Pensions are the headline but more concerning to me and many others is the university’s commitment to withdraw from national collective bargaining. A disaster for us all if this is normalised. Any smidge of solidarity is gratefully received. And now to put on my waders…

The first session is at the end of the month with David Hopkin about LACEMAKING. Now, watch me throw his cool Lace In Context website (laceincontext.com/category/lac...) at my maternal family which was one of the cross-border lace making factories:

Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252: Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email. Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

American Studies and a variety of other programs under under threat at the University of Nottingham. Lend your voice to the petition.

If anyone thought Bruce Springsteen would back down after Donald Trump’s threats, last night he doubled down: “In my country, they're taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers. They're rolling back historic civil rights legislation that led to a more just society”

OPEN LETTER: HISTORIANS FOR TRANS RIGHTS Are you a historian in the UK or working on UK history fed up at seeing the history of LGBTQIA+ discrimination repeat itself? Sign this open letter to MPs demanding they stand up for trans rights now! Letter: tinyurl.com/879vuver Sign: tinyurl.com/4p7wktrn

Caught between genuinely thinking the Michel Thomas audio method will work for my language learning and my misophonia going haywire at Michel’s mouth noises on certain tracks 😵‍💫

Actually the image doesn't explain why it's so exciting -- the book is about modern New York as the most linguistically diverse place that has ever existed on earth, the work of the Endangered Language Alliance in documenting & supporting marginalised languages, and the stories of their speakers.

Enjoying waving remotely at @rpanchasi.bsky.social and the rest of the stellar panel for tonight’s @frenchhistory.bsky.social event on French and francophone global history…

Wait…an editorial on universities that *doesn’t* blame staff and actually thinks we suffer as a result of the problems in the sector?! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Alexa play “My Happy Place” by @divinecomedyhq.bsky.social merciiiiii

Saw this on the other place. Immediately thought of @onslies.bsky.social. #nuntastic

“We should ask not whether what unfolded in 🇩🇿 is especially similar to 🇵🇸, but how reading these histories together might help us consider what decolonization feels like not as an end point, but as an ongoing process.” The always-great @arthurasseraf.bsky.social on Algeria and Palestine.

Question: does anyone know if there are decent digitised runs of 1950s/1960s British women’s magazines - not for me, for a student? Woman’s Own seems only to exist in hard copy in various libraries…

THIS FRIDAY! It's going to be spectacular, so don't miss out! #LowCountries #EarlyModern #FoodHistory #SkyStorians

Goodbye to the lost children of Gaza. You were loved, you are remembered, you did not deserve it | Nesrine Malik

Me, writing my book, 4 years in, and still not being quite sure what it is.

Extremely hot book cover klaxon! “Napoleonic Objects and their Afterlives”, edited by @matildagreig.bsky.social and Nicole Cochrane, coming on 6 February (and featuring a chapter from me on Napoleonic performance w/Albert Dieudonné as key case study). www.bloomsbury.com/uk/napoleoni...

21 January: execution of Louis XVI. “Something for crowned jugglers to ponder”, as this contemporary print warns. Mort aux tyrans, indeed…

Search engines exist. Calendars and reminders are already on your phone and email client. No one needs to use immense amounts of energy and water and stolen IP to make a worse version!

J'ai évoqué Los Angeles, ses écosystèmes et l'histoire des incendies dans la ville sur RTS, la radio préférée de mon oncle zurichois 📻🎙️

Pour les blueskyeurs français, j'ai évoqué la situation à Los Angeles ce matin avec Guillaume Erner sur France Culture. Petite erreur dans son intro: Mike Davis a écrit son texte "Faut-il laisser Malibu brûler?" dans les années 1990 (pas 70). www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

🎶just little bits of history repeating🎶

My niece is going through a pear phase. “Draw one with a happy face. Okay now a sad face. Okay now a mad face.” This is proof that research *is* transferable in the most unexpected circumstances, I think. 🍐 #ifyouknowyouknow #channellingphilipon

Happy 2025 everyone!🧡🌿🏺 I’m excited to spend this new year illustrating the ancient Mediterranean world, and also learning more about my own local folklore🌿 Any shares so i can reach my audience on this new platform are greatly appreciated 🧡🧡🧡 #artvsartist #illustration #ancientbluesky

Ridiculously proud that this is out in the world! Thank you @enghistrev.bsky.social and the many people who helped with this work along the way.

The very amazing Emma Nagouse is on Headliners (with Dan Smith) on @bbc5live.bsky.social tonight, talking about their work on the Muses podcast! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

For whatever reason, RTÉ seems to show Close Encounters every year between Christmas and New Year and I’m always grateful for the opportunity to just enjoy the Truffaut/Balaban vibes.

I love a pre-Christmas byline, me. My review of Sebastian Smee’s “Paris in Ruins” in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/arts/visual-...

Rowlf’s absence (apart from a brief non-speaking role) from the Muppet Christmas Carol always struck me as odd, until I learnt that it was deliberate, as no-one felt comfortable recasting him so soon after Jim Henson’s death. Watch it again, through a lens of collective grief. It’s masterful.

Brilliant critique of Say Nothing (both book and show) by Jack Sheehan for @thebaffler.com. thebaffler.com/latest/codes...

It’s genuinely obvious that we are well past the point of no return.

Ethics in historical research is becoming ever more important. Hear @tomhulme.bsky.social @earner.bsky.social Kate Chatfield, Holly Smith & me tease out some of the challenges on @ihr.bsky.social @cont-brit-hist.bsky.social roundtable. @royalhistsoc.bsky.social. www.history.ac.uk/podcasts/res...

The extraordinary “Nae Pasaran!” is still on iPlayer for 20 days and it comes highly recommended. What an incredible example of “ordinary” activism and international solidarity. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Fave detail from @rpanchasi.bsky.social's excellent interview w/ @michaelgvann.bsky.social: his Hanoi rat project emerged out of boredom in the colonial archives in Aix. Every afternoon just for some fun diversion Vann would call up a file w/ a quirky name. One of those files led to this great book🗃️

I’m sorry to bring a Twitter screenshot into your timeline but this is just so amazing. It’s like a Rubik’s cube of the most uninformed opinions on the planet. All blue ticks too, of course, and one of them was nearly just made Attorney General of the US.

Big stupid fat tears rolling down my face during the last 15 minutes of Wolf Hall. I *swear* I’m normal, honest.

It's not nothing that defenders of Israel, formally incapable of seeing Ireland's position on Palestine as rooted in (ongoing!) colonial experience, nonetheless trade freely in British colonial images of Ireland as a place of primitive hatreds, a backwater, a people incapable of reason etc.

The Christmas story!!! Guardian comic from yesterday

The rather cosmopolitan themes of the Letter to the Ephesians (just read) and of the Archbishop’s sermon are rather at variance with the values of the assembled ethnonationalist exclusionists.

It is so nice to hear and see Emmanuel, the bourdon bell, ring again. #notredame

…why is Elon fricking Musk at the reopening of Notre-Dame, exactly??

Local Woman Overly Excited By Cathedral; Wears Thematic Brooch On TV

This posthumous essay by Natalie Zemon Davis, about how being politically persecuted by her government & having her passport stripped affected her historical scholarship, is really amazing. I'd missed it coming out in Sept. Thanks to @ebrandom.bsky.social for posting it.

So @weirdmedieval.bsky.social said this about the poem “Pangúr Bán” over on the other place and 🥹😍: “fyi, pangur ban probably translates to “white fuller,” a fuller being someone who felts fabric by kneading it. so, the cat was presumably named for its love of kneading fabric (making biscuits)”

Pleased to say that my (relatively) flying visit to That London allowed time for Hew Locke at the British Museum, Monet at the Courtauld, and a visit to @lrbbookshop.bsky.social in between where I purchased the last copy of @noreenmasud.bsky.social’s book.

EXCITING BOOK NEWS KLAXON