Sarah Bull
@sarahebull.bsky.social
English professor, book historian. 19th C, mainly. Interested in histories of medicine, sexuality, and print culture, text reuse, IP, letterpress, DH/computational approaches
Book: Selling Sexual Knowledge (CUP, 2025). Working on MANUFACTURING LITERATURE
Book: Selling Sexual Knowledge (CUP, 2025). Working on MANUFACTURING LITERATURE
Pinned
Sarah Bull
@sarahebull.bsky.social
· Jun 27
The open access version of Selling Sexual Knowledge is out (hardcopies coming shortly)! Reposting this little thread from December where I take a break from chowing down on holiday treats to talk a little about what it's actually about and why I wrote it.
Reposted by Sarah Bull
A great opportunity and a great scholar and mentor to honor.
New fellowship opportunity at the University of Bergen in Norway for an early career scholar of electronic literature. Check it out!
The 2026 Joseph P. Tabbi Fellowship for International Researchers in Electronic Literature | UiB
www4.uib.no
November 28, 2025 at 11:10 PM
A great opportunity and a great scholar and mentor to honor.
Reposted by Sarah Bull
touched (dune) grass
November 29, 2025 at 12:09 AM
touched (dune) grass
Reposted by Sarah Bull
Boosting this reference to Trish Loughran’s important chapter.
Hell yes. Trish Loughran's "Books in the Nation," in The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book, ed. Leslie Howsam (Cambridge University Press, 2015) is a killer riposte to Anderson on this score.
November 28, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Boosting this reference to Trish Loughran’s important chapter.
Reposted by Sarah Bull
A #tinyjoy to take you into the weekend. I just learned that 13- year-old Charlotte Brontë's TINY book, A Book of Ryhmes [sic] (it measures 9.5 cm by 6 cm) contains a poem titled "A Thing OF fourteen Line's. commonly called a" (& her tiny handwriting made the next word illegible.) #BookHistory
November 28, 2025 at 6:14 PM
A #tinyjoy to take you into the weekend. I just learned that 13- year-old Charlotte Brontë's TINY book, A Book of Ryhmes [sic] (it measures 9.5 cm by 6 cm) contains a poem titled "A Thing OF fourteen Line's. commonly called a" (& her tiny handwriting made the next word illegible.) #BookHistory
So, I ended up buying a print to use as an illustration in a pub, and have wished that the seller chose less accurate keywords ever since. This is going to be a fun reimbursement claim process.
November 28, 2025 at 2:57 PM
So, I ended up buying a print to use as an illustration in a pub, and have wished that the seller chose less accurate keywords ever since. This is going to be a fun reimbursement claim process.
Reposted by Sarah Bull
I had an interesting set of interactions w AI-generated content that I think is instructive. A very bright student made a claim in an essay that struck me as outlandish, so I searched the question on Google which turned up that phrasing the search a certain way makes the AI summary agree w the claim
November 28, 2025 at 2:18 PM
I had an interesting set of interactions w AI-generated content that I think is instructive. A very bright student made a claim in an essay that struck me as outlandish, so I searched the question on Google which turned up that phrasing the search a certain way makes the AI summary agree w the claim
Reposted by Sarah Bull
Please see vsawc.org/events/ for more details!
November 28, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Please see vsawc.org/events/ for more details!
Reposted by Sarah Bull
A reminder to submit proposals for VSAWC's 2026 conference on VICTORIAN TRADE by December 1!
Our CFP for our May 2026 conference is live! Please see the attachment or the thread for details about our upcoming conference on VICTORIAN TRADE
November 28, 2025 at 2:13 PM
A reminder to submit proposals for VSAWC's 2026 conference on VICTORIAN TRADE by December 1!
Reposted by Sarah Bull
"Beckert emphasizes how capitalism has depended at every stage of its development on the military power of the modern state and frequently on practices of extreme violence."
Here is a review I wrote of Sven Beckert’s impressive new book, *Capitalism: A Global History*, for the New York Times.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/b...
How Capitalism Took Over the World
www.nytimes.com
November 28, 2025 at 12:59 PM
"Beckert emphasizes how capitalism has depended at every stage of its development on the military power of the modern state and frequently on practices of extreme violence."
Reposted by Sarah Bull
Faculty association opening with a killer hook: "Workload—the increasingly overwhelming onslaught of deadlines, administrivia, course-preps, projects, supervisions, marking, reporting, writing, meetings, experiments, editing, and endless emails—is becoming close to unbearable for many of us."
#UBC
#UBC
November 27, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Faculty association opening with a killer hook: "Workload—the increasingly overwhelming onslaught of deadlines, administrivia, course-preps, projects, supervisions, marking, reporting, writing, meetings, experiments, editing, and endless emails—is becoming close to unbearable for many of us."
#UBC
#UBC
Reposted by Sarah Bull
"oh, you research literature? you must get to read all the time, how fun!"
*me, going through every single (digital) issue of an 18th century daily newspaper to make a spreadsheet listing number of advertisements and the portion of them that were for books*
*me, going through every single (digital) issue of an 18th century daily newspaper to make a spreadsheet listing number of advertisements and the portion of them that were for books*
November 27, 2025 at 2:30 PM
"oh, you research literature? you must get to read all the time, how fun!"
*me, going through every single (digital) issue of an 18th century daily newspaper to make a spreadsheet listing number of advertisements and the portion of them that were for books*
*me, going through every single (digital) issue of an 18th century daily newspaper to make a spreadsheet listing number of advertisements and the portion of them that were for books*
Reposted by Sarah Bull
I am grateful for any help to get closer to completeness, even if this is an impossible task. Do please send any and all suggestions!
Good News! The Old Edinburgh Club’s Bibliography site is being updated. It's an online ‘must visit’ to explore Edinburgh’s history, with works from the late 16th century to today. Check it out and tell us if anything else should be included.https://buff.ly/8gAkNs6
OEC Bibliography of Edinburgh History - The Old Edinburgh Club
Explore the OEC Bibliography of Edinburgh History, covering social, cultural, economic and architectural heritage in books, articles and dissertations
oldedinburghclub.org.uk
November 27, 2025 at 2:16 PM
I am grateful for any help to get closer to completeness, even if this is an impossible task. Do please send any and all suggestions!
Reposted by Sarah Bull
*small embarrassed voice*
A little plug for my article on Devon book sales c. 1700, which has gone online open access. tl;dr book auctions weren't just a London/Oxbridge thing: a flourishing second-hand book market centred on Exeter included auctions from the 1680s.
doi.org/10.1093/libr...
A little plug for my article on Devon book sales c. 1700, which has gone online open access. tl;dr book auctions weren't just a London/Oxbridge thing: a flourishing second-hand book market centred on Exeter included auctions from the 1680s.
doi.org/10.1093/libr...
A Provincial Market in Second-Hand Books: Book Sales in Devon, 1688–1725
Abstract. Comparatively little is known about England’s early book-auction trade outside of London and the university towns, with few catalogues surviving
doi.org
November 27, 2025 at 9:31 AM
*small embarrassed voice*
A little plug for my article on Devon book sales c. 1700, which has gone online open access. tl;dr book auctions weren't just a London/Oxbridge thing: a flourishing second-hand book market centred on Exeter included auctions from the 1680s.
doi.org/10.1093/libr...
A little plug for my article on Devon book sales c. 1700, which has gone online open access. tl;dr book auctions weren't just a London/Oxbridge thing: a flourishing second-hand book market centred on Exeter included auctions from the 1680s.
doi.org/10.1093/libr...
Reposted by Sarah Bull
PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS!
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.versobooks.com/products/303...
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.versobooks.com/products/303...
November 26, 2025 at 9:49 PM
PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS!
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.versobooks.com/products/303...
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.versobooks.com/products/303...
Reposted by Sarah Bull
PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS!
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.upress.umn.edu/978151791708...
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.upress.umn.edu/978151791708...
November 26, 2025 at 10:26 PM
PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS!
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.upress.umn.edu/978151791708...
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.upress.umn.edu/978151791708...
Reposted by Sarah Bull
i wrote a book about ye olde porn. thanks @annakornbluh.bsky.social for this lovely holiday treat!
www.sup.org/books/litera...
www.sup.org/books/litera...
November 26, 2025 at 10:17 PM
i wrote a book about ye olde porn. thanks @annakornbluh.bsky.social for this lovely holiday treat!
www.sup.org/books/litera...
www.sup.org/books/litera...
PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS!
Woo hoo, I wrote a book about people selling information about sex competing with/hating on other people selling information about sex!
www.cambridge.org/ca/universit...
Woo hoo, I wrote a book about people selling information about sex competing with/hating on other people selling information about sex!
www.cambridge.org/ca/universit...
November 26, 2025 at 10:45 PM
PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS!
Woo hoo, I wrote a book about people selling information about sex competing with/hating on other people selling information about sex!
www.cambridge.org/ca/universit...
Woo hoo, I wrote a book about people selling information about sex competing with/hating on other people selling information about sex!
www.cambridge.org/ca/universit...
Reposted by Sarah Bull
It's still useful that Gemini can incorporate this knowledge. But this is also why open models whose data you can check for train-test contamination are important. allenai.org/olmo
Olmo from Ai2
Our fully open language model and complete model flow.
allenai.org
November 26, 2025 at 3:15 PM
It's still useful that Gemini can incorporate this knowledge. But this is also why open models whose data you can check for train-test contamination are important. allenai.org/olmo
Reposted by Sarah Bull
Dan's post is great, as usual! It's exciting to move to full-page models that allow us to engage with the text and avoid mucking around with image processing. But we don't need to pronounce a eulogy on paleographers yet. The War Department and Jane Austen examples are likely known to the LM. 1/
New issue of my newsletter: "The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition" — One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved, and it's a good use of AI newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...
The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition
One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved
newsletter.dancohen.org
November 26, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Dan's post is great, as usual! It's exciting to move to full-page models that allow us to engage with the text and avoid mucking around with image processing. But we don't need to pronounce a eulogy on paleographers yet. The War Department and Jane Austen examples are likely known to the LM. 1/
Reposted by Sarah Bull
one or two best essays on SINNERS?
(bonus: an academic article - on genre or film industry or black cultural production or - that helps think about the movie even though not analyzing the movie?)
(bonus: an academic article - on genre or film industry or black cultural production or - that helps think about the movie even though not analyzing the movie?)
November 26, 2025 at 1:02 PM
one or two best essays on SINNERS?
(bonus: an academic article - on genre or film industry or black cultural production or - that helps think about the movie even though not analyzing the movie?)
(bonus: an academic article - on genre or film industry or black cultural production or - that helps think about the movie even though not analyzing the movie?)
Reposted by Sarah Bull
"“Middle Class”- roughly 45% of the country—is actually the Working Poor. These are the families earning enough to lose their benefits but not enough to pay for childcare and rent. They are the ones trapped in the Valley of Death."
This is an insightful but deeply upsetting article about why everyone in the US feels poor, and why the current political situation emerges as a direct result.
www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...
www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...
Part 1: My Life Is a Lie
How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America
www.yesigiveafig.com
November 26, 2025 at 11:29 AM
"“Middle Class”- roughly 45% of the country—is actually the Working Poor. These are the families earning enough to lose their benefits but not enough to pay for childcare and rent. They are the ones trapped in the Valley of Death."
Reposted by Sarah Bull
I meant to grade papers today, I swear I did, but then I got distracted by a group of Harvard Divinity School students who spent 1834 buying pornography and then turning in the people who sold it to them. One of them, Frederick W. Holland, also ended up with a copy of Walker's Appeal around then 🗃️
November 26, 2025 at 1:40 AM
I meant to grade papers today, I swear I did, but then I got distracted by a group of Harvard Divinity School students who spent 1834 buying pornography and then turning in the people who sold it to them. One of them, Frederick W. Holland, also ended up with a copy of Walker's Appeal around then 🗃️
Still reflecting on this. @ryancordell.org 's "Taking Dirty OCR Seriously" was assigned reading in one of my classes recently, and while artifacts like the one in the title are produced less and less, we all agreed that the argument that these transcriptions are +
muse.jhu.edu/article/674968
muse.jhu.edu/article/674968
November 26, 2025 at 5:15 AM
Still reflecting on this. @ryancordell.org 's "Taking Dirty OCR Seriously" was assigned reading in one of my classes recently, and while artifacts like the one in the title are produced less and less, we all agreed that the argument that these transcriptions are +
muse.jhu.edu/article/674968
muse.jhu.edu/article/674968
Reposted by Sarah Bull
Excellent job alert!!!
🚨We're hiring! A tenure track position at McGill University in the area of #bioethics and / or philosophy of science, with a special focus on the ethics of medical technologies. Please share widely. #philsky #ethics #philsci philjobs.org/job/show/30402
Assistant Professor (Tenure Track), Department of Equity, Ethics, and Policy and Department of Philosophy, McGill University
- PhilJobs:JFP
Assistant Professor (Tenure Track), Department of Equity...
An international database of jobs for philosophers
philjobs.org
November 26, 2025 at 2:46 AM
Excellent job alert!!!
It was a remarkable feeling, working on a recent project, to have access to software that transcribed the marginalia as well as the printed text.
Nearly-perfect printed and handwritten text recognition is the most consequential technical contribution to the study of human culture of the last fifteen years, and it's not even close.
It fundamentally changes our (both lay and expert) relationship with the written past.
It fundamentally changes our (both lay and expert) relationship with the written past.
New issue of my newsletter: "The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition" — One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved, and it's a good use of AI newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...
November 25, 2025 at 7:19 PM
It was a remarkable feeling, working on a recent project, to have access to software that transcribed the marginalia as well as the printed text.