We (@leedsprhs.bsky.social) are super-excited that Megan Hyska (currently at Northwestern) will be joining University of Leeds as associate professor of philosophy in August. Her research focuses especially on questions about political communication. dailynous.com/2026/02/06/h... #philosophy

I expect to spend today staring at this: ‘we’ve gone from government suggesting that the state would subsidise undergraduate student loans by about 45p in the pound, to making a profit on them for that cohort’. A *profit* on student loans: everyone should read this. 🤯 wonkhe.com/blogs/gradua...

A timely clarification of UKRI plans from its chief exec.

1/ This pause is obviously concerning to researchers & universities & I’d like to specifically register the point that if the reason of ‘aligning with national priorities’ means more policy-driven & less free ideas-driven research then this move is of even more concern. www.msn.com/en-in/politi...

Just a normal Friday night in Finland. That's our president reading one of Tove Jansson's Moomin books live on public broadcasting TV. He's reading it in Swedish; the next book in the Moomin reading marathon will be read in Finnish.

Rufo is only talking about Scandinavians but yes, Nordic people (Scandi or not) can proudly stand together on this.

📣JOB ALERT📣 Lectureship in Liberal Arts and Philosophy/Religion at University of Leeds. We are looking for an academic at Philosophy/Religion interface to run our Liberal Arts BA programme. Closing date: 01 February 2026. More info at: jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx... #Philosophy #PhilosophyJobs

Credit @sophiep25397.bsky.social on Twitter Farage lied when he said he was too ill to appear for the BBC interview on Sunday. The Heartland Institute, whose party he attended instead, doesn't believe in tobacco harms, climate change and seeks the dismantling of the NHS. Be warned. If you care

Kash Patel going to a big meeting of the intelligence chiefs in England and asking if they can go jet skiing instead of having a normal meeting is really doing a number on my ability to focus

Finally, a flag worth fighting for.

As long as I've been doing journal editing, a strong default among my fellow editors has been not to ask the central target(s) of a paper to referee it. The rationale has always included the possibility of harshness AND the incentives to get one's work discussed. I thought this was widely known!

📣JOB ALERT📣 Lectureship in Liberal Arts and Philosophy/Religion at University of Leeds. We are looking for an academic at Philosophy/Religion interface to run our Liberal Arts BA programme. Closing date: 01 February 2026. More info at: jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx... #Philosophy #PhilosophyJobs

Martin Peterson's creative response to being banned from teaching Plato (shared with his permission).

We pour billions into saving an economically tiny steel industry whilst actively destroying one of our largest export industries. (Yes, higher education to overseas students who already massively subsidise UK students, are counted as exports).

<thick german accent> The jungle is a place of pure negation... #philosophy #philsky #philosophysky #hegel #herzog #film

CFP: 2026 British Society for Ethical Theory Conference (13-14 July 2026 at University of Leeds). Keynotes: Krister Bykvist (Stockholm), Jennifer Saul (Waterloo). Paper submission deadline: 1 Dec 2025. More info at www.bset.org.uk. This is consistently a very high-quality conference! #philosophy

CFP: The Leeds Analytic Philosophy Graduate Conference, 20-21 April 2026. Abstract submission deadline 15 Nov 2025. Each speaker will present for 30 minutes followed by a 10-minute faculty response and 20-minute general Q&A. More info: philevents.org/event/show/1.... Spread the word! #philosophy

Ed Luce watching democracy die in the United States of America

To be clear, the Conservatives, as His Majesty's Official Opposition, have drafted legislation which they propose to use, and which would allow for the deportation of tens of thousands of people from the United Kingdom. And provide arbitrary power to extend the conditions for such deportation.

Astonishing when you see it like this.

The “health surcharge” is an utterly bogus labelling. It’s not hypothecated for health spending and you can’t choose not to pay it and not use the NHS. You could call it an education surcharge or a defence surcharge or anything. It’s just using the sanctified status of the NHS to rip off immigrants.

"I have a decent fluency in LLMs, and they have utility, but the absurd degree of over-hype, the way they're being forced on everyone, and the insistence on ignoring the many valid critiques about them make it very difficult to focus on legitimate uses where they might add value."

You gently run your hand through the rack. You can feel it—pure cotton, rich wool, Irish linen. The plump buttonholes are handsewn; the buttons attached with a firm shank. You flip the price tag over. It's affordable You buy the jacket and go home, which is only 15 mins away. Your apt is $600/month

For anyone working in Cool Philosophy (social philosophy intersected with M&E), this looks like a fantastic opportunity! philjobs.org/job/show/30010

Our philosophy job ad is also up on PhilJobs now: philjobs.org/job/show/30010 #PhilosophyJobs

Great city, great colleagues; if you fit the (quite flexible) profile, you should apply.

📣JOB ALERT📣 Lecturer or Associate Professor in Philosophy at University of Leeds. AOS: Social Philosophy + at least one of: Metaphysics, Epistemology, or Philosophy of Language, Logic, Mind, or Action. Details at jobs.leeds.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx.... Closing date 5 Nov 2025. #philosophy 1/2

Miira Tuominen and I edited this new book from Brill with no fewer than 25 chapters on various aspects of ancient and medieval philosophy in Greek, Arabic, and Latin texts. Actually there's a little Persian in there too. brill.com/display/titl...

Trump is building a personalist regime where every university must bend the knee or lose funding and every business must bend the knee or face tariffs, H-1B fees, and regulatory blackmail. You can't cover each domain in isolation; they are all the same story.

Top-level shitposting.🤌

Anyone in Athens soon, visit the "Why Look at Animals?" exhibition at EMST. Of course varied, but a high hit rate. I LOVED the 8 conceptually and visually amazing chronophotographs of bird flight paths by Xavi Bou (xavibou.com). His Ornitographies book at home on a lazy Saturday is a real treat. 1/2

The October 2025 issue of ETHICS is now available on the University of Chicago Press site www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/et/2025/... #philsky #PolTheory #legalphil #moralphil #moralphilosophy #legalphilosophy

Well done Songkick.

I hope more people will come to a long overdue realization that academia dot edu is an utter crap company.

Finding new, more foolish, ways to make the future of the UK's higher education sector more perilous isn't easy, but somehow the head of the OfS has managed it. The decision to create that organisation was a disaster.

This is so well done. Pretty much all killer no filler.

Columbia University has handed over its undergraduate admissions process to Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, who will now decide at their sole discretion whether the university has admitted enough white people. It's no longer an independent institution.

we would be in a much better state in this country if we stopped focusing on anointing a chosen few working class students into Oxbridge, and instead properly funded all the different sorts of universities that attract students from a wide range of backgrounds already

Call for Registration: A two-day conference (Sept 18-19) at University of Leeds in honor of the work of Helen Steward and Scott Shalkowski -- two excellent philosophers and colleagues who are retiring. Details and free registration at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/conference... #philsky 1/2

The July 2025 issue of ETHICS is now available on the University of Chicago Press site www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/et/2025/... #philsky #PolTheory #legalphil #moralphil #moralphilosophy #legalphilosophy

In transit to FrankMeta.7. Very much looking forward to a bunch of interesting talks and good discussions! And then one tentative oddball paper that'll kick it all off... #philsky www.frankfurt-school.de/en/home/rese...

unions: they get the job done

"support diverted from certain subjects including journalism and media studies towards lab-based courses" we ALREADY DO THIS, it is why the tuition fee is the same for humanities subjects as STEM subjects, we cross-subsidize internally across faculties, why do no government ministers understand this

Foundations of Morality workshop at the University of Leeds, June 10-11. Keynotes: Julia Driver (UT Austin) and Michael Smith (Princeton). Programme and registration details are now up at philevents.org/event/show/1.... Registration deadline: June 1st. Join us there! #Philosophy

Here's a link to the survey: bristolexppsych.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Here's that rare thing: an academic survey I am going to fill in. #ref2029

Now it's nearly 270 university presidents who have signed onto this "unprecedented government overreach" public letter. It was less than 180 this morning. www.aacu.org/newsroom/a-c... Universities, and judges, taking the lead in standing up.

Home Office visa fees are an utter racket, which all international academics working in the UK know from firsthand experience.

The core trilma here remains the same - the govt needs to accept one of three things: high student migration, higher domestic student fees (or higher taxes to fund universities) or university bankruptcies. Those are the only options, given where we are. Pick one.