As we prepare for the start of term, I want to encourage anyone and everyone to contribute ideas for content on the Oxford Medieval Studies social media.
We are active anywhere and everywhere — Beacons (this platform), BlueSky, Instagram, and Threads—and eagerly awaiting your suggestions.
If you want an event, workshop, or seminar advertised, please let me know and I will spread the word!
If (when!) something exciting happens in your research, we can raise awareness about that too!
I hope to hear from many of you throughout the year. Wishing everyone a great start to a new term, with a reflection on the weird and wonderful of medieval manuscripts:
Customer: I’d like a letter ‘E’ please. Scribe: A normal one, or a snail-helmeted warrior with an ostrich leg and plums down his pants? Customer: The plums one, obviously.
Cheers, Elizabeth Crabtree elizabeth.crabtree@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
We have a new Social Media Officer! Elizabeth Crabtree is a Junior Research Fellow at Blackfriars. Her research interests lie in the Christian interpretation of the Bible in the Middle Ages, and especially in how recourse to Jewish sources shaped a Christian understanding of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. Her doctoral project explores the biblical exegesis of Nicholas of Lyra (d. 1349), interrogating the relationship between the ‘senses of scripture’ the Franciscan employed as a basis for his two commentaries on the book of Esther, alongside the role of Jewish sources in his interpretation. Elizabeth is excited to be the new Social Media Officer for OMS!
Ashley Castelino reflects on his time as Social Media Officer for Oxford Medieval Studies
After two and half years with OMS, my tenure as Social Media Officer is finally coming to an end and it’s time for me to pass on the passwords. As I look back over this weird and wonderful time, here are my top tips for anyone thinking about taking on the job after me.
1. Be Adaptable
When the platform formerly known as Twitter changed hands in 2022, it sparked a period of great turmoil in the social media landscape, a landscape that is now forever changing. In our efforts to keep up with these changes, we have ended up with accounts on Twitter/X, Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube, each platform coming with different capabilities, priorities, and audiences. Besides these larger structural changes, you’ll want to try to keep up with and respond to rapidly evolving trends as well – some new (very demure, very mindful), some very very old (ancient Babylonian liver divination??).
2. Be Eager to Learn
Oxford Medieval Studies is home to such an incredibly diverse interdisciplinary academic community and, as Social Media Officer, you get a front-row seat to the most fascinating research across literature, history, art, archaeology, theology, music, and much more. From filming and editing a promotional video to finally setting up a TikTok account, this job has also given me the opportunity to learn so many new skills I never thought I’d have. Be warned though: given the extremely diverse demographics of our audience across different platforms, you might find yourself with the extremely challenging task of deciphering teenage slang…
3. Be Creative
Oxford has always been home to some of the world’s greatest medieval manuscripts, art, architecture, and other treasures. It’s no exaggeration to say that it has now also become a leading centre in medieval performance, not least as host of the Oxford Medieval Mystery Cycle. Whether or not you are yourself an artist or a performer, it’s impossible to not be inspired to find new ways to show off everything this city has to offer!
4. Be Collaborative
This is by no means a solitary job – you will be constantly working with academics and artists, colleges, departments, and libraries, medievalists around the world, and even the odd celebrity frog. Academic social media is a vibrant but perhaps overcrowded space, so it’s always worth finding ways to collaborate with other creators across the university. With a view to your future career, you may even make a few extremely useful contacts along the way.
5. Be Persistent
Social media algorithms are complex beasts and it’s very difficult to predict when a post or a video is going to perform well. Sometimes you just have to keep pushing content out into the ether and hope it helps at least one person learn or laugh. Whether it’s compiling extensive summaries of the termly medieval booklet or nudging colleagues to send you material, persistence is always a key part of the job.
6. Be Passionate!
At the end of the day, this job is whatever you choose to make of it, so all that really matters is that you are passionate about medieval studies and want to share that passion with the world. If you are, I would strongly encourage you to consider applying for this role! Have a look at what we’ve done so far – all our social media accounts can be accessed via our Beacons page – and let us know if you have any ideas to help us grow even further. Find out more about applying for the role at https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/2025/04/21/medieval-matters-week-0-update/.
