Julia Hillner
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writinghelena.bsky.social
Julia Hillner
@writinghelena.bsky.social
Writing about imperial women to understand late antiquity:
history - ideology - dynasty - violence - agency - memory

Also working on: crime, punishment, prosopography, digital humanities, and the city of Rome
@dependencybonn.de
Pinned
At the Connecting Late Antiquities project we've compiled a list of digital projects on late antiquity - one step to, erm, connecting late antiquities!
Huge thanks to @bnduman.net & @laurahartmann.bsky.social

Take a look, the variety is mindblowing!

www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/research/...
Related Digital Projects
www.dependency.uni-bonn.de
Reposted by Julia Hillner
This week I am taking a crack at gender, heterarchies and military retinues at the workshop I helped organising: Heterarchies and Power Dynamics in Post-Roman Europe. If you want to join us online it is possible by subscribing to the mailing list here:
listen.uni-bonn.de/wws/subscrib...
November 3, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
Five years, four authors, one book. Out now (fully open access), our new book on local priests in the tenth century 🌟 www.cambridge.org/core/books/l... @jbwaagmeester.bsky.social
Local Priests in the Latin West, 900–1050
Cambridge Core - European Studies - Local Priests in the Latin West, 900–1050
www.cambridge.org
November 3, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
📬 In our November blog post, Jamie Wood, former BCDSS Guest Researcher and Prof. of History and Education at Lincoln University (UK), shares insights into the research he conducted during his stay in Bonn: buff.ly/XBlQiLo
#Intermediaries #Christianity #Visigoths
@unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de
November 3, 2025 at 8:50 AM
Yep - late antiquity, famously invented by the Carolingians!

Jokes aside, it does pay off knowing a bit about the centuries post Roman rule to understand the Romans!
Such a fascinating Carolingian source ;)
"IT IS AGREED AND MOST EVIDENT THAT ALL MASTERS ARE EVIL..."

So begins the speech of the slave character Pantomalus in the Querolus, the only extant late antique comedy.

It will feature in a slavery sourcebook that we are working on.

Read more in our newest blog post: tinyurl.com/zrmc4a6s
October 31, 2025 at 12:25 PM
A taster of our special issue on gender and segregation, due out in a few weeks.

Thank you also to @dependencybonn.de for funding the conference during which many of these ideas were first discussed.
October 29, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
Chris Wickham's 'Framing the early Middle Ages, Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800' (2005) is widely seen as a milestone in early medieval studies.

New research published by Robert Portass, Peter Sarris and Caroline Goodson (@cjg70.bsky.social) now offers a critical response to Wickham’s ideas ⬇️
Vol. 43 Núm. 2 (2025): El modo de producción campesino: un replanteamiento de la sociedad rural de la Europa altomedieval | Studia Historica. Historia Medieval
Con la colaboración de la Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología | Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades.
revistas.usal.es
October 23, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Just submitted a review of Wolfram Kinzig's amazing book A History of Early Christian Creeds.
It was such a joy reading it and discussing it back in the summer at the book launch.
Go read it or perhaps, given the length, browse it - you will never think about the Nicene creed in the same way again.
October 16, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
#History #SkyStorians Very timely blog by Julia Moses and @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social on 'Using Large Learning Models in the History Classroom: Practical Perspectives' www.history.org.uk/higher-ed/re...
Using Large Learning Models in the History Classroom: practical perspectives
www.history.org.uk
October 16, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
Hurrah! My new book, Europe in the Eleventh Century: Beyond Revolution and Reform is officially published today by Oxford University Press. 1/5 global.oup.com/academic/pro...
global.oup.com
October 16, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
Delighted that latest article from forthcoming Special Issue of @genderandhistory.bsky.social is now available, co-edited by @writinghelena.bsky.social, Lisa Hellman, Rachel Jean-Baptiste & me! Elisabetta Iob explores purdah & resistance in 1950s Pakistan 🌟

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
The Girls Are in Town: Purdah, Emotions and Everyday Resistance in Urban Pakistan
Pakistan, mid-1950s. Many upper-class women had already left or were about to leave purdah (or its remnants). This article investigates how these women challenged seclusion, redefining relations of p...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 11, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
Druckfrisch und #openaccess: Das neue Heft der HZ, u.a. mit Beiträgen zu Antiochos dem Großen, #Rassismus im Mittelalter, Pharma-Industrie und #Kolonialismus sowie zum Ende der Weimarer Republik: www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...
@kim-todzi.de @writinghelena.bsky.social #skystorians
October 9, 2025 at 5:33 AM
I'm indexing a large edited volume & finding so many instances of women indicated only as "daughter of", "and his wife" etc - a bit of research shows that often we actually know their names (yes, even for late antique/early medieval women)!
Time to repost
writinghelena.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/t...
The Art of Naming Women
This past Christmas something magical happened to me which put my faith back into the importance of writing History (not that I had ever lost it, but in these times, when the value of History as an…
writinghelena.wordpress.com
October 7, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Continuing my quest to trace postroman connections through grave goods associated with royal wives.
Here some objects from Ostrogothic Italy found in then-Thuringia, perhaps arrived there when or after Theoderic’s niece Amalaberga married Thuringian king Hermanifrid in 507
Now in Stadtmuseum Erfurt
October 4, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
📢 Call for Applications!
The BCDSS is inviting applications for the Heinz Heinen Fellowship Program 2026/2027.

📅 Apply by Jan 10, 2026
📍 Start date: from Oct 1, 2026
👉 Full details here: buff.ly/8aH1Fy0

@unibonn.bsky.social
@dfg.de
October 3, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
📣 BSR / Early Medieval Europe Fellowship – Call for Applications!

Are you a PhD student or early career researcher in early medieval European history?
Apply now!

⏳ Deadline: 30 January 2026
More info here: bsr.ac.uk/awards-resid...
October 2, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
📢 Congratulations to Julia Hillner for her contribution to an article in SPIEGEL Geschichte on slavery & prostitution in the Roman Empire!

(Article in German, subscriber access only)

🔗To the Article: buff.ly/DGw3EZDin: Spiegel GESCHICHTE 5/25 'Roms Kampf um German

@unibonn.bsky.social
@dfg.de
October 2, 2025 at 7:01 AM
More opportunities @dependencybonn.de !

We are also looking for research fellows to join us in 2026-7, with projects that develop and critically reflect on specific methodological approaches to the study of strong asymmetrical dependencies, to help us develop our newly minted Method Lab.
In addition, the call for new Heinz Heinen fellows has just gone live: www.dependency.uni-bonn.de/en/fellowshi... (for doctoral, junior postdoc, senior postdoc, and alternative knowledge producer positions)
October 1, 2025 at 9:38 AM
The Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies is hiring three postdoctoral researchers.

We investigate the causes and mechanisms that contribute to the persistence of strong asymmetrical dependencies across historical and contemporary contexts.

Pre-modern perspectives are very welcome!
3 Postdoctoral Positions (100%, TV-L E-13, for 3 years)
full-time, Temporary, EG 13, Reference number: 2025/152
www.uni-bonn.de
September 30, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
We had an entire day of stimulating discussions yesterday at the 'Elite Women and Systems of Dependency in Late Antiquity' workshop organised by Grace Stafford and yours truly. We are grateful to @dependencybonn.de for providing funding and assistance for this event.
September 27, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
"Elite Women and Systems of Dependency in Late Antiquity" workshop @dependencybonn.de. Welcome by @akjp89.bsky.social and Grace Stafford.
September 26, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
📖Congratulations to Julia Winnebeck and Henriette von Harnier on their new publication in the Historisches Jahrbuch, representing the first edition and translation of an incomplete ninth-century penitential!

For more: buff.ly/hhvCMTn

@unibonn.bsky.social
@dfg.de
September 26, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Today the mail delivered this amazing book about Helena that its author, Jonathan Hibbs, kindly sent me. Published in 2005 it is partly biography, partly travelogue and was sadly unbeknown to me until now.
September 25, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Reposted by Julia Hillner
We are delighted to announce that Gender & History now has a new home at the University of Edinburgh. With thanks to the Sheffield team who did a stellar job for the last five years. hca.ed.ac.uk/gender-histo...
#Skystorians #GenderHistory @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social
'Gender & History' moves to Edinburgh | School of History, Classics & Archaeology | History Classics and Archaeology
The School is very excited to announce that the leading international journal ‘Gender & History’ has moved to the University of Edinburgh.
hca.ed.ac.uk
September 25, 2025 at 10:33 AM