Folks, I've done it. I wrote up my best fiction of 2025 (please clap). Long thoughts on each of the top ten, short blurbs for each of the rest. In total: 86 books. Nonfiction still to come. I have read so much this year, please benefit from my efforts. And tell me what you loved yourself!

I'll be speaking about Huntly Carter and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at St Hilda's tonight - please join us, there's still a few tickets left! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/beyond-the...

The current REF system really encourages temporary staff to burn down their own careers - either you complete research because you need it for your CV, but an institution can claim any resulting outputs before making you redundant so you've nothing to take elsewhere, or...

ONLY migrants though, no one else is to study English because it's a rip off and a waste of time, am I getting this right.

*please share widely* Dear Network, I am looking for temp work: translation/copy-editing German to Dutch and English and English↔️Dutch, as well as fundraising. All leads very welcome! DM or email at meindertpeters @ gmail ☺️🙏

Excited to mark the launch of my book alongside Katharina Herold-Zanker’s Decadence and Orientalism in England and Germany. Two wonderful guests, Stefano Evangelista and Megan Girdwood, will be introducing the works. If you're in the Durham area, please join! www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

Required reading for anyone working with ECRs… not just in French History

CfP Alert! 🔥🔥 @wesleygrafwald.bsky.social and I are putting together a special issue for Dance Research Journal on Early Twentieth-Century Dance Photography. Please share widely and don't hesitate to be in touch when you are interested or have questions! Find the CfP below, or DM us for the PDF.

Problematic (to put it kindly) on so many levels. 1) there isn't really 'unfunded' research. The REF is there to allocate resources so that research is possible without a grant.

For anyone in/ near Oxford, @marieminden.bsky.social and I are having a public conversation about our new books and ’new approaches to theatrical form’ with the fabulous Sos Eltis in November. There will be cake! www.torch.ox.ac.uk/event/new-ap...

Join @marieminden.bsky.social @hgreenstreet1.bsky.social on 5 November for a book conversation: New Approaches to Theatrical Form! torch.ox.ac.uk/event/new-ap...

Author copies of my book have arrived! If you’d like a copy for yourself or your library, it’s available here: shorturl.at/ReFmK

Part time at 5.5 hours per week— for shame! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOK805/l...

Today I got my author copies of the book based on my PhD. It's been many years in the making and I'm so proud finally to hold it in my hands www.bloomsbury.com/uk/radical-r...

I really think universities underestimate how true this is for a lot of students and their parents. They don’t want us to try to pretend to be cool. They want us to be a bit dusty, and very serious. Enthusiastic, definitely! But also nerdy. We’re selling them ACADEMIA.

Two exciting events coming up for anyone based in Oxford: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shobana-je...

“The UK government’s continued complicity in Israel’s atrocities is unconscionable, and I do not want to spend another day operating on children who have been shot and starved by a military our government supports.” Devastating reporting.

In her first act as the new President of The British Academy, Professor Susan J Smith FBA has today written to the Prime Minister to warn that cuts and contractions are damaging the UK’s higher education system www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/new-aca...

Self-inflicted embarrassment for the University of Warwick — first it rebrands hyper-generically, then someone totally unhinged decides the *front page of the uni website* should say ‘Learn more about our Brand’.

We are calling on the UK Government to not introduce a levy on higher education provider income from international students, reduce visa costs to attract global talent, and to review higher education funding to create a sustainable model www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/58...

I am appalled by the REF digging its heels in about portability, disadvantaging so many early career and precarious scholars and those who were shunted out of institutions and undertook research in spite of inordinate pressures and job cuts. 1/ 2029.ref.ac.uk/news/cku-cop...

Three final online showings of my play this week orangetreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/ben...

Just came here to say that I’m truly sickened by the extreme anti-migration turn of Starmer & his government whose Immigration White Paper makes the frankly astonishing claim that net migration has caused “incalculable” damage to this country.

UK performing arts associations have written a public letter to the REF2029 director that complements the recent joint English associations' letter: dramahe.ac.uk/activity/joi...

Something to look forward to reading this summer!

REF2029: concerns about the implications of decoupling | The English Association : Please read this important joint letter we have written (on behalf of us, our chair @jennyrichards.bsky.social ) along with @ies-sas.bsky.social & @univeng.bsky.social englishassociation.ac.uk/ref2029-conc...

My book officially has a cover – and a page! Or, as my brother pointed out, 224 of them. Modernism After the Ballets Russes, forthcoming with @oxunipress.bsky.social shorturl.at/ReFmK

Morgen (6.2., 16 Uhr) spricht @meindertpeters.bsky.social (Oxford) via Zoom über ›Kafka at the Ballet: The Imperial Russian Ballet, the Ballets Russes, and Contemporary Adaptation‹. Die Seminarreihe #KafkasEcho ist eine Koop. des DLA, der NLI & @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social, gefördert @diplo.de.