Yall I’m trying to find research articles on a Gothic version of The Great Chain of Being (preferably 18th century ideas) and I can’t find anything. Please help! Has anyone read anything about this topic?

And with this, of course, the final push for my fundraising goal for Step Forward, who do brilliant work supporting queer, trans, and gender non-conforming youth (and other vulnerable youth!) in Tower Hamlets, so if you have a few quid to spare I’d certainly appreciate it!

I particularly like this one www.lesleyahall.net/factoids.htm... about Queen Victoria and lesbians, which actually reads back what happened during debates on a Criminal Law Amendment Bill during the 1920s: nothing to do with Labouchere.

I'm so pleased to see that this chapter has been published. It's in a wonderful open access collection, Sexual Violence in Medicine and Psychiatry: Addressing Harms Through Interdisciplinarity which emerged from the SHaME project at Birkbeck. Link here: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Very grateful for the opportunity to write about two new Octavia Butler biographies in @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social that draw upon her remarkable archive at the Huntington.

It's ancient I know - I realise it's over 30 years since the late great Roy Porter and I published it - but The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain 1650-1950 is still listed as in print from Yale UP....

We gave a family of ducks the VIP treatment through Main Court yesterday. Each spring ducklings hatch across Cambridge and porters help guide them towards the river – a tradition that we would never want to duck out of! @cam.ac.uk Music: Fluffing a Duck" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

I did a(nother) thing about #RomeoAndJuliet...

It's Monday, so let's talk about the most eel-some place in England. That's right..it's Ely time! Ely is all about eels. Bede wrote in his Ecclesiastical History (c. 700 CE) that Ely took its name from the abundant eels in the nearby fens & waters: Ely means Isle of Eels. 1/3 🗃️🧪

A monument in Glasgow to the 1948 massacre of Palestinians at the village of Deir Yassin, which also serves as a remembrance of the Nakba.

After a bit of a hiatus for our Anne Lister Society Conference roundtable, we’re back with another Forum meeting! Join us on 27th May from 17:30-18:30 to talk about Lister’s letters. Email [email protected] for the Zoom link. Image courtesy of West Yorkshire Archive, SH:7/ML/A/12

RIP Fanny Hensel, who died on this day 179 years ago 🪦 💐 Listen to the last song she composed, just hours before she had a fatal stroke: Bergeslust, or “Mountain joy”

a delight to catch up with Jay from the Yard and ask him how the fuck he managed to get Ian McKellen doing a Simon Stephens play in the reopening season www.timeout.com/london/news/...

'Mrs Woolf said she would buy the arsenic herself'

These resources are designed to support teaching of Eng Lit, Eng Lang, and Eng Lit & Lang A-levels in all major exam boards. We hope they will enrich students’ understanding of Georgian writing through the letters - a window into a society that is both alien and, occasionally, shockingly familiar.

Calling A-level English teachers! Do you teach Austen, Brontë, or other 18thc stuff? Could you use a set of free research-informed teaching materials, which support students' historical, literary, & linguistic understanding, & foster debate about misogyny, consent, & healthy relationships? (1/?)

Catz student Emilia Bazan (a first-year English undergraduate) is celebrating her first solo art exhibition this weekend, with figurative oil paintings inspired by archival or old family photographs & Polish folk dancing. Learn more: caths.cam.ac.uk/art-... @cam.ac.uk Cambridge English Faculty

Me marking: this discussion is unrelated to the main claim Me writing: and speaking of Mrs Dalloway, here are 9 pages on the prehistory of powered flight

What a lovely shout out for the LesbIan Lives Conference from Sara Ahmed @saraahmedfav.bsky.social feministkilljoys.substack.com/p/living-a-l... looking forward to the conference (and parties) in Cork @ucc.ie this weekend.

brilliant weekend ahead - www.ucc.ie/en/lesbianli... @ucc.ie #spéirgorm #cork #queer #lesbian #dyke #goodtimes

I taught in Hums at UHerts & the students & staff were & are incredible. They deserve better than this & society needs more thoughtful, creative, curious humans. Save Humanities.

This matters. Please co-sign. Managers like to pretend that petitions don't move them, but in reality cannot but answer questions about the numbers, and suddenly things that were deemed inevitable appear to be more-evitably-than-previously-declared.

And there are going to be so many redundancies - even if the govt don't care about university staff (they really don’t seem to), they should care about 1000s more unemployed folks…

“Working with CN was a transformative experience!" Friends, I'm currently expanding my teaching studio hours: would you be able to help me spread the word? I'm a deeply experienced teacher of voice, piano, and composition, working online and in person (London) www.cnlester.com/teaching-1

When you go down to the park to put together a team for one last job

Delighted to be taking part in this new festival, please do share. It's a zero-budget operation with no outside funding so much depends / upon / ticket sales

At the term's end, the students in my Jane Austen class have the option of making fan art (& then writing about what they've made). Today I received, e.g., extra-illustrated copies of Austen novels, commonplace books, and (as sampled here) some quite brilliant board games & cookbooks. They did well!

If anyone knows of any weird little 1-month fellowships or library residencies taking applications for research in the humanities to take place in the coming year (26-27), please let me know!

📚"Covers designed by folk who didn't bother to read the book" Episode 2: Henry James, 'The Turn of the Screw' (1898) The novel is a #C19th gothic tale of a governess caring for 2 cherubic children who may or may not be in league with ghosts. Also...that's a nut.

Proof that Michelangelo did indeed have cats: In a letter to him while he was absent from Rome, his friend Angiolini wrote, “the cats loudly lament your absence, even though none of them are lacking food to eat.” Even in 1533, cats going to cat.

Everyone should read this magisterial book by @kristingrogan.bsky.social!

Absolutely lovely Job! Senior Research Associate to join the School of Literature, Drama & Creative Writing from 1 September 2026 until 30 April 2029, to work on the AHRC-funded project Beyond the Essay: Creative-Critical Teaching www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRJ527/s...

There's a great new Senior Research Associate role being advertised in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at University of East Anglia this month, working on an AHRC-funded project on creative-critical teaching in English studies. Please share! vacancies.uea.ac.uk/vacancies/21...

In less than 3 weeks I’ll be running 100km and I’m only £180 away from my £2500 goal to support LGBTQIA+ youth in Tower Hamlets!

News from The Anne Lister Society on the Finding Anne project ⤵️

V. excited to share my piece published by @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social! Please read & share!

The only AI thread literary studies needs

A 19th-century Inuit agiarut, an adaptation from the fiddles of Scottish whalers. It is played on the lap.

As replies are justifiably asking for more specifics - probably spoken around Chennai/Madras c 1790, though people move around a fair bit so can't be certain.

Of course Dawkins is writing a fucking novel. Every fucker thinks they can write a fucking novel. I don’t, and I’ve written two dozen.

Thanks so much to @billymills.bsky.social for this review of Book of Inversions, a treat to have such careful attention paid to the work.

Happy May Day! Always the right time to enjoy the hawthorn, learn some folklore, and join a union

happy May Day from Muriel Rukeyser: How many are we? We'll be everyone.

Getting the sense that if they set up a whelk stall, the only reason there was not a subsequent outbreak of whelk-related food poisoning and intervention with heavy penalties by local authority, would be the incapacity to actually source any whelks in the first place

A blessed Beltane to you all! May your summer be full of warmth and growth and may you be fairly compensated for your labour. Up the May!

🖤 The location of Anne Lister’s grave in Halifax Minster has been lost since 1879. On the 185th anniversary of her burial, our Finding Anne collaborative launched a new website showing the state of research — we now have good reason to 𝓞𝟧+𝟥 [hope] we have found her. 🖤 annelisterintheminster.com

Hey I was just looking up the book Ellie Crookes & I co-edited in 2024 and the hardback is on sale! It is SUPER PRETTY (and contains some absolute bangers) so if you want one for £36 rather than £85, have at it

some good news FOR ONCE “Perhaps most damaging for the regulator meant to oversee freedom of speech, the accusation of bias in the process was also upheld.” www.bbc.com/news/article...