Alex Drace-Francis
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alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis
@alexdrace.bsky.social
1.8K followers 950 following 1.6K posts

Cultural historian, modern Europe @uvahumanities.bsky.social. Books: The Making of Mămăligă (CEU Press); Networks, Narratives and Nations (Amsterdam UP). Amateur gardener.
https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/d/r/a.j.drace-francis/a.j.drace-francis.html .. more

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Political science 47%
Sociology 22%
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alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · Dec 2
OK here it is! Bernhard Stolz, A Bohemian in Bucharest: Reports from a world in transition. With unpublished letters of Dora Stolz and her sisters (1840-1845).
humanitas.ro/humanitas/ca...
Book cover: Bernhard Stolz, Un boem la Bucureşti. Reportaje dintr-o lume în tranziţie. Cu scrisori inedite de la Dora Stolz şi surorile ei (1840-1845). Traduse şi editate de Alex Drace-Francis. Bucureşti: Editura Humanitas, 2025.

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 3d
I always loved the market in Athens - hope it's still going

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 3d
This is happening in Bucharest too - long tradition of good barbecued or roast meat being wiped out

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 3d
How did that happen? #languages
Table showing meanings of words for 'green' and 'yellow' in Romanian and Albanian.

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 4d
New book: Erik van Ree, "The Revolutionary Organisation: Armed Struggle from the Late 18th Century to the Present"
Studies in Global Social History, Volume: 57
brill.com/display/titl...
brill.com

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 4d
Anyone have access to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics? Our library's subscription seems to have lapsed - I'll try to get that fixed, but meanwhile if anyone can help I'd appreciate, thanks in advance

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 4d
True, but I hate the thought that even if I retired to the other end of the galaxy I would still be in danger of spotting Mandelson
stevepeers.bsky.social Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 4d
There are aliens on the opposite side of the galaxy who could spot that Mandelson was dodgy
paulbernal.bsky.social Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 5d
Note to Starmer-stans: if we all knew Mandelson was dodgy, he should have, even if he wasn’t in parliament in 2009.

Reposted by Alex Drace‐Francis

stevepeers.bsky.social
Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 4d
There are aliens on the opposite side of the galaxy who could spot that Mandelson was dodgy
paulbernal.bsky.social Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 5d
Note to Starmer-stans: if we all knew Mandelson was dodgy, he should have, even if he wasn’t in parliament in 2009.

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 5d
Question on behalf of a student - there were some good sites with digitized runs of Romanian magazines from the socialist times? Thinking domestic, women's magazines, leisure, film &c.
Thanks in advance for any help.

Reposted by Mark Bray, Pádua Fernandes, Farah Mendlesohn , and 1 more

louisearchaeology.bsky.social
Louise Bedford | Archaeology @louisearchaeology.bsky.social · 6d
The British Museum posted Al slop and quietly deleted it. Here's what it was and why it matters.

#archaeology🏺#musuem #culture #heritage #history

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 6d
Couldn't "increased oversight" be achieved by fostering a culture in which the research community actually reads the publications? Just a thought..

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 6d
February (Faurar in old Romanian)
Illustration, "Minerva" Calendar, Bucharest 1912
February (Faurar in old Romanian) Illustration, "Minerva" Calendar, Bucharest 1912

Reposted by Alex Drace‐Francis

news.rte.ie
RTÉ News @news.rte.ie · 6d
Some of the country's largest universities have increased their oversight of academic cheating in response to the rise of generative AI rte.ie/b/1556159
Universities increase oversight of cheating using AI
Some of the country's largest universities have increased their oversight of academic cheating in response to the rise of generative AI.
rte.ie

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 7d
Even more sceptical about "must be subject to a strategic research management regime" - the more research is subject to a regime, the less it's research..

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 8d
Krakatice 'squid' - love these Czech lexicographer's index cards
bara.ujc.cas.cz/psjc/search....

Reposted by Alex Drace‐Francis

uclssees.bsky.social
UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies @uclssees.bsky.social · 8d
🔊 This event is now sold out in person, but you can still join us online to learn more about how food vocabulary in the #Balkans encodes millennia of indigenous evolution, alongside contact, borrowing, and contested belonging.

🗓️ 3 February at 5pm
➡️ www.ucl.ac.uk/arts-humanit...
Event poster for 'Eating the Balkans: Language, Cuisine, and Cultural Meaning in the Balkans' with an image of Balkan food.

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 9d
The umbrella is delicious!
We discussed some of Barabás's contemporary representations in a seminar a few years back
nec.ro/events/surve...
We discussed some of
Surveying Bucharest. The 1832 Panorama Sketch by Miklós Barabás : NEC
NEC Institute for Advanced Study
nec.ro

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 9d
Of course it is stylized in retrospect, but B was in Bucharest in 1830 and it fits with images made at the time (this one by a Russian artist).
Wallachian boyar, c. 1830. Watercolour by Russian artist “R.G.A.I.”, Romanian Academy Library

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 9d
Hungarian National Gallery mng.hu/mutargyak/74...
Filipescu bukaresti rendőrfőnök - Magyar Nemzeti Galéria
mng.hu

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 9d
I think it says "Emlékezet után 1887" [From memory, 1887] under his signature if I read right? But Barabas was in Bucharest in 1831 and it is a recollection from this period

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 10d
Da, e pacat cu Brexit si cu distributia cartilor - o sa intreb cum se poate. Multumesc pentru interes!

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 10d
Ah looks great, hadn't heard!

Reposted by Alex Drace‐Francis

irinadumitrescu.bsky.social
Irina Dumitrescu @irinadumitrescu.bsky.social · 10d
www.romania-insider.com/romania-gues...
Romania to be guest of honor at Frankfurt Book Fair 2028
Romania will be the guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2028 and will manage a pavilion of approximately 1,500–2,000 sqm, according to a memorandum approved by the Romanian government on Thur...
www.romania-insider.com

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 10d
If I knew what it was I might be?

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 11d
High praise in Südost-Forschungen for Aleksov, "Jewish Refugees in the Balkans", vol. 34 of our #BalkanStudiesLibrary series (click on alt-text for trans.)
www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...
This book is methodologically innovative and excellently researched. It addresses a hitherto neglected, yet important, aspect of Southeast European history and corrects widely-held ideas about the allegedly hopeless xenophobia of the region ... Given the global significance of displacement and the treatment of refugees, the work also offers lessons for the present. One can only hope it finds the widest possible readership. Ulf Brunnbauer, in Südost-Forschungen (2024)

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 11d
Yes! - I learnt so much from this book, hope others do too

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 12d
The reviews section of "Südost-Forschungen" is a thing of wonder - 201 p. of careful assessment, even an index! Grateful for Alexander Vezenkov's nice review of my book - indexed under "Ethnographie" and "Rumänien" - and to read about many other books of note
www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/...
"Südost-Forschungen" (South-East[European] Researches], vol. 83 nr. 1 (2024), title page Topographisches, Sach- und Personenregister zu den Titeln der rezensierten Bücher [Index of Places, Subjects and Persons in the Titles of the Reviewed Books] Topographisches, Sach- und Personenregister zu den Titeln der rezensierten Bücher [Index of Places, Subjects and Persons in the Titles of the Reviewed Books] (ctd.)

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 13d
Listening to this is like "we left Eastern Europe for a better place but we'd better remember it in case the US implodes a hundred years from now"

alexdrace.bsky.social
Alex Drace-Francis @alexdrace.bsky.social · 14d
24 January -
167 years since the Union of Moldavia and Wallachia (1859).
103 years since the recording of the dance tune "Mamaliga".
Harry Kandel's Orchestra, Camden, NJ, now part of Library of Congress 'National Jukebox' collection. Sărbători fericite!
www.loc.gov/item/jukebox...
Mamaliga
Victor 77018. Matrix/Take: B-27395/2.
www.loc.gov