Mira ‘Assaf
@miramiraculous.bsky.social
Book: Royal Marriage, Foreign Queens,& Constructions of Race in Early Modern England, under contract @ACMRSPress | 23-24 Long-term Fellow, @FolgerLibrary | Arab | dilettante
Pinned
Convivial Cleopatra | Folger Shakespeare Library
Folger Shakespeare Library is the world's largest Shakespeare collection, the ultimate resource for exploring Shakespeare and his world. Shakespeare belongs to you. His world is vast. Come explor...
www.folger.edu
I wrote about queer conviviality in Antony and Cleopatra because only planetary humanism and a utopian imaginary can save us now.
www.folger.edu/blogs/collat...
www.folger.edu/blogs/collat...
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
I really hope an editor pays Lisa to write this thread up. it’s a great example of how academic work contributes to movement work. @bostonreview.bsky.social? @therumpus.net?
In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.
Not a shitpost: #NoKings is feel-good performative activism for comfortable mostly upper and upper middle class white folks and that’s good, actually. Millions of people in the streets protesting a fascist regime is good. It is good for the normie baseline to be massive displays of public dissent.
October 19, 2025 at 1:35 PM
I really hope an editor pays Lisa to write this thread up. it’s a great example of how academic work contributes to movement work. @bostonreview.bsky.social? @therumpus.net?
Very grateful to the OHio Valley Shakespeare Conference for inviting me to present a plenary on my new work: “Arab Cleopatra: Conviviality and Queerness at Cleopatra’s Court.”
October 19, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Very grateful to the OHio Valley Shakespeare Conference for inviting me to present a plenary on my new work: “Arab Cleopatra: Conviviality and Queerness at Cleopatra’s Court.”
Same person. New middle name and reclaimed last name. New email.
October 18, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Same person. New middle name and reclaimed last name. New email.
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
Today is #WorldChocolateDay!
Here is a #17thcentury #ballad extolling the virtues of #chocolate, printed in the year that the first chocolate (and coffee) house was opened in London....
From Chocolate, or an Indian Drinke, 1652.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5KJ...
#earlymusic #earlymodern #otd
Here is a #17thcentury #ballad extolling the virtues of #chocolate, printed in the year that the first chocolate (and coffee) house was opened in London....
From Chocolate, or an Indian Drinke, 1652.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5KJ...
#earlymusic #earlymodern #otd
In Praise of Chocolate
YouTube video by Passamezzo
www.youtube.com
September 13, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Today is #WorldChocolateDay!
Here is a #17thcentury #ballad extolling the virtues of #chocolate, printed in the year that the first chocolate (and coffee) house was opened in London....
From Chocolate, or an Indian Drinke, 1652.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5KJ...
#earlymusic #earlymodern #otd
Here is a #17thcentury #ballad extolling the virtues of #chocolate, printed in the year that the first chocolate (and coffee) house was opened in London....
From Chocolate, or an Indian Drinke, 1652.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5KJ...
#earlymusic #earlymodern #otd
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
PSA: when you buy my book, make sure to get a second
copy so that the first doesn’t get lonely. 😂😂
copy so that the first doesn’t get lonely. 😂😂
So, @profkfh.bsky.social,
this is what happens when you preorder, forgot you preordered, and preorder again! Twice as nice 😆
@pennpress.bsky.social
this is what happens when you preorder, forgot you preordered, and preorder again! Twice as nice 😆
@pennpress.bsky.social
August 29, 2025 at 1:10 AM
PSA: when you buy my book, make sure to get a second
copy so that the first doesn’t get lonely. 😂😂
copy so that the first doesn’t get lonely. 😂😂
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
The Erie Canal is from the 1820s. You were competing with PHILADELPHIA.
August 9, 2025 at 7:15 PM
The Erie Canal is from the 1820s. You were competing with PHILADELPHIA.
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
I’m sure the ADL will wave it away as merely a Shakespearean reference from our deeply learned president
Trump just referred to some bankers as "shylocks" in his speech in Iowa.
July 4, 2025 at 12:42 AM
I’m sure the ADL will wave it away as merely a Shakespearean reference from our deeply learned president
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
Beyond excited to read this amazing volume! #earlymodern #beachreading
June 27, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Beyond excited to read this amazing volume! #earlymodern #beachreading
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
Several people asked if my Mom ever sells her #quilts. She's had bad experiences both showing & selling, so has been loath to do either. NOW I’ll tell the story of “Illustrious Ancestors” which commemorates Frederick Douglass’s time as a caulker in Baltimore. /1
#Art
#Quiltsky
#Juneteenth
#Blacksky
#Art
#Quiltsky
#Juneteenth
#Blacksky
June 22, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Several people asked if my Mom ever sells her #quilts. She's had bad experiences both showing & selling, so has been loath to do either. NOW I’ll tell the story of “Illustrious Ancestors” which commemorates Frederick Douglass’s time as a caulker in Baltimore. /1
#Art
#Quiltsky
#Juneteenth
#Blacksky
#Art
#Quiltsky
#Juneteenth
#Blacksky
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
A FUNNY THING will be out this Thursday, June 5! Ask your libraries to order it! If you read it, tell me which parts made you laugh!!
It looks like my book A FUNNY THING: EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE UNDISCIPLINED is available for preorder, and will be out next month!
Please ask your university libraries to order it—if enough copies sell, it will flip to open access!
www.cambridge.org/core/books/f...
Please ask your university libraries to order it—if enough copies sell, it will flip to open access!
www.cambridge.org/core/books/f...
A Funny Thing
Cambridge Core - English Literature 1700-1830 - A Funny Thing
www.cambridge.org
June 3, 2025 at 1:13 PM
A FUNNY THING will be out this Thursday, June 5! Ask your libraries to order it! If you read it, tell me which parts made you laugh!!
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
Harriet Tubman #quilt by my Mom, Vera P. Hall, who makes quilts celebrating Black people who fought for their own freedom. This seems to be the crowd favorite of the “We Didn’t Wait for Freedom” series. Happy #Juneteenth #quilting
June 19, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Harriet Tubman #quilt by my Mom, Vera P. Hall, who makes quilts celebrating Black people who fought for their own freedom. This seems to be the crowd favorite of the “We Didn’t Wait for Freedom” series. Happy #Juneteenth #quilting
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
Adriana Smith did not give birth to a baby.
She was used as an incubator, cut open, and a baby was taken out of her lifeless body.
A Black woman was used as a science experiment.
She was used as an incubator, cut open, and a baby was taken out of her lifeless body.
A Black woman was used as a science experiment.
June 18, 2025 at 1:58 AM
Adriana Smith did not give birth to a baby.
She was used as an incubator, cut open, and a baby was taken out of her lifeless body.
A Black woman was used as a science experiment.
She was used as an incubator, cut open, and a baby was taken out of her lifeless body.
A Black woman was used as a science experiment.
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
“But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly.
Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech.
Somewhere I read of the freedom of press.
Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”
Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech.
Somewhere I read of the freedom of press.
Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”
Martin Luther King Jr. was labeled radical by the white establishment. The FBI spied on him, trying to take him down.
He still chose nonviolence. Peaceful protest was his power—even when they called him dangerous.
“Radical” doesn’t mean you’re wrong… it means you’re getting close to the truth.
He still chose nonviolence. Peaceful protest was his power—even when they called him dangerous.
“Radical” doesn’t mean you’re wrong… it means you’re getting close to the truth.
June 14, 2025 at 12:50 PM
“But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly.
Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech.
Somewhere I read of the freedom of press.
Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”
Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech.
Somewhere I read of the freedom of press.
Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
I preordered @profkfh.bsky.social’s
THE SWEET TASTE OF EMPIRE
40% off until June 20th!
www.pennpress.org/978151282786...
THE SWEET TASTE OF EMPIRE
40% off until June 20th!
www.pennpress.org/978151282786...
June 9, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
I preordered @profkfh.bsky.social’s
THE SWEET TASTE OF EMPIRE
40% off until June 20th!
www.pennpress.org/978151282786...
THE SWEET TASTE OF EMPIRE
40% off until June 20th!
www.pennpress.org/978151282786...
June 9, 2025 at 8:42 PM
I preordered @profkfh.bsky.social’s
THE SWEET TASTE OF EMPIRE
40% off until June 20th!
www.pennpress.org/978151282786...
THE SWEET TASTE OF EMPIRE
40% off until June 20th!
www.pennpress.org/978151282786...
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
If you’re planning to attend @saaupdates.bsky.social in Denver next year, consider joining @roaringgirle.bsky.social and me for a seminar on Shakespeare & Public Libraries. Public libraries are crucial to our understanding of collection histories of all kinds of books and material. We need them!
![[ SEMINAR • SAA 2026 ]
SHAKESPEARE & PUBLIC LIBRARIES
This seminar examines the role of public libraries (local, national and international) in the preservation, dissemination, and study of the books and other media that transmit works by Shakespeare and other early modern writers. The recent identification of two books once owned by John Milton—a Shakespeare First Folio and a copy of Holinshed's Chronicles-at two American public libraries (The Free Library of Philadelphia and the Phoenix Public Library, respectively) and the presence of another of Milton's books (a sammelband of early Italian editions) at a third (The New York Public Library) invites us to acknowledge and rethink an implicit bias towards well-funded elite libraries and collections as privileged sites of textual and historical research. How might our knowledge of early modern textual history and the history of early modern books in the longue durée change with greater consideration of public collections? What do (and could) scholarly partnerships with public libraries look like-and what can they achieve in terms of bolstering the value of humanistic inquiry? How might the histories of (and transmitted by) the early modern books in these collections, which we are uniquely positioned to tell, relate to the specific local communities that they serve? In this way, the seminar is also interested in the ways that public libraries feature Shakespeare in the promotion of their circulating collections, educational programming, and public events, as many U.S. public libraries did during the quatercentenaries of Shakespeare's death in 2016 and of the publication of the first folio in 2023. While the idea for this seminar emerges from our experiences working in American public libraries, we would welcome contributions from scholars and librarians considering the role of public libraries in Shakespeare and early modern studies in various different regional and national traditions.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:oh4p26m2rd2cibjqvf2bse54/bafkreiaazajgst3ydy73ehvnbbxmvzrbbw3edutrkg6kgamublvov3ig5m@jpeg)
May 17, 2025 at 4:27 PM
If you’re planning to attend @saaupdates.bsky.social in Denver next year, consider joining @roaringgirle.bsky.social and me for a seminar on Shakespeare & Public Libraries. Public libraries are crucial to our understanding of collection histories of all kinds of books and material. We need them!
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
This was a fascinating series (and available on #BBCSounds for more than a year).
It also made me completely re-evaluate Brief Encounter... Oh, and I've borrowed Death in High Heels via @suffolklibraries.bsky.social 📕
It also made me completely re-evaluate Brief Encounter... Oh, and I've borrowed Death in High Heels via @suffolklibraries.bsky.social 📕
Radio 3 next week: 9.45pm - books during WWII. Brief Encounter and Boots Lending Library, POWs requesting books from the Red Cross based in @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social, the first bonkbuster, and much more. Great fun to make
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Books for Brighter Blackouts, 06/05/2025
Emma Smith reveals five surprising stories about books and reading during World War Two.
www.bbc.co.uk
May 16, 2025 at 11:01 AM
This was a fascinating series (and available on #BBCSounds for more than a year).
It also made me completely re-evaluate Brief Encounter... Oh, and I've borrowed Death in High Heels via @suffolklibraries.bsky.social 📕
It also made me completely re-evaluate Brief Encounter... Oh, and I've borrowed Death in High Heels via @suffolklibraries.bsky.social 📕
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
Radio 3 next week: 9.45pm - books during WWII. Brief Encounter and Boots Lending Library, POWs requesting books from the Red Cross based in @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social, the first bonkbuster, and much more. Great fun to make
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Books for Brighter Blackouts, 06/05/2025
Emma Smith reveals five surprising stories about books and reading during World War Two.
www.bbc.co.uk
May 3, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Radio 3 next week: 9.45pm - books during WWII. Brief Encounter and Boots Lending Library, POWs requesting books from the Red Cross based in @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social, the first bonkbuster, and much more. Great fun to make
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
"further testing a fragile ceasefire"
That's certainly an interesting choice of words.
That's certainly an interesting choice of words.
The Israeli army issued an evacuation order for residents of a southern Beirut neighbourhood, the first such warning in almost a month, in anticipation of a possible attack on what it claims are Hezbollah targets - further testing a fragile ceasefire.
IDF tells south Beirut residents to leave before strikes
The Israeli army issued an evacuation order for residents of a southern Beirut neighbourhood, the first such warning in almost a month, in anticipation of a possible attack on what it claims are Hezbo...
www.rte.ie
April 27, 2025 at 11:56 PM
"further testing a fragile ceasefire"
That's certainly an interesting choice of words.
That's certainly an interesting choice of words.
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
Israel bombs Beirut again. This has absolutely nothing to do with Hezbollah, and everything to do with Israel establishing new rules of engagement: we can attack anyone, anywhere, anytime, whenever we want. This cannot stand.
April 27, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Israel bombs Beirut again. This has absolutely nothing to do with Hezbollah, and everything to do with Israel establishing new rules of engagement: we can attack anyone, anywhere, anytime, whenever we want. This cannot stand.
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
More evidence when these people say "DEI" they really mean the n-word
You can tell the anti-DEI movement is not about meritocracy, but about racism.
Imagine asking Jesus (a brown Palestinian Jew) to ensure the next Pope is a white guy, and by default declaring that anyone non-white cannot be a good righteous Pope. It's not God you believe in, it's white supremacy.
Imagine asking Jesus (a brown Palestinian Jew) to ensure the next Pope is a white guy, and by default declaring that anyone non-white cannot be a good righteous Pope. It's not God you believe in, it's white supremacy.
April 22, 2025 at 5:01 PM
More evidence when these people say "DEI" they really mean the n-word
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
In *Sweet Taste of Empire,* (forthcoming August 2025), you can read my re-visiting of the Black boy mentioned by Pepys who was “dried in an oven, and lies there
entire in a box” who has been troubling me since graduate school. Another colonial “souvenir” 😢
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
entire in a box” who has been troubling me since graduate school. Another colonial “souvenir” 😢
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
April 22, 2025 at 1:22 PM
In *Sweet Taste of Empire,* (forthcoming August 2025), you can read my re-visiting of the Black boy mentioned by Pepys who was “dried in an oven, and lies there
entire in a box” who has been troubling me since graduate school. Another colonial “souvenir” 😢
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
entire in a box” who has been troubling me since graduate school. Another colonial “souvenir” 😢
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
This is well known but just sharing some images of a table book: these were small, portable, erasable, used for jotting down notes at sermons or lectures. This one is very fancy but they turn up as standard purchases in #earlymodern account books #folgerfinds
April 6, 2025 at 9:13 AM
This is well known but just sharing some images of a table book: these were small, portable, erasable, used for jotting down notes at sermons or lectures. This one is very fancy but they turn up as standard purchases in #earlymodern account books #folgerfinds
Reposted by Mira ‘Assaf
I’ve been on NEH and IMLS review panels. Their commitment to wide-ranging and important research is built on the hard work of program officers and awards go through hours and hours of review by field experts. The shame of DOGE’s wasting all of this!! Love and gratitude to all NEH and IMLS workers
And overnight your friends at @nehgov.bsky.social staff have been placed on Admin Leave.
April 4, 2025 at 2:27 PM
I’ve been on NEH and IMLS review panels. Their commitment to wide-ranging and important research is built on the hard work of program officers and awards go through hours and hours of review by field experts. The shame of DOGE’s wasting all of this!! Love and gratitude to all NEH and IMLS workers