Since the beginning of May, I have: - Written 35,466 words of feedback... - On 128 pieces of student work =280,100 words - Submitted 3 applications - Attended and presented at 1 international conference - Taking me 182.5 hours I love my job, but modern academia is hard work. #skystorians 🗃️

One week today: publication day for uclpress.co.uk/book/the-kin...! My brilliant co-authors Rachel Rich, @sarahfoxhistory.bsky.social @adamcrymble.bsky.social & I are excited for the book to be out. It will also be available open access, as our dataset is: zenodo.org/records/8070... #HistFood

If you’re still just about functioning in this heatwave, please do consider joining us for what I very much hope you will all find an interesting paper. Perks of a hybrid seminar mean you can listen at home with an ice cream in hand & no trousers on whilst I sweat my way (literally) through the Q&A!

Blog incoming but here's a link for those who'd like to watch the full recording of our #OpenAccess in Practice session: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvyZ... Thanks again to everyone who took part! Incl @philippagrand.bsky.social @paulakennedy.bsky.social @sarahfoxhistory.bsky.social! #LDNOpenFest26

Of COURSE Turnitin is broken on the day I'm supposed to do a big pile of my marking.

I'm over the moon to find my first book shortlisted for this prize, amongst some wonderful company! Many titles here that make me want to read far beyond my area of specialism @universitypress.cambridge.org

Absolutely delighted to see @emilymayvine.bsky.social's fabulous book 'Birth, Death, and Domestic Religion in Early Modern London' on this list. It is just the kind of meticulous, well-written, and all-round brilliant history that Emily is great at writing. #skystorians 🗃️

'Combined over-use of and angry critique of AI' precisely defines our L4 cohort too. While I moan A LOT about marking AI generated work, it is fascinating to watch the evolution of each new cohort's views on AI. #skystorians 🗃️

Marking dissertations takes AGES because I have to stop for a little weep at the beautiful things our students write about their loved ones, their friends, and about my wonderful colleagues in their acknowledgements. Totes emosh... #skystorians #marking #18thC

'The key findings were said to be “surprisingly simple”: “a good student academic experience ultimately comes down to quality teaching, access to in person interaction with teachers and a strong sense of belonging”.' 2/3

'Policy analysts looked at 20 years’ worth of data collected for the annual Student Academic Experience Survey, currently run by the Higher Education Policy Institute and Advance HE, to establish key trends in a tumultuous period for higher education.' 1/3

200 years ago the handloom weavers of Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire engaged in a 10-day rising, destroying over 1,100 power looms. To learn more check out our interactive StoryMap: storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/9a84... #19thCentury #skystorians @sslh.bsky.social @esriuk.bsky.social

We're excited to be heading to Brighton for the next @oipassoc.bsky.social symposium in June 🥳 Those interested in institutional #OpenAccess #publishing, grab your free tickets while you can! It's primarily an in-person event with a live stream available. 🎫 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/oipa-sympo...

A brilliant piece by @samfr.bsky.social on why our universities are in trouble - and why it’s in ALL our best interests to save them.

⭐️ Our final Skills Training in Archival Research (STAR) workshop of the 2025-26 year is on 3rd June! ⭐️ Are you doing archival research for a degree or work? Or just want to learn more about how to research at TLA? Then come along! Book your place using the link 👇

📣Out now on #firstview! Jennifer Evans @historianjen.bsky.social and Sarah Fox @sarahfoxhistory.bsky.social on 'Anticipating Birth in Early Modern England' #Birth #Motherhood #Pregnancy #Medicine #History 17thc 18thc 👶🌿🗃️ 👉Read open access here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

New blog up on the Places, Plants and People Archive Network website, featuring lots of beautiful images of Kew Gardens! By @alyssamyers.bsky.social collections.reading.ac.uk/places-plant...

How are bodies charted, and how might maps chart bodily experience? Steph Morris asks this question at their new exhibition, Skin Maps: semi-permeable cartography, held from 12 June to 16 Aug at the Director's Gallery @rgs.org. Steph was inspired by maps and atlases in the RGS Collections. 🗃️

With @romanpalace.bsky.social apparently being told to knock it off, it quietly seems @maryrosemuseum.bsky.social had also gone dark. If this is a wider trend in the museum space it's to be regretted. Museums don't just exist to hold stuff. They tell stories about the past - and ourselves now.

The Pennines, Harden Reservoir, painting by Huddersfield-based artist Jacky Rawlins.

University of Hertfordshire closes a swathe of Humanities courses, accelerating the sweeping tide against Human-centred disciples in the UK. Because understanding humans is so yesterday today. With such happy consequences, as we see when we look around us.

Noooooooooooooo!

Knowledge & understanding grow in university settings when experts disagree with each other, testing each others' claims, adducing different evidence & positing alternative scenarios. That's how change happens. In this thread, I suggest that we take a different approach to that featured here. 1/x

I can't wait for you to read this. Nearly a decade of research has gone into uncovering how Britain’s food shaped its sense of place in the world during the First Age of Nationalism. 'The King's Dinner', out 1 June 2026. uclpress.co.uk/book/the-kin...

I don't think people fully understand yet just how fragile university-hosted digital resources are after external funding ends (especially if the lead academic retires or moves or is made redundant).

I laughed inappropriately loudly for a very quiet early morning campus when I read 'Indiana Jones and the Collegial Decision'... #skystorians

I want a movie about the poor untenured archaeologist who has to cover Indiana Jones' teaching and do his marking while he fucks off to do 'fieldwork'.

📢 Our annual Stephen Copley Lecture is scheduled for Tuesday 5 May with Prof Ros Ballaster (Oxford) presenting a paper on: "The Sense of Touch and the Shaping of the Woman Artist in the Eighteenth Century" 🗓️ Tuesday 21 April, 5pm 📍 H/G21, Heslington Hall 🔗 www.york.ac.uk/eighteenth-c...

📣 2026/7 MA in Eighteenth Century Studies bursaries 📣 We're delighted to announce that we will be awarding four MA bursaries for the 2026/7 MA in Eighteenth Century Studies cohort. Full details can be found on the CECS website: 🔗 www.york.ac.uk/eighteenth-c... Spread the news!

My basic thinking was that some students come in to first year exhausted by A-levels, and we needed to present them with new ideas and texts, even a bit of weirdness, while also making it clear that the things they do all the time are culture and worth thinking about. Apparently I was wrong.

She won't stop staring. Make it stop.

Lovely to hear this advertised on Radio 3 this morning. Do drop into the livestream any time between 10:30 and 20:00 on Saturday - or, if you're in Oxford, join us live at St Mary Mags.

In a *new* post, I have pulled together the latest data on historians in UK universities and PhDs granted. The results are ... not great. Staff numbers have been mostly shrinking since 2019. PhDs have been roughly flat. 1/3. 🗃️ More info here: manyheadedmonster.com/2026/04/23/h...

It’s been out a while now, but Rosemary Sweet and I have written a book about #18thcentury British travel to Spain and Portugal that is free to download here! uclpress.co.uk/book/no-coun...

this is who writes our posts btw

Please share! EHR is hosting a free one-day symposium at St John's College, Oxford, on Friday 17 April, 10-6, on the theme 'When there are no sources'. Further details and how to sign up here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/when-there...

The Market Brow, Stockport, by artist Kate O'Brien.

I spend SO MUCH TIME in the first year, encouraging (urging?!) my students to forget what they learned at A-level. Radical action IS required, but absolutely not the radical action that is suggested here. #teachinghistory #skystorians

❤️

We’re pleased to be part of this year's London Open Science & Scholarship Festival with lots of wonderful publishers & institutions! #LDNOpenFest26 #OpenAccess Thanks so much to those involved in our panel including @paulakennedy.bsky.social & @sarahfoxhistory.bsky.social! View the full schedule:

It was a belter of a session, if I do say so myself 😆 @benltjackson.bsky.social is such a great speaker, and his research is fascinating. I can't wait to read the book! #skystorians #18thC #19thC #EHU19🗃️

BONUS: me, @bhamhistory.bsky.social and @emilymayvine.bsky.social from the material culture of wills project will be there at lunch if you want to come and talk to us about crowdsourcing volunteers, Handwritten Text Recognition, wills as songs, huge datasets ... or anything else! 📜🗃️ #EarlyModern

Do you know what I really hate about GenAI (beyond the bland hyperbole it churns out)? It's that when I read a great piece of student work, I am immediately suspicious, then proved right by a quick check of the citations. Marking is taking 3x longer & is soul destroying #skystorians #academicsky

This article led me down a rabbit hole to the OFS report on the financial sustainability of HE which suggests 'optimistic' forecasting in the sector around student numbers. I can't say that I have noticed that sense of 'optimism' on the ground...

The university funding crisis finally starting to make it into newspaper editorials www.ft.com/content/82f5...

*Gazes wistfully at the opportunity to do research instead of e-mails for a whole 18mths.... #skystorians #research #18thC #BritishHistory 🗃️

For anyone interested in our 18-month post in British Studies please follow the link below. @ihr.bsky.social www.jobs.london.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

It's so exciting to see our research so accessible. I am looking forward to letting my students loose on Alexander's interface rather than just demanding that they download a giant spreadsheet #kingsdinner #18thC #skystorians 🗃️

Full time AHRC doctoral studentships now available in Arts & Humanities at University of Hertfordshire for October 2026 start - please do share widely!! This includes both History & Heritage Studies among other subjects 🌟😀 www.herts.ac.uk/research/res...

As the academisation project in UK schools starts to fall apart at the seams, it seems the very essence of madness that we would decide to embark on the same process in HE. I think I know how this is going to end... #ChairofGovernors #ukeducation #UKHE #skystorians