New on the BARS Blog! BARS Stephen Copley Research Award Report: Jenny Tattersall on Dissenting Women Teachers (the Belfast presbyterian educationalists Martha McTier (1742 – 1837) and Mary Ann McCracken (1770 – 1866). www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6321

Romantic Adaptations: Situating del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025) In this post, we welcome @jodielmarley.bsky.social back to the BARS blog to discuss Guillermo del Toro’s recent adaptation of Frankenstein, starring Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, and Mia Goth. www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6278

Call for Papers: Placing the Nineteenth Century: A PGR/ECR Conference Friday 26th June 2026 Edge Hill University For more info and the full CfP see the BARS Blog link⤵️ www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6343

New on the BARS Blog! Five Questions: @jodielmarley.bsky.social on William Blake’s Mysticism Her first monograph, which we discuss below, was recently published by Palgrave Macmillan. www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6309

Christian I of Norway failed to pay a dowry for his daughter Margaret, queen to James III – so #Orkney & #Shetland were annexed by the Scottish crown #OTD, 20 Feb 1472 NORTHERN-NESS looks at literature from the northern isles, from the sagas to the far future www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2019/07/nort...

It’s been a long week in a stressful few months. The bairn has been at home sick during half term - 4th virus since December. She was finally seeming better but now having night terrors every half an hour.

We are advertising 4 jobs at York for historians (1 year medieval, 2 years modern Britain and public history, 3 years modern China, and open ended modern Middle Eastern) features.york.ac.uk/history-jobs/

21 MILLION? Oh. 😱 That's the end of some universities then. It's as simple as that. I'm sorry, I tried. www.ft.com/content/a0cf...

But the education they got didn't cost 1/3 less. Staff worked more hours, v few could be furloughed, all buildings were in at least partial use aside from March-July 2020, library costs stayed the same, IT costs went up massively etc.

They are not buying a good, they're paying a quasi-tax for an education. Still less do they have the right to wreck students' experiences now because of what happened to them.

Getting shown up in the arena of elite impunity by *the British monarchy* is an incredible “America at 250!” achievement

Things that would be interesting to know about the current contraction of UK academic staffing (and that it would actually be super helpful if REF2029 institutional SPRE statements were required to report on) include: What's the impact on the equality and diversity of academic staffing? 1/3

Okay, this is quite outstanding from Bedford Council.

Someone I really care about worked themselves into chronic illness - a disability they still have, by helping their institution maintain services during lockdown, working all the hours while they themselves were suffering from Covid. I’m sure they’re not the only one.

In the UK academic recession, you will be at one of these stages since many unis buy the same cuts model from the same consultancies. It is always the same process: *Talk of belt-tightening *Incidental savings (e.g. printing, refreshments) *Travel budgets cut *Promotion freeze (1/4)

This is all down to universities being excluded from the furlough scheme, which meant they were effectively forced to carry on rather than giving students the option of pausing for a year or going online. Entirely on the government imo

Mood for this week. If ye knah, ye knah.

Call for Papers: 'Scotland and the In-Between', the annual Société française d’études écossaises (French Society for Scottish Studies) conference (Université de Lorraine, 12-14 Nov 2026). Proposals for papers in French or English are due 28th April. More on the blog: www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6338

Not really. The 2 most specialised universities are Cal Tech (ranked 7th) and Imperial (8th). Neither performs as highly as MIT (2nd), which outside its STEM strengths ranks 1st in Arts & Humanities, 1st in Business and 1st in Social Sciences. 3/5

If research excellence is linked to research specialisation, why don't more specialist universities routinely outcompete more generalist ones in global league tables? And should UK HEIs intent to climb the rankings think twice before mothballing their Arts & Humanities? Asking for a friend. 1/5

Slavoj Zizek, Armitage Shanks’ philosopher, sweating, wiping his nose, scratching his beard: ‘Imagine how hard it is for toilets to understand their own function!’

Call for Contributions: 'To Be Forever Known: The Brontës and Poetry', a special issue of Brontë Studies, edited by @drbeard79.bsky.social 500-word abstracts due by 1st April. More details on the blog: www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6317

The curling has broken my heart. . In practise, it’s my knees (and ego) that normally take the strain 🥌 Great effort from Team GB 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Episode 4 is out: Scottish Folk and European Music with Kirsteen McCue, Professor of Scottish Literature and Song Culture at @glasgow.ac.uk We discuss the history of Scottish folk music and particularly its influence on the birth of modern music — from Beethoven to Bob Dylan. 🎼🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Link⬇️

Can I just have a week when I’m not sick with something?

We can’t go under it. We can’t go over it. We have to go… Just a wee bit of flooding here in Northumberland

Call for papers: Romanticism Beyond Europe: Global Circulations, Translations and Transnational Literatures (London, September 2027) Details on the blog: www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6301

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

"It is just that [my] approach suits me ... It holds so much of interest to the enquiring mind, looking not just at symptoms & results, but at the ways we think, the ways we feel, the ways we relate, and ... the relationship between... the inner and the outer world" - this is why I ❤️ Michael Jacobs

'This year, The Reading Agency will launch Quick Reads as audiobooks for the first time, as well as giving half a million Quick Reads books to prisons across the UK.'

Somebody already did this for 2025 (& I would give credit if I could find the post). But in fact January deserves its own censure from Lady Catherine de Bourgh: I take no leave of you, January. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.

Jupiter and the moon just out there, hanging out

this is what it’s all about

❤️

Rest In Power, you absolute Queen 😭 #catherineohara

Very proud of all my PhD students this week for various reasons. It can be a tough balancing act to manage projects at best of times. Delighted that my most recent has passed her progression viva. After only 3 months working on the project, she rose to the daunting occasion with brilliance.

Having slept a grand total of 3 hours last night and eaten mouldy yoghurt for breakfast, I’m dialling back on my optimism of yesterday.

A bit knackered as we approach the end of the first teaching week of Semester 2 (still in the marking period to boot) and big admin and health challenges on the horizon. It has been energizing to teach first year again (as part of a brilliant teaching team).

It’s been and gone on the box but journalist, producer and musician Mike Gaston put together this lovely wee programme on Robert Burns this week and yours truly had the honour of contributing: youtu.be/WMI63VHziZ0?... #burnsnight #robertburns

A smart piece, looking beyond the hype to the humans.

I often hear people say Burns doesn’t do it for them (often based on ‘To a Haggis’ or the first line of ‘To a Mouse’; I thought I’d share my favourite ‘Is There For Honest Poverty’: you are not what you earn or who your parents are but what’s inside the heart.

One thing I've been very pleased to see in this year's cohort of essays is how many students chose to write on the Ulster Romantic poets. I feel a bit sad to have so few on Pope and Gray, but it does feel like a balance is shifting a little in terms of departing from the canonical.

This is an old article but I find this research really interesting, especially with attitudes changing toward the controlled use of psychedelics in some forms of therapy: www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

Pleased to have joined The Criminal Bar Association in Parliament this week on their #JusticeNeedsJuries campaign alongside my colleague Karl Turner MP We need to take action to end delays in the criminal justice system but removing the right to a trial by jury is not the way to do it.

This has now hit the shelves via Cambridge "Elements in Eighteenth-Century Connections” series: lnkd.in/e3W3yNRM Delighted to see this important transcultural network studies research getting out there (obviously I'm biased because this is my area too) and hope others will give it some love

Dramatic connection between Burns Night & Suffragettes💥 July 1914 Burns’ cottage was the site of a very different event from the usual Burns Night celebrations- when militant suffragettes Fanny Parker and Ethel Moorhead were caught by the nightwatchman apparently attempting to blow the cottage up.

Aside from AI, the biggest failure in UG research process that I'm seeing is reluctance to engage with recommended secondary criticism, even when it is available as a PDF on the VLE. Esp when compared to the number of sources I consulted routinely as an UG for my weekly *formative* assignment.

I keep seeing student work referring to 'ethical readings'/perspectives; 2 yrs ago, 'moral' would have been used (we are talking about the long 18th century). Is this a cultural shift (like social-->societal) or something to do with the research process they're using? Have others noticed this?