For anyone in London I’m going to be giving a paper on settlement bedrooms on 19th February, 6.30-8.00. I’ll share titbits on how they were used by settlers&wardens. I’ll also discuss servants too! This will be with a building tour of Oxford House, Bethnal Green! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/building-t...

It’s really lovely to see @cathfeely.bsky.social & my Creative History in the Classroom Forum out in @hisjournalha.bsky.social. There’s lots of suggestions here for using creativity from activities, assessments, to why now… onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1468229x... #skyhistorians #highereducation

I think outlook should bring in festive emoticons. All I want to do today in my bloated inbox is plant a forest of Christmas trees🎄 & sprinkle snowflakes ❄️ all over my emails….

While I'm marking, my cat is pondering whether Santa will be coming down the office chimney next week... #proofofcat

Hello! I’m seeking volunteers to be interviewed for my PhD thesis on the cultural significance of the tailored suit within queer communities during the 1970s and 1980s. If you’re interested and would like more information, please contact me. Thank you, and feel free to share this with your networks!

Yesterday I was given a commendation (& a certificate) for my EDI work with the Disabled Researchers project. It’s really lovely to have this work recognised by those that nominated me/us. It really wouldn’t be possible with the wonderful @riacheyne.bsky.social! Your name should also be here.

Yesterday I was given a commendation (& a certificate) for my EDI work with the Disabled Researchers project. It’s really lovely to have this work recognised by those that nominated me/us. It really wouldn’t be possible with the wonderful @riacheyne.bsky.social! Your name should also be here.

I’m not gonna lie I think the gift tag I’ve made for my book club secret Santa is beyond cute and gleeful. We are doing a secret book swap of the books we love and I’ve chosen the mahoosive 700+ page London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins so I’m hoping the wrapping sells it…

& that’s a wrap on semester 1 teaching. For class this morning I hosted a tea party where we concluded the module, wrote on a table cloth, nattered, drink tea and ate cake. Students said some lovely things about my teaching and the module. I left a tired, but delighted lecturer.

Sometimes, I reminisce about academic Twitter the same way I reminisce about theater camp. We were all together in this wonderful and complicated and often messy space for a short time, where we built community and created something wonderful. Then the summer ended, and the magic was gone.

As a disabled historian I am so pleased that History UK (co-funded with @royalhistsoc.org) have published their report on disabled student & staff experiences of #highereducation & history. It makes for a difficult reading at times, but none of it is surprising. www.history-uk.ac.uk/projects/his...

#SkyStorians #HIstory Triple article drop! First up a forum piece by @luciejones83.bsky.social 'Making and Defining the Creative History Classroom: An Introduction', OA, doi.org/10.1111/1468...

How are higher education peeps responding to AI in their creative assessments / #unessay work? I’m slightly anxious by the way AI can be used to make primary sources, but I don’t want to restrict students to only crafted or handmade assessments. #skyhistorians

I’ve just walked past some college students making a music video & it’s given me flashbacks to when I did A Level Media Studies-like 20 years ago-we also made a music video! I do make a cameo. We really loved the fade & sepia filter. I’M GLAD THAT NO COPIES OF THIS EXIST ANYWHERE (at least I hope)

For the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, @riacheyne.bsky.social & I gave a short talk to uni research leaders on our Disabled Researchers project. I hope it encouraged some thought on dismantling the barriers disabled researchers face. We need a research culture where all can thrive.

You may have noticed that I talk A LOT abt creative methods in my teaching. Well I’ve explained in this piece why it’s important for student learning& wellbeing as well as being fun. I use this as opportunity to define creativity & how we are creative teachers onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I’ve had a lovely afternoon chatting settlement history in Shoreditch today. It’s always fun sharing my titbits with settlements which ended with some strolling around the boundary estate. This might be one of favourite things to do as a historian.

You may have noticed that I talk A LOT abt creative methods in my teaching. Well I’ve explained in this piece why it’s important for student learning& wellbeing as well as being fun. I use this as opportunity to define creativity & how we are creative teachers onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

I had a student tell me today that one of the reasons they loved my c19th gender history module was because it made them feel really clever AND I can’t stop feeling pleased by this observation. I’ve never had someone say this to me before and it was strangely joyful.

Had a really productive afternoon after at Liverpool’s Colonial Legacies’ event on archives & uncovering voices. The papers were thought provoking&stimulating (esp because mainly papers reflected on creative methods). I really liked the hands-on activity; tracing a Liverpool doorway from a photo

BAVS2026 has a shiny new website! www.ljmu.ac.uk/bavs2026! To celebrate, we are extending our CFP to December 12th. Do come and join us

Rochdale chippy owners Jimmy and Elsie Greenwood with their coal-fired fryer, May 1973.

Judith Butler in 2021

‘School trip!’ enthusiastically declared my students when I told them earlier this week we were leaving off to Liverpool’s Walker Gallery. I’m such a fan of off site activities. It was defo welcomed as I enter another week with a cold and made all the better when 1 student told me ‘they loved it’!

It’s amazing to think that my 1st lecturing gig saw me use acetate sheets&overhead projectors & not 15 years later I’m being asked to increase my AI capabilities through an institutional AI Academy &chatbot. I can’t help feeling that somewhere there is a grumpy male academic rolling in their grave.

Busy but brilliant week on the Divergent Minds in the Archive project: co-ran our "Accessing Archives and Collections" symposium Mon & Tues, now en route to Heriot-Watt to talk about our findings at the @edicaucus.bsky.social symposium! #Neurodiversity

Today @riacheyne.bsky.social, @amfoster.bsky.social & I showcased our Divergent Minds in the Archive project. It a great event & lovely to be able to talk about what we’ve done from our data collection, graphics, accessibility guide & zines. Thanks to everyone who came & your lovely comments!

This afternoon I had one of my fav lectures: the Victorian Body. It’s interactive. I set up scholarship & prompts and then students look at archival material from @ljmu-sca.bsky.social. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful uni archive close to hand. Thanks Christopher for such great material!

Every Friday homeworker deserves to have a snuggly purring cat on their lap no matter how uncomfortable it is. #proofofcat

Inspired by Matt Smith’s LGBTI Untold Story plates (pic 1) I asked my 2nd year gender history students to design and make plates based on the Oscar Wilde transcript they read in class. It was really good fun.

Still time to register for this free online event next week! With fantastic contributions from @nlisn.bsky.social @ukdishisthub.bsky.social @neurodiversemuseum.bsky.social @owenbarden.bsky.social @louisebell.bsky.social @sambrady.bsky.social and many more!

“Among the fallen beech leaves” Artist: CF Tunnicliffe (What to Look for in Autumn, 1960)

🍂Crisp autumn park walks are the best park walks 🍁🍂

I’ve just been invited to give my first keynote paper. So I did what this email truly deserved I squealed at my desk and wrote my acceptance reply with a big smile on my face and that’s such a nice way to start my Friday…

When you’ve been away for a few days and your feline forever best friend wants to make sure that you haven’t forgotten them and that they are available for head scratches and chin rubs… #proofofcat

How is the digital creative? Check out Jamie Wood’s article ‘Creativity&Historical Inquiry in Digital Spaces’. It’s the penultimate early view article for @cathfeely.bsky.social &my special issue on creative history for @hisjournalha.bsky.social! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Not sure if I’m mad or a fool but my request to bring back an exam for my third year module Victorian Cities has been signed off by all. Will anyone sign up for my module now? Will my bring your own-primary-sources-and-notes to the exam work? Who knows, everything rests with the exam gods now.

We've teamed up with @amfoster.bsky.social's brilliant 'Accessible Pasts, Equitable Future' project for a TWO day event (17-18 Nov) on archives, accessibility, neurodivergence and disability with some fantastic speakers. Registration link in previous tweet, programme below.

Today I visited the stunning Tyntesfield in Somerset, a @nationaltrust.org.uk house financed by Peruvian bird poo. Remodelled in 1864 it is a striking gothic building. Real credit to the thought provoking exhib on how William Gibbs got his money & the human &environmental effects of the guano trade

It’s lovely to see our BAVS CFP out. If you research/teach any aspect of the Victorian period (broadly defined) do consider joining us! You can submit a paper, roundtable, creative workshops/ pedagogical paper. We really are open to a wide range of talks! victorianist.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/c...

It’s lovely to see our BAVS CFP out. If you research/teach any aspect of the Victorian period (broadly defined) do consider joining us! You can submit a paper, roundtable, creative workshops/ pedagogical paper. We really are open to a wide range of talks! victorianist.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/c...

@emvchung.bsky.social lovely to see your research in the Guardian. I’m even more pleased to see there’s an article too! Congrats!

Behind the sensationalised headline, there’s some excellent and fascinating research here. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

I am today’s workplace hero because it was I who sent an email to nearly 950 recipients suggesting that we start using the BCC line to avoid ‘reply alls’. It was gallantly done and much appreciated by those that send me emails and stopped me in the corridor!

#OtD 19 Oct 1945 the UK Labour govt decided to illegally deport over 1000 Chinese seamen who lived in Liverpool. Even men married to British women were expelled, along with some of their wives who were then stripped of British citizenship stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9142...

I’ve just been sent a certification for presenting and attending a conference. Finally, I have a reason to populate my National Record of Achievement so more certificates higher education peeps please!

I used to feel uncomfortable with silence in the classroom, but I strangely enjoy them when I ask students to be creative because they suggest real concentration. Today this happened when they made blackout poetry from Mona Caird’s Morality of Marriage. This is a fab exercise for close reading.

Is there any greater phrase for a lecturer to hear than ‘I love this module. It’s my favourite’? And, yes, I did nearly burst with joy…

My cat Bluebell is writing a detailed and through treatise on the principle of being an office based based cat. #proofofcat

We’re excited in Liverpool to hear that LJMU will be hosting the fab @bavs-uk.bsky.social conf in July. I can’t wait to see Victorian scholars treading the corridors of my historic c19th building. Well done to @drhorrocks.bsky.social for getting this off the ground! Now to dust of my organisers hat…