In every academic’s career (well any career really), there are moments where you know the time has come… The first one for me was when a series of conversations and lots of hard work led to the first RHM Symposium in 2013. (Read a short version of the how it came about.) And then […]

One of my philosophies of being in the world is asking questions. As a consultant and project manager, a large part of my job was asking questions, but not in the yes or no sort of question way. Instead, the questions were a form of listening and responding to get a sense of where the […]

I was delighted to be invited to give a quick–less than 2 minutes–review of Sue Wells’ book, Robert Burton’s Rhetoric at the NCA 2020 in an ISHR panel. Sue’s book is really a delight, particularly if you have a fondness for historiography, the early modern era, quirky “science,” and knowledge making. this book is also […]

Deep breaths. I lost count of the number of times I told myself this and encouraged others to do the same. It was always used in moments when life seemed to be overwhelming. There isn’t an easy word, or even words, to summarize the year of 2020 and the dramatic shifts in our lives and […]

A persistent myth about the history of technical writing needs to be clarified. So that’s what this post is about.The myth I refer to is the long standing claim that Geoffrey Chaucer, better known for the Canterbury Tales, also wrote the first technical documents in English, Treatise on the Astrolabe. The Treatise has been dated […]