We're about $1000 away from the halfway mark! (I know I'm supposed to be signed off for the weekend but that's good news I wanted to share.)

On the first night of winter, St. Nautilus flies through the air, pelting good children with candy and dousing the naughty ones in ink.

Morning.

The last The Inside Story of 2025. Our weekly newsletter will be back in 2026!

This poetic/critical piece reflects on nine criminal prosecutions for suspected ‘illegal’ abortion in England that occurred between 2012 & 2025. This essay-meditation evokes the haunting, suffocation & cruelty imposed by the criminalisation of abortion. Read here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

If there only was a word for a governing system in which one set of laws applied to people of a specific race, and a completely different and much harsher set of laws applied to those of another race... www.cbc.ca/news/world/i...

Amnesty calls for blocking German-owned ship carrying arms components bound for Israel

Chicago is having none of this administration's BS.

We are hiring a PhD to work on climate politics and class! Come join us in Copenhagen

The condescension our white colleagues usually reserve for us. Their white saviorism.

billionaire: i have 3 brains. in my skull interviewer: incredible

Die PDFs von "Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe", Band 1-7: drive.google.com/drive/folder...

The UNC system just released its final policy on mandatory syllabi disclosure, stating that syllabi are university (not faculty) IP and certain course info must be posted on new, publicly searchable databases before every semester. A thread about what's changed from the draft I reported on earlier:

As a huge fan of ███████ I feel gutted right now. Just an absolute betrayal of everything I thought ███████ stood for.

Time for our annual viewing of the academia-themed Just in Time for Christmas, in which she gets cold called by the “Dean of Yale,” who wants to publish her dissertation because it will be a bestseller and offers a flyout for a job she didn’t apply for, and mystical William Shatner shakes things up.

“while in the past the emphasis may have been on processing cases quickly and reducing wait times, our embassies and consulates around the world, including in India, are now prioritizing thoroughly vetting each visa case above all else” www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

Thus redacted Zarathustra

This studio awards-season email is really matching the current mood in a way I’m not sure they intended.

Black Square, by Kazimir Malevich, 1923

A non-existent paper attributed to ‪Ben Williamson‬ has already been cited 42 times. It's like Scholarly Communication has been injected with misinformation bombs. Events are totally out of control. No one has a handle on its extent. And, there's no plan to stop it. @benpatrickwill.bsky.social

My latest: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

When I'm feeling particularly hopeless about the future of professoring as a profession, I try to remind myself: That's what they want. They want us to not want to be professors anymore.

"An academic discovers a paper attributed to him that does not exist has been cited 42 times" is a sentence with an actual referent in 2025.

A gentle reminder if you've received an invoice from a Freelancer/Self employed person which is due before Christmas. Be a love, and pay it today.

Here, for @historyworkshop.org.uk I discuss the history of a refuge for trans women. I show women’s shared experiences of violence across the spectrum of cis and trans. I highlight histories of solidarity against male violence by feminists and trans women. academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-...

slow day in the office so figured we'd start some beef with museums

New School “administrators have started to implement a plan to close, overhaul or merge about 30 academic programs or majors; pause nearly all admissions to doctoral programs; and offer buyouts or early retirement to what professors say is about 40 percent of the full-time faculty.”

i know it's still a work day but christmas food rules apply: had pastel de nata for breakfast

My response to anything over the next two weeks

New article out 🎉 Drawing on my PhD research, I explore the construction of the 'prostitute' and the 'client' within England's AIDS Policy in the late 1980s. Published with the @sshmedicine.bsky.social and now available to read here (though sadly not open access!): #histmed #histsex #AIDShistory

Now an annual tradition at History Workshop, members of the team share their "Radical Reads" for 2025.

France exonerates women convicted over abortions before legalisation

I fear people don't know what it means to be part of a minoritized group. not being listened to/believed is a universal experience of minoritization

Palestinian universities are facing an unprecedented threat, with systematic attacks and entire campuses in Gaza reduced to rubble. In short, this is scholastacide. Please donate and support the urgent work of Friends of Palestinian Universities cafdonate.cafonline.org/29528#!/Dona...