It's sobering, in its way, to realize that there was truly nobody (save, perhaps, his children) who knew him that loved him as a man. He made himself into content, and he died as content, and his funeral is the most content of all. Soundbites to soundbites, bits to bits

A chapter I thought was due in mid December is actually due in three weeks so it’s time to head to the writing mines (lol I am still teaching for the next five weeks 😭😬)

Retrospectively removing indefinite leave to remain would be immoral and economically damaging. It would tear families apart. Attacking it as ‘potentially illegal’ is completely beside the point. Argue with the (awful) idea. Don’t try ’well, actually you can’t do that’.

You cannot understand US politics without understanding racism. It's impossible.

So that’s the USHE job market (what was left of it) closed off and international faculty can’t leave the US until they get a green card?

So that’s the USHE job market (what was left of it) closed off and international faculty can’t leave the US until they get a green card?

Absolutely horrific concepts for the university sector from Bill Shorten, now VC of the University of Canberra. A vision for the utter decimation of higher education

This is cooked

This is cooked

Hello #academicsky! I'm sharing a cfp for an edited collection on "Naming & Classifying," pulled together by me, Kristin Girten, & @aaronrhanlon.com . We'd love to see your work! Please also circulate to anyone you think might be interested. Deadline 10/31. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

In this house we don’t italicise quotes

Every pundit who took at face value the idea that the Right sincerely cares about free speech, or ideological diversity, or in fact has any principles at all, should be wearing a dunce cap and writing a lengthy mea culpa right now. Not for our catharsis but for public awareness at least

Your campus has squirrels and geese? That’s cute. MINE HAS KANGAROOS 😎

so many dead canaries and we just keep on mining

This is disgraceful - both the workload and the AI ‘workaround’

I wish more people would call this what it is: a lie/scam to increase unpaid labour. Management know many of us won’t give crap feedback, so instead we work evenings/weekends or let other work slip. Their spreadsheet is happy, students still get decent feedback. All the burden is on the Lecturer.

This is disgraceful - both the workload and the AI ‘workaround’

So I want to briefly mention what next steps look like for people who are left out of the loop on this settlement. There are many of you.

No words.

Saw ‘American Psycho the Musical’ in Melbourne last night and it was so good and inventive and now I will have to reread the novel again even though I have no time 😮‍💨

When I was placed on the Professor Watchlist in 2021, people sent death threats about my children. I had security officers monitor my 8yo at school. Where is all the outrage for those of us who have been targeted for years? Where is the outrage for our families? My own colleagues are silent.

"You can't just call people racists" is disingenuous strawmanning at the best of times. But invoked in reference to a *far right rally*? Farcical. What it amounts to now is "you can't identify racism when its staring you in the face". And well, we tried that approach didn't we? And here we are.

Silence is complicity We would not have had 100000 people at a far-right demonstration without Starmer's appalling leadership Silence is thus unsurprising and what matters now is whether those who actually care accept this and turn to real alternatives rather than give Starmer yet another chance

Which views did you agree with: Professors on watchlists? Black women are stupid? Jews control the media? The Great Replacement Theory? Killing trans people? Forced child pregnancies? How was he bridging disagreements when he held these views?

this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either

Which views did you agree with: Professors on watchlists? Black women are stupid? Jews control the media? The Great Replacement Theory? Killing trans people? Forced child pregnancies? How was he bridging disagreements when he held these views?

The University of Melbourne English and Theatre Studies Statement on the closure of Meanjin. 12 September 2025

look Charlie Kirk started, maintained, & promoted turning point usa’s professor watchlist I’ve been on it for over a decade and until this year I was the *only* UVM professor on it which means his life’s work = my death threats

every time there's political violence discourse i think about how jo cox was assassinated in broad daylight by a fascist who shouted "britain first" as he shot her, and now nine years later her party is dedicating every moment in power to placating the ideology of her murderer

Man it must suck if you’re not a white cis straight Christian man and eulogising Kirk and you get inundated with a thousand screenshots of Kirk saying you—yes you, specifically—are a degenerate leftoid cabal taking over America

I don't think it is callous of me to observe that it is weird to see the PM of the UK, the leader of the Opposition of the UK, and the ex UK PM all putting out solemn and devastated tweets about the death of a podcaster who is only a big name if you're constantly on Twitter

This is absolutely unhinged from Johnson and others. Kirk was a proponent of Great Replacement Theory who called for gays to be stoned and public lynch mobs to murder trans people. He is the definition of a right-wing extremist. The cowardice, avarice and opportunism of Johnson knows no bounds.

nobody should die like that and guns are still the fucking problem

lot of people out here laboring under the misapprehension that uni is just further high school and there is some higher authority on content than the professor who is a live, working researcher in the field

Absolutely astounded that the UCU and Unison branches at Kent and Greenwich were not consulted, and that staff only found out about the merger this morning via BBC news and Kent Online. Solidarity to all colleagues.

The stuff Jeffrey Epstein’s friends felt comfortable saying and drawing in grotesque detail with their names attached knowing they would not face consequences is the kind of thing I think of when I think about rape culture and how sexual violence against girls and young women is actually glorified

Re-watched the 2022 Persuasion for teaching next week and it remains very bad.

This frontispiece in my book just made me laugh a lot. Is this Buddhist reincarnation, or some other form of afterlife?

If Melbourne University Publishing doesn’t want to keep publishing Meanjin, they should hand over the journal to someone worthy of the responsibility. Me in The Conversation theconversation.com/the-decision...

"I'm just an owl, standing in front of a sign, asking you not to molest me."

I’ve been frustrated to see so much of the ongoing story about asylum seekers and the protests against them covered without hearing from those seeking asylum and now being met with hostility and hatred I set out to speak to those directly affected to find out about the impact this is having 👇

The ‘it’s not fascism’ thesis has been subdued by blunt force trauma

While I can’t go fully paper, a few weeks ago I pivoted back to paper: I bring enough printouts of the texts I want us to look at and everyone puts their laptops away (apart from some lecture recap discussion at the start).

While I can’t go fully paper, a few weeks ago I pivoted back to paper: I bring enough printouts of the texts I want us to look at and everyone puts their laptops away (apart from some lecture recap discussion at the start).

standing with glinner? no. i'm SITTING for DINNER. with my wife, who has not left me,

Words have no meaning at The Guardian anymore. Linehan is a “gender activist” in the same way that the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan is a “race activist”

Keir Starmer: this man has legitimate concerns

It’s very funny (horrific) that my book on this rhetoric and sentiment in the early nineteenth century is so relevant.