IMMINENT DEADLINE REMINDER: Call for papers - MCCT Stream: (trickle, river, flood, wadi) Post-Anthropocene Scenes Tuesday, 21st January. Details of this and other streams here: mcct.margins.org.uk

Amazingly, Zahawi only got round to deleting the below after the press conference announcing his defection to Reform.

It's always a good idea to follow the money. In this case Kobold Mining and Praxis www.forbes.com/sites/martin...

Elon Musk has now the same opinions as the most extreme of the fascists

free | nonhierarchical | dialogic Activists, artists, academics, archivists: is this the conference you have been waiting for? #academicsky cfp deadline: 21st January mcct.margins.org.uk

Cromford Bridge. If you try and cross it after dark Crooker might take you to feed the River Derwent. I mentioned it writing about Derbyshire & Lincolnshire wetlands & the connecting rivers. The article is partly abt folklore, politics & ecological consciousness; hopefully published soon in Revenant

I'm really looking forward to activist and researcher Vanessa Boon's talk at this month's Research Café at the Quad in Derby www.derbyquad.co.uk/events/resea...

Lovely, kind words from @lunatraktors.bsky.social - I cannot understand why I had not heard their music before. It is sublime!

Super hyped to be involved with this!

I am really happy to have signed a contract with Bloomsbury Academic for Mermaids, Waters, Places: Folklore, Politics, and Cultural Landscapes in England. (The 'cover' below is a fake I made while I was celebrating - the mermaid image is an open source image made by GDJ and distributed via Pixabay).

The next Research Cafe is 20th February and I will be picking up a thread that emerged in @malcschofield.bsky.social & David Sheffield's December talk and will be exploring the question, 'What is Hauntology?' As ever, it is free but it helps if you book via: www.derbyquad.co.uk/events/resea...

I'm really looking forward to tonight's Research Cafe at Derby QUAD - Dr Julia Thomasz of the Institute for Advanced Study (UCL) talking about the importance of poetry in our lives and more widely. Free and at 7pm if you can make it.

CFP for Midlands Conference in Critical Thought extended to Monday 20 January. It is a free, non-hierarchical conference being held in Derby in April, 2025. Please see the linked document for more details. static1.squarespace.com/static/64468...

This has crept round quickly! Deadline for paper proposals for the Midlands Conference in Critical Thought is 7th January. mcct.margins.org.uk

December's Research Café is going to be amazing. Psychologists Dr Malcolm Schofield and Professor David Sheffield who will be offering seasonal spookiness with 'Psychology's Ghosts'. 12th December, 7pm. I'm looking forward to the talk and discussions immensely. www.derbyquad.co.uk/events/resea...

4 funded heritage science PhDs at Nottingham Trent University. Due date: 14 February 2025. 1. Creative Approaches to the Representation of Crisis Heritage in the Museum using Digital Means (tinyurl.com/ymfnja7b) Cont...

It was good to be on 'the other side' of a lecture theatre last week. I really enjoyed @br00kes.bsky.social Mick Aston lecture on Assemblies in the Early Middle Ages. All of it was very engaging but I was especially interested in the role of folklore of preserving some memories of assembly locations

I have just got tickets for the daughter and myself; I am amazed there are any left. £15 for Nosferatu lived score by one of the best soundtrack groups? Can't say no. www.ticketsource.co.uk/booking/conf...

As I am sure everyone is aware, this is excellent news and I am sure to indulge myself and listen to it all this weekend. But what is that chanting I hear whispering in the wind? I can only make out a little of it, '....mglw'nafh...R'lyeh...fhtagn...'

Online. Free. 'Lunchtime bites', indeed. This looks fun. www.derby.ac.uk/events/lates... #folklore #gothic #vampire #dracula #etc

Tonight, I was talking about queering humanity and rethinking our being as being a symbiont in an endlessly scaling web of symbionts. Maybe I was wrong; maybe humans are just irredeemably odd. www.nytimes.com/2024/11/21/w...

If anyone is close to Derby and fancies joining a chat about humans' troubled relationship to/with/in nature, feel free to drop in to tonight's Research Café at the Quad - 7pm. www.derbyquad.co.uk/events/resea...

The Gray Ladies aka Nine Stones Close. A site of fairy music and dancing women come midnight and midday. I went straight after the school run and missed out on the festivities.

December's Research Café is going to be amazing. Psychologists Dr Malcolm Schofield and Professor David Sheffield who will be offering seasonal spookiness with 'Psychology's Ghosts'. 12th December, 7pm. I'm looking forward to the talk and discussions immensely. www.derbyquad.co.uk/events/resea...

This is a great opportunity for folkies and non-folkies alike to embrace a traditional song and have it featured on an album likely to attract national attention….

I have just spent a hugely enjoyable and productive two days with the Folklore Without Borders network - our theme and goal being strategies for polyvocal recognition, representation and contribution in the folk cultures of England.

Just over a week to go until Writing the Gothic, a free workshop that I’m giving with Comma Press at Manchester Metropolitan University, followed by a panel with fellow Gothic writers Leonie Rowland and A.G. Smith of @weepingbanklibrary.bsky.social! 🎟️: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/writing-th...

Sad to see the Folklore Without Borders working group come to end but very much looking forward to spending two days with everyone. An unnaturally early start to get the train down to London will be more than worth it. I can't wait to find out (and be involved) in what comes next.

I also saw the loneliness of the long distance runner.

I walked through the mist to find the Doxey Pool in the wet and marshy ground above the Roaches in Staffordshire. Its name is said to derive from a slur and it is fenced off to keep humans and dogs away to encourage life to return to it. Folklore tells us that will not happen.