture and archaeology * Manuscript studies and book history For this year's conference, we particularly encourage papers engaging with marginalised histories and communities, global intercultural contact and exchange, or conflict and diplomacy. We invite abstracts of up to 250 words for individual research papers of twenty minutes in length (or 700 words for a panel of three people presenting on a particular subject or sub-theme). The CHASE MEMRN conference remains open to all UK and overseas postgraduates. This includes independent scholars who are unaffiliated at this time. When submitting your abstract, please include your institution (if applicable) and, if from a CHASE-affiliated university institution, whether or not you are directly funded by CHASE. All proposals should be emailed to chasememrn@gmail.com by Friday 12th September with the subject line 'Conference Paper Submission' and your name. Priority will be given to those available to present in-person, but remote presentation applications will also be considered. Please feel free to contact the MEMRN team via email or social media DM with any questions you may have. We look forward to welcoming you to Norwich as part of this proudly CHASE-funded event.
August 5, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
themedievaldrk.bsky.social
Anyone here a dab hand at localizing 15thc Dutch dialects?
July 31, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Reposted by Karen Smyth
rhnnnwrrn.bsky.social
#CFP for #IMC2026 'New Approaches to Medieval Office Liturgy'. @imc-leeds.bsky.social

Please share widely and get in touch if you have any questions!
The image is of a poster with the following text on a dark blue background: CFP: Leeds International Medieval Congress (6-9 July 2026) Thematic Focus: ‘Temporalities’ The past decades have seen exciting developments in medieval liturgical scholarship, moving beyond analysis of texts to examining liturgical practices as diverse, lived, localised, and contested devotional frameworks. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in the study of the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours: the cycle of daily prayers structured around the eight canonical hours (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline) central to the spiritual, intellectual, temporal and communal life of the medieval Christian world. This panel invites proposals for 15-20 minute papers on any aspect of Medieval Office Liturgy, especially those that address new perspectives, methodologies, or understudied sources. Topics may include (but are not limited to): ⁃ Office Manuscripts ⁃ Intersections with visual and material culture ⁃ Lay experiences of the Divine Office ⁃ Liturgical Reform ⁃ Performance Practices and/or Prescriptions ⁃ The Liturgy of the Hours in Medieval Literature ⁃ Temporality and the Canonical Hours ⁃ Saints lives, cults and offices Please send an abstract of up to 250 words and short biography including your affiliation(s) to Rhiannon Warren (rlow2@cam.ac.uk) by the 31st of August 2025
July 24, 2025 at 11:16 AM