The problem with unfair negative feedback from students is when university management takes it too seriously. The problem with unfair student grievances about COVID is when university management caves in. thesphinxblog.com/2026/02/18/c...

😬😖😩

What actually happened in the Living in Love and Faith debate yesterday (apart from another 5 hours of the same old): #CofE viamedia.news/2026/02/13/l...

On the ecclesiology of LLF #CofE viamedia.news/2026/02/14/t...

Almighty and everlasting God, who dost govern all things in heaven and earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and in our time grant us thy peace;

This is just so lovely. A reminder that there are still lots of good people about, even as the vicious & awful dominate the headlines, and that religious bodies can choose to be open and inclusive www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Your day will be like... a bright flare, sent up in the dead of night from an island city under attack, calling for allies to come to its aid. Iliad 18.205-14

The Church of England is developing a reparative justice scheme in recognition of its complicity in trans-Atlantic slavery. Project Spire has been attacked in Parliament and the right wing press with claims of flawed historical research. What’s the truth? alanlester.co.uk/blog/the-arg...

Christi Belcourt, contemporary Métis visual artist known for her paintings which depict floral patterns inspired by Métis and First Nations historical beadwork art #WomensArt

There is a wonderful exhibition Gwen John: Strange Beauties opening in National Museum Cardiff (Wales) on 7 February 2026

Welsh artist Gwen John, Self Portrait, 1902 #womensart

Sarah Ross Thompson, contemporary fine art printmaker #WomensArt #Snowdrops #February

Just received copies of our Anselm book, thank you Brepols! Thanks too to co-editors and authors who made it such a great experience-can't wait to start on the next one. Suggestions please.

So delighted to receive copies of our new book! Coming in at almost 380 pages, it has ten super chapters, contains transcriptions & translations of key 15th C documents & has some v. useful maps courtesy of my co-editor, Giovanna Guidicini. Thank you @jillharrison1.bsky.social & all involved! ✨📖

Four year research position focused on "The Seen and the Unseen: Theology and the Frontiers of Experience" www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQJ902/r...

Go to, sir, you were beaten in Italy

Dear BBC Archives... A letter to thank you for Mañana, the Ibsen collection and more, to express my disappointment at how in certain ways you fail to treat these precious fragments with proper respect, and to suggest how you could do things better. www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/dear-bbc-arc...

🚨History Job: Assistant Professor in Early Modern British History (Permanent) 🗃️ Come work with us at Warwick! You will join a group of excellent early-modernists and one of the nicest bunches of historians around! 👇👇👇 @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/lang-en-G...

The university funding crisis finally starting to make it into newspaper editorials www.ft.com/content/82f5...

Join me for a Tea Time Talk at the Garden Cafe Dartington on Monday afternoon. 9 February 2026, 2.30pm. #authortalks #dartingtonhall #devonevents

"The university is worth more than £100m a year to Southend’s economy ... Small local businesses including cafes, bars, taxi firms and shops are braced for the loss of student customers." #HigherEd #AcademicSky #Essex #Southend #University #students

" the campus housed a GP surgery and a new dental clinic offering free treatment to local people. This was followed later by the forum – a library and art gallery shared by the university and local people." #HigherEd #AcademicSky #Essex #Southend #University #students

Essex University, Southend campus closure: 800 students and staff afected. "but it will also have a huge impact on a city that has come to depend on the university in many ways." #HigherEd #AcademicSky www.theguardian.com/environment/...

📣BNTS 2026 will take place in Maynooth this August and the Call for Papers is now live. 📅You can submit until 13th April - please tell your friends, colleagues, and casual acquaintances! bnts.org.uk/bnts-call-fo...

We have a PhD position open (four years, full funding): www.umu.se/en/work-with...

Your day will be like... an expert chariot rider, charging across the plain, shifting his weight perfectly, a wonder to all who see him. Iliad 15.679.686

It doesn’t help that many academics regularly receive what are obviously AI-generated invitations to contribute to journals: “We saw you wrote an article ‘The architect of the image: Gregory of Nyssa’s anthropology’; would you like to write for our ergonomics journal?” !!

Anyway, good news! Open-ended lectureship in early medieval history at KCL. www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/136727-...

’Tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.

Okay sorry one more shot:

A few other quick shots from the protest:

Our very priests must become mockers if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are.

Have a larger story on this coming, but I’ve been embedded with this group, and this story from yesterday is part of what they’ve been doing in the city: religionnews.com/2026/01/22/h...

Please share widely! 3-year Postdoc in Early Christian Studies. Deadline: 8 March. Let me know if you have any questions or want to nominate a colleague.

Canada, Denmark, U.S. Lutheran bishops issue joint statement supporting Greenlandic people www.elca.org/news-and-eve...

When your entire message is one of compassion and understanding, why would you engage in hate and harmful discourse? Report, block and move on is the only way. Trans people are not a debate. We are focused on finding women who feel the same: notinourname.org.uk

Women's work in embroidery globally can act as a powerful form of preserving culture, heritage and identity. Examples include Hausa (Northern Nigeria) left, Palestinian tatreez (top right), Kantha (Bangladesh, West Bengal) and Ukrainian Vyshyvanka #Womensart

I’m excited to see this in print! The first fruits of a very profitable stay at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. Many thanks to them. I also have learned much from @dnewheiser.bsky.social whose careful probing of certain modes of speech has refined my own thought. Thank you!

The Journal of Ethics in Antiquity and Christianity has just published my dialogue with Morwenna Ludlow @morwennaexe.bsky.social on peaceful speech and political conflict. Since calls for civility are often weaponized, it was a gift to think this through with someone from whom I have learned so much

Birkbeck is hiring a Lecturer in Medieval Studies (c.1300-1500), full-time and open-ended. They will be formally based in English but expected to be able to contribute about 0.5FTE to History, including teaching and supervision. Closing date Feb 23rd: cis7.bbk.ac.uk/vacancy/lect...

2026-28 Kennicott postdoc Career Development Fellow in Hebrew Studies, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford. Focus on classical Hebrew or cognate. FT/Fixed Term: 2 years. Deadline 2 February. nt4ox.link/Kennicott26

Winifred Knights painted the broad sweep of the limestone cliffs at Beer in Devon in 1921 in a series of seascapes. She was still a student at the Slade when the previous year 'The Deluge,' (now in the Tate) won her the prestigious scholarship to the British School at Rome.

Something new. A #postcardadventcalendar. Stick with me for some nicely odd vintage images for the month, and you may end up with an expression like our friend in a deckchair in front of painted sea. Hold tight. The thread starts today: 1. Woman in a deckchair. Cheers, T.

It was wonderful to meet Simon recently, and really great to be mentioned in his latest opinion piece for the @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/afa5...

Wrote this for #BBCCountryfile Mag. Rural home-to-school transport (& public transport generally) massively disadvantages & isolates our rural youth. Higher education often not possible & buses to work/ volunteering/ events reg cancelled (35 x in under 24 months) www.countryfile.com/people/opini...

The Nobel Prize committee should announce the World Cup winner tomorrow

“Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer utters itself.”

A friend of mine recently started chemo. After she bemoaned the need to abstain from various foodstuffs she enjoys (especially soft cheese, but emphatically not kimchi) I wrote her this poem. She is very happy for me to post it. Words in ALT text. #Cancer #Chemo #Diet #Poem #Poetry #UKPoets

Slightly confusing (and also amusing) to discover that my university’s HR/finance/IT pages now have a chatbot with the same name as my younger daughter. Do I have to “ask her”, every time I log in?

Graduate of the American Studies programme that the University of Nottingham wishes to close wins 2025 Wolfson History Prize for Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade. History, it's a long game. Divest in haste, repent for the longue durée.