Talking this afternoon on the “empire of liberty” and Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ problems with empire and state-building

Le Monde reporting that a French scientist traveling to Houston to attend a conference was denied entry to US after a search of his phone & computer revealed messages critical of Trump's science cuts, "which [says CPB] conveyed hatred of Trump & could be qualified as terrorism". Computer confiscated

This is today!

"How DARE you make me slightly uncomfortable about my choices" is a very potent factor in the modern media-consumption arena.

going to be giving a talk on Toussaint Louverture and forced labour at LSE for the IHR next wednesday - come along!! www.history.ac.uk/events/probl...

When will Govt learn you can’t out-Reform Reform - you end up simply legitimising their toxic narrative. To see off populists, Labour needs to invest in public services & local communities, making a real difference to people’s lives - levy a wealth tax & use it to improve people’s lives *now*

Once upon a time, we complained that "ethnic cleansing" was too sterile a euphemism to describe the forced removal and often violent expulsion of a racial or religious minority from a region. And now the press can't even bring itself to use *that* term.

Six months later, I am thinking about the impact of the riots, how people have altered their lives, habits and routines. I am also revisiting this important piece by David Olusoga on populism and racism: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Giving a little talk on the “empire of liberty” for the KCL Empires Hub this afternoon ☺️

Some personal news…. Just had my first article published 💕 www.rrrjournal.com/issue/7/arti...

What’s up it’s time for my first “some personal news” of bsky

Absolutely true - the earliest technology was the Lomekwian hand axe 3.3 million years ago. Fire was a technology. The hafted spear too. String. Sewing needle. Shoes. The simplest tools radically changed the planet

Book launch for the incomparable @drjennymorris.bsky.social tonight! Streets are saying that An Ethical Guide to Murder is theee hot new #crimantasy book of the year

Officially submitted my thesis! 💃💃💃

In 2010, anti-copyright activist Aaron Swartz hanged himself after being prosecuted to the full extent of the law for making copyrighted academic publications freely available. Today, academic publishers are insisting those copyrights be lifted to feed the corporate AI slop machine.

Counting down the days until 2025 when I can become exceedingly online again (I am submitting soon)

⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

In case more turn up - a bulk blocklist you can subscribe to, that deprives them of air

🏆Prize announcement! #CFP #History We're excited to announce that submissions are open for our Olivette Otele Prize for Black, UK-based PhD students. This is an opportunity for academic excellence to be recognised and showcased! Please keep reading... #OlivetteOtelePrize (1)

been thinking a lot about 'How the Word is Passed' by Clint Smith in regards to California rejecting Prop 6, especially the chapter on Angola Prison - cannot recommend this book enough on the history and memory of slavery in the USA

This is a really fine piece on the first Black voter in Britain: #History #BlackHistory 🗃️

Genuinely amazing to me that outlook and eduroam got all the uni contracts given they can barely work on their own, let alone in combination

i read recently about how one thing that claims lives in otherwise survivable crisis situations is that people just refuse to believe that what is happening is happening and are cognitively unable to respond to the situation at hand.

Reminder that Aaron Swartz was facing 35 years in prison and financial devastation for trying to programmatically download and open the contents of JSTOR, which led to him taking his own life. But OpenAI is going to scrape all of academia and make billions by plagiarizing it.

I hope they can find out why the food is doing that

2nd session of our #earlymodern Europe & the World seminar is in a week's time with Toby Green on Cacheu: A microhistorical approach for West African history in the 17th century Monday 21 Oct, 5:30 (UK), Wolfson Room NB02 @ihr.bsky.social history.ac.uk/events/cache.... All welcome! #skystorians

Ngl every time I think I have plumbed the depths of how awful Napoleon was I find another letter that makes me grit my teeth

speaking from the perspective of academia: if you have ever tried to get someone fired for sexual harrassment, you realise very quickly that not only is HR not a tool of leftwing wokery, it is frequently not even a tool of, like, basic legal compliance, but instead a way to Protect The Brand

Sounds like it’s time to find a new language app

I’m back, baybeeee

Floods and mudslides from Typhoon Yagi have caused well over 200 deaths in Myanmar, where the civil war makes it much harder for any aid to get through. Yagi already killed 292 people in Vietnam.

Just to be clear, people in Springfield reached out to JD Vance, AS THEIR SENATOR, to get some financial help for things like ESL classes, and instead of doing his literal job, he turned around and spread dangerous, life-threatening lies about the community.

Exciting news from the British Library that they should have a new on-line system for requesting collection items up from 30th September... hugely exciting if that sort of thing is important to you!

people discussing the new film adaptation of burroughs’s novel queer often refer to the fact that he shot his wife as some kind of big tragic thing that happened to him. he shot her and then later on gave people advice about being a writer that was like “shoot the bitch and write a book”

The Government wants to recruit 6,500 new teachers. Should it look at paying teachers’ student loan repayments as a retention incentive? Our new research suggests… maybe. Thread below 🧵 Sarah Tang’s summary piece in @tesmagazine.bsky.social here: www.tes.com/magazine/ana...

Staggering regional differences here: 'In Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, just 13% got places compared to 29% of 18 year olds across north-east England. The figure was 51% in London.' (The figure for Wimbledon is 70%). Another reason why institutional diversity & geographical range of HEIs matters.

“Politician is racist” is on so many levels barely news, but the shameless way Vance has been openly stirring up anti-immigrant and specifically anti-Haitian racist hate with outright lies really has to be punished - you should not be able to purposefully lie to the electorate while campaigning

I can't stress enough the importance of getting the current UK ban on Puberty Blockers lifted. Please sign and share! Together we can do this! 💪🏳️‍⚧️💖 petitions.parliament.scot/petitions/PE...

As well as this being awful and urgently needing investigating, there is a reasonable likelihood that historical sanctions data is the kind of thing used to train DWP algorithms - thereby baking in and replicating bias www.theguardian.com/society/2024...

Teacher burnout is not a side effect of AI / ed tech — it’s the goal. And the end goal involves the replacement of all teachers with ed tech, and the replacement of the public sector / public education with fee-based services dispensed by tech company overlords. www.axios.com/2024/03/06/a...

Rereading Napoleon’s letter to St-Domingue, and he says about five times that he’s definitely definitely not going to infringe on anyone’s freedom that’s crazy why would he DO that why would you even Think he’d want to reinstate slavery what are you TALKING about

honestly? goals

i got a flood of new followers in the last few days. hi. if you're new here, i fought the british museum last year over their use of my work without permission, pay, or credit, which was eventually resolved after multiple months. I have it documented on my website. yilinwang.com/qiu-jin-tran...

This makes me so sad and angry. Birmingham is the UK’s second biggest city. This is a national disgrace. Screenshot btw from the Birmingham Dispatch, a great new venture in making local news richer and move away from clickbait ad traffic nonsense. www.birminghamdispatch.co.uk

this is where i did my PhD. why are universities in this country determined to destroy themselves & their research capabilities instead of like. paying the vice chancellors so much

it is straight up embarrassing how often i am brung low by the common cold

Heading to dinner and excited to psych out all my family friends by reminder them that I’m turning thirty and wow I’m so OLD now

Happy loaf from 19th century Japan. asia.si.edu/explore-art-...