Dr. Barry Torch
He/Him. Medieval and Renaissance Historian, Skeptical Optimist, Purveyor of Puns, and lover of Books, Fountain Pens, and Dogs. Settler on Treaty 13 Territory. Jewish. Queer.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchThere are always at least two paths in the wood and one is often eminently smarter than the other but people just really love the dumb one. Like you can/should despise Epstein and his network and recognize it all as moneyed evil with a Jew at its center without going “therefore Jew root of evil.”
- I am very aware that I am not saying anything new here, more providing a thin particle of evidence to ideas well established by many other #historians. But when I see Giovanni Bussi writing in 1470 about the art of navigation connecting "the southernmost Ethiopians" to the "Indians near Gades," ...
- I'm struck by how *big* the world was pre-1492 and the famous Columbian Exchange. The Global "Middle Ages" (problems with that wording and concept aside) were massive. 15th c. Europeans knew of and interacted with many other cultures - in their own time, and in their ideas of their own past.
- Again, nothing new here - many other historians have done much more work on this than I am aware of (@lauraingalli.bsky.social, @cebenes.bsky.social, et al. on Gregorio Dati) - but for my humanist bishops in Rome, they were very aware of a multiethnic/massive world outside of late medieval Europe.
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View full threadMy original post mentions Giovanni Bussi. In his preface to Pliny's "Natural History" of 1470, he describes the importance of both Pliny and Navigation (I thought of @schottemargaret.bsky.social's work too!) and of the connectedness of both ancient and contemporary worlds over space and time.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry Torch@rmidura.bsky.social joins me on @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social to talk about her @cornellupress.bsky.social release #Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and #Communications Revolution in #EarlyModern Europe #skystorians #BookSky 📚💙 newbooksnetwork.com/postal-intel...
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchCORRECTION: My lecture in London is on the evening of Thursday 5th March! Sorry, folks. 'Twas my first day doing any work after the break. 😭 💙📚 🧪 🗃 #medieval #earlymodern #histsci #histmed #18thC #HAMH
- London book talk on HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY! I'll be speaking on Thursday 5th May, 6pm, at @linneansociety.bsky.social More info and registration below. A free exhibition, "Wonder" is now on and ends the next day. 1/2 💙📚 🧪 🗃 #medieval #earlymodern #histsci #histmed #18thC #HAMH
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchChris Celenza, in his book about the lost neo-Latin literature of the Renaissance made this point in the last chapter, which was essentially a call to the old guard of Renaissance intellectual historians to recognize that there are other ways of doing things. They didn't take it well.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchThe politics here are reprehensible but also really sad. He was a great scholar once. He had philological skills that no one has anymore. There are very few people who could produce that kind of work today. And to some extent, that's what this is about. He's mad that our field lost its former status
- Plato’s too woke now.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchLondon book talk on HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY! I'll be speaking on Thursday 5th May, 6pm, at @linneansociety.bsky.social More info and registration below. A free exhibition, "Wonder" is now on and ends the next day. 1/2 💙📚 🧪 🗃 #medieval #earlymodern #histsci #histmed #18thC #HAMH
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchHolding hands with a feline species while trying to start your desk work. This 1482 image of St. Jerome and his lion nails it timelessly. #catcontent #academicchatter
- Reposted by Dr. Barry Torch[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Dr. Barry Torch📣 We are thrilled to announce that the Winter 2025 issue of Renaissance Quarterly (vol. 78.4) has been published online. You can view it here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #RenTwitter #earlymodern #Renaissance @universitypress.cambridge.org
- Welp, when I decided that 2026 was going to be the year of "Barry starts working on his book? maybe?", I did not know that all my working translations of Giovanni Bussi had disappeared from my computer! It's a good thing we're so early into 2026 - and that Bussi only wrote (a lot) 20 prefaces!
- Time to start working on those translations again... and hopefully before my submitted article revisions/comments come back! #amwriting #academicwriting #writingproblems
- PS: This is why I have now saved my NEW translations #Scrivener file (for translations, bibliography, images, writing snippets, etc etc.) into my OneDrive, my Google Drive, and my DropBox. Backups are helpful!
- In my humble opinion, the worst part of peer review is the waiting. I love responding to comments to try be a better historian. And I totally understand and empathize with the Journal's administrative side, and getting a peer review done now is very slow. But still. I just hate waiting.
- Happy Hanukkah, BlueSky! #hanukkah #celebration
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchNationalism is bad history with bad consequences.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchThe fact that the "fight antisemitism on campus" movement has in practice become a smokescreen to both promote Islamophobia and shut down higher education more broadly, is going to have such deleterious long-term effects on the safety of both Jews AND Muslims in this country.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry Torchok who did this? ☹️
- Reposted by Dr. Barry Torch#EarlyModern meme! #BookHistory
- Sending off an article to the editors for the peer review process to begin. Pray for me!
- Reposted by Dr. Barry Torch*screaming* (This is US distributor. The Concordia UP pre-order page AND DISCOUNT CODE go live next month, when I'll start up the promo machine. But lookee that covvvver 🤤)
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchA new Early Medieval Europe virtual issue on Travel and Mobility in the Early Middle Ages, featuring five brilliant articles published over the past 20 years by Andy Merrills, Paul Dutton, Frank Riess, Ben Allport and Rebecca Thomas: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...
- My article is due on Friday. #amwriting #nobodywantstoreadthis
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchOMG! Just look at that headline! "Indigenous Nations Plan Tariff-Free Trade Corridor Across US-Canada border"!!!
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchI wish that folks celebrating the attack in Manchester on the grounds that The Jews(tm) are killing Palestinians were able to appreciate this difference.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchHmm… I wrote a piece about the epistemic erasure of Jews & my institution posted about it in a manner that doesn’t mention Jews—should I be happy they proved my point or upset…? 🤔
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchMuslims and Jews have a parallel problem: they both have religious concepts of unified global communities, “umma” and “am yisrael,” which do not map onto any empirical reality. Even accounting for the radical disparity in numbers, with Muslims a far greater percentage of humanity, both communities
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchAs a visibly Jewish person, I always know that going to a synagogue means assuming a certain degree of risk. But now I know that if something were to happen to me, it wouldn't just be sad for my family, but people would try to exploit my death to push policies I deplore.
- I really hope I can get this article published because, my god, the humanists of 1400s Rome were SO GLORIOUSLY petty and I love them all so much. "I'm going to call your work awful and just like putting a sewer in front of a Greek temple. No, I won't refer to you by name, but EVERYBODY KNOWS."
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchIn sincerity I did log on for a reason. A new issue of the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies is out, edited by colleague/friend Marcel Elias. It's about how to do postcolonial medieval studies bigger and better. You'll like it. (I'm in there). Go read. read.dukeupress.edu/jmems/issue/...
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchBut none of that changes the fact Jewish peoplehood has always been at the center of Jewish identity, and that there was always an overarching concept of Am Yisrael that encompassed Jews in Minsk, Salonika, Baghdad, Cairo. Criticizing the state of Israel doesn't require rewriting Jewish history.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchMay 5786 be the year we free ourselves—may it be a year of interdependence and community—may the genocide end—may our children know the sweetness of freedom—may we remember that all the children are always ours. L’shana tova, fam.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchMaimonides on “wokeness”: www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Tora...
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchThis Rosh Hashanah, I don’t pray to be “better". I pray to be more whole. More honest. More connected. More ready to see revelation in places I used to ignore.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchThis source sheet is on the idea of Shofar as both a cry and a wake up call: www.sefaria.org/sheets/43316...
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchRosh Hashanah blessings be like 🍎 🍯
- Reposted by Dr. Barry Torch#Proofs !! Happy that this piece is finally coming out soon, on #earlymodern 'Books for Greeks and Books for non-Greeks in Sixteenth-Century Venice' #skystorians #bookhistory #classicalreception
- #Writers and #Scriveners of BlueSky! I'm using an image in my article that I'm working on - a beautiful front page of a book. Is it possible to add a caption to an image in #Scrivener? Or will I need to export the file to Word (as if for submission) and add it there?
- Also, making time to actively write? It’s making my historian heart sing. Primary documents! Fun stories of scholars being petty! Social alliances and linking behaviour to written evidence! Yes please!!! #history #amwriting
- Reposted by Dr. Barry Torch1 question to ask about "debate" is whether or not one shares a goal with the opposing view. You might argue about how to house people - public housing, upzoning, deregulation etc. - but you at least share a similar goal. It's that overlap in a desired outcome that underpins the ideal of "debate."
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchIt should be needless to say, but it is perhaps at this moment worth saying, that transgender individuals have the same right as anyone else to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchThis is apropros of nothing, but I learned today that noted cultural historian Philippe Ariès was not a professional historian; he worked for most of his life at a "documentation center for international commerce in tropical fruit."
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchReally excited to see this medieval Hebrew manuscript and talk at the Morgan Library: www.themorgan.org/programs/gal... 📜📚💕
- Reposted by Dr. Barry Torchin the 23rd century historians are going to need have their Routledge Handbook of 21st-Century Internet Memes, their Cambridge Companion to 4Chan, and their Oxford Guidebook to Computer Gaming Culture handy to make sense of the rise of American fascism and the fall of the United States
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchI am thrilled to share that my article, “Hoc Saxsum: History as Conversation inside the Tomb of the Scipios” is now available on the Journal of Roman Studies website via FirstView. (It’s also open access!)
- I just got hate crimed in the stupidest way possible. I was driving home - my car has a lovely pride flag on it that I need to replace - and the guy in a truck next to me honks at me. He makes sure he has my attention, but my car window is closed.
- He then PULLS OFF HIS HOODIE/SHIRT and hangs it out the window. The hoodie/shirt has a picture of Trump cheering after being shot at. Then the man yells "YEAH!" (I think) at me, I'm assuming in reaction to the flag on my car? and then revs his engine a few times to make a point?
- Then he drives away cheering that he "got" one of "them"??? I'm ... very confused. I also feel that he owned himself instead of "owning the libs," by virtue of the fact that he just 1) stripped in his car, and 2) yelled at a closed window for a few moments. Fascism is stupid y'all.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry Torchyes i am sure
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchA cute, little dog from the late-thirteenth-century Huth Psalter. British Library, Add MS 38116, f. 73r.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchYesterday at our event we got a question about “hope” and history. Here’s the answer I gave, with help from James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass, and Natalie Zemon Davis. Free to read and share #medievalsky buttondown.com/ModernMediev...
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- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchDelighted to share that my second monograph, The Living Judas in Medieval Text and Image (working title), is now under contract with Cornell University Press @cornellupress.bsky.social! I am so grateful to @leverhulme.ac.uk & @paulmelloncentr.bsky.social for the time & support to work on this.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchThe wedge, oversimplified for skeet purposes, is between those who are tied to Judaism: 1) primarily by trauma/scarcity/conservation 2) primarily by hope/abundance/exploration We all hold some of each, but those starting places lead to vastly different Jewish outlooks. Israel is 1 piece of that
- BlueSky, please tell me I absolutely do not need a single page of a Giovanni Bussi printed book to frame and hang up in my household. Please tell me I do not need this, because it is FAR outside of my budget right now (but its SO PRETTY)
- Reposted by Dr. Barry Torch{New book} Social Network Analysis and Medieval History Ed by Matthew Hammond - With leading researchers from across Europe, this book announces the arrival of an exciting new subdiscipline in Medieval Studies. www.arc-humanities.org/978180270128...
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchA thing to say right now is this: I have faith in the Jewish people. We are in crisis. It’s been building for a while. It will likely get worse before it gets better. We are going to have to journey as a people. Many of us will. The journey will hurt. And we’re gonna cross this sea together.
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchJewsky: for full effectiveness by Rosh HaShannah, you need to get your flu and COVID shots by September 9. Put it on the calendar and spread the word. Pikuach nefesh is a great way to start the year!
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchThe Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes has just published a new article from its upcoming 2025 edition! ‘Gems, Ambers and Plaquettes. Cyriac’s Gifts and Theodore Gaza’s Verse’ by Filippomaria Pontani www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchPLEASE REPOST 🥺🙏 The Canadian Letters & Images Project is an online digital archive of Canadians’ experience during wartime at home & in battle. It contains thousands of personal letters & photos that reveal people’s experience through their own words & eyes. www.canadianletters.ca/content/abou...
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- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchThe beginning of Eicha (Lamentations) which will be read on Tisha B'av, 9th of Av, which starts at sundown on 2nd August. BL Or 2091; Former & Latter Prophets & Hagiographa; 13th century; Germany; f.343r
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchZuckerberg farted out some nonsense today, and since most media outlets refuse to report critically any time a tech CEO offers them some a pseudoserious press release, I've decided to do it for them. sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/7/30/how-to-read-an-ai-press-release
- When it comes to writing #history articles and essays, is there still a desire to read narrative? Or is the focus more on good historical #analysis and what can be “new.” Is there a want for a story among other academics? #amwriting
- Reposted by Dr. Barry TorchThe Roman Girl Rediscovered During the Renaissance www.medievalists.net/2025/07/roma... #history
