Sam Brown
Part-producer, part-historian, 100% in the archives. PhDing at UCL on Arabic in England pre-1635. Northerner. Learner gardener. Human 🦜 perch.
www.lifeandotherstories.co.uk
- My conference tattoo may be fading, but the research, conversations and unadulterated geekery of FEATHERS’ Scribes and Inky Fingerprints will be with me for quite some time. If you weren’t here I’m afraid you really did miss out…
- If someone would like to pay me to move to Leiden that would be delightful, thank you
- Very excited to be en route to Leiden to talk about Arabic correspondence in England (obviously feat. William Bedwell) at the FEATHERS conference. Less excited at being stationary on the tarmac at Stansted for longer than the journey will take…
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- Thank you!!
- Come and join us at @livesandletters.bsky.social to talk about #EarlyModern libraries! Two weeks to get your abstracts in! Check the website for full details, incl. how PhDs and ECRs can apply for funding to attend…
- CfP ‘Built with books: shaping the shelves of the early modern library’ Submit by 16th May This 2-day symposium (9-10 Sept at UCL) will explore the rich field of early modern library studies, inviting fresh, interdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies. www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...
- Every Richard Field binding now a possible Shakespeare household archive? Yes please!
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- Could it be ‘nowe goeth w[i]thall…’?
- I was lucky enough to spend much of last year surveying Arabic manuscripts at the @nationaltrust.bsky.social and @britishlibrary.bsky.social, tracing the provenance of individual items and identifying trends across the collections. If you’d like to read more there’s a link to my report below!
- Huge thanks to my supervisors Tim Pye and Michael Erdman, Nicola and her colleagues at @researchnt.bsky.social and Marianne in the BL research management team. And to the staff at the NT properties and in the BL Asian and African Studies room - I absolutely could not have done this work without you.
- We’re having a symposium at @livesandletters.bsky.social! Come and geek out with us over early modern libraries and the books that filled them. Abstracts due May 16th, full details here www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of... #bookhistory #earlymodern
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- Tehehehe
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- Our dance moves were impeccable Grace, I don’t know what you’re talking about…
- You know you’ve found your people when a stranger pulls a rare book out of their bag to compare with your homemade tote because both title pages feature the same printer’s device #RenSA25
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- Haha I love this! Richard Field books are our Roman Empire (for the moment, at least)
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- Ah! We never actually introduced ourselves because we were so excited about the books haha
- Home after a truly fantastic #RenSA25. Loved sharing my own work (once the paper was finished 😅), saw so much stimulating research and discussion, and loved Boston. But the company of amazing ECR pals is what really made it a really special trip. Fugit hora when you’re having fun ❤️
- Happy World Book Day from my current favourite, a manuscript Qur’an acquired in Surat, in the hefty English binding of Sir Simonds d’Ewes (1602-1650)
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- Ah you are far too kind, thank you!!
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- Very happy to put my niche expertise in English (or in this case I presume, Irish?) early moderns doing mediocre Arabic into action!
- It seems to be English transliterated into Arabic script - ‘Mārsh th[e?] librārī’. The final letter of Marsh should have three dots but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt…!
- So pleased I finally made it to the fantastic Endless Stories exhibition at Cambridge UL today. Slightly off topic but - aside from a couple of Bedwell MSS - this doodle study of a cat was a real highlight…
- Hurry! You have just two months left to see ENDLESS STORIES at the UL. 📍 Cambridge University Library until 22 February 2025 ⏰ Monday – Friday 9am – 6:30pm & Saturdays 9am – 4:30pm 🎟️Tickets are completely FREE and are available to book now: www.lib.cam.ac.uk/endlessstories
- Is @theulspeccoll.bsky.social blog down for anyone else this afternoon or is it just me?
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- Promise it will at some point!
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- The poor thing 😅
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- Ah this is reassuring, thanks! My laptop is unhappy with me for many reasons so I was worried this was an issue at my end…
- Today I put a bird feeder *with camera* in our garden and I think it might be the best money I’ve ever spent. I’ve christened it ‘Peck a Manger’ and I apologise in advance if you don’t like birds because this will now be 90% of my social media content… 🐦⬛
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- I *love* this, but I also think the prospect of Kermit seducing Gwyneth Paltrow while Miss Piggy’s Rosaline jealously watches on is tantalising…
- Just caught up on this and it’s an absolute must-listen. So exciting to see #EarlyModern historical research being used to tell such an urgent, current story 👏
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- I absolutely loved it. Seems like such fertile ground for public history, crossing fingers you’ve got more in the works!
- My absolute favourite thing in the V&A. Close second is the façade of Paul Pindar’s house, built in 1600 and demolished in the 1890s
- I think it’s time to introduce Bluesky to my favourite #EarlyModern person, William Bedwell. If you wanted to learn Arabic in England 400 years ago you would head to his vicarage in Tottenham. It was demolished in the 1800s but you can still see where it stood today, near White Hart Lane Station 🔎
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- Not yet but I do have something in the works, although it’s about Bedwell’s attempts to print Arabic knowledge, rather than his manuscripts!
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- Ah this is very kind, thank you!
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- He’s left a great corpus of manuscripts and most he created himself - it’s the interesting material features of these that first drew me to him. More unusual to find him annotating mss he owned (the Fihrist list a little misleading) but I’ve identified quite a few and will have a list in my thesis!
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- Hoorah!
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- Oooh me please! Thanks so much for doing these 😊
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- Ah well here’s a fun one I found recently - it’s from Bedwell’s library, now in the British Library’s Harley collection. He’s added his name - ويليم بادول - to the (Armenian?) waste parchment flyleaves of the Arabic MS, and also adds a date - 1595. Love stumbling across Bedwell in the reading room!
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- I may have had a very exciting meeting about this recently!
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- Katie is well but longs for summer, and now wants to know why she has never tried Papaya (thanks for that Rascal…). She doubts it is as good as banana though, which has definitely been her favourite this year 🍌
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- Ah hoorah!
- Likewise! I believe we might meet in person soon, at the upcoming letters workshop at UCL?
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- I am very VERY excited to read this! (How foolish of her when green parrots are obviously best though…)
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- I would love to chat to you about it more - I’m sure it will help me make sure I’ve got its story straight too!
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- What an excellent parrot she has!
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- She is an excellent pet, although incredibly demanding and she’s destroyed so many of my jumpers that I’m about to start patching them together into some kind of chewable frankenknitwear…
- So pleased you thought of me, thank you! I’m definitely going to sign up. I’m in the midst of many deadlines but in the new year I will be scheduling a visit to see your books (and very excited I am about it too!). Hope you’re very well 😊
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- I’m sure if you’re already engaging with the wider field your work is set to be fantastic - I certainly wasn’t when I was an undergrad!
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- She is a troublemaker but I love her
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- Yes Copenhagen! I will definitely start sharing more at some point - I’d love to hear more about your work too!
