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Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

1.8K followers 930 following 1.5K posts

Cultural historian, modern Europe @uvahumanities.bsky.social. Books: The Making of Mămăligă (CEU Press); Networks, Narratives and Nations (Amsterdam UP). Amateur gardener.
https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/d/r/a.j.drace-francis/a.j.drace-francis.html

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Reposted by Alex Drace-Francis

Pierre Purseigle

@purseigle.bsky.social

Please sign to protest the closure of Modern Languages programmes at Nottingham.

Solidarity with affected colleagues and students in Modern Languages and other departments.
👇👇👇
c.org/xYPmDLcXBn

c.org

November 10, 2025 at 4:57 PM

Reposted by Alex Drace-Francis

Susan DuBose

@houseofbast777.bsky.social

Nile Nightshade: An Egyptian Culinary History of the Tomato
by Anny Gaul
Shows how Egyptians' embrace of the tomato & the emergence of Egypt's modern national identity were both driven by the modernization of the country's food system & driven by predominantly woman cooks.
#Booksky

November 1, 2025 at 11:56 AM

Reposted by Alex Drace-Francis

Peter Mandler

@petermandler.bsky.social

Not enough attention is being paid to the effective closure of the bulk of one of the 2 or 3 most important public archives for modern British history. A terrible own goal for the BBC as a public-service agency.

Illuminations @illuminations.bsky.social · 3d

WAC wrong-headedness
(that's the BBC Written Archives Centre)

I've brought together the key links for the campaign against the changes which now make independent and exploratory research at WAC impossible - and why this matters.

www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/wac-wrong-he...

WAC wrong-headedness - Illuminations

John Wyver writes: Some of you will know that I have been very involved over the past months with attempts to reverse the wrong-headed changes to access at the BBC Written Archives Centre (above, with...

www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk

November 7, 2025 at 4:41 PM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

📖 Proofs! The introduction is called "A World in Motion"

O lume în mişcare [A world in motion], introduction proofs

November 6, 2025 at 12:42 PM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

Quantitative analysis - I hope there's no mis-stakes in the data...

Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 8d

Historian Dénes Harai appeared on Radio 4's 'More or Less' this weekend to discuss findings from his recent article published in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society' www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

Dénes's TRHS article, 'Counting the Stakes', is available here bit.ly/49hXy2n #Skystorians

BBC Radio 4 - More or Less, Halloween special: How many people did the real Dracula impale?

Looking at the math's behind the myth

www.bbc.co.uk

November 3, 2025 at 6:26 PM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

"We had some seriously good turnips" - good to see the real reveal in this feature on Paul McCartney
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...

"We put our backs into it, tilling the fields, and grew all sorts in our vegetable garden. We had some seriously good turnips." (Paul McCartney)

November 2, 2025 at 4:24 PM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

J’ai faim / Am foamé

French-Romanian dialogue about asking for food. From “Annuaire de la Principauté de Valachie” (1842)

November 2, 2025 at 12:11 PM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

Plan de Bucarest, 1842

Map of Bucharest, 1842 (published in Annuaire de la Principaute de Valachie)

November 2, 2025 at 10:11 AM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

In Bucharest Strada Mecet commemorates the site of a former Turkish cemetery. So much for 'no Turks ever settled here'

Snippet of Bucharest (Google Maps) showing Strada Mecet (= 'cemetery' < Turkish)

November 1, 2025 at 4:19 PM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

November #Saturday ##ilfautcultiver

November 1, 2025 at 9:02 AM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

Such a great colleague - such a sad loss. But what a lovely gesture!

UCL SSEES @uclssees.bsky.social · 12d

Earlier this week, SSEES staff gathered for the unveiling of a portrait of our late colleague, Dr Philippa Hetherington. Philippa was a historian and much-loved colleague, teacher and friend. The portrait now stands as a tribute to her scholarship, warmth, and enduring presence at UCL SSEES.

Colleagues gathered around the portrait of our late colleague Dr Philippa Hetherington on 29 October 2025.

The portrait was unveiled by Philippa's husband, Dr Alessandro Iandolo.

October 31, 2025 at 6:41 PM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

The gastronomical origins of Common Slavic (Curta 2001) Not quite sure what to make of this intriguing beef-porridge theory
www.routledge.com/Slavs-in-the...

The disposition to express oneself in particular ways accommodating other people’s behavior finds its direct and concrete expression in
language as koiné, but also in practice as “intentional matrix” of cognitive, affective, and volitive values. To put it in different yet simpler terms, if the Slavic koiné came into being because of real-life communicative acts, there must have been some practices that speakers of that koiné shared or wanted to share. A number of such practices are documented archaeologically and may well signal the social transformations responsible for the linguistic convergence. For example, the sudden appearance on many sites of a specific ceramic category, the clay pans, has been linked to radical changes in food preparation which are also signaled by frequent closed cooking pots and the greater number of cattle bones indicating the

consumption of beef-based stews or semi-liquid, porridge-like foods. Because of its great nutritional and organoleptic properties, the resulting “soup” may have been consumed separately, possibly with large quantities of bread, such as that baked in clay pans. Moreover, clay pans seem to be associated with special kinds of flour-based foods, the consumption of which was reserved for communal ceremonies or feasts. Flat-bread baking and the associated clay pan phenomenon started at some point during the second half of the 6th century, perhaps during its last third, and then quickly became widespread during the first half of the 7th century. The accompanying culinary changes must have involved some components of the “intentional matrix,” particularly affective (tastes and feelings) and cognitive (concepts, perhaps also beliefs) values. To speak Slavic meant perhaps to be able to explain to others how certain new things were supposed to be done.

October 19, 2025 at 5:05 AM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

October Saturday ##ilfautcultiver

October 18, 2025 at 7:35 AM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

Anyone know who translated Foucault's Les mots et les chose into English?
Sad that the recent edition gives no details
www.google.nl/books/editio...

The Order of Things

When one defines "order" as a sorting of priorities, it becomes beautifully clear as to what Foucault is doing here. With virtuoso showmanship, he weaves an intensely complex history of thought. He di...

www.google.nl

October 16, 2025 at 9:56 AM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

Applications are open for postdoctoral and other fellowships at New Europe College.
nec.ro/fellowships/...

Apply for a fellowship : NEC

NEC Institute for Advanced Study

nec.ro

October 14, 2025 at 7:42 PM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

Stories in monosyllables from 1886, for didactic purposes
(Creangă, Metoda nouă)
dspace.bcu-iasi.ro/handle/12345...

"merg în târg. mă tund pe cap. văd un om sub cort. pe sus văd un corb. nu rîd ca un tont. văd cum duc un om mort. un cal murg şi un mânz pe câmp. torn must în vas. un băţ, de corn. un ţap cu un corn rupt. când mă culc, nu dorm mult. torc in. pun fân în ţarc. de turc nu mă tem."

October 13, 2025 at 5:39 PM

Alex Drace-Francis

@alexdrace.bsky.social

New book: Tudor Dinu, "Grecia din România: Mănăstirile închinate din Ţara Românească şi Moldova, 1564–1866" [Greece in Romania: The Dedicated Monasteries of Wallachia and Moldavia, 1564-1866] humanitas.ro/humanitas/ca....