Elise Wang
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elisewang.bsky.social
Elise Wang
@elisewang.bsky.social
medievalist. law & history (old) | conspiracy theories (old and new) | taiwan (new and yet to be) | chicago —> los angeles

carnegie fellow ‘24-‘26, writing a book on medieval conspiracy theories

elisedwang.com
Pinned
Someone asked for a thread of my medieval story times (twist my arm!), so here they are. I’ll pin and add as I go!
It is not an exaggeration to say that I use ILL every week, as does every scholar not at an Ivy.
I used to handle interlibrary loans for a public library. ILL is a magnificent expression of the idea that readers deserve books, and books deserve readers. It’s libraries everywhere pooling their resources for the benefit of everyone.

Killing IMLS could have killed ILL.

This is great news. 📚
Court permanently blocks Trump's executive order to dismantle federal agency for America's libraries IMLS
librarytechnology.org/pr/31973
November 22, 2025 at 5:58 PM
📣Junior scholars in law and humanities: this is the best workshop I’ve ever done. They take 7 papers and bring 2 senior scholars out to comment on each paper. Papers are precirculated so the whole thing is an hour of feedback from a room of 20 smart people—the dream!
www.lawandhumanitiesworkshop.org
Home | TRIPLEX
www.lawandhumanitiesworkshop.org
November 21, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Reposted by Elise Wang
Man, everything is so bleak, anyone got a fun fact or little bit of trivia they want to share
November 21, 2025 at 1:49 AM
I vacillate between being extremely into the details of citational conventions and having fits of “OMG what do you want I gave you author AND title you know what I mean”
I am trying to work out how to cite a single-volume collection of a scholar's papers where the chapters *retain the page numbering of the original journals where they were published*, so there are no consecutive page numbers throughout the book 😱
a man with a mustache is standing in front of a door and says `` this is my hell '' .
ALT: a man with a mustache is standing in front of a door and says `` this is my hell '' .
media.tenor.com
November 19, 2025 at 6:46 PM
I will just say that my dad brought a Datong rice cooker (pictured here) with him from Taiwan when he emigrated 42 years ago and we used it every day until last year, when it gave out. Conservatively 14,000 pots of rice. My sister had already put dibs on it for the will.
November 16, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Reposted by Elise Wang
Honoring Alice Wong's life and legacy with gratitude, in solidarity and sorrow, this morning. I was a fan; thinking of all who loved and knew her personally.

Alice's words speak to us still. As a chronically ill person, I will keep listening. What a beautiful, bold, *brilliant* life well lived.
November 15, 2025 at 4:23 PM
There we go
This is too rough a year for the Bulls to be toying with my emotions like this. We all know it’s coming so please just start losing so I can watch the games in peace
November 13, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by Elise Wang
HERE WE GO BOYS AND GIRLS! The podcast is live! please have a listen! @goingmedieval.bsky.social is amazing and this was a super fun conversation. i was barely drunk* during it!

*not drunk
AND WE'RE LIVE!!!!!

Welcome to American Medieval! Our first episode sees @profgabriele.com talk with the amazing @goingmedieval.bsky.social about what got us interested in the Middle Ages, why Czech history is super cool, and why Dan Brown drives us nuts

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...
Public Medievalism with Eleanor Janega
Podcast Episode · American Medieval · 11/12/2025 · 57m
podcasts.apple.com
November 12, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by Elise Wang
“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.”

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
November 9, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Elise Wang
just found out that Emma Goldman attended Freud’s lectures in the US and was removed for disruptive behavior and felt the need to pass it along
November 6, 2025 at 12:50 AM
My incredible book cover is based on an illustration drawn from this!
November 9, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Reposted by Elise Wang
pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:55 AM
This captures so well the feeling of trying to do scholarly work right now, to maintain and communicate the joy of it publicly. It feels embarrassing to care so much about the thing itself when all people will do is sort it into two bins, for and against.
November 8, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Elise Wang
Once again, @yaelrice.bsky.social and I published this article in 2020 so that no one ever has to debunk this vile nonsense point-by-point ever again. As we write (see the next post in this thread)...

hyperallergic.com/604897/how-s...
November 6, 2025 at 7:55 PM
This is too rough a year for the Bulls to be toying with my emotions like this. We all know it’s coming so please just start losing so I can watch the games in peace
November 7, 2025 at 5:37 AM
Once again, jury nullification is one of the few, direct ways that ordinary people can make the law more fair. Don’t dodge jury duty!

See below for a quick history of the jury!
🚨🚨🚨 The jury has reached a verdict. Sean Dunn, aka the DC Sandwich Guy, has been found NOT GUILTY of assault.
November 7, 2025 at 12:22 AM
This is irresponsible. Best practices in phrenology means using the calipers in person.
November 6, 2025 at 11:32 PM
This replaces a TRO and the judge’s comments make it clear she favors a permanent injunction. This means that violation (BP and ICE using force) can receive criminal and civil penalties.
A federal judge in Chicago said she will issue a sweeping injunction that puts more permanent restrictions on the use of force by immigration agents during “Operation Midway Blitz,” saying officials lied in their testimony and that their unlawful behavior on the streets “shows no signs of stopping.”
Chicago federal judge to issue sweeping injunction limiting use of force by immigration agents in ‘Operation Midway Blitz’
The incoming preliminary injunction replaces a temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis in early October that was set to expire at 11:30 a.m.
www.chicagotribune.com
November 6, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Reposted by Elise Wang
A federal judge in Chicago said she will issue a sweeping injunction that puts more permanent restrictions on the use of force by immigration agents during “Operation Midway Blitz,” saying officials lied in their testimony and that their unlawful behavior on the streets “shows no signs of stopping.”
Chicago federal judge to issue sweeping injunction limiting use of force by immigration agents in ‘Operation Midway Blitz’
The incoming preliminary injunction replaces a temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis in early October that was set to expire at 11:30 a.m.
www.chicagotribune.com
November 6, 2025 at 5:23 PM
If you watch the video, you can hear the children screaming in the background.
Getting new details on this now:

As the arrest unfolded, teachers pleaded with the agents telling them the teacher had a work permit. The agents went into multiple rooms looking for teachers while children were present. One teacher hid with a child in her care while the agents stormed the facility.
Raids inside day cares had been off limits until this year, when, on his first day in office, President Donald Trump removed that protection.

The arrest reportedly took place in front of children.
19thnews.org/2025/11/chil...
November 5, 2025 at 11:50 PM
Reposted by Elise Wang
Getting new details on this now:

As the arrest unfolded, teachers pleaded with the agents telling them the teacher had a work permit. The agents went into multiple rooms looking for teachers while children were present. One teacher hid with a child in her care while the agents stormed the facility.
November 5, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Reposted by Elise Wang
November 3, 182 CE: An enslaved child named Epaphroditus (8) falls from a window straining to see the castanet-dancers at a festival in the village of Senepta in Roman Egypt (P.Oxy. 3 475). A public physician (accusative: ‘δημόσιον ἰατρὸν’) is called for & a proper burial papyri.info/ddbdp/p.oxy;...
November 3, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Earnest Q for copy editors bc I might be going insane. I always thought it was “[more moderate] much less [more extreme].” As in: “I can’t afford a night out, much less a vacation.” But in three printed news sources in the last week I have seen the reverse (ie vacation, much less a night out). WHAT
November 4, 2025 at 3:08 AM
Reposted by Elise Wang
This is why we can’t have nice things
arXiv will no longer accept review articles and position papers unless they have been accepted at a journal or a conference and complete successful peer review.

This is due to being overwhelmed by a hundreds of AI generated papers a month.

Yet another open submission process killed by LLMs.
Attention Authors: Updated Practice for Review Articles and Position Papers in arXiv CS Category – arXiv blog
blog.arxiv.org
November 2, 2025 at 4:35 AM
I don’t even care about baseball and this game is STRESSFUL
November 2, 2025 at 3:24 AM