Next time you visit the Pre-Raphaelite galleries at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, keep an eye out for more information about my project, Victorian Art & Design and the Global! More information available at: www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/about/what-w...

Three months ago

SAVE GEOGRAPHY at Leicester University (UK) - We call on the University of Leicester to urgently reconsider the proposal to dissolve Geography. This is direct attack on the discipline of Geography at Leicester with likely loss of Geography staff. Please sign + share www.change.org/p/save-geogr...

STARSHIP TROOPERS was released 28 years ago today. Among the most popular films of director Paul Verhoeven, and a classic sci fi/action satire, the making of story is as outrageous as the film. Would you like to know more…? 1/69

You may think this is an easy one, but what if you're a billionaire already planning to have retreated to an underground bunker in ten years, and need a technology which can persuade everyone else that everything is fine, really?

solidarity with all colleagues and students at Nottingham who are having their jobs and degrees destroyed by management. the relentless annihilation of language provision in UKHE is something that *every* academic should be calling out and pushing back against.

'mean-spirited'

The truly maddening thing is that, unlike when I was a young man in science and the materials and engineering just weren’t there yet, the future is *right there.* The problem is *solved*. What’s holding us back is not just greed, but this bizarre nostalgia, an obsession with petro- masculinity.

David Olusoga was interviewed on the radio this morning and now I'm really looking forward to watching this.

It has been my duty as a historian to record how smelly Che Guevara was. Honestly one of the stinkiest dudes in history. He was immensely proud of this & once showed off a pair of underpants he’d been wearing for two months. They were so filthy, he won a bet that they could stand up by themselves.

Thursday #morningread ✨

For 61 years the #BBCWorldService has been broadcasting the latest in science via its weekly Science in Action programme. That dies in the next half hour, with this final edition, reflecting on the fall in trust in expertise driven by malign interests over recent years.

Also good guidelines for life.

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

There is still time to enter the Midland History essay prize £400 first prize and opportunity to publish in a peer reviewed journal Closing date for entries 31 October 🎃 #phd #ecr #postgrad

In Grok we trust...

I'm back teaching English lit after a very long break and I'm curious what critical texts people are using. For anyone happy to share, would love to hear your recs for close reading fiction/poetry in general and for the Victorians specifically. One from me below.

We all know that the UK could have a well-funded university system without heaping debt on the heads of students, if politicians wanted it to. That's the only thing to say, really. Every dysfunction is a choice. A choice made by politicians, not by lecturers or students.

Really saddened to see this. Danya brought a kindness and passion to the chess world that will be very much missed. Always loved his videos/lessons/commentary, and never failed to be amazed by his talent and seemingly magical (to me at least) ability to calculate combinations.

A reminder that pg researchers and ECRs working in Romantic Studies in the UK are invited to apply for a Stephen Copley Research Award (valued up to £500) The late Stephen Copley supervised my PhD and I appreciate seeing his name live on like this #Romanticism www.bars.ac.uk/main/index.p...

This sounds great! The format could allow for some really timely, provocative work too.

Reading a book from the university library and found this

Today is the birthday of both Nietzsche and Foucault, which means it should really be some kind of Continental philosophy holiday.

Read Barbara Newman on Boccaccio’s ‘dirty book’ here. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

When Farage told the people of Clacton that he would spend his time working I imagine they thought it would be for them and not for 12 companies.

Pleased to announce @univeng.bsky.social small funding scheme now open to members. UE will fund up to 20 projects up to £250 each to support research/pedagogy/continuing professional development activities in Lit, Lang, Creative Writing. See details here: universityenglish.ac.uk/englishcreat...

It is always the Reading Room of the Special Collections where the magic happens.

Lords Heseltine & Kinnock seem more alive to these self-evident truths than most members of the Commons. Similarly, I find thinkers with direct lived experience of far right dictatorship, Greeks of a certain age for example, crystal clear about what’s happening now.

🚴John Betjeman said that it was worth cycling 40 miles in a headwind to see them. 🪽The early C16th Angel Roof at St Wendreda in Cambs is adorned with over 100 oaken angels.

This should also be how universities reply to the AI thing btw

I didn't know Jane Goodall, but it's pretty clear the world is a poorer place without her, and that she wished and worked for a better world than the one we're making.

“An example of the town of the future is Coventry.... Traffic and pedestrians are kept apart and the roads are planned to let traffic flow smoothly” (Our Land in the Making, 1966) Artist: Ronald Lampitt

Can we all just shout about how despicable it is to scapegoat migrants for everything? Can we just stop being too polite or shy about it? Can we condemn it at work, with friends, family, on SM, everywhere? Can we just not keep calm & carry on until it’s too late? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Out today: British Working-Class and Radical Writing Since 1700 edited by John Goodridge & @adambridgen.bsky.social. This book is published #OpenAccess, with funding from @acls1919.bsky.social 👏 'Workers, Radicals, Environmentalists and Feminists, Unite!' uolpress.co.uk/book/british...

Credit where credit's due. If the Catholic Church can understand and articulate these basic things, then why can't some other organisations (including governments) we could mention?

I'm very pleased to announce that the call for proposed Special Issues of the Historical Journal is now live, with a deadline of 12th December. Please do spread widely among your networks — @saracaputo.bsky.social and I look forward to reading your submissions! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Hello #academicsky! I'm sharing a cfp for an edited collection on "Naming & Classifying," pulled together by me, Kristin Girten, & @aaronrhanlon.com . We'd love to see your work! Please also circulate to anyone you think might be interested. Deadline 10/31. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” Ursula K. Le Guin

Victorianists - a little bit of silly joy in all the gloom: take a moment today to vote for this gorgeous Lego set idea of the Great Exhibition so we can all get it for Christmas! beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

I don't suppose there is a Guinness world record for longest continuous broadcast of lies but if you're going to have to broadcast this man then framing it as a record-breaking performance of lies seems like a good way to do it.

Pretty self-evident, really, but will Starmer do it?

The more I hear about ICE the more I'm reminded of the descriptions of the people who became low-level authority figures under the Nazis in Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin.

Historians must 'tell...an uncomfortable story & explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly. A well-organised society is one in which we know the truth about ourselves collectively, not one in which we tell pleasant lies about ourselves.'Tony Judt

Retreating from the awfulness of current affairs to a nice book... in this case Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year since that's what I'm teaching in a few weeks. Actually strangely comforting. David Roberts describes it as celebrating "the endurance to watch the world fall apart" which...seems apt.

I will use this opportunity on #digitalfriday to promote the new ad-free website featuring my list of radical online collections and archives. Nearly 1000 open access collections of radical historical documents from around the world are now listed! hatfulofhistory.com/radical-onli...

Bit more coverage of our report today on the loss of provision of arts, humanities and social science courses www.researchprofessional.com/0/rr/news/uk...

We've got a chunky @britishacademy.bsky.social report out looking at the emergence of 'cold spots' where you can't study arts, humanities or social science subjects close to home. We call for an urgent review of HE funding & monitoring of at risk subjects www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/univers...

The last REF found that 98% of UK research was either "internationally recognised", "internationally excellent", or "world-leading". If you think low-quality research is the noteworthy challenge in UK higher ed right now, you are wilfully looking in the wrong direction

We want robust, enormous research that is SUCH good research, you already know how important and right and insightful it is before you even start it. We want research so predeterminedly world-changing that there is hardly any point actually doing the research at all.