Using this to say that if you’ve never read The @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social imprint of The Gate you are missing out on a) one of the masterpieces of Japanese literature and b) one of the great acts of literary translation, by William F. Sibley.

NEW ISSUE OUT NOW CUSP: Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Cultures Volume 3, Number 2, Summer 2025 Special Cluster: Cosmopolitanism on the Cusp #S2O #OpenAccess via @ProjectMUSE tinyurl.com/yamapeh2#S2O#OpenAccessCONTRIBUTORS Shinjini Chattopadhyay Joshua Brorby Tim Clarke Yasmin Akhter and more!

Quick - look under your sofa cushions! We can buy David Lynch’s 10 bedroom, 11 bathroom compound for $15 million. (Yes, it is the house from Lost Highway.) www.realtor.com/realestatean...

Very sorry to read this. When I was young and green he took me under his wing on a trip to James Ensor's house in Ostend. We looked at the weird masks, the mermaids made from monkeys, and realised Ensor was just painting what he saw. A suitably Hitchcockian moment. www.thetimes.com/uk/obituarie...

Mute and block with alacrity, retweet beautiful images, recommend good things, post dog and cat pics, and and regularly remind people that I have no interest in any "heated exchange of opinions in the marketplace of ideas".

Well obviously there are thousands of "B&W Movies that are not boring" but for the sake of the meme: A Colt Is My Passport Letter Never Sent The Sweet Smell Of Success L'Atalante

“We need to think about research training – in particular, PhD training and training down to master’s level. If we look back 10 to 15 years, to the time when the [UK] business department’s budgets were a bit more flush, we saw a lot of investment in doctoral training programmes".

... until Stockton Rush

"leaving what is taught in our universities solely up to market forces undermines resilient subject provision and economic strategy, with lasting consequences for students and for universities’ ability to serve a public good.” 2/2

"Edinburgh University staff begin five-day strike"

Happy Birthday to the man with the brass neck to release a succession of EPs and finally an album of French songs entitled…

Francis Bacon, by John Deakin for Vogue, 1952 via Tui Sankamol

Keen to reach new audiences? We are offering up to £8k to humanities and social sciences researchers to deliver public engagement projects working in partnership with a gallery, archive, library or museum. Deadline 15th Oct www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/shap...

We're delighted to share that the CFP for the joint @modernistudies.bsky.social and @moderniststudies.bsky.social 2026 conference, Weird Modernisms, is now live! 1-4 July, Loughborough University @lborouniversity.bsky.social More info here: moderniststudies.org/conference/MSA2026/CFP/

Virginia Giuffre’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley reacts to the Maxwell transcripts, saying Maxwell “repeatedly and brazenly lied” to the government and is trying to “recreate history.” Full statement

Belgian Symbolism expo at Maison Hannon in Saint-Gilles! Brussels 29/8/25 to 19/04/26. I have walked past this beautiful building many, many times - but never been inside. maisonhannon.be/fr/evenement...

News from Suffolk demonstrates what's happening across the university sector far beyond redundancies - massive amounts of part-timing, downshifting and sideways movements. All of this will have a deep effect on quality. Not picking on Suffolk at all btw, it's a massive success story.

Today's university making redundancies is Suffolk, following news from Cranfield, Dundee (again) and Bournemouth in recent days. We're *still* running at nearly one a day, deep in the August hibernation period. When will someone step in and stop the madness? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

RIP Terence Stamp "The Devil is cheerful, agile. He looks like a little girl." www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8vL...

Terence Stamp was Angel and Devil on screen. Interviewing him was a wicked pleasure. But seeing him around town, on the bus with his Eric Morecambe flat cap, sitting at the old heel bar at Piccadilly, was best of all. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

@gavinnewsom.bsky.social: "This guy is trying to get a Nobel Peace Prize? When he's bringing war to the American people? He sent the United States Marines into the United States of America."

Today's university with the redundancies is (unsurprisingly) yet again Dundee, after Bournemouth yesterday and Cranfield the day before that. www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/...

'Honest Bob' Jenrick, a politician obviously & deliberately embracing xenophobia, does some weapons grade xenophobia & the BBC *apologises* for a Thought For The Day contributor calling it xenophobic. Licence fee payers need to know who makes these decisions & why. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Wow. The University of Chicago, a world-class institution whose humanities faculty in the past has included Homi Bhabha & Lauren Berlant & Ralph Ellison & Hannah freaking Arendt, is getting rid of basically every graduate department involving the acknowledgment that other cultures & languages exist.

This anon piece is as good as people are saying, but I'll summarise here for those of you interested in Higher Education but with no time: *Universities are not in the public sector *Govts are a minority funder, and matter less and less. (1/4) profserious.substack.com/p/understand...

Yeah JD, we remember. We will never forget your boss was best friends with the guy who ran a literal child sex trafficking ring. And then that guy was "silenced" forever. And now we will just not talk about anything else until they... #ReleaseThe_EPSTEIN_Files

I was going to post about what a great idea it is to impose further surcharges and taxes on universities at the point they are collapsing, but here’s an emergency fluffy kitten instead

Adding to the TBR mountain while slowly catching up with some podcasts. Sylvia Townsend Warner's 'The Corner That Held Them' has become essential reading since listening to this (typically) wonderful episode from the @backlisted.bsky.social gang. www.backlisted.fm/episodes/242...

The stories we tell matter. I know this not from watching but from memory. I was just a child, held behind barbed wire in a U.S. internment camp, when an atomic bomb obliterated Hiroshima—killing members of my family.

Takayuki Oshima spent fifteen years making this documentary about WW2 Kamikaze pilots, tracking down family members, peers and allied survivors. The result is a powerful and heartbreaking film about national pride, sacrifice and the deranged psychology of war. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

"It is a well-kept secret of US higher education that undergraduate students who have earned a degree in the humanities fare quite well on the job market." www.mellon.org/voices/human...

For those who give, or would like to give, money to those suffering in Gaza, International Rescue is currently doubling donations for the month of August help.rescue-uk.org/SV-step-forw...

I read this book in January, out of idle curiosity, not thinking that the grotesque story would become urgent topical news. But no one reading @lucia-oc.bsky.social’s empathetic, meticulous, unflinching account can doubt Ghislaine Maxwell’s full participation in sexual abuse. This is disgraceful.

Meiselas: Donald Trump is being protested all across Scotland... You saw a protest in Edinburgh. There are protests in communities across Scotland...Let me show you this, where the speaker says, “As for Mr. Trump, we could smell your stink the moment that you landed”...

Boom! Just got to 44,000 help us get to 45,000! actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

Cabinet ministers and a third of MPs call on Keir Starmer to recognise state of Palestine. Rayner and Cooper understood to back action as 221 MPs sign letter calling for UK recognition of statehood www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Projects by students and a graduate from MSc User Experience Engineering have been nominated for the Autumn 2025 UX Design Awards. Their work includes an AI-powered pet adoption platform and a project which helps locate missing people by mobilising volunteers. www.gold.ac.uk/news/2025/ux...

“An entertaining overview of the cultural life of death.” @theprofrog.bsky.social’s illustrated history of mortuary culture, Graveyards, is reviewed in @publisherswkly.bsky.social:

"🎶🎶 All the single honours, all the single honours 🎶🎶"

I will take "Blame Obama" and if that fails, "Start a War"

Shout out to Abdul, a member of staff at Crystal Palace station. I was the only person on the last service - a rail replacement bus which completely failed to stop. Abdul told me to complain to @TfL- which subcontracts this service. And then he DROVE ME HOME. What a guy.

Today's university making redundancies is somehow yet again UEA, which has been in deep trouble for a long time. Oh don't worry! They're only getting rid of *checks notes* mental health training for the NHS! Mickey Mouse courses or something. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...