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…

I was up early today to virtually join the History Education, Diversity, and Inclusion conf. I had a blast giving my paper on Creativity in the history classroom. Like most academics in week 4 I was hugging a lemsip. I loved Sarah Holland & @amfoster.bsky.social’s papers about disability inclusion!🙌🏻

Today I arrived in class to students having an animated convo about this week’s primary source reading. They seemed shocked by Jack’s mother’s behaviour to Beatie. It kicked started a lovely seminar on courtship&love. It really cemented a feeling I have right now that post-pandemic teaching is back.

'A man smoking a pipe overlooking the Thames with the Monument and St. Magnus Martyr beyond' (1911) by Savage W Cooper (Private collection)

I am absolutely thrilled that Karin Meredith’s dissertation on c19th beauty culture in advertisements has been hightly commended by @womenshistnet.bsky.social. It was perhaps the best diss I’ve ever had the delight to supervise! I’m so proud of her &with @ljmuhistory.bsky.social send hearty congrats

Part 1 of McEwan’s What we can know is amazing. It follows its protagonist’s attempts to find a lost 2014 poem. Set in 2119 when much of Britain is submerged under water, it feels like a love letter to the quirks & pitfalls of historical researcher esp know that the bodleian is on top of Snowdonia

Today I headed into Liverpool’s fabric district by my uni to replenish my seminar sewing supplies 🪡 🧵 . I end up discovering the amazing Abakhan Fabrics, where I wished that I was more crafty. The whole area had some incredible street art. This was genuinely a lovely way to prep for class tomorrow.

‘I wish we had another hour’/ ‘This is so much fun’/ ‘I’m finding this calming’. All the things my students said today in my c19th gender seminar where they made scrapbook pages based on conduct literature extracts. This is 1 of my fav sessions. I’ve got really good vibes for this year!

Yday @riacheyne.bsky.social & I marked the end of Disabled Researchers Network at LJMU by running an event showing what we’ve done &future directions. It’s been a privilege to led on this work the last 2 years. Still more needs to be done but I’m proud I did something! www.ljmu.ac.uk/ris/research...

'Even when women were mentioned, the report found they were more often victims than protagonists, with the women murdered by Jack the Ripper more likely to be taught in lessons than the female code breakers at Bletchley Park during the second world war 1/2

I’ve had one of those heartening days of setting up 2 modules&meeting with diss students. My impassioned discussion of why gender matters & why we should study it now went down so well that a student came up to me at the end & told me that they can already tell they’re going to enjoy the module.