Sigh. *puts head in hands* The Middle Ages was no more “superstitious” then almost any other premodern period. Greeks and Romans also consulted astrology, had demons, and believed in myth. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/o...

#philjobs #philsci

Shocking news about redundancies in the Humanities at the University of Hertfordshire, despite their exceptional research activities. I have signed the petition against these actions: it would be great if you would as well: c.org/kDQynZV7J4 @bbkhistorical.bsky.social @bisa-bkk.bsky.social

This is an AMAZING piece of reporting. And this table is mind-boggling:

Four years ago today, Shireen Abu Akleh was assassinated by an Israeli soldier. Since then, Israel has killed more than 275 journalists in Gaza and Lebanon. The world that let Shireen's killer walk free made all of this possible. mondoweiss.net/2026/05/from... #Palestine #Israel

fab late #medievalsky / #earlymodern history job folks! considering what magical unicorns perm jobs in history departments are these days, i can only imagine with some trepidation how many apps this well get... 🗃️

apply!!!

That Enlightenment ngram was prompted by this book and review link.springer.com/article/10.1...

I love the idea of a "Student Tech Bill of Rights, which includes the right to “read whole books,” to “regularly read and write on paper,” and to “a low-stimulation learning environment.”" www.newyorker.com/culture/prog...

Even if ivermectin did all those things (which it doesn't), hantaviruses don't replicate in the nucleus. We do actually need drugs that work against hantaviruses, but for that we need federal grants to support that research.

People shocked Moderna explored a mRNA #hantavirus vaccine don’t understand infectious disease preparedness. Hantaan & Seoul viruses are endemic in South Korea & cause Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome. Vaccines for priority pathogens are developed long before the public hears about them.

In advertising we used to call that the “duck”. Where you’d make a good ad but stick a duck in it. So the client would be like “yeah we love everything else but can you take the duck out, not sure re the duck?” And you’d go “oh ok thats a shame but if you’re sure, we can make it work with no duck”

The Routledge Handbook of Values and Science, edited by Kevin Elliot and Ted Richards is now available as open access: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi... In includes a chapter on the limits of diversity in science by @acfischer.bsky.social, @abigailnd.bsky.social and our group leader Jan Baedke.

"Rejecting narratives that blame victims’ poverty or trauma, Black dissects police files, coroners’ reports, and court records to uncover a harsh historical reality: The evidence of settler violence has been hiding in plain sight."

In my element here -- the politicians and popular writers make pronouncements, and then the historian reminds everybody how darn complicated the past actually is. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m... #Kohinoor #India #colonialism #Pakistan

Seriously? If you’re the leader of a community, you should be willing to engage with members of that community. You certainly should not drive your car into them, or lie about what they were doing.

This is the type of stuff for which X is still better. Calling out the media spin, combined with political class and even the Met converting a horrific stabbing of THREE people (2 Jewish one Muslim) by one recently discharged from psychiatric hospital into anti-Semitic terrorism & banning marches.

Surprise, surprise ... a huge number of people who signed the "Harper's Letter" wound up working for Bari Weiss. Huh. Who've thought? The brilliant @mariabustillos.com explains how it all went down -- only on @flaminghydra.com! flaminghydra.com/sh/

I don't think people fully understand yet just how fragile university-hosted digital resources are after external funding ends (especially if the lead academic retires or moves or is made redundant).

Maybe the OfS is institutionally captured by Arif Ahmed, Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom, a reactionary that is directing OfS to pursue vendettas against universities that don't withstand legal scrutiny, perhaps?

A strong statement from @ucu.org.uk on the University of Sussex win against the OfS. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1449...

✅Greek Natl University, Athens ✅ Cambridge University, UK ✅ Pitzer College ✅ UCLA ✅ USC ✅ UCSB Now, just two colleges to go on the pre-publication tour and I can 😴 take a nap before the May 19 launch…

In my Facebook, from 2 years ago, the following image popped up as memories. I think just as important to post again as a reminder of how attacks against higher ed continue on both sides of the pond. The quote from Beard at the top is just as valid now as a century ago (if not more).

University management spent £80 million on new building that wasn't needed (presently for sale at £14 million) and now decide 600 staff should go to 'save' £50 million. This is the math currently shaping future of UK HE. Staff paying the price for mismanagement. Govt looking the other way

www.brepols.net/products/IS-... Just received at home, with memories of an exciting conference in Trento!

For #RomanSiteSaturday here's a view of the 4th century Roman temple that sits on Jordan Hill, above the cliffs at Weymouth

everything in american politics boils down to this

3 #postdoctoral positions @exeter.ac.uk on @wellcometrust.bsky.social funded project on history of #smallpox and #measles (PI: Rebecca Flemming). Deadline for applications: May 20, 2026. Links to each advert below #histmed #sts #menastorians Please share widely. 1/4

You might think it was odd that people react to widespread elite impunity by obsessing over the hot takes of a little known provocateur, but that is in fact the whole point here: hyperfixation on the petty crimes of the weak has always been the main bulwark against addressing the big stuff.

Can you imagine what the discourse would be like if Brecht was alive today and dropped his line about "What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank"?

I think I'm going to listen to one of these people more than the other.

Relatedly: digitizing archives should be an add-on, not an excuse for destroying physical documents. I used to be a curator at the British Library Map Library. An essay of mine that connects the physical space of a library/archive to arguments about why LLM-based genAI can only ever be garbage:

We need to appeal to all the proud white Britons who want to protect women and children from brutal, primitive men, to keep their Union Jack-draped demos lawful as they protest this rape: yet another of the 74,000 at least committed by a white British man each year: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It is one of the counterintuitive things about ai that it doesn't operate like Google search used to. It invents cases and articles that it thinks ought to exist, and puts them into lists of real things, making it hard to spot. /1

Open Access Article! "The plague of 1720 and migration in Martigues (France) in the 17th and 18th centuries" by Pierre Darlu and Isabelle Séguy. The study helps us understand how epidemics can affect the evolution of a population on a local scale. doi.org/10.1371/jour... #histmed #histstm

I mean it’s the obvious question and it’s unanswerable. US security guarantees obviously count for shit.

All my solidarity to colleagues. Another university 'management team' with zero sense of accountability. All too easy to blame the government. And enough with the rhetoric of 'improved curricula'. Impoverished curricula and skills that will not longer be transmitted - that's the reality.

FWIW the right-wing lies about "not teaching western civ" were simply political attacks on (a) colleagues and students of color, and (b) the project of higher education generally. the point was to control it. the right doesn't give 2 shits about what's taught, as long as they're in charge.

Mapped the IDF's newly declared "Forward Defense Zone" in south Lebanon. Its maritime boundary fully absorbs Lebanon's Qana gas field, whose exploration rights were explicitly guaranteed under the 2022 US-brokered maritime border agreement. @weatherwar

I found this to be exceptionally nuanced and multilayered in its analysis of where the Gulf stands today. “That fact matters because Saudi Arabia is not simply a Gulf country. It is equally a Red Sea, Levantine, and increasingly a Horn of Africa state with vital national security interests.“

There is justice in the world, as Amir Makled who defended UMich Pro Palestine students defeats UM Regent Jordan Acker to win the Michigan Dems endorsement for the UM governing board. Acker who wrote lewd crap on Slack about students at UM also called the cops on pro-Palestine students.

Famously Sauron's eye never missed any intruders upon his land

"we all are seemingly indulging Keir Starmer's performative cluelessness" - Jo Grady @drjogrady.bsky.social on #Newsnight Labour short-straw-champ, John Slinger, says it's neither cluelessness or incompetence + on Keir's excuses: "not only do I buy it, I believe it" 😶‍🌫️ Staggering. Wilful blindness.

This would mean the salary of the VCs of UK unis would now have to be capped around 300k! This would be very welcome news indeed and would save a lot of excessive waste at UK universities since other C-suite uni salaries would have to be lowered too. @profalexp.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

US-Israeli bombing destroys the Pasteur Institute “Established in 1920, the institute is the first and oldest public health center in Iran—where staffers pioneered vaccine development and research on the prevention of infectious diseases.” www.cnn.com/2026/04/02/w...

Science is a social practice that is continuous with the culture and the people who practice it.

Here’s why this argument falls apart

“If they had welcomed me, it would have meant that we would have entered a different epistemological era. We have of course, but it will take a couple of decades before the establishment realizes it.” - Bruno Latour, 1991.

For whoever needs to hear this I'm the only Jewish person to lead a political party - third largest in the country. The Daily Mail have been & always will be my enemy - they historically supported fascists & continue to do so. I'll take no lectures from them on Antisemitism.