Miranda Rainbow
@mirandarainbow.bsky.social
Doctoral researcher at the Institute of English Studies and the British Museum.
I work on the Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century English embroidery and also its reception in the 19th century.
I work on the Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century English embroidery and also its reception in the 19th century.
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
Does Britain value culture any more? Ask the striking workers at the British Library | Zadie Smith www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Does Britain value culture any more? Ask the striking workers at the British Library | Zadie Smith
The dispute over pay at this great national institution gets to the heart of our misplaced priorities, says novelist Zadie Smith
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Does Britain value culture any more? Ask the striking workers at the British Library | Zadie Smith www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
It's some fairly well known etymology that we owe some everyday words to Martin of Tours (d. 397).
The most famous episode of his life is when he selflessly cut his cloak (in Latin: 'cappa') in two. That cloak was later venerated in Frankish lands, from which come the words 'chapel' and 'chaplain'.
The most famous episode of his life is when he selflessly cut his cloak (in Latin: 'cappa') in two. That cloak was later venerated in Frankish lands, from which come the words 'chapel' and 'chaplain'.
Since today is Saint Martin's Day, here's a humble image of the popular saint that I recently encountered on Veliki Brijun, Croatia. Carved for a church in Senj c. 1330, it has "Sveti Marъtinъ" written in Glagolitic letters around the saint's head – part of Croatia's long tradition of Glagolitic.
November 11, 2025 at 12:11 PM
It's some fairly well known etymology that we owe some everyday words to Martin of Tours (d. 397).
The most famous episode of his life is when he selflessly cut his cloak (in Latin: 'cappa') in two. That cloak was later venerated in Frankish lands, from which come the words 'chapel' and 'chaplain'.
The most famous episode of his life is when he selflessly cut his cloak (in Latin: 'cappa') in two. That cloak was later venerated in Frankish lands, from which come the words 'chapel' and 'chaplain'.
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
It's sort of interesting to me that for a lot of British journalists, "success" largely means reducing people's access to essential services
Emily Maitlis admitting she worked at the bbc to try and get healthcare for trans people shut down
November 11, 2025 at 8:49 AM
It's sort of interesting to me that for a lot of British journalists, "success" largely means reducing people's access to essential services
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
3-year postdoc with CODICUM project for a medievalist placed in Odense, Denmark!
Special focus on Latin, palaeography & Dominican text and book history 📖😍🕵️
tinyurl.com/yrt4x8y3
Special focus on Latin, palaeography & Dominican text and book history 📖😍🕵️
tinyurl.com/yrt4x8y3
3-year postdoc position in medieval studies
3-year postdoc position in medieval studies The Department of Culture and Language invites applications for a 3-year postdoc position in Dominican studies within the CODICUM project. The position is e...
tinyurl.com
November 7, 2025 at 12:06 PM
3-year postdoc with CODICUM project for a medievalist placed in Odense, Denmark!
Special focus on Latin, palaeography & Dominican text and book history 📖😍🕵️
tinyurl.com/yrt4x8y3
Special focus on Latin, palaeography & Dominican text and book history 📖😍🕵️
tinyurl.com/yrt4x8y3
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
The ability of the far right to insist that their views - trans people are lying perverts, climate change is a hoax, immigrants are all thieving, raping scum - are necessarily legitimate & must be given a hearing is already a vast victory for forms of extremism beyond the pale not long ago.
What bothers me is that impartiality and balance are two different and incompatible things. Impartiality means that you don't intervene to put your thumb on the scales. Balance necessarily requires that you intervene to artificially make every issue look like a 50/50.
November 10, 2025 at 11:02 AM
The ability of the far right to insist that their views - trans people are lying perverts, climate change is a hoax, immigrants are all thieving, raping scum - are necessarily legitimate & must be given a hearing is already a vast victory for forms of extremism beyond the pale not long ago.
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
Yes, absolutely there is an impartiality crisis at the BBC. But it's not the one the billionaire media insists it is. novaramedia.com/2025/06/16/b...
BBC Gives Israeli Deaths 33 Times More Coverage, New Study Reveals | Novara Media
An analysis of over 35,000 broadcast segments and articles found that the BBC referenced the 7 October attacks in at least 40% of its coverage - but only 0.5% of articles referenced Israel’s decades o...
novaramedia.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:14 AM
Yes, absolutely there is an impartiality crisis at the BBC. But it's not the one the billionaire media insists it is. novaramedia.com/2025/06/16/b...
Both can be true
Me: We have too many books.
My husband: We have inadequate shelf space.
My husband: We have inadequate shelf space.
November 9, 2025 at 2:13 AM
Both can be true
watching king and conqueror, I liked the shirtless mud wrestling, and disliked the fridging of Judith of Flanders
November 8, 2025 at 10:05 PM
watching king and conqueror, I liked the shirtless mud wrestling, and disliked the fridging of Judith of Flanders
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
Could you co-supervise a PhD working with unexplored areas of our collection?
We’re seeking proposals from academics at HEI’s on four specially selected research themes: bit.ly/BritishLibra...
We’re seeking proposals from academics at HEI’s on four specially selected research themes: bit.ly/BritishLibra...
November 7, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Could you co-supervise a PhD working with unexplored areas of our collection?
We’re seeking proposals from academics at HEI’s on four specially selected research themes: bit.ly/BritishLibra...
We’re seeking proposals from academics at HEI’s on four specially selected research themes: bit.ly/BritishLibra...
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
Made a site where you can practise Old English scansion. You get given a half-line and have to select which of Sievers's five types it belongs to.
Just Beowulf for now, but that's 6364 half-lines to be getting on with: dgplacenames.github.io/scansion/
[Data: clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/]
Just Beowulf for now, but that's 6364 half-lines to be getting on with: dgplacenames.github.io/scansion/
[Data: clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/]
November 7, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Made a site where you can practise Old English scansion. You get given a half-line and have to select which of Sievers's five types it belongs to.
Just Beowulf for now, but that's 6364 half-lines to be getting on with: dgplacenames.github.io/scansion/
[Data: clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/]
Just Beowulf for now, but that's 6364 half-lines to be getting on with: dgplacenames.github.io/scansion/
[Data: clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/]
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
"Deir el-Balah’s Stolen Past: A Canaanite City Looted Under Occupation" by @jehadabusalim.bsky.social
jehadabusalim.substack.com/p/deir-el-ba...
jehadabusalim.substack.com/p/deir-el-ba...
Deir el-Balah’s Stolen Past: A Canaanite City Looted Under Occupation
Did you know that in the 1970s and 1980s Israel looted one of the most important Canaanite sites in Gaza, a site closely tied to ancient Egypt?
jehadabusalim.substack.com
November 6, 2025 at 2:40 PM
"Deir el-Balah’s Stolen Past: A Canaanite City Looted Under Occupation" by @jehadabusalim.bsky.social
jehadabusalim.substack.com/p/deir-el-ba...
jehadabusalim.substack.com/p/deir-el-ba...
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
Successive governments destroying the education sector, and British culture along with it, all the while spending a fortune on defending 'the culture' from Small Boats.
You couldn't make this shit up.
You couldn't make this shit up.
... and Leicester... Languages, History...
It's so easy to destroy, so hard to create. So much talent. So many lives.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
It's so easy to destroy, so hard to create. So much talent. So many lives.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
University of Leicester to consult on redundancies
University bosses are also planning to stop a number of courses.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 6, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Successive governments destroying the education sector, and British culture along with it, all the while spending a fortune on defending 'the culture' from Small Boats.
You couldn't make this shit up.
You couldn't make this shit up.
The relentless onslaught of cultural vandalism by successive UK governments for as long as I can remember is really, really dispiriting.
Horrific, stupid news from @uniofnottingham.bsky.social — they are closing their music department. Apparently they all found out suddently in a meeting yesterday.
It is one of the best music departments in the country — solidarity with my colleagues and their students
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
It is one of the best music departments in the country — solidarity with my colleagues and their students
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Music and modern languages courses suspended at University of Nottingham
In a statement the institution also says it is
www.bbc.co.uk
November 6, 2025 at 11:55 PM
The relentless onslaught of cultural vandalism by successive UK governments for as long as I can remember is really, really dispiriting.
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
Hometown of the global music heroes, the Kanneh-Mason family.
Heartbroken to share the news that recruitment to Undergraduate Music courses at the University of Nottingham has been suspended.
Please do contact us on protectuonmusic@gmail.com if you would like to support us.
Please do contact us on protectuonmusic@gmail.com if you would like to support us.
November 6, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Hometown of the global music heroes, the Kanneh-Mason family.
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
Languages and the arts are NOT 'nice to haves' and they are certainly not made redundant by AI - au contraire.
We are failing future graduates by depriving them of these essential learning opportunities and with misguided discourses on subject relevance.
www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...
We are failing future graduates by depriving them of these essential learning opportunities and with misguided discourses on subject relevance.
www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...
November 6, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Languages and the arts are NOT 'nice to haves' and they are certainly not made redundant by AI - au contraire.
We are failing future graduates by depriving them of these essential learning opportunities and with misguided discourses on subject relevance.
www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...
We are failing future graduates by depriving them of these essential learning opportunities and with misguided discourses on subject relevance.
www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
I'm lucky to have worked with one of the many brilliant people in these departments. Henry Parkes in Music is one of the cleverest, most insightful and inspirational historians I know - and one of the finest teachers too. Don't waste such talent @uniofnottingham.bsky.social.
Well this is awful news: tinyurl.com/yr65mjkx
'All modern language and music courses are being suspended for new students at the University of Nottingham.'
Nottingham friends: please be assured that we will join you in protesting against this decision in the strongest possible terms. Solidarity.
'All modern language and music courses are being suspended for new students at the University of Nottingham.'
Nottingham friends: please be assured that we will join you in protesting against this decision in the strongest possible terms. Solidarity.
Music and modern languages courses suspended at University of Nottingham
In a statement the institution also says it is
www.bbc.co.uk
November 6, 2025 at 5:38 PM
I'm lucky to have worked with one of the many brilliant people in these departments. Henry Parkes in Music is one of the cleverest, most insightful and inspirational historians I know - and one of the finest teachers too. Don't waste such talent @uniofnottingham.bsky.social.
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
Dick Cheney’s legacy is that he turned 9/11 from a national tragedy into a global disaster. He did so through a mixture of arrogance, stupidity and greed and blighted the last quarter century.
November 4, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Dick Cheney’s legacy is that he turned 9/11 from a national tragedy into a global disaster. He did so through a mixture of arrogance, stupidity and greed and blighted the last quarter century.
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
Transkribus is the handwritten text recognition tool that we used to transcribe 25,000 wills from 1540-1790 for our Leverhulme project.
Beginners' guide here 👇
#DigitalHumanities 🗃️ #EarlyModern
Beginners' guide here 👇
#DigitalHumanities 🗃️ #EarlyModern
Did you miss our beginners' webinar last week? The complete recording of our step-by-step introduction to Transkribus is now available on YouTube 👇
Transkribus Webinar for Beginners (English)
Transkribus is the most popular tools for automatic text recognition of historical documents.
By watching this webinar recording, you will learn how to upload documents to Transkribus, perform…
youtu.be
November 4, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Transkribus is the handwritten text recognition tool that we used to transcribe 25,000 wills from 1540-1790 for our Leverhulme project.
Beginners' guide here 👇
#DigitalHumanities 🗃️ #EarlyModern
Beginners' guide here 👇
#DigitalHumanities 🗃️ #EarlyModern
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever". In this case, inspired by finding one of the maps from a handout I was given as an undergrad in Simon Keynes' Normans class. Such beautiful maps.
November 2, 2025 at 9:23 AM
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever". In this case, inspired by finding one of the maps from a handout I was given as an undergrad in Simon Keynes' Normans class. Such beautiful maps.
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
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
drives me fully batty that I can’t say ‘women and girls’ anymore because misogynist transphobes have made it a cliché
October 30, 2025 at 3:35 PM
drives me fully batty that I can’t say ‘women and girls’ anymore because misogynist transphobes have made it a cliché
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
This has been my earworm for nearly 10 days now, so I'm so so sorry, but now I have to inflict it on you: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHsp...
Running up that hill Cover in Early Middle English BARDCORE/MEDIEVAL version. Original by Kate Bush.
YouTube video by the_miracle_aligner
www.youtube.com
October 28, 2025 at 7:37 PM
This has been my earworm for nearly 10 days now, so I'm so so sorry, but now I have to inflict it on you: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHsp...
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
Hands up if you noticed
October 27, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Hands up if you noticed
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
I'm afraid there's a lot wrong with the expert assessment of this fragment, let alone the claim of supposed uniqueness of finding neums in a late ninth century manuscript that's getting press. Liturgical fragments get sold quite often so auction houses could try a bit harder
Some of the earliest written notes in western musical history discovered in Pennsylvania
Ninth-century manuscript for Easter services remained ‘out of sight’ for years in hands of private collector
www.theguardian.com
October 28, 2025 at 9:59 PM
I'm afraid there's a lot wrong with the expert assessment of this fragment, let alone the claim of supposed uniqueness of finding neums in a late ninth century manuscript that's getting press. Liturgical fragments get sold quite often so auction houses could try a bit harder
Reposted by Miranda Rainbow
🌟"Evangelium secundum Lucam" (Vulgate) on Legentibus🌟
✅ Latin text synchronized with 𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨 (𝐞𝐜𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧; narrator: Abel Schutte)
✅ 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
✅ commentary
✅ built-in dictionaries
✅ Latin text synchronized with 𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨 (𝐞𝐜𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧; narrator: Abel Schutte)
✅ 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
✅ commentary
✅ built-in dictionaries
September 27, 2025 at 3:00 PM
🌟"Evangelium secundum Lucam" (Vulgate) on Legentibus🌟
✅ Latin text synchronized with 𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨 (𝐞𝐜𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧; narrator: Abel Schutte)
✅ 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
✅ commentary
✅ built-in dictionaries
✅ Latin text synchronized with 𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨 (𝐞𝐜𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧; narrator: Abel Schutte)
✅ 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
✅ commentary
✅ built-in dictionaries