The summer has seen anti-trans campaigns across the UK and US, alongside a crisis in healthcare. But what use could trans history have in these time, beyond proving 'we have always been here'? Sam Rutherford @echomikeromeo reflects on Imagining Trans Futures: www.historyworkshop....

Very much this. The IHR really is open to everyone and this includes our common room and our library as well as our wonderful seminars. All free, all welcome!

Thousands of Londoners have indefinite leave to remain. They have legal rights and are our friends, neighbours and colleagues, contributing hugely to our city. Threatening to deport people living and working here legally is unacceptable.

Video and audio recordings of last week's RHS Lecture by Prof. Yasmin Khan - 'Mars and Britannia: the British Imperial Way of Warfare' - are now available: bit.ly/4pw5B15 Yasmin's is one of many lectures available to watch or listen to again via our Events Archive bit.ly/3IaWtOG #Skystorians

I’m having intro chats with dissertation students this fortnight, and one of them asked which historians I’d recommend for beautiful writing they could absorb to further develop their own writing style. So, gang, which are your favourite *writers* among historians, any time, any topic, any place. 🗃️

‘UK respondents dramatically overestimate how many immigrants there are and how many of them are Muslim. They overestimate what proportion of immigrants are from north Africa by a factor of 10, and from the Middle East by a factor of two, and underestimate how many are from North America.’

📢 Reminder: the deadline for the Social History Society Small Grants is coming up soon! 💷 Up to £1000 available to support research, events & activities in social & cultural history 🗓️ Apply by 1 October for events Dec–Apr 🔗 socialhistory.org.uk/funding/smal... ✨Apply today!

I reviewed Rob Waters’ ‘Colonised by Humanity’ for American Historical Review. academic.oup.com/ahr/article-.... It is an excellent, timely monograph!

How can Bristol communities support migrant families better? The Find Your Village project shows how peer support in the first 1,001 days boosts wellbeing, trust & child development. 📖 theconversation.com/focusing-on-... ✒️ @profdebw.bsky.social and Tom Allport #CommunityHealth #PeerSupport

The doomscroll of the neoliberal condition narrates history as a series of wins and losses. Lola Olufemi and Agnes Cameron explore how digitally reassembling the archive offers an intervention in the neoliberal landscape:

In London, hate will never win.

The launch of my new @manchesterup.bsky.social book Songs of Seven Dials will be at 6pm, Tues 21 Oct, at Waterstones Covent Garden. I'll be in conversation with the wonderful @julialaite.bsky.social. Please do come along. Free tickets, but register in advance www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/songs-of-s...

#EverydayWelfare co-ed collection by @ruthdav.bsky.social @evecolpus.bsky.social & me offers a renewed & revised history of welfare in modern Britain by focussing on how people sought to 'fare well'. Fully #OA join the 20k who have already taken a look. Enjoy! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

South Asian Britain: Connecting Histories doesn’t just host its own oral histories - it also features interviews from external collections. Dive into these stories at southasianbritain.org/oral-histories/external-collections #SouthAsianBritain #OralHistory @UoBArtsMatter @BL_Learning @QMULsed

Stuart Hall Essay Prize. Please disseminate: www.stuarthallfoundation.org/foundation/s...

'my instinct is that our troubled world needs Humanities Studies as much – if not more – than in many past years'. (John Major: johnmajorarchive.org.uk/2025/09/10/s... )

Aerial archaeology began not in neutral curiosity but in the violence of colonial Syria. Benjamin Thomas White (@btwhite.bsky.social) traces its entanglement with empire.

Why this moment of rightwing racism feels so different – and how we can resist it

Hot off the press, the British Academy's Cold Spots: Mapping Inequality in SHAPE Provision in UK Higher Education report. Read it if you care about universities or access to the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for the rising generation. 1/5

Radical right accommodation really does not work. New paper out with this exceptionally talented team @katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk doi.org/10.31235/osf...

all those years of rw commentators complaining about cancellation, and here we are. what they disliked was being challenged or criticized for their views. this, by contrast, is a system where academics are being sanctioned for saying something that disagrees with the president. slow clap

The first term's programme for the IHR Migration and Mobility Seminar is now live! www.history.ac.uk/news-events/.... We're hybrid, so if you're interested in migration and mobility across space and time - but also in how we can write better histories of mobility - sign up from anywhere!

What have been the best/most effective/meaningful environmental changes in 20thC Britain, in your view? I'm writing a new unit & have lots of disasters, decline, and conflicts; but I don't think it's been all bad. Some egs. of positive changes - intro of National Parks; rise of green politics...

A couple of weeks after posting this, I’ve just seen via the @royalhistsoc.org newsletter that the BL are running a training session for students on the East India Company & India Office archives! Really great idea for students planning their theses this term: royalhistsoc.org/calendar/int...

My latest blog post is a detailed invitation to join a research network devoted to critical pedagogies of race and imperialism in law. In it, I outline who its organisers are, the reasons why we have set up the network,and what we hope to achieve in it. Welcome! folukeafrica.com/invitation-t...

We've recorded nearly 100 hours of oral histories from British South Asians across the UK—spanning generations, identities & regions. Archived with the @britishlibrary.bsky.social & free to access: southasianbritain.org/oral-histories/project-collection/ @UoBArtsMatter @BL_Learning @QMULsed

Six weeks from publication! Forgive a little book promo. I’ve got some talks lined up this autumn if you want to hear more about Electric Wind. Feel free to message me for more details.

✍️ Dr @ellencssmith.bsky.social (@uobrishistory.bsky.social) introduces us to her Imperial Letters project which explores how the correspondence of British families in India shaped public opinion of empire in the 19th & 20th centuries Find out more this South Asian Heritage Month 👉 bit.ly/45chAIX

as, you know, a historian, I don’t love appeals to Britain’s humanitarian past: but this is absolutely the time a Labour politician should be wheeling out Britain’s “proud history of welcoming people in need” or whatever

📣 Call for participants 📣 Have you ever used any History Workshop Journal articles in your teaching practice? If so, we would love to hear from you! Please let us know by sending an email or feel free to DM.

#ICYMI: Writing About Activists, our recent Conversations series event chaired by @academicdiary.bsky.social and featuring scholars Hannah Ishmael, John Narayan and A.S. Francis. 🎥 VIDEO buff.ly/o11njAN 🎧 Listen to our new #podcast mini-series Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism buff.ly/EUCdEHZ

📢 Join us for an Ideas Lunch on children’s engagements with digital technologies and media practices and the impact of these on outdoor play and mobilities. We will be joined by Lois Peach from University of Wollongong, Australia. 16 Sept www.bristol.ac.uk/brigstow/eve...

I was delighted to speak about Teaching Gender with @llassabe.bsky.social on her excellent American Campus podcast! It's here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a... or Wherever You Get Your Podcasts.

My favourite childhood outfit: ‘I was an innocent Muslim girl – and a walking endorsement for ecstasy’

Introducing Dr. Olivia Wyatt! I’m overjoyed to share that I successfully defended my thesis last Friday, and that I have started a new position as Teaching and Research Fellow in Black British History at the University of Edinburgh. I’m incredibly grateful to my supervisors and examiners

Absolutely delighted to have been awarded the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar medal by the @royalsociety.org for my research on science, race, and empire, including my book Vanished. An enormous thanks to everybody who made this possible, especially the Royal Society. royalsociety.org/medals-and-p...

Labour have now put out a response to the Farage speech, in the name of Ellie Reeves - it’s all about the practicalities of deportation and detention. Suggests they’re just fine with his tone/language/the very dark turn this whole debate is taking.

An M.I.T. study found that 95% of companies that had invested in A.I. tools were seeing zero return. It jibes with the emerging idea that generative A.I., “in its current incarnation, simply isn’t all it’s been cracked up to be,” johncassidysays.bsky.social writes.

I reviewed Eli Erlick's new book Before Gender for @womenshistoryrev.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... This was the smoothest production process of all time and I'm grateful to see a venerable women's history journal making space for trans history!

Join us, at 6.30pm on Friday 12 September, for our next RHS Lecture: Professor Yasmin Khan on 'Mars and Britannia: the British Imperial Way of Warfare' bit.ly/3Hv2jK8 Booking for in-person and online attendance is now open. All are very welcome #Skystorians

#BehindTheScenes we’ve been busy repackaging all of the Indian Workers Association (MS 2141) and Avtar Jouhl (MS 2142) collections so materials are accessible more effectively and ultimately, better conserved #LibraryofBham #The_IWA

Flags bearing the St. George's Cross placed in roadside locations around Oxford have been amended overnight. Two flags at Headington were amended to say 'Love Immigrants'. A national flag flying campaign 'Operation Raise the Colours' has provoked controversy👇 socialistworker.co.uk/anti-racism/...

This is not only a serious issue for historians and not only a serious issue for academics (although it is that). It's a development that's also deleterious for the GLAM sector, for example, and part of a much larger trend nationally and internationally to restrict and dismantle access to archives.

Just one of the arresting statistics in this very comprehensive and detailed assessment of students' and universities' impacts in Bristol: 'the higher education sector is the biggest employer in the South West'.

🚨An important reminder of the trauma faced by asylum seekers. Not just in fleeing persecution abroad. Not just in the perilous and desperate journey to these shores. But by the hatred and vitriol put on them by the right wing in this country for callous political gain.

According to The Times, Farage’s deportation “plan” - more a taunt - is “controversial”. It isn’t. It’s objectively inhumane. What’s most shameful though is that he should have been mainstreamed to such an extent that he is taken by much of the press & public as a serious politician.

63% of people think net migration rose in the last 12 months 8% of people think it fell Yet it fell by 400,000 in 2024 vs 2023 [It is falling further in 2025] Public service broadcasters are doing a core part of their job on this topic badly if that 8% is not closer to 30% at least