Ellie Chan
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elliechan.bsky.social
Ellie Chan
@elliechan.bsky.social
1.6K followers 300 following 23 posts
Art History/Music • Writer, singer, painter • Early Modernist at the Warburg Institute • BBC/AHRC New Gen Thinker • Previously: Maths is Pretty🧮 (Routledge ‘21), Art is Everywhere🦩🎨 (Big Picture Press ‘22), Music is Visible🧜🏼‍♀️ (OUP ‘24)
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Reposted by Ellie Chan
rokewood.bsky.social
I saw these enigmatic so-called ‘Music of the Spheres’ MSS at Edinburgh’s Blackie House Library & Museum. Their tantalising history of ancient Coptic-Egyptian music, hermetic interpretation, & likely fraud is painstakingly reconstructed here BBCRadio3
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, The Great Egyptian Music Mystery
Ellie Chan traces the story of a set of unique and puzzling manuscripts
www.bbc.co.uk
November 24, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE is official-publication-date-minus-2-weeks (11 November) which is a LOT👀 (I can't remember feeling this wound up about other books, I have the concentration of a gnat at the moment🙄) but seems to be live as an e-book already so, available to your Kindle right now, apparently...
The cover of a book. Text reads Textile Shakespeare. The lower part of the image is ink printed on linen and embroidery, black on white, with some silver thread, with flowers, fruit, insects, and animals. it is discoloured with age.
October 28, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
drkkennedy.bsky.social
🎶📚 FREE EVENT @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social 🎶📚

Join me & @elliechan.bsky.social for 'Music, life-writing & how to write about what you can’t hear.'

📅 15 Oct | 🕔 5–6pm | 📍 Goldsmiths (Richard Hoggart Building)


More info 👉 www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id...

@goldsmithsenglish.bsky.social
October 13, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
stcatharines.bsky.social
New books from Catz alumni include 'Duet: An Artful History of Music' by @elliechan.bsky.social (2009, English), 'Diary of a Wicked Witch' by Ben Miller (1985, Natural Sciences) and 'Afterthoughts' by Richard Ayoade (1995, Law). 1/2
Cover designs for 'Duet: An Artful History of Music', 'Diary of a Wicked Witch' and 'Afterthoughts' against a pink background.
October 12, 2025 at 8:20 AM
elliechan.bsky.social
One whole week of Duet! It’s been an absolute whirlwind of incredibly enriching conversations with @petroc.bsky.social @elizabethalker.bsky.social and @drkkennedy.bsky.social and SUCH a delight to see this whimsical little book out into the world. Available now in all good bookshops!
September 24, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
drkkennedy.bsky.social
Explored how we see music - instruments as art, sound as colour. We could have talked for hours @ @wolfsonoxford.bsky.social. @elliechan.bsky.social @oxmusicfaculty.bsky.social @duckworthbooks.bsky.social @headofzeus.bsky.social @oxfordlifewriting.bsky.social
September 24, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
musicatoxford.bsky.social
This Monday, with @elliechan.bsky.social and @drkkennedy.bsky.social

Details: www.musicatoxford.com/whats-on/boo...
September 20, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
musicatoxford.bsky.social
Just announced!

To celebrate the launch of her book ‘Duet’ Dr Eleanor Chan will be in conversation with Dr Kate Kennedy (author of 'Cello') on Monday 22 September.

Tickets are just £6.50.

Details: www.musicatoxford.com/whats-on/boo...
Book Launch: Dr Eleanor Chan's 'Duet' | Music at Oxford
To celebrate the launch of her book ‘Duet’ Dr Eleanor Chan will be in conversation with Dr Kate Kennedy.
www.musicatoxford.com
September 16, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
spavel.bsky.social
"LLMs are not principled reasoners but rather sophisticated simulators of reasoning-like text"
LLMs’ “simulated reasoning” abilities are a “brittle mirage,” researchers find
Chain-of-thought AI “degrades significantly” when asked to generalize beyond training.
arstechnica.com
August 12, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
leahbroad.bsky.social
Tonight!!! Exploring how Beethoven was used during World War II, featuring the only interview Elly Ney's family have given to English language media 😱 this was such a fascinating doc to make
jessicaduchen.bsky.social Jessica Duchen @jessicaduchen.bsky.social · May 4
Fascinating Radio 3 Sunday Feature tonight by the marvellous @leahbroad.bsky.social looking at how Myra Hess in UK and Elly Ney in Nazi Germany both used Beethoven for their own very different ends around World War II. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature, Conscripting Beethoven
How two women used Beethoven's piano music to shape wartime culture in Germany and Britain
www.bbc.co.uk
May 4, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
mitpress.bsky.social
Before the invention of the gummed envelope in the 1830s, almost all letter writers had to use letterlocking. "Letterlocking" provides an archival history of the practice, including sources so readers can learn how to make locked letters for their own correspondence: mitpress.mit.edu/978026204927...
"Letterlocking: The Hidden History of the Letter" on a white background. The cover is black featuring an image of an unsealed locked letter. Text denotes the authors are Jana Dambrogio and Daniel Starza Smith with the Unlocking History Research Group.
April 10, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
altibel.bsky.social
Here's an idea for Microsoft: ditch the stupid AI BS and improve the software.
oregonthedm.bsky.social Oregon 🕎🎲 @oregonthedm.bsky.social · Apr 9
Biggest commitment to a 3 second joke I've ever seen
April 9, 2025 at 7:21 AM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
willpooley.bsky.social
just imagine working at microsofft and thinking “let’s spend billions, steal a load of intellectual property, and destroy the planet to make an interface to write bad essays” rather than “let’s update MS Word so users can comment on footnotes”
March 28, 2025 at 6:36 AM
elliechan.bsky.social
Team, exciting news! Duet: An Artful History of music not only has a cover, it is also available to preorder!

It’s a visual history of music 35,000BCE-present day, but also about failing to become a musician; about second chances; and about learning to look and listen.
March 1, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
tedunderwood.com
We are characters in Act III Scene IV of a longer story and it’s just basic self-respect to want to know how we got here. Everyone deserves a chance to ask.
srsrensoc.bsky.social Society for Renaissance Studies @srsrensoc.bsky.social · May 30
The premodern world held possibilities and imagined futures: the physical and metaphysical systems that were actively built and contested then continue to inform the world in the present.

Read our statement on the value of Renaissance & Premodern Studies:

www.rensoc.org.uk/statement-on...
Two quotations from statement in gold on burgandy background: 'Where we start our story shapes what we see. Reducing our chronological scope to the modern period risks creating a shared assumption that the world as it was in 1800 was normal and normative." "The arts and humanities in all their rich and expansive variety enable the creative impulses that underpin all human invention and achievement. They also provide the skills in creativity, innovation and critical thinking required in assessing information – skills that are particularly vital at a time when AI and disinformation are pervasive." Phoenix logo beneath and image of engraving by Marco Dente after Francesco Salviatito the right, depicting an 'assembly of male and female scholars gathered around an open book, in the middle ground a man holds aloft an armillary sphere, another group of scholars in the background', c. 1515–27. Met Collection Accession Number: 17.50.16-105.
May 30, 2024 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
srsrensoc.bsky.social
The premodern world held possibilities and imagined futures: the physical and metaphysical systems that were actively built and contested then continue to inform the world in the present.

Read our statement on the value of Renaissance & Premodern Studies:

www.rensoc.org.uk/statement-on...
Two quotations from statement in gold on burgandy background: 'Where we start our story shapes what we see. Reducing our chronological scope to the modern period risks creating a shared assumption that the world as it was in 1800 was normal and normative." "The arts and humanities in all their rich and expansive variety enable the creative impulses that underpin all human invention and achievement. They also provide the skills in creativity, innovation and critical thinking required in assessing information – skills that are particularly vital at a time when AI and disinformation are pervasive." Phoenix logo beneath and image of engraving by Marco Dente after Francesco Salviatito the right, depicting an 'assembly of male and female scholars gathered around an open book, in the middle ground a man holds aloft an armillary sphere, another group of scholars in the background', c. 1515–27. Met Collection Accession Number: 17.50.16-105.
May 30, 2024 at 8:18 AM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
artherstory.bsky.social

Take that, Picasso: the frenzied work by Faith Ringgold that took MoMA by storm
by Hettie Judah for The Guardian
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
Take that, Picasso: the frenzied work by Faith Ringgold that took MoMA by storm
The artist, who has died aged 93, spent her life battling white male dominance, in the gallery and beyond. Her work foregrounded Black American experience with a raw and unforgettable power
www.theguardian.com
April 17, 2024 at 11:42 AM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
liamsims.bsky.social
Queen Elizabeth I died #OTD in 1603. This volume of sermons by John Udall (London, 1596) luxuriously bound in velvet & with silver thread may have been made for presentation to the Queen, carrying her arms on both covers. Cambridge UL SSS.24.32.
March 24, 2024 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
martinevanelk.bsky.social
Fascinating post today by Sarah Lindenbaum on a delightful copy of the book of common prayer, with multiple early modern female owners buff.ly/3x7ASkk #HerBook #EarlyModern #18C
The Book of Common Prayer (1692)
As we have previously noted, the Book of Common Prayer is one of the books most likely to have been owned by a woman. As of the writing of this post, eight other examples have been featured here. A co...
buff.ly
March 20, 2024 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
nnedi.bsky.social
This sums it up perfectly. It’s not a conversation.
“There is no ethical way to use the major AI image generators. All of them are trained on stolen images, and all of them are built for the purpose of deskilling, disempowering and replacing real human artists.”
March 4, 2024 at 2:20 AM
elliechan.bsky.social
Her husband: nO yoU cAnNot bE a cOnCErt pIanISt
Anna Casparsson: *creates stunning embroidered art instead*

A fascinating musical-visual intersection at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm
February 28, 2024 at 5:06 PM
elliechan.bsky.social
And a Happy Valentines Day to us all, with love from Thomas Trevelyon's Elizabethan Meme Book.
A woman in a red Elizabethan dress with feather fan and green ruff, under the text 'the harlot: I vanquish you all'
February 14, 2024 at 11:53 AM
elliechan.bsky.social
It’s only taken her 8 months but Madame is finally starting to get the hang of this feline research assistant malarkey.
February 9, 2024 at 1:17 PM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
trincolllibcam.bsky.social
Want to know more about the discoveries relating to Thomas Cromwell's Book of Hours, now on display in the Wren? This blog post will tell you everything, from the link with Holbein's portrait to how Raman spectroscopy was used to identify the jewels in the binding. Not to be missed! t.ly/ot3RS
January 19, 2024 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Ellie Chan
medievaliste.bsky.social
I figured it out! There is now a Musicology feed here on BlueSky. You can find it at bsky.app/profile/did:...

(and please let me know if you have feedback!)
January 12, 2024 at 1:33 AM