Dr Adelene Buckland from @kingsenglish.bsky.social is collating the first history of automated childcare to show it is just a new or futuristic invention, and to chronicle how fantasies, dreams and fears from 200 years ago shape debates on technology today.

👏 Three academics from the Faculty of Arts & Humanities have received @leverhulme.ac.uk Research Fellowships for 2026 ⤵️🧵

Leverhulme Major Research Fellow, Professor Clare Brant explores relations between humans, marine species and oceans over the last hundred years from a novel perspective – underwater 👉 media.leverhulme.ac.uk/feature/cbrant @kingsartshums.bsky.social @kingsenglish.bsky.social

🪼 'Scientists have been sounding alarms about extinctions of marine species for at least 50 years. We urgently need to understand better what science says and why.' Professor Clare Brant's new book brings together 100 years of writings on life underwater 👇 @kingsenglish.bsky.social buff.ly/BlNkn3j

👩‍💻 Officially launched in 2016, @kingsdigitallab.bsky.social partners with researchers, cultural heritage organisations and the creative industries to create new forms of digital scholarship. On the 10th anniversary of King’s Digital Lab, we look back at ten of the lab’s highly impactful projects 🔽

💰 Planning to start the Shakespeare Studies MA in September? You can now apply for a bursary to support with tuition fees. The course is jointly taught by @kingsenglish.bsky.social and Shakespeare's Globe in the heart of London. 🔗 Apply below by 24 August ⬇️ www.kcl.ac.uk/study/fundin...

🤿 What can we learn from an underwater world seen through divers' eyes? On 16 July, join @kingsenglish.bsky.social and the Environmental Humanities Network for the launch of Underwater Lives: Humans, Species, Ocean – a new book by Professor Clare Brant 🐡 🔗 Register ⬇️ www.kcl.ac.uk/events/book-...

Delighted for our MA programmes to feature in this innovative educational pathway by @kingsartshums.bsky.social and @ieuniversity.bsky.social 👏

📓 'Woolf was so ahead of her time around women's rights. So many of the issues she thought about are things we're still dealing with.' Professor Anna Snaith from @kingsenglish.bsky.social discusses the new film Virginia Woolf's Night and Day on Woman's Hour. 🎧 Listen from 09:07: buff.ly/PmF9mtN

🎬 A film adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel Night and Day is released in cinemas today. 'I'm so happy we've got this film because it's going to bring attention to this novel which is quietly radical,' said Professor Snaith, Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature 👇

🇧🇷 How do theatre and performance shape the ways societies remember slavery, resistance and Black political struggle? Join @kingsenglish.bsky.social and @kingsdllc.bsky.social on 24 June to explore the legacy of Zumbi dos Palmares in Brazilian theatre and culture 👇 www.kcl.ac.uk/events/stagi...

🚨 NEW: English with Creative Writing BA This new undergraduate degree gives students the chance to develop their writing skills while studying literature across time, genres and cultures. Learn more at King’s Undergraduate Open Days on 27 June and 5 September 📆

🧵 On 17 June, join us for a seminar with Professor Hanna Rose Shell and hear about her ongoing research into the history and concept of Shoddy — which, long before it meant cheap and rubbish, referred to a versatile material recycled from rags and fabric clippings. Register below ⬇️

On 16 June, Yuqing Xie from @kingsenglish.bsky.social is presenting 'The "wit" of Thomas Hoccleve'. More info linked⬇️ 🗓️ 16 June ⏰ 17:30 GMT 🏛️In person @ihr.bsky.social & 💻 Online Sign up now: bit.ly/londonmedieval

📚️ After winning the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, @karendownsbarton.bsky.social (Creative Writing PhD) shared with us her favourite poetry collections, the poem she wishes she'd written, and which new writers to look out for ⬇️

🏅 Sophie O'Grady (English PhD) has won the @bairishstudies.bsky.social 2026 Postgraduate Essay Prize for her piece on censorship in Irish literature after independence 🇮🇪 @kingsenglish.bsky.social 🔗 Read more ⬇️

We are saddened to hear of the death of alumna Maureen Duffy FKC (English, 1956), author of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays. She stayed connected with @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social throughout her life, including leaving her archive to the university. www.kcl.ac.uk/news/maureen...

🎟️ Have you booked your ticket yet? Professor @drkatedevlin.bsky.social invites you to join us for the Digital Futures Institute Festival of Storytelling on 2-4 June. 🔗 Discover our free event programme: tickettailor.com/events/dfistory

💡 How do points of juncture within academic research and creative practice give rise to new ideas, shaping identity, knowledge and culture? Sign up for Crossroads: People, Places, and Ideas, organised by @kingsenglish.bsky.social PhD students, to find out more ⬇️

🏅 Congratulations to @karendownsbarton.bsky.social (Creative Writing PhD) on winning the John Pollard Poetry Prize for her collection Minx. 'I wanted Minx to challenge literary tropes of marginalised lives, especially of women struggling to hold families together.' 🔗 Read more ⤵️ buff.ly/wh5Y64Mb

🥾 Sign up for the walking tours here 👇 28 May: buff.ly/m7fscKm 4 June: buff.ly/UvzPRGe

📰 Discover the history of print and publishing on the Strand with 'Lost Landscapes of Print', now on display in the Curiosity Cabinet ✨️ Dr Brian Murray and @bearyardpress.bsky.social are leading FREE walking tours of the area on 28 May and 4 June – get a sneak peek in the video below ⬇️

🇨🇲 On 29 May, Eric Ngalle Charles, Cameroonian poet and @kingsenglish.bsky.social PhD student, shares his story of an ancestral charm that could ward off danger in Britain at this event on the secrets of migrant songs and objects on at @hayfestival.bsky.social ⬇️

📖 Explore work that responds to the theme of crossroads critically, creatively, or in a way that sits at the intersection of the two, at the @kingsenglish.bsky.social PGR conference on 2 June, featuring a keynote by @briangdillon.bsky.social 👇 www.kcl.ac.uk/events/cross...

📖 Rachel Long (Creative Writing PhD in @kingsenglish.bsky.social) reads from and discusses her latest poetry collection, Sparrow on the Rooftop, with poet and editor Sarah Howe. 📆 10 June ⏰ 19:00 📍 London Review Bookshop @lrb.co.uk 🔗 Sign up for tickets 👇

🪶 'He was always pushing the language into strange new corners and finding new ways to surprise you and do things that you didn't think were possible.' Dr Luke Roberts from @kingsenglish.bsky.social pays tribute to British post-war poet J.H. Prynne on BBC Front Row. 🎧️ Listen from 24:35 ⤵️

🐦‍⬛ 'What does it say about people that they revere pelicans (viewing them as a Christian symbol of selflessness) but despise cormorants?' Professor Gordon McMullan's research on why the cormorant is so hated is reviewed in @economist.com ⤵️ buff.ly/JXmh5KO @kingsenglish.bsky.social

🏆️ Congratulations to Zuzu Burton, student in @kingsenglish.bsky.social on winning the Undergraduate Essay Prize from @officialbaas.bsky.social. Zuzu explored the tension between spirituality and the realities of violence embedded in the land in Homecoming by Marilynne Robinson ⬇️

🎉 Meet the winners of the 2026 Cosmo Davenport-Hines Poetry Prize hosted by @kingsenglish.bsky.social... This year's winners and runners-up are Bella Steiner, Shaz Baker, Billy Smith and Grace Brimacombe-Rand. Their work will feature in Wild Court. 🔗 Discover the inspiration behind their writing 👇

🪶 'The prejudice remains, and it is destructive both to the natural world and to human society.' Understanding the cormorant can teach us about human prejudice, says Professor Gordon McMullan from @kingsenglish.bsky.social in a new book published by @universitypress.cambridge.org ⬇️

🕯️ 'For centuries, that was the only way we read books — together.' As reading retreats and book clubs become increasingly popular, Professor Abigail Williams discusses the resurgence of sociable reading in @bloomberg.com 👇 www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

🔍 Shakespeare's 'missing' London property has been mapped for the first time by Professor Lucy Munro (@lucycmunro.bsky.social) from @kingsenglish.bsky.social. Professor Munro found a floor plan revealing the house's exact location and size in Blackfriars, London. Learn more about her discovery ⬇️ 🧵

“To be, or not to be… located?” 📍 A King’s academic has solved a 400-year-old mystery, pinpointing the exact site of William Shakespeare’s London home. (1/4)

✒️ Interested in the ethics of survivor testimony and witness literature? Dr Zoe Norridge from @kingsenglish.bsky.social & @kingsdllc.bsky.social contributes to this panel discussion, hosted by @warstudieskcl.bsky.social and @kingssocialscience.bsky.social ⤵️

🤔 What do we know about gender and sexuality in medieval times? Shape the future of queer medieval studies at this workshop hosted by Queer@King's and the Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies on 5 June 🏳️‍🌈 🏰 @kingsdh.bsky.social @kingsdllc.bsky.social 🔗 Register ⬇️

Professor Kélina Gotman, Professor of Performance and the Humanities in @kingsenglish.bsky.social, explores some of the strands that have underpinned ‘performance’ discourse over the past 150 years at this Inaugural Professorial Lecture on 18 May. 🔗 Register ⬇️

💌 Discover how letters were sealed in the age before the envelope with @letterlocking.bsky.social & @kingsenglish.bsky.social. This video shows how to use the guides in the book to create your own sealed correspondence with techniques used by everyone from workers to royalty 👑 ⤵️ buff.ly/cIHkPoq

🪶 Professor Lucy Munro and Dr Hannah Crawforth from @kingsenglish.bsky.social will share their discoveries about Shakespeare’s links to Blackfriars and how London shaped his plays at the Fleet Street Quarter Festival of Words. 📆 14 May ⏰ 18:00-19:00 📍 Dr Johnson's House Tickets ⬇️

📢 'Ms Feigel’s subject is “the secret history of mothers”. She uses seven subjects to show how women helped forge new laws and shape attitudes concerning the right to parent after marital dissolution.' @economist.com reviews Custody by Professor Lara Feigel from @kingsenglish.bsky.social ⤵️

🏆 Two of our academics were recognised at the @kingsartshums.bsky.social Awards on 25 March. Dr John Connor won the Outstanding Educator prize and Professor Javed Majeed won the Outstanding Teaching (PGT) prize 🎉 🔗 Discover all the winners 👇 www.kcl.ac.uk/news/arts-hu...

💡 Why is it hard to tackle conspiracy theories? Researching Europe, Digitalisation and Conspiracy Theories (REDACT), led by Professor @cb-hq.bsky.social of @kingsenglish.bsky.social, looks at how conspiracy theories spread across Europe via social media. 🔗 Learn more in the video below ⤵️

14th in the world 🎉 English at @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social has been ranked as 14th globally in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 ⬇️ www.kcl.ac.uk/news/kings-a...

✍️ Benjamin Wood, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing in @kingsenglish.bsky.social, shares his favourite books with @theguardian.com 👇 www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

🎶 How is opera and hip-hop inspired by Classics? Dr Emily Pillinger explores this in her new book 👇 www.kcl.ac.uk/news/new-boo...

🥳 Congratulations to Dr Emrys Jones, Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture, at @kingsenglish.bsky.social on this recognition!

🎹 Professor Kevin K. Gaines traced support for civil rights movements, disability advocacy and environmental awareness in Stevie Wonder's music, particularly in the album Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, at the Global Cultures Institute annual lecture. 🔗 Read more ⬇️ buff.ly/leRntx8

Delighted to share our fascinating blog post on #rhubarb as a medicine within #Chinese and #European pharmaceutical traditions by @kingsenglish.bsky.social doctoral researcher Lin Yan Wong herbalhistory.org/home/a-tale-... #histherb #earlymodern #medhums

👏 Congratulations to Dr Declan Ryan, Lecturer in Creative Writing in @kingsenglish.bsky.social, on his appointment as poetry editor at @jonathancape.bsky.social. We asked Dr Ryan to share some of his favourite works and his poetry recommendations for the year ahead ⤵️

🔍️ In July 1518, hundreds of Strasbourg residents were swept up in an endless dance, struck by a strange illness driving them to fidget to the point of exhaustion – or even death. Professor Kélina Gotman explores this mystery in a new @artefr.bsky.social documentary 👇