📣New queer geographies podcast! 🌈🎓 Introducing 'Space & Sexuality': Every 2 weeks, I share conversations with leading & emerging scholars across queer/trans geographies of sex and sexualities. Available wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to the first 2 ep's: open.spotify.com/show/033DRqR...

Hey Bluesky crowd! You also should be signing our petition opposing the announced redundancies at the University of Exeter. 📢 We're 17k and growing! Redundancies ARE NOT necessary and we must #DefendExeterUni 🩷 c.org/RFqMvrKb6z

It’s been a while since I’ve logged into Bluesky, so first things first: my book, Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion, is now out in PAPERBACK! @hurstpublishers.bsky.social

📊New data shows benefits of choosing geography at university. This includes high graduate employment rates, with geography graduates having a higher rate than average. Find out more: https://www.rgs.org/about-us/our-work/latest-news/new-data-shows-the-benefits-of-choosing-geography-at-university

Come join is online tomorrow to learn about ace geographies!

Spending the rest of the week at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, w colleagues Alexandre Almeida & Arnau Roig Mora who've also done research on bears 🐻 We're gonna be developing a new paper & funding bid, thinking abt bears outside the Anglo-American sphere (& also visiting some queer bars 🏳️‍🌈)

If I hear one more university leader say they're making "tough decisions" about redundancies or worsening our employment conditions, I will scream. They are not making tough choices, they're making the easiest decisions in the world. Tough decisions would be fighting the inevitability of job losses

Solidarity with friends & colleagues up the road. Hot on the heels of 500+ job cuts is another 200 jobs to go this year. Government silent as the sector collapses.

With summer approaching, now is the perfect time for students interested in geographical careers to gain work experience 💼 Explore our geographical work experience directory, virtual work experience programme with Springpod, and top tips 👉bit.ly/43kSWE7

Everyone read the end of it: "Governments in Scotland and Wales have finally realised that a viable, meaningful higher education sector needs greater oversight and control, and cannot be left wholly to the market. Now Westminster needs to wake up to this need for joined-up thinking"

Ha, ha, ha! This is brilliant. Agree with every word, and not only because it has a righteous pop at Reeves. Also underlines key point, in order for there to be a way to be masculine, some boys & men aren't going to cut it, no matter how many ways/types we add. www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/07...

Yesterday Kier Starmer announced Labour will nationalise British Steel, and save 2700 jobs. Today, the Uni of Nottingham put 2700 staff at risk of redundancy. This is just one university. Across the UK 15,000 higher education jobs need saving. Where is the rescue package for our universities?

A new low as the University of Nottingham puts 2700 staff at risk of redundancy. Cuts and job losses are not inevitable. They are political choices and the manifestation of a broken system. Where is Labour as the crisis intensifies? Sitting on the sidelines, watching it burn.

Tens of thousands of jobs lost from UK Higher Education in recent years, causing god knows how much damage to universities' local economies - government sat twiddling their thumbs.

V v excited to receive a copy of Vini Flauaus' book on bear culture in São Paulo. There's a bunch of superb bear scholars across Central and South America (of whom Vini is one), publishing in Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish.

The OfS was set up 8 years ago with the purpose of terrorising HE staff and driving Tory culture wars. It needs to be abolished!

I’ve been hearing so much anger and disappointment from frontline workers about the BBC investigation into fraudulent asylum claims. One of the most damning responses has come from one of the experts they interviewed, solicitor Ana Gonzalez. It’s really worth reading her response in full:

At the Cockatoo Club, Dr Nick McGlynn will be hosting a discussion around Bear Culture and identity. He shares his findings from 8 years of academic research including a project he is currently working on with Dr Les K. Wright, author ot The Bear Book and The Bear Book II.

'Academic restructuring' incoming well I think we all know what that means 💀

Excited to be giving this talk - early bird tickets are available now: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-psycho...

Also love that bear mags go Editor's rant, Readers' letters abt how much they've cum, Many hard dicks, Big guy shows hole, 8 pages of detailed astrology, Recipe for tarte tatin, Ads of mags filling a v v slightly different niche, Hairy chests, More hard dicks, Review of the latest Annie Lennox album

Feeling v enthused about gay print culture of the 80s and 90s after all these days in the archive. I'm guessing easy, affordable access to printing & desktop publishing software means you can have small & indie publishers, but also groups & individuals deciding to start a DIY newsletter or zine 🐻

Knee-deep in bear and bear-adjacent magazines today. Daddy, Bear Party (w Francois Sagat!), Heavy Duty, Husky, Bear Fax, Sugar Bear's Den, Bulk Male and 100% Beef (and if the editorials are anything to go by the beef is with the publishers of Bear Magazine).

Catch me at the @manbears.bsky.social Great British Bear Bash next month, talking about some of my older and newer research on bear culture 🐻

Because we're doing so much work on bears, the lovely Cornell librarians brought out a 1st edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass for us to see 🥹

Not posting much from my Bear History Project archives trip this time (too tired 😴) BUT I did finally get my hands on the legendary issue 11 of Bear Magazine w Jack Radcliffe. Interestingly he was surprisingly beefy compared to other models. Note also the original Lone Star Saloon on the back!

I'm back at Cornell University for my final visit to explore the Bear History Project archives, along with the original bear researcher Les K. Wright. This time we're joined by filmmaker Andy Langdon, who's filming our work as part of his new documentary on bear culture 🐻 See you at Sundance! 🎥

Can't give any spoilers, but the European Geographies of Sexualities Conference 2026 is gonna feature some of the most exciting sexualities research I've seen in ages! Registration is open & the deadline for abstracts has been extended - see you in Maribor? 🇸🇮 😁 sites.google.com/view/egsconf...

For folk interested in research on #gaybears in the UK, my book Bodies & Boundaries of UK Bear Spaces is now available in paperback! Learn abt identities, bodies & spaces; gender politics at bear events; & why London's bear scene is the exception not the rule 🐻 www.routledge.com/Bodies-and-B...

My 2nd session at European Geographies of Sexualities Conference 2026: EPHEMERAL, EPISODIC & EVENT SPACES FOR SEXUALISED COMMUNITIES Looking for research on temporary spaces & events used by LGBTQ+, cishet, kink, asexual groups, sexual subcultures & more! sites.google.com/view/egsconf...

I'm recruiting for TWO sessions at European Geographies of Sexualities Conference 2026! First - WHO'S AFRAID OF GIS? A friendly, no-stakes show-&-tell. Zero experience needed - produce 1 simple GIS output before the conference, then come & tell us about it! sites.google.com/view/egsconf...

She’s gonna be in Bergamo in April and she’s gonna get sassy.

Less than 1 week to submit an abstract to the European Geographies of Sexualities Conference! 📣 Deadline: 16 March. If you research sexualities/LGBTQ+ and space/place, you're more than welcome! MORE INFO and to submit: sites.google.com/view/egsconf... Pic: EGSC in Brighton 2024. 🌈🎓

Thanks to @massobsarchive.bsky.social for hosting our University of Brighton students yesterday for LGBTQ History Month! We heard abt their growing archive of everyday queer life in the UK, and saw loads of incredible historical materials 🏳️‍🌈 Thanks also to @ctsgbrighton.bsky.social for organising!

Bizarre morning where something I had *thought* was a request to be an external examiner for a PhD, turned out to be another uni asking me to spend half a day doing their own internal admissions admin. For free. Still stunned at the absolute cheek of it, what the hell goes through people's minds

Our new Queer and Trans Histories series creates a home for cutting‑edge work on past and present LGBTQ+ lives. We’re looking for proposals grounded in rich empirical work and innovative approaches to intimacy, emotion, silence, and subjectivity. manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/queer...

Went to see the great exhibit on the Sussex Lancers gay motorbike club of the 1990s - loads of lovely archival material & also a treasure trove of name-spotting (people & places) for fans of Brighton's LGBTQ history. At the Brighton & Hove Museum now!

Oh fuck off, enforced AI 'reading assistants' on academic journals now

Excellent article but stark reminder that for all the perceptions of universities as ivory towers for elites, they are actually vital hubs in towns n cities supporting local businesses and providing key services as well as education….

We're looking to capture experiences of what it means to be queer in the UK today! To do that we're collecting day diaries for 12th February. It doesn't matter what you get up to, or how you record it, we'd love to have it!🧵 (1/4) #LGBTplusHM #lgbthm26

What has geography got to do with AI? Join Professor John Naughton at our next Monday night lecture to explore why geographers should be part of the conversation about the future of AI technology. 📍 London and online, 9 February 👉 Book now https://bit.ly/3LK7FUg

Treasure from yesterday's work in the Bear History Project archive at Cornell University, looking at the growing size & number of big Bear events in the 90s & early 00s. Key finds include meet & greets w Bear celebs, sponsorship from Budweiser in 2000, Bear internet providers, & a survey w data! 😍

Staff cuts. Students in debt yet Vice-chancellor pay keeps soaring. The mystery of Higher Education in the UK that no one seems to have the answer to. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01...

Quoted in this BBC article on Pillion - www.bbc.co.uk/culture/arti...

Current focus in the #gaybear archive at Cornell is the explosion of local & regional Bear clubs in the 1990s. These produced regular mailed newsletters & hosted multiple monthly events, supported by tech (photocopying, printing) & formalised admin (member subscriptions, bylaws, committees etc).

Tough day in the bear history archives today tbh, Les was snowed in & the site opened v late. Feel v behind schedule 😕 On the plus side I got my hands on 100 Percent Beef magazine! Lots of amateur modelling/porn, a merch range, even a regular bear cartoon strip (w maybe a bit of femme phobia?).

Monday and the start of a second week of being prevented from working by my employer, the University of Sheffield. Management has decided that massive damage to staff morale, student experience and the university’s reputation is worth it in a futile attempt to break the union. Shame on them.

Back at Cornell Uni for my bear archive research - coinciding w the worst winter storm in years (up to -18°C!). Folk are saying stuff like '7-Eleven is gonna be closed' w a kind of reverent awe. Hope the library opens tomorrow cause there are some 90s bear, chub, and daddy magazines I need to see!

So many of HE’s problems are the product of these efforts to generate market structures that just simply don’t work because the conditions that markets need to work really aren’t there, and all they do is create uncertainty (and financial problems) for students, staff, and institutions.

The QUEER DATA SHOWCASE is returning in 2026 – and we’re taking the show to Manchester! An opportunity to showcase work with an audience enthusiastic about all things queer and all things data! 📢 The CALL FOR PRESENTERS is now live! www.ai-ethics.org/queer-data-s...