Andy Kesson
andykesson.bsky.social
Andy Kesson
@andykesson.bsky.social
Research, performance, history, creativity, wrestling and a lot of bears.
Reposted by Andy Kesson
NEW ISSUE KLAXON: Shakespeare Bulletin 43.2 is now published via Project Muse! In this open-access issue, scholars and practitioners engage in conversations across time, media, and geographic distance.

📰: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55948
November 24, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Friends, if you want to learn a bit more abt The Sweet Taste of Empire, watch this INCREDIBLE conversation with @triciamatthew.bsky.social w.bsky.social, Debapriya Sarkar, Jennifer Morgan, @kwazana.bsky.social & Tapiwa Gambura!
www.youtube.com/live/a-Npxq-...

Then you can buy it at 40% discount.
Kim F. Hall: The Sweet Taste of Empire
YouTube video by Barnard Center for Research on Women
www.youtube.com
November 19, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Out now!

The Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities, ed. Constance Crompton, @raysiemens.bsky.social , Richard J. Lane, and myself

And better yet? It's #openaccess!
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...

Order hard copies here: www.routledge.com/The-Companio...

Thanks to all contributors! 🎉
November 19, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Exciting news! Next August I'll deliver a keynote lecture at the conference 'Carousels and Other Colonial Spectacles: Performing Race and Racialization at European Courts, ca. 1500-1700' at Copenhagen University, alongside Noémie Ndiaye. Call for papers is open now lnkd.in/e2ad7u7H (deadline 15/12)!
November 7, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Very good news for people who like to plan ahead, but, like, backwards.
'A high-resolution digital map allows people to plan their routes along the ancient roads of the Roman Empire. Combining historical records with modern mapping techniques, researchers mapped hundreds of thousands of kilometres of roads. The findings nearly double the known length of Roman roads.'
‘Google Maps’ for Roman roads reveals vast extent of ancient network
A high-resolution digital map nearly doubles the known length of the ancient road network.
www.nature.com
November 7, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Join us online this Monday evening as Professor Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social – President of the Marlowe Society of America, and former President of the Australian & New Zealand Shakespeare Association  – uncovers the connections between ale houses and playhouses in early modern London.
Monday 10 November
@ 7.30pm online

PUB CRAWLING WITH PLAYHOUSES

Join Professor Laurie Johnson @lostplayhouse.bsky.social for a ramble around the inns, taverns & ale-houses of Elizabethan London, to discover their role in the emergence of playhouse culture.

Book: www.roseplayhouse.org.uk/whats-on
November 6, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Out now: "Digital Text Analysis and Early Shakespeare Bibliography: Using Voyant Tools with Bad OCR"
www.digitalstudies.org/article/id/1...
Digital Text Analysis and Early Shakespeare Bibliography: Using Voyant Tools with Bad OCR
Enumerative bibliographies are lists of scholarship that capture the state of a field. This article first evaluates digital texts of one such bibliography, Franz Thimm’s Shakspeariana from 1564–1864 (...
www.digitalstudies.org
November 5, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
PhD position, project: LangPro Women in the Early Modern Language Sector
careers.universiteitleiden.nl/job/PhD-posi...
PhD position, project: LangPro Women in the Early Modern Language Sector
PhD position, project: LangPro Women in the Early Modern Language Sector
careers.universiteitleiden.nl
November 5, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Voices of Thunder is one of ten books to look out for, according to Mathew Lyons in The Broken Compass 🤩 As he says, these “highly vocal women” have been “drowned out in much of the historiography” and make a “brilliant subject for a book”! 🌟 #earlymodern
November 4, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
‘What I'm saying is, these PhDs are not a new sign confirming the decline of civilisation. They are civilisation. This is at the core of what civilisations do.’

Delightful from @mscaitlinmoran.bsky.social where she shares her excitement about humanities research
www.thetimes.com/article/09da...
October 28, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Just your periodic reminder that there is an early modern pub night once a month for PhDs and ECRs and anyone else who'd like to join in London. If you'd like to be added to the mailing list please DM me.
October 27, 2025 at 8:34 AM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
NEXT WEEK! Come and celebrate Halloween with us at the #LowCountries seminar with a paper on the Synod of Dort! (there's a (holy) ghost involved ok 👻) with Dirk van Miert @huygensknaw.bsky.social

FRI 31 OCT 17:30, @ihr.bsky.social or on zoom (register for link) #EarlyModern #AngloDutch #Skystorians
The Synod of Dordrecht: binding the Anglo-Dutch orthodox Republic of Letters
www.history.ac.uk
October 24, 2025 at 2:46 PM
THIS IS WHAT WE CALL SOME PRETTY MAJUSCULE INFORMATION
Printing presses kept their letters in cases.

Capital letters went in the upper case.
Smaller letters went in the lower case.

This is why we say ‘UPPER CASE’ and ‘lower case.’

Ok, but what did we call them before the invention of the printing press?

MAJUSCULE and minuscule.
October 10, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
As you dig out your chunky knitwear from the back of the draw, I know you are wondering: 'How did people prepare for winter 400 years ago?'

Read today's post to find out (and whet your appetite for our new book The Experience of Work in Early Modern England)

manyheadedmonster.com/2025/10/07/t...
The Experience of Work in Early Modern England I: Winter is Coming
This post is part of a series that marks the publication of The Experience of Work in Early Modern England. The book is co-authored by monster head Mark Hailwood, along with Jane Whittle, Hannah Ro…
manyheadedmonster.com
October 7, 2025 at 8:47 AM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Had a great time today chatting with @sixteenthcgirl.bsky.social for the Not Just the Tudors podcast on History Hit. Watch out next week for the episode on Voices of Thunder and radical 17th-century women!
October 6, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
As the first female Archbishop of Canterbury is appointed, it’s worth remembering that dissenting women were preaching to mixed sex congregations in London as early as 1645. My book Voices of Thunder has a whole section on 17th-century “she-preachers”

#earlymodern
October 3, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
During the course of this year, I am available to give invited talks at Departmental seminars, symposia and the like. My research is now developed enough to shed new light on the role of walking in theatre history, but still pliant enough to benefit from the input of scholarly conversation.
September 29, 2025 at 11:24 AM
An important thread making the case for books being better than ostriches as places to put words
the booker prize judges make a lot of fuss about having to read 153 books. but assuming an average weight of 750g per book, that comes in at 115kg of literature - or just under the weight of a single adult male ostrich
September 25, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Pretty momentous email to send just before lunch on a Monday morning. Second book appears to be...done! Watch this space for further news from me and @gregmw4.bsky.social as we approach publication.
September 8, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
A call for papers on 'Ritual Artefacts & their images for medieval liturgy' in Madrid next January with special focus on 'three main categories of liturgical artefacts' ritual objects (such as reliquaries, crosses, censers), vestments and liturgical books. eventos.urjc.es/137188/secti...
September 4, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Question to Zach Polanski at the leadership announcement:

"Q: How can you take on Nigel Farage when your policy on immigration is so different?"

Everything wrong with British politics and media summed up so succinctly in a single absolutely unhinged question.
September 2, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE has a COVER👀

(this is a late C16 embroidered coif - never in fact assembled - in the V&A. All the crazy scale with added big cats, like an acid trip As You Like It. I love that it is a bit stained and messy.)

global.oup.com/academic/pro...
August 29, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Tonight am watching Escape from New York, a film that poses a number of important questions, most of which are Wait, What is Going on with Kurt Russell's Trousers.
August 21, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by Andy Kesson
Possibly the last photo of the @leverhulme.ac.uk Bee-ing Human team, as we work to bring our project to conclusion later this year. We will share the url for our project site soon! @viveknityananda.bsky.social @oliviasmith.bsky.social @racheljwillie.bsky.social @sjjackson32.bsky.social
July 25, 2025 at 11:24 AM