Right, so this is off to the editors and if they like it my thoughts on why scholars of public history should talk more about money will be with you next year

Just retitled my book chapter 'Public Humanities: In This Economy?'

I would read the campus novel in which a bunch of academics facing redundancy invent a scheme to scam £100k out of a paper mill

In The Firearm Revolution, @catherinefletcher.info explores the emergence of firearms in Renaissance Italy & beyond, describing the social transformations that accompanied the evolution of the handgun. Available 14 April! Preorder yours today: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... #History

Shrinkflation is so annoying. I want my 50% fruit muesli, not the unspecified fruit percentage but probably below 25% on current trends version.

Three postdoctoral research positions (35 months each) are available on the project 'Travellers’ interactions in early modern Italy' (TRAVEL), working with @toffolosandra.bsky.social at the Italian-German Historical Institute in Trento. Apply by 8 May 2026 #Skystorians #EarlyModern bit.ly/4djmUPc

'Employers should cover work-related travel and expenses' would be a start, never mind the details of the process

Revisiting publishing revenues for a chapter on public history and I'm reminded of the astonishing statistic that UK consumer publishing has annual revenues of £2.5 billion while academic publishing, the bit aimed at the tiny percentage of us working in research, earns £3.5 billion.

I need to write a footnote for non-UK readers explaining a passing reference to 'the Liz Truss School of Accountancy'. Your thoughts gratefully received.

Two and a half years on from the cyber attack and it's still not possible to consult ebooks at the British Library (which is a right pain when I have an article to finish).

A Henry VIII bot radically misinterpreting the instruction to execute

American on the radio just mentioned AI tutors in schools and I heard AI Tudors and there's absolutely a children's book in this going badly wrong

Hot from the press: open access special issue of a joint project of the universities of Venice, Rome Sapienza, and Trent. My article revolves around queen Catherine de’ Medici and the Florentine exiles in France rosa.uniroma1.it/rosa02/dimen...

Leeds Castle is advertising an AI avatar of Eleanor of Castile, and I'm presuming that's a live interpreter out of a job. One to cross off your Easter holiday trip list.

asked it what India was like and it came up with railways on the first attempt: I think we can safely say that it recycles the biases of the literary record very nicely

Speaking as a left-wing expert on historic gun rights, yes, I am in fact updating my political understandings drawing on sources in multiple British archives dating back three centuries. I'll leave it to you to decide whether this is a good use of my time.

🚀 Speaker Callout! 🚢 We need an engaging speaker for Saga’s Spirit of Adventure! April 30 – May 7 (Aarhus to Portsmouth) 🎤 5 talks (Popular appeal/engaging style) Fee: £1,000 Seeking experts in: * Adventure & Media * Science & History * Military, Aviation 📧 Apply: [email protected]

Lol, my ISA provider has named its AI 'Bastian', presumably because it's about as reliable as a posh boy on a gap year

the only way this will be good is if they pivot into chatting about party drugs

And we now have a full roster of speakers confirmed, including Emmie-Rose Price-Goodfellow of You're Dead To Me, Kate Wiles of @historytoday.com, @estelleprnq.bsky.social on social media and @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social on building a freelance career.

Well my big grant application (with @estelleprnq.bsky.social and @drjeremyfilet.bsky.social) is off to the AHRC so now to wait and see if they'll give us the money for our big Tudor public history experiment.

Just heard the phrase 'naval escorts' on the radio and assumed this was a sex scandal but apparently no it's just ships, the seagoing types, they take you up the Strait of Hormuz, err...

This is the new Forensic Science degree: sounds v. employable but in fact when you want a forensic expert to put before the court that person needs a PhD in the relevant discipline, not a generic BSc

ooh, I want one of these

Having great fun writing an application for the @srsrensoc.bsky.social public engagement scheme for my dream event

I'm live on Start the Week this morning on BBC Radio 4 at 9am with two other fantastic guests, being interviewed by the legend that is @naomialderman.bsky.social!

NEW on Wonkhe: As universities cut optional modules to balance the books, Mack Marshall finds that restricted choice is one of the clearest correlates of disengaged AI use buff.ly/cqRWbMx

At the very least people should have the decency to wait until the many legal cases over IP have been settled before integrating AI models based on stolen work.

THOMAS·OWEN·MADE THIS·PECE·ANNO·DNI 1571

Wow. This is wild. If they applied these guidelines throughout the school they'd be banning half of the English curriculum.

convinced the FT has staged this as a set-up for a Rutherford Hall column @robertshrimsley.bsky.social

World At One just now: Presenter: How bad is it? Guest: It's bad... and it could get much worse. Sums up the state of things really

Good morning from today's workplace

Jolly pleasant spot for an afternoon stroll

Every Reformation historian with this immediate hot take

The plot thickens... there was no nudity in this show! Unless you count the one guy who took his shirt off but come on, you're Opera NORTH, this happens on the street any faintly sunny day.

Update: we are through Act 2 and everyone has remained resolutely clothed

tfw you're at the opera, they content warned for nudity over the loudspeaker before the show and you've spent the whole of Act 1 wondering how they'll be gratuitously shoehorning it in

Quick question: I'm writing a chapter about public history in the UK today and want to cite something on the closure of the Goldsmiths MAs in Queer History and Black British History. Is there anything more up-to-date than this and then the THE coverage when the closure went ahead?

round me the dark satanic mills are now all luxury flats, I mean even the capitalists agreed they had to change

It's the 30th anniversary of the Dunblane massacre today. This article has a good account of how a tragic school shooting pushed the UK towards tighter gun control. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Today is publication day! johngrindrod.substack.com/p/tales-of-t...

Expect similar cuts to hit across the post-92 half of the sector sometime after the end of Semester 2

Very pleased to announce that TAKE YOUR RESEARCH PUBLIC is back for 2026. It's a practical course supporting PhD students and academics working on historical topics to translate their work into public-facing scholarship. Runs 2-23 June online. Apply by 20 April @dcahf-met.bsky.social

Very pleased to announce that TAKE YOUR RESEARCH PUBLIC is back for 2026. It's a practical course supporting PhD students and academics working on historical topics to translate their work into public-facing scholarship. Runs 2-23 June online. Apply by 20 April @dcahf-met.bsky.social

Holy crap. This is very bad. Sheffield Hallam restricts TPS access to REF academics only www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sheffie...

Interested to read here about the surprise of the person who expected to be the oldest participant but wasn't: in a career that starts at 27 and ends at 67 we should recognise that the mid-point to that is 47 and plan mid-career initiatives accordingly.

Ooh, this looks fun.

American followers - one for you!

An expert, balanced & realistic thread on the Guardian human remains article