Dear grad students in early modern and medieval history,

I’m organizing an informal, virtual writing/working session (probably starting early September, depending on people’s needs/availability) for all graduate students in early modern/medieval history.

Do you want to connect with peers, need feedback, accountability, or just don’t want to work…[Read more]

The RSA is hosting online discussion sessions meant to help the Renaissance Society of America better understand how the RSA can be more welcoming to scholars of color and to scholars who work on such issues as race, gender, sexuality, disability, and coloniality in the late medieval and early modern period (1300–1700). Any and all interested s…[Read more]

RSA Webinar: Research in the Age of COVID-19 Webinar

The RSA is hosting a webinar over Zoom for “Research in the Age of COVID-19: Access and Collaboration” on Thursday, July 30 at 12:00 pm EST. The webinar will explore the library closures and travel restrictions and how to address them through digital access and collaboration among scholars. The…[Read more]

The International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) Advocacy Committee has compiled a list of resources against racism. The list includes resources for teaching, for deconstructing white privilege, for the emotional implications of the work, for calling out racism in the academy, and to multimedia and recommended books,…[Read more]

A preview: An RSA webinar will be held Thursday, July 30, at noon (Eastern time): “Research in the Age of COVID-19: Access and Collaboration.” Watch for an announcement late next week. Also, for scholars who are not RSA members: Renaissance Quarterly’s 10 most downloaded articles of 2019 are free to access through the end of July 2020. You can v…[Read more]

For those struggling with organizing archival document photos and transcriptions, I recommend using Tropy as a research photo management tool. The tool allows you to enter metadata, add tags, enter transcriptions and annotations, and organize the photos into projects and lists. You can also group multiple images under one object and adjust colour…[Read more]

My dissertation made me discover quite a number of archives in Europe (especially the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany). Something that I wish somebody would have told me before is the temperature in the archives. Depending on the archive, it varies A LOT. I want to draw your attention to this helpful list compiled by Megan Cook.

Thank you, Carla. I have gotten similar advice from a former Professor once: “Take a break when the writing is going well.” It sounds counterintuitive, but it actually helps me to stay motivated.

When I was a student, a scholar told me an incredibly simple strategy that has helped me so much. I used to work on my dissertation for hours, then stop when I was feeling blocked and figure that I would sort it out the next day. The problem is that the next day I might still be feeling blocked. This scholar said that each day, when he stopped…[Read more]

Thank you for the suggestion, Barbara! I have found a similar app for my Iphone (called Flora) and love it. I have also found writing sessions with a friend/colleague to be very helpful. You set a time/date to meet on Zoom (or whichever program you prefer) and then we just write in silence together, checking in at predetermined intervals to keep…[Read more]