After a wonderful conference, in a cab on my way to see a Melbourne friend - a friendship based on a childhood making up dancing to Madonna - and Holiday comes on the radio 😍

Oxford Brookes University has a huge raft of AHRC-funded PhD studentships in the Arts, Humanities and allied subjects! Both fees and a stipend covered. Take a look at the ad below - the closing date is 30th January 2026. Anyone interested at all, get in touch! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPM937/p...

'Dr Annalisa Nicholson, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, reveals how the concept of the salon was translated to the capital in A Salon-in-Exile: Hortense Mancini and the French Diaspora in Restoration London.' 1/2

It’s 14 degrees here in the hill country and I’m burning my draft chapter as I revise (fortunately with some sturdier fuel too)

revising a river chapter in East Gippsland, on the banks of this beauty (current weather: chucking it down)

“I think we should hit the road again soon”

On the road to my cousin’s. So happy.

Two very packed days in Sydney down: art, ferries, ocean pools and ocean waves, and two beloved Sydneysiders of the same age: Colin Friels as a deeply memorable and somehow restrained Lear, but best of all my most adored uncle, never restrained, still raging. Now: early train to Canberra.

I began my day (“she’s gonna be a warm one” said an oldie as I came out) with a turn in the Coogee women’s ocean pool and then a try on the real beach with an unceremonious dumping by a big wave so I’m sandy all over “like a schnitzel” said my friend. Now hosed off and deeply happy.

Happy St Katherine's Day to all scholars, librarians, and Katherines. May you win an argument against an annoying man today, in the true spirit of Katherine herself.

No better view: the Ruth Park ferry! The Bridge!

Leaving Brisbane with a heavy heart after rich family time and also river exchanges with scholars and strangers. My teenage cousin said kindly it was easy to have me in the house: I’m just one of them with a posher voice. Taking my vowels down to Sydney now.

None of you told me Tony Abbott wrote a history book! 🤮🤮🤮

We are running a search for an Associate Professorship (or Professorship) in Modern Middle Eastern History 1830-1970, with expertise in across key regions, including Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, and the Maghreb. www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/vacancies

Worse places to be stuck: I’m in a museum while a Brisbane storm rages. (I have an appointment but the nice lady in the shop wouldn’t let me leave.)

ICYMI 😺

Watching the cricket live as I come in to land in Brisbane 😍

This bit always makes me cry. Finally over the good red earth with only four hours to go!

La Pascaline's sale halted: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Bertie is very keen on Ghost Stations, the new book from @padrig.bsky.social

Appel à communications | «Je le vis, je rougis, je pâlis à sa vue». Les couleurs fugaces du visage dans la littérature française du XVIe au XVIIIe s. cornucopia16.com/blog/event/j...

'Nottingham will be the only Russell Group university not to teach modern foreign languages degrees if it approves plans to close a swath of courses including Spanish and French as well as music and dozens of others.' 1/3

Indentured servitude as government policy? Great! Great news!!

Thinking about Larry Summers and then thinking again about Claudine Gay.

My dad, who thinks about history largely in relation to cricket, just described someone as being from the Dennis Lillee era. It turns out this means being an impressionable teenager when DL was at his peak

Imagine writing a policy that required you to be explicit that you would not forcibly confiscate refugees’ wedding rings

events.teams.microsoft.com/event/e2549b... Would you like to study for a graduate degree in Modern Languages at Oxford (or do you know someone who would)? We have an online Open Day coming up on 19/11 and you can register for it here.

Today is Foresight Sunday: the pudding is steaming, and next up there will be planting of tulips.

Please read this: it’s a joy

Does anyone now watch Bugsy Malone? I'm suddenly remembering how in my childhood it was on TV nonstop. (Admittedly it was made in my childhood, too.) Is it as super creepy as I remember?

When someone puts your new favorite box on top of your previous favorite box #Caturday

I did the same re the plans to close music. Please do likewise, bluesky friends

I wrote this morning to the VC and Deputy VC of Nottingham to urge them to rethink the plans for closing languages. You can too, addresses here. www.savemlcatnotts.org.uk

I travelled to NYC to help launch (last night) Joanna Stalnaker's astonishing new book _The Rest is Silence: Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death_. The book is a treasure, humane and moving: a vindication both of the #18thc philosophes and of what literary studies scholarship can do with them.

Fed up with the John Lewis's website talking to me as if I'm a naughty dog.

Check out the gorgeous manes on these horses waiting for their nymphs to finish fishing a shepherd out of the river. 1647 Augustin Courbé édition of Honoré d’Urfé’s Astrée.

Oxford Modern Languages is holding an online info session for graduate degrees - DPhil, MPhil, MSt in Modern Langs, or Yiddish, or Slavonic Langs, and new MSt in translation: November 19, 5-6 - pass on to students - register here events.teams.microsoft.com/event/e2549b...

We're launching a really exciting new MSt in Creative Translation - details here. Oxford has a wealth of brilliant translator energy and I am excited to see what will come out of this. Please forward to likely sorts! www.mod-langs.ox.ac.uk/news/2025/11...

This is a real flight school, teaching people to fly planes!!! Like????

Attention ! L'édition d'Ourika numérisée sur @gallicabnf.bsky.social n'est pas l'édition originale mais une édition pirate : même nom d'éditeur (Ladvocat), même année (1824), mais c'est faux. Et surtout : la véritable édition originale, elle, est anonyme.

✍ Introducing ✍ Sharpie, a letterform recognition game for beginner #EarlyModern #palaeography gjhilton.github.io/Sharpie/ AKA What I Did Over Reading Week. #skystorians I’d be so grateful if you had time to share or take a look and tell me what sucks and needs fixing. Love g 🗃️

When I am an old(er) lady I will hang out in the loos in the Bodleian and explain to young women that in my youth there was a chaise longue there. I miss it! In my memory it was velvet and grand but perhaps not. I feel there should be a plaque recording it.

In the same week, both the University of Nottingham and the University of Leicester announced closing their Modern Languages departments. Disastrous for the sector as a whole and for the ML landscape in the Midlands: c.org/4X7VMy9MPD

No better sight than the Bodleian on a clear morning when - and this is crucial- you know you’ll have time to go in today.

genuinely very few things more satisfying than reading the kinds of emails rich and famous people send each other

Pair of charmingly grumpy owls out on skates for winter fun. Have even brought along a snack! By Adriaen van de Venne, who died (alas!) on this day 1662.

An open-access article on hammocks, by @marcynorton.bsky.social and @johnmkuhn.bsky.social, which will interested #earlymodern #histsci and #VastEarlyAmerica folks! 🗃

This is one of the threads I went back and reread before deleting my account on Twitter.