Vanda Wilcox
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vandawilcox.bsky.social
Vanda Wilcox
@vandawilcox.bsky.social
professional procrastinator, precarious historian, cat serf, romanista. Writes about the First World War, Italy, imperialism & Georgette Heyer, not usually all at once.🪡🥧🐈‍⬛️
ah la famosissima sanità Lombarda, eccellenza rinomata nel mondo....

quanto sono felice di vivere a milano 🙃
December 8, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by Vanda Wilcox
This is enormously exciting. A conference - Empires at War - co-hosted by the Royal Military College of Canada and @ucddublin.bsky.social in Newman House, 17 - 18 Sep 2026. Call for Papers now open.
Keynotes - @jonathanfennell.bsky.social Linn, Khan, McGaughey, Thomas.
www.ucd.ie/warstudies/c...
Conferences - UCD Centre for War Studies
www.ucd.ie
December 8, 2025 at 4:38 PM
The Oh bej! Oh bej! Christmas fair at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan

Drinking some mulled wine and enjoying the sunshine and the day off
December 8, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Reposted by Vanda Wilcox
We are told that, under stress, the humanities must be sacrificed. But amidst a war of aggression scholars in Ukraine have undertaken one of the most ambitious knowledge projects of our time. It's a privilege to be involved with Ukrainian History Global Initiative
snyder.substack.com/p/ukrainian-...
Ukrainian History Global Initiative
The Creative Humanities During a War of Destruction
snyder.substack.com
December 6, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Mamma, sapevi che gli austriaci erano molto cattivi verso noi italiani?

#aiuto #propaganda
December 7, 2025 at 8:15 AM
Enjoying the ultimate in trash tv, Love is Blind Italia.

Some of these people are absolutely off their heads. Imagine asking sometime you've never seen yet how they'd parent your hypothetical 14 yr old kid. Ma questa è matta fracica, dice mio marito giustamente.
December 6, 2025 at 10:40 PM
when you're a colonial bureaucrat in 1905 who's supposed to be collating regional censorship returns but instead you're fantasising about using some government cash to fund a camping and stargazing holiday ⛺️🔭
December 4, 2025 at 12:14 PM
As an aside: I did most of the work for this piece in the history library of the Università Statale di Milano and it was bloody freezing, so much than when I skimmed through my essay today I felt a sudden shiver of intense cold 🥶 😅
Delighted to receive my copy of Framing the First World War, a great collection edited by @draefox.bsky.social @mpmfinch.bsky.social and @dmorganowen.bsky.social who have put together a broad range of original essays
December 3, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Christmas sewing goals!
If you don’t know how to sew, you should definitely learn, because you still have time before the holidays to make a bunch of shirts for people where the arm holes are all sewn shut.
December 3, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Delighted to receive my copy of Framing the First World War, a great collection edited by @draefox.bsky.social @mpmfinch.bsky.social and @dmorganowen.bsky.social who have put together a broad range of original essays
December 3, 2025 at 8:40 AM
A successful morning in the archive, finding
- granular colonial census reports from 1905
- a case involving one of the women I'm researching & her employees
- censored letter extracts from Eritrean ascari fighting in Libya in 1915
December 2, 2025 at 2:30 PM
which of us have not yearned for a 3-bed, 7-bath bungalow?
I feel like my house is missing a coat bath.
Oh shit waddup
December 2, 2025 at 7:35 AM
this is why you should always push your publisher for a snazzy book cover! it encourages people to put it in their conference slides 😅
Good showing of @fwwsoc.bsky.social members at this year’s Society for the History of War conference, both in person and in references. #fww #ww1 #milhist #historyofwar
December 2, 2025 at 6:49 AM
My history, memory & popular culture seminar students have just submitted their final projects & they are SO GREAT, I am really thrilled. Topics include sectarian murals in Belfast, the Gettysburg Cyclorama, Mary Q of Scots on TV, local FWW memories in the Alps, Italian (neo)facism & FWW theatre
December 1, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Reposted by Vanda Wilcox
I take one tablet daily, the only reminder that I'm living with HIV. It keeps my viral load undetectable, meaning that I can't pass HIV on. I can expect a normal lifespan. One of the greatest challenges is stigma, due to a lack of knowledge. HIV has changed. #WorldAIDSDay
December 1, 2025 at 6:14 AM
I was out all day yesterday and so Byron has decided that we need to make up for missed #Caturday cuddles on the sofa
November 30, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Reposted by Vanda Wilcox
239 years ago, on the 30th of November 1786, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany became the first modern state to abolish the death penalty. Grand Duke Leopold I, who was influenced in the decision by the book 'On Crimes and Punishments', would later become Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II. #otd #history 🗃️
November 30, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Breakfast of champions on the first Sunday in Advent: panettone pain perdu!
November 30, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Marathon of baking now completed!
November 28, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Am eavesdropping on the conversation of a visiting conductor + opera singer on this tram in Milan & their chat is amazing... truly stellar gossip 🔥 one just broke into song to illustrate the interpretative iniquities perpetrated in a recent production of Tosca by a young conductor ("only 45") 😂
November 28, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Vanda Wilcox
To begin with today, happy 117th anniversary to this entirely reasonable cat
November 28, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Wartime fascist propaganda from before July 1943:

fake British & US banknotes, with text on the back explaining that Allied airmen are getting paid bonuses to destroy Italy's people, civilization and religion
November 27, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Vanda Wilcox
🚨We’re looking for editors to join our team at The International Journal of the History of Sport @ijhs.bsky.social - if you work on sport history in Latin America or Asia (any countries) please apply for these 2 roles by Dec 3 #sporthistory #skystorians 🗃️

think.taylorandfrancis.com/editor_recru...
Editor needed for The International Journal of the History of Sport
Editor needed for The International Journal of the History of Sport
think.taylorandfrancis.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Vanda Wilcox
If you’re a Dennis Showalter fan, you need this book. Period.

Dad LOVED stuff like this. As an educator he also believed that connecting contemporary things like Star Wars to how history works as a field was critical for undergrads.

He would have loved this project
For those who enjoy ebooks on Kindle, it seems that 'Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire' is *massively* discounted today down to $1.99 in the US and £7.99 in the UK. Which feels like a pretty good deal really.

US: www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Ri...

UK: www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Wars-Ri...
November 26, 2025 at 8:11 PM
When I think about it in the abstract, the enormous time-sink of working on this vast edited book on Rome since 1870 feels like a pain

but when I am reading the amazing chapters by our brilliant contributors I get really excited about it, it is going to be absolute🔥
November 27, 2025 at 9:25 AM