We’re leading 5 days of industrial action at the University of Dundee. We’re calling on all our members to participate in this action. You can join us on the picket line or strike from home. You can legally join the strike if you aren’t a member of a union The people united will never be defeated.

Blissfully open access.

Lunchtime post: last night saw an Apple/Mac and a ChatGPT advert one after the other on Netflix- Apple's subtle-not-so-subtle message is that AI will solve creative block; OpenAI's literal message is that AI does nothing that old-school search or basic knowledge did not already

If only the UK government hadn't mismanaged the pandemic response... www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Looking forward to presenting along @drdomdavies.bsky.social and @mediocre.bsky.social at the 22nd Annual Historical Materialism conference in our "Comics Against Capitalism" panel on Saturday, 8th 10:00-11:45 GMT. conference.historicalmaterialism.org #ComicsStudies

Attending conferences is an expensive affair, even nationally, but it remains something I continue valuing; I consider it an important way to stay in tune with the work and thinking being done in the disciplines and networks I want to contribute to.

Pandemics will be more extreme if inequalities aren’t tackled, warn global experts BMJ 2025; 391 doi: doi.org/10.1136/bmj.... (Published 04 November 2025)

1. Post-covid immune disregulation sucks. 2. It's not just a short-term after effect. 3. I find fatigue more manageable than brain fog. 4. I have to keep begging tolerance and understanding.

Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein not even mentioned in this lazy Grauniad summary of the Variety report www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no...

Sheffield Hallam was pressured by the Chinese state to shut down research into human rights abuses and gave in. “It’s incredibly worrying that Hallam appears to have silenced its own professor on behalf of a foreign government.” Jo Grady. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Our annual report 2024–2025 is OUT! It highlights collaborations, journal flips, latest dev work from @janewayolh.bsky.social, new staff and more! Library memberships grew by 25%, an incredible achievement at such a difficult time for higher education!

the future is bright

🔥

🚀

Do we believe them? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Allhallowtide: Ofrenda de muertos vinyl-only mixtape www.mixcloud.com/epriego/allh... #nowplaying #mixcloud

Never good if a union's in Private Eye.

It was a dear friend who passed recently who introduced me to this band and this track. In memoriam. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKCO...

Otro detalle de otro año, 2023.

🔊

If there's one Mexican tradition that I do continue here in the UK it's setting up our día de muertos altar. It connects me to my past and my present and makes me mindful of the future. Been thinking of altares/ofrendas in terms of user interaction recently.

Hypothetical question: if you are a university lecturer giving your lecture and you notice that one (or more!) of your students are wearing these 'smart' glasses, what do you do?

“I think they are a profoundly antisocial technology that should be rejected in every way possible. Their very existence is toxic to the social fabric.” -- @hypervisible.blacksky.app absofuckinglutely

Zuckerberg's expression here: poster boy for the existential horrors of this century

If UK journalism had the combination of resources and an interest to be truly investigative, they would be able to connect the dots and ask the right questions about events. Instead we just have isolated 'news' items that merely repeat press releases as if there were no background.

All in the context of The University of Derby's new £75m business school. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Would be helpful if this item were not paywalled - it's the public who need to know about this too.

‘Suffering’ British Library staff take to picket lines. Library “operating reduced service” as PCS members demand better pay, two years on from cyberattack. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...

And some of us having been saying exactly that for 15 years at least, to little sway from the status quo, in spite of all the progress exemplified by @openlibhums.org, @doaj.bsky.social, @openbookcollective.bsky.social etc.

Excited for this hybrid launch of Graphic Refuge with my co-author @crifkind.bsky.social and colleague @ernestopriego. Join us on 19 Nov for a discussion of the way comics intervene in our anti-migrant visual culture with relations of refuge. And some beautiful pictures of some beautiful comics!

Sharing a draft that never saw the light... #ComicsStudies

Our research on #GraphicMedicine gets a brief mention in "Assessing the psychometric properties of a Comic Book rating Scale to evaluate health information" - goo.gl/scholar/agvMCd #ScholarAlerts

⚒️ Happy Monday. Bit more light in the mornings; darker earlier in the evenings after return to GMT. Week 5 of 11 teaching term weeks starting for us. Push.

Comics is... doi.org/10.6084/m9.f...

#np www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pla... cc @kjsanders.bsky.social

You can't even trust Nazi fans these days to really know their Nazi stuff. If they are going to be Nazi fans, they should at least educate themselves properly about Nazism, including its iconography. Basic cultural literacy FFS.

week 4 of 11 weeks Friday 18:38 BST

:-(

"Providers must ensure that their recruitment practices are [...] not materially at risk from volatile overseas markets." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

haha copyright literacy matters, kiddos

Our #DesignJustice students have been critically engaging with this topic for the last three years since the module ran for the first time. The BBC has published this piece today, 24 September 2025. www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc...

Indeed beware. And this will increase the general perception that GenAI chatbots have replaced search engines and web browsers.

Today I attended this @openlibhums.org webinar www.openlibhums.org/news/862/ #OAweek #OpenAccess

Reasons to be cheerful (not). A thread.

Still time to register! Join today’s #OAWeek webinar “Mainstreaming Diamond: Regional Perspectives, Shared Futures” — 1pm BST. Register here: www.openlibhums.org/news/862/

Love her handwriting and choice of ink. Uncannily familiar.

I have measured out my life with logins, software updates, recaptchas and MFAs

Back before the mobile Web dominated everything, the late Mexican cultural critic Carlos Monsiváis used to have a newspaper column called "Para documentar nuestro optimismo" where he compiled factual reports demonstrating, of course, there was little room for optimism if one was aware of the facts.

Sad news. RIP

Co-authored by @drdomdavies.bsky.social and @crifkind.bsky.social, Graphic Refuge (@wlupress.bsky.social 2025) explores graphic narratives about a range of refugee experiences. You're invited to a panel event to celebrate the book: www.hcid.city/news/graphic...