The new reality that is emerging in Texas is that certain topics or ideas are simply off the table in the classroom. The censorship of academic speech and entire fields of knowledge in service to an ideology poses an unprecedented danger to the future of higher education. #AcademicFreedom

BBC push alert tomorrow: ‘The Rapture is here. Why this could be good news for Reform UK’

At last. But not for the two female PhD students informed last week that their families, including children, while eligible for visas, are not eligible for evacuation. Gutting.

Hello fellow archivists, can anyone think of a citable source for the fact that reformatting (digitization/microfilming) seldom obviates the need to care for the original? Like, you and I know that we don't just throw out 19th-c letters when we take them off the scanner, but LIS profs need refs

Interested in the latest research around the potential of planetary histories? Join the @ihr.bsky.social seminar series organised by our own Glenda Sluga and Giorgio Riello with Andrew Fitzmaurice @qmul.bsky.social and Thomas Simpson @warwickuni.bsky.social 👉 loom.ly/I0kI0cg 📅 Starting 9 October!

Great news in era of disappearing/disappeared archives: 'Leverhulme Trust and Wellcome Trust combine support for the Humanitarian Archive Emergency (HAE) project based at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at The University of Manchester.' @leverhulme.ac.uk @wellcometrust.bsky.social

There's a WEEK left to sign up to mentor for @artsemergency.bsky.social - potentially get paired with a young person (16-18) who wants to work in the arts/creative industries, but who might not have the contacts or context to help them understand how to do that www.arts-emergency.org/get-involved...

💡 'It can feel weird asking for help... and intimidating as an Early Career Researcher.' Dr Pavan Mano (@kingsinterhums.bsky.social), Dr Leonie Smith & Professor @annavignoles.bsky.social discuss academic funding on the new @britishacademy.bsky.social & @leverhulme.ac.uk podcast ⤵️ shorturl.at/FGNct

"In the name of 'fighting antisemitism', the Trump administration is publicly making an example out of arguably the most famous Jewish public intellectual in the country today."

'“AI has enormous potential to turn a mass of diffuse research into synthesised, useful summaries, which can help policymakers and practitioners deliver better outcomes for citizens,” said ESRC executive chair Stian Westlake.' No possible bias in those summaries, the ESRC presumably knows... 1/3

📢 The 2025 Richard Deswarte Prize in Digital History is awarded to Scheltinga, Budts, and Puttevils for ‘(Fe)male Voices on Stage: Finding Patterns in Lottery Rhymes of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries with and without AI’ ihrdighist.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2025/09/2025...

Really chuffed with this review of my new book! @theartnewspaper.bsky.social www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/09/02/t...

Notice, #earlymodern #skystorians, the logo at the middle of the photo? The VOC (Dutch East India Company). All the more reason to reckon with the legacies of these companies and how they integrate (or don't) with shifting ideas of globalisation, integration, capitalism, and national identity.

The first 3 episodes are now live. Catch up with Episode 1 here: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/audio-video/... And to join the British Academy's ECR Network (it's free for UK SHAPE postdocs within 10 years of the PhD) see www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/early-career...

History curious? You don't need to be in London (or the UK) to attend many Institute of Historical Research seminars, although if you're in Bloomsbury you'll enjoy doing so. Most are hybrid (online/in person). They're free, usually fortnightly and open to the public. Starting this week:

Aarhus University research in the Danish countryside. Neat. Link to paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Check out this seminar series at SOAS. Autumn term includes Esmat Elhaby, 'Parting Gifts of Empire: Palestine and India at the Dawn of Decolonisation (9 Oct); Catherine Hall, 'Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism (16 Oct); and more:

'Stephen Curry, director of strategy at the Research on Research Institute, said the assertion that universities should not spread their research efforts too thinly “may make sense superficially but raises operational and political questions to which there are no easy answers”.' 1/3

Join us on Radio Four in 15 minutes for Start the Week from Bradford. Catherine Clarke, Saima Mir and Andrew McMillan all on great form talking about putting where we live and what happens there into words.

An #LLM like #ChatGPT doesn’t think like a human, so why does it speak like one? It may try to imitate human intelligence, but George Gaskell @lsemethodology.bsky.social highlights the limits of ChatGPT’s conversational ethics, common sense and cultural sensitivity on @lseimpactblog.bsky.social.

'Two sorts of institutions will face the most significant challenges. The first, obviously, are providers rated Bronze in 2023, or Silver-rated providers whose indicators are on a downward trajectory.' 1/2

'Recent figures show the town has fewer school leavers attending university than anywhere else in the country, with only 13 per cent of young people continuing on to higher education courses after sixth form.' 1/2

'A Guardian and Zan Times investigation across eight of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces has revealed the Taliban’s deliberate and calculated efforts to make religious studies the only education option available to women and girls in Afghanistan.' See also: zantimes.com

'The Labour Together report calls for mayors to be allowed to appoint commissioners to oversee other public services as well, including regulating academy schools and running probation services.' 1/2

We need more in-depth reporting on UK university finances like this. Research , research funding and their relation to teaching and teaching funding could do with a similar level of detail. Here's a sharing link for 3 non-subscribers: on.ft.com/3ImSMWa

Well, it's a step in the right direction. But seriously, officials suggesting this might apply to graduates of 'the world's top five universities'? If they use the QS university rankings, that's MIT, Imperial (UK), Stanford, Oxford (UK) and Harvard. Utter madness if the goal's to source top talent.

This weekend's post on the growing political importance of TikTok and its dangers. From the overthrow of the Nepalese government to the US-China trade deal and the rise of Reform. samf.substack.com/p/three-seco...

the requirements to succeed on new media platforms are almost precisely the opposite of what successful experts… have trained themselves to do: maintain an institutional tone of formal detachment & stay ruthlessly on-message at all times.’ @noupside.bsky.social carnegieendowment.org/research/202...

That’s not good statistic ☹️ 20 years ago I wrote 5or 6 PGCE references a year for language UGs going into teaching. The numbers of both students and those wanting to go into teaching have declined steadily since then. I can’t remember the last time I did a PGCE reference…

Neil Kinnock has told Keir Starmer it is “time to look at #RejoinEU as the UK can no longer afford the #Brexit “huge self-inflicted losses ..if we really want sustained economic growth, we have to be part of the single market with our nearest neighbours” www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

£77,816 er annum. What an exciting post.

The Trump regime is seeking "regime change in Europe" former Chatham House director Robin Niblet tells the New York Times. This American-led global far right movement is turning into the Comintern of our times, warns Dutch historian @luukvmiddelaar.bsky.social. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/w...

Last week on Wonkhe: David Kernohan wonders how England's regulatory apparatus will cope with a "super-university"

'OpenAI released on Monday some research that explained how it’s stopping AI models from “scheming.” It’s a practice in which an “AI behaves one way on the surface while hiding its true goals,” OpenAI defined in its tweet about the research.' 1/2

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

Nightmarish life situations for the prospective students and nightmarish, muddled reporting thereof by the Guardian which clearly does not understand either the current rules of which students can bring dependents or the legal status of international students. What a mess at every level.

'“Trust is what you give to people who have authority,” he tells Research Professional News. “And once you realise that people don’t have authority…you should try to find other ways of relating to what they are saying.”' 1/2

'The High Seas Treaty received its 60th ratification by Morocco on Friday, meaning that it will now take effect from January. The deal, which has been two decades in the making, will pave the way for international waters to be placed into marine protected areas.'

'This is not a neutral topic. Nor, I believe, should it be. But it is one that demands clarity, care, and honesty about what our sector chooses to say – or not say – when faced with the mass killing of civilians, including thousands of children.' 1/2

'Ministers’ determination to roll out the red carpet for US tech is understandable, given Labour’s urgent need for economic growth and the drive to improve public sector productivity, but it has come with little or no public discussion about potential downsides.'

'A panel of five judges, chaired by O’Farrell, will assess 15,000 words of a novel in progress, and both winner and runner-up will receive not only money, but mentoring from Mantel’s literary agency, AM Heath; the publishing house John Murray; and the creative writing charity Arvon.'

'Economic statistics are artefacts of the mid-20th century, invented...to assess industrial economies made up of workers and citizens who dutifully responded to government requests for regular information. Now, as the first quarter of the 21st century draws to a close, that system is in disarray.'

Don’t publish or perish

Labour is at its best when we are clear about whose side we are on, and in whose interests we serve, when our values shine through. I want us to be clear that our objective is to lift children out of poverty and that will mean we need to lift the 2 child benefit cap www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

1/At Macquarie Uni we are losing 50% of our units in my faculty. This is on top of cuts in 2020. We estimate by next year my faculty will be teaching 80% fewer subjects than pre Covid. Disciplines being cut do not have declining enrolments. @jennaprice.bsky.social @michaelwestbiz.bsky.social

'It’s hard to notice absence, but once you do, you cannot unsee it. We studied a procession of male writers, kings and generals, with only an occasional female to give any sign that women had been there too.' 1/2

V glad to be in DC for a conversation at Politics &Prose w Kate Haulman at 3 today about her new book on the politics of motherhood and commemoration. Changing leverage around both framed the mother of the father of the country as the 19thc wanted specific remembrance of the 18thc revolution.

Historians, community leaders, activists and Philadelphians gathered Saturday at The President’s House, located at 6th and Market streets, to oppose potential changes to the historic site’s exhibit on slavery during George Washington’s presidency. whyy.org/articles/sla...

My first Open House today was an incautiously early timed tour of the Whitgift Almshouses, the last bit of the massive foundation of John Whitgift, archbp of Canterbury. Quite a lot of early foundation content and a really nice founding deed.