melusina
@melusinagr.bsky.social
Co-founder, co-creator, co-conspirator (Codex Machina podcast, Strange Land Books). Luddite. Artist with the soul of a poet. Academic trying to help decolonize Book Studies/Book History. Loves periodicals. Addicted to art supplies. Plays #ttrpgs.
Pinned
🎙️ New episode! We discuss The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, and boy, what a discussion. Like Piranesi, it’s a book that keeps you thinking. 📖
We really loved this book and it sparked a great discussion. Definitely recommended but find a friend to read it with you so you can talk about it!!
Does anyone in the #bookhistory or #history space know of a good article about the “publishing war” between the Old Farmer’s Almanac and the Farmer’s Almanac?
November 10, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Does anyone in the #bookhistory or #history space know of a good article about the “publishing war” between the Old Farmer’s Almanac and the Farmer’s Almanac?
Reposted by melusina
BREAKING: Love is (still) love.
November 10, 2025 at 2:49 PM
BREAKING: Love is (still) love.
When I think of how much of a part almanacs play in #bookhistory, this feels like very sad news. www.wfla.com/news/nationa...
www.wfla.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:37 PM
When I think of how much of a part almanacs play in #bookhistory, this feels like very sad news. www.wfla.com/news/nationa...
😍
If anybody would like this #letterpress print on Miami language 'myaamiaataweenki' revitalization, email me @ markalanmattes@gmail.com & I will share details. All proceeds support cultural programming @ the Myaamia Center @ Miami U. #Indigenous #NAIS #bookhistory #NativeAmerica #printmaking
November 7, 2025 at 10:56 AM
😍
We really loved this book and it sparked a great discussion. Definitely recommended but find a friend to read it with you so you can talk about it!!
🎙️ New episode! We discuss The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, and boy, what a discussion. Like Piranesi, it’s a book that keeps you thinking. 📖
November 7, 2025 at 8:10 AM
We really loved this book and it sparked a great discussion. Definitely recommended but find a friend to read it with you so you can talk about it!!
Reposted by melusina
I think I’m in love.
Even the fires of a world war could not destroy this magnificent mandrake.
Kassel, 2° Ms. phys. et hist. nat. 10, 9th c.:
orka.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/viewer/image...
#histmed #bookhistory #medievalsky
Kassel, 2° Ms. phys. et hist. nat. 10, 9th c.:
orka.bibliothek.uni-kassel.de/viewer/image...
#histmed #bookhistory #medievalsky
November 6, 2025 at 11:16 PM
I think I’m in love.
Reposted by melusina
Wow! 😮🤩
There's a new interactive map of Every Known Road in the Roman Empire!! 🤓
itiner-e.org
We might have to have a lie-down.
There's a new interactive map of Every Known Road in the Roman Empire!! 🤓
itiner-e.org
We might have to have a lie-down.
November 6, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Wow! 😮🤩
There's a new interactive map of Every Known Road in the Roman Empire!! 🤓
itiner-e.org
We might have to have a lie-down.
There's a new interactive map of Every Known Road in the Roman Empire!! 🤓
itiner-e.org
We might have to have a lie-down.
Love this. “Luddite Humanities” is definitely my bag.
Increasingly the Venn diagram of my intellectual interests & commitments—digital humanities, book history/bibliography, book arts, critical making—perhaps meet in the region "Luddite Humanities"
Not technological rejection—but slower, deliberate, critical, historicized engagement with technology
Not technological rejection—but slower, deliberate, critical, historicized engagement with technology
November 6, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Love this. “Luddite Humanities” is definitely my bag.
Reposted by melusina
We're looking for our January speaker for our speaker series. Is it you we're looking for? For details, go to Bodiesandbeing.com
#MedievalSky #MedievalHistory #Medieval #Skystorians #AcademicSky #HistorySky #EarlyModernSky #EarlyModernHistory #EarlyModern #MaterialCulture #Bodies #WhatsHistory
#MedievalSky #MedievalHistory #Medieval #Skystorians #AcademicSky #HistorySky #EarlyModernSky #EarlyModernHistory #EarlyModern #MaterialCulture #Bodies #WhatsHistory
Bodies and Being
The Pre-Modern Body Project
Bodiesandbeing.com
November 5, 2025 at 8:15 PM
We're looking for our January speaker for our speaker series. Is it you we're looking for? For details, go to Bodiesandbeing.com
#MedievalSky #MedievalHistory #Medieval #Skystorians #AcademicSky #HistorySky #EarlyModernSky #EarlyModernHistory #EarlyModern #MaterialCulture #Bodies #WhatsHistory
#MedievalSky #MedievalHistory #Medieval #Skystorians #AcademicSky #HistorySky #EarlyModernSky #EarlyModernHistory #EarlyModern #MaterialCulture #Bodies #WhatsHistory
Somehow, seems fitting today. #bookhistory
“The enemy is at the walls; we are barely holding out. If you do not come, we are all lost.”
From a textbook used by students of the Vilnius Diocesan Seminary.
#NationalLibraryofLithuania #earlymodern #manuscript
From a textbook used by students of the Vilnius Diocesan Seminary.
#NationalLibraryofLithuania #earlymodern #manuscript
November 5, 2025 at 7:46 AM
Somehow, seems fitting today. #bookhistory
Fun discovery!!! #bookhistory
What a great find! As a paleographer, I can't help but observe that if this were French I would have dated the not-yet-Gothic script to the mid-12th century. In Norway, the transition from Romanesque to Gothic happens later, hence the tentative 13th-c. date. 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 2:25 PM
Fun discovery!!! #bookhistory
Reposted by melusina
Eleven #Manuscripts from the #Vatican this week www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2025...
Includes a text on the Barberini Lyre, more papal writings, Caesar's Wars (several), some Neo-Latin, a catalogue of printed books... and more! #MedievalSky #Skystorians
Includes a text on the Barberini Lyre, more papal writings, Caesar's Wars (several), some Neo-Latin, a catalogue of printed books... and more! #MedievalSky #Skystorians
Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 44 of 2025
Eleven total manuscripts were digitized in the past week. These consisted of six from Barb.lat, four from Ott.lat, and a single volume, a 17th C catalogue of printed books, from Vat.lat.
To the right...
www.wiglaf.org
November 2, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Eleven #Manuscripts from the #Vatican this week www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2025...
Includes a text on the Barberini Lyre, more papal writings, Caesar's Wars (several), some Neo-Latin, a catalogue of printed books... and more! #MedievalSky #Skystorians
Includes a text on the Barberini Lyre, more papal writings, Caesar's Wars (several), some Neo-Latin, a catalogue of printed books... and more! #MedievalSky #Skystorians
Reposted by melusina
It’s easy to see where this goes wrong and it’s not even the AI part (which is of course ghoulish) but this:
Good art doesn’t give you answers. It isn’t supposed to. It poses questions. This is certainly true of Baldwin
Good art doesn’t give you answers. It isn’t supposed to. It poses questions. This is certainly true of Baldwin
James Baldwin parceled out into AI-selected therapeutic memes, stylized via a typewriter interface: the “people-centered” AI future made possible through $500M in philanthropic funding. Without such technological advancement, we’d have no other means of accessing Baldwin quotations!
Can the James Baldwin Typebot Tell Us the Meaning of Life?
www.nytimes.com
November 2, 2025 at 10:03 PM
It’s easy to see where this goes wrong and it’s not even the AI part (which is of course ghoulish) but this:
Good art doesn’t give you answers. It isn’t supposed to. It poses questions. This is certainly true of Baldwin
Good art doesn’t give you answers. It isn’t supposed to. It poses questions. This is certainly true of Baldwin
Reposted by melusina
thank you VOGUE for recommending BURY YOUR GAYS one of the seven books to scare you for halloween. now please let me have a feature where i can wear a whole closet full of pink sequin suits and do a photoshoot www.vogue.com/article/scar...
Seven Books to Scare Yourself Silly With This Halloween
www.vogue.com
October 31, 2025 at 7:53 PM
thank you VOGUE for recommending BURY YOUR GAYS one of the seven books to scare you for halloween. now please let me have a feature where i can wear a whole closet full of pink sequin suits and do a photoshoot www.vogue.com/article/scar...
Reposted by melusina
I love that in order to use "AI responsibly" we're requested to check all the AI references, which presumably, we could avoid by just doing the actual research required.
October 30, 2025 at 6:49 PM
I love that in order to use "AI responsibly" we're requested to check all the AI references, which presumably, we could avoid by just doing the actual research required.
I’m re-reading The City and the City by China Mieville to prep for a podcast recording this week, and like Piranesi, it’s even better on the second read. Dunno how I missed it when it first came out.
October 30, 2025 at 10:59 PM
I’m re-reading The City and the City by China Mieville to prep for a podcast recording this week, and like Piranesi, it’s even better on the second read. Dunno how I missed it when it first came out.
Reposted by melusina
An old post from late in my Twitter days. I'm going to have to update this in some fashion for the post-generative AI context, but in that context I think something like it remains important -- perhaps is even more so. I do not think these are skills that should be outsourced, even if they could be
Reading advice for young historians
This is a sheet of reading tips I’ve developed over the past few years for my first-year students in history. I posted it on Twitter yesterday, as a png image and a tweet thread, and it got q…
memoriousblog.com
October 30, 2025 at 4:18 PM
An old post from late in my Twitter days. I'm going to have to update this in some fashion for the post-generative AI context, but in that context I think something like it remains important -- perhaps is even more so. I do not think these are skills that should be outsourced, even if they could be
Reposted by melusina
Read in public. Read in private. Read e-books, genre books, comics, fanfiction. Read literature. Read nonfiction. Read books you’ve already read. Listen to audiobooks. Read what you want. There’s no such thing as “doing reading the wrong way.”
October 29, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Read in public. Read in private. Read e-books, genre books, comics, fanfiction. Read literature. Read nonfiction. Read books you’ve already read. Listen to audiobooks. Read what you want. There’s no such thing as “doing reading the wrong way.”
THAT’S what this administration reminds me of - an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Hours before this he was bragging about how he supposedly aced a cognitive exam.
October 28, 2025 at 11:21 PM
THAT’S what this administration reminds me of - an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Reposted by melusina
"I DON'T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I'VE JUST WRITTEN!"
October 28, 2025 at 10:46 AM
"I DON'T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I'VE JUST WRITTEN!"
Powerful.
Same old cycle.
Humanity needs to evolve at some point, doesn’t it?
Same old cycle.
Humanity needs to evolve at some point, doesn’t it?
October 28, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Powerful.
Same old cycle.
Humanity needs to evolve at some point, doesn’t it?
Same old cycle.
Humanity needs to evolve at some point, doesn’t it?
World Central Kitchen has been my monthly tithe as well, they are always on the ground quickly where there is a need, but there are plenty of other choices to help victims of hurricane Melissa.
José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen is my personal preference, but if you can donate for victims of Hurricane Melissa, there are many options:
October 28, 2025 at 9:31 PM
World Central Kitchen has been my monthly tithe as well, they are always on the ground quickly where there is a need, but there are plenty of other choices to help victims of hurricane Melissa.
Library Of Congress Makes Collection Of Classic Film Magazines Available Online https://www.filmbuffonline.com/FBOLNewsreel/wordpress/2025/10/27/library-of-congress-makes-collection-of-classic-film-magazines-available-online/
Library Of Congress Makes Collection Of Classic Film Magazines Available Online
The Library of Congress’s Historical Media Publications Collection is now a an online, searchable resource for film fans and historians.
www.filmbuffonline.com
October 27, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Reposted by melusina
Strange Horizons will be open to fiction submissions from Indigenous authors only on November 3rd at 9am UTC!
The window will close after 500 submissions are received.
More information:
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
If you sent us a story in April or June, you CANNOT submit in this window.
The window will close after 500 submissions are received.
More information:
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
If you sent us a story in April or June, you CANNOT submit in this window.
October 27, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Strange Horizons will be open to fiction submissions from Indigenous authors only on November 3rd at 9am UTC!
The window will close after 500 submissions are received.
More information:
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
If you sent us a story in April or June, you CANNOT submit in this window.
The window will close after 500 submissions are received.
More information:
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
If you sent us a story in April or June, you CANNOT submit in this window.