The only rationale for creation,' says Rowan Williams, 'is so that love can be shared.’

🚨 Call for Papers! 🚨 📣Join us @lancasteruni.bsky.social 1-3 July 2026 as we return to our original home to celebrate our 50th anniversary! We welcome proposals from historians at all career stages across 8 thematic strands. 📅 CfP deadline: 16/01/26 🔗 socialhistory.org.uk/events/confe... #CFP 🗃️

“The rich archival collections of Ajami literature refute the pervasive myth of Africa’s supposed illiteracy that is perpetuated by the overemphasis on African oral traditions in academia and the privileging of external sources over local chronicles.” www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/theajami-s...

ICYMI: Arts Council England is to invest £42 million into grassroots culture projects over the next three years of its Creative People and Places portfolio. Read more 👇

Going to re-post this occasionally, with added mention that I’m very happy to do more talks about it

The latest output from my milk research with Johanna Zetterström-Sharp @uclarchaeology.bsky.social published in @theconversation.com theconversation.com/the-politics...

Only 7 tickets left… you’d better be quick :)

Only 7 tickets left… you’d better be quick :)

There are cities that are full of nature and we we learn to pay attention to it… we can make room for even more… for the next few days 25% off on pre order…

The latest output from my milk research with Johanna Zetterström-Sharp @uclarchaeology.bsky.social published in @theconversation.com theconversation.com/the-politics...

A mindful day. This morning, chatting with @jcniala.bsky.social and Johanna Zetterstrom-Sharp (uclarchaeology.bsky.social) about dairy heritage and change. In connections with their very cool project www.milkingit.org.

Delighted to be featured in this season’s @cprecountryside.bsky.social magazine… it was joyful to be able to share what I love about the incredible countryside.

A large mushroom farm near the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, is one of a kind: It grows fungi on an industrial scale — not as food for restaurants but as a building material that some Kenyans say could make more people homeowners.

There are cities that are full of nature and we we learn to pay attention to it… we can make room for even more… for the next few days 25% off on pre order…

A year on from our sold-out works in progress reading at Blackwell’s in Oxford… we have moved to the next stage and our rehearsed reading is on Wednesday 29th October at the Old Fire Station in Oxford… looking forward to seeing you there.

Allotments are under threat again. Media reports abound about the approval of the disposal of the sale of 8 sites. As an anthropologist who engaged with allotments for my doctorate this is both familiar & frustrating. These spaces have helped communities through war, austerity and lockdowns.

It has been a gift to be one of the judges for this prize - congrats to the authors and I can highly recommend these reads.

Conference CFP: 'Who Owns Heritage? Local Communities and the Fight for Historical Monuments in the 19th and 20th Centuries'. Masaryk University Brno, Czechia, 6 November. Deadline 11 April. networks.h-net.org/group/announ...

We've been loving our Family Sundays at The Community Works! Date for your diaries - the next one is 16 March. Come along from 12pm-3pm for food, fun, storytelling, and creative joy for all the family

Take part in the UK’s national festival of the humanities (6–15 November 2025) and help to demonstrate and celebrate the importance of research in the humanities. Funding grants available! Find out more: https://buff.ly/4hIC1RF

My beloved aunt died. The African proverb is true - we’ve lost a library. Starting with her name - Symphorosa (Siprosa) which is a classic example of a specific time in Kenyan history when Catholic missionaries were active. You can tell by which saints are referenced which generation was born when.

To accompany our event, we've also issued a statement about changes to the recruitment for the #History panel for REF2029 bit.ly/4b1PAJn While plans for greater representation are welcome, the Society has concerns about how well this new model will work given the inequalities in History in UK HE.

The Oxford Real Farming Conference 2025 sessions are now online for everybody. There were some amazing talks. Well worth listening in, particularly Unpicking Food & Farming Misinformation, Is a Fossil-free Food System Possible and Roots of Resistance. 🌱🥬🌾💚

Early Morning Yoga. Friday 28 Feb. 7.30am, Weston Library. £5. Start the day with a one-hour, open level, alignment-based yoga flow, especially designed for musicians & performers, but open to all. Led by violinist & yoga instructor, Elena. To book: oxfordculturalprogramme.org.uk/event/music-....

Nutritious, climate resilient delicious foods that can thrive in poor soils have been with us for millennia. Thrilled to come across these delicious ragi crisps in Mumbai - in Kenya we call finger millet (Eleusine coracana) wimbi and make porridge from it. It’s an ancient East African grain.

I LOVE all the different Englishses there are in the world. Currently in Mumbai and these are my faves so far: prepone, timepass and one that is also the same in Kenglish ‘doing the needful’.

I LOVE all the different Englishses there are in the world. Currently in Mumbai and these are my faves so far: prepone, timepass and one that is also the same in Kenglish ‘doing the needful’.

Deadline approaching: submit your proposals for #AHA26 by February 15, 2025. Our 2026 annual meeting will take place on January 8–11, 2026, in Chicago. The Program Committee welcomes and encourages all historians to submit proposals. 🗃️

Calling poets,prose writers & essayists to submit to the @strangehorizons.bsky.social AfroSurrealist Special Issue!Send us your worlds that slip between the mundane & the uncanny,the ghostly & the futuristic. Me & @shingai-be-like.bsky.social are co-editing strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

"Attention is a form of respect for people and places"... Fine words read by the co-winner of the 60th Scott Moncrieff Prize for translation from French, online tonight from the @britishlibrary.bsky.social. Translation is of course the closest firm of attention www.thebookseller.com/news/the-soc...

Are you an #envhum scholar looking to make a difference for the field? Become a co-editor of the journal Environmental Humanities! We need a new set of 2 co-editors to replace Franklin & I from Jan 2026. See the call here: environmentalhumanities.org Contact us if you have any questions.

We had a chat with Food Studies professor @fparasecoli.bsky.social about gastronativism (the “ideological use of food in politics to advance ideas about who belongs to a community”) and it turned into a fascinating conversation about “us”, “them”, food, politics, and systemic thinking. Have a read!

Still open...not many days left now! #poetry #submissions #writing

Thank you for all the follows - I would love to hear from you what you are up to & particularly now - what is inspiring you…

New issue of NON-FICTION inc incredible new work by @jcniala.bsky.social, Jenny Clarke @clubdesfemmes.bsky.social, Momtaza Mehri, Barby Asante, Miha Ōgai, Helene Kazan, Abiba Coulibaly & Melek Erdal, ranging across breath, karaoke, food, photography, protest opencitylondon.com/non-fiction/...

Strong discussion on the Community, Food, Land, and Nature panel at Oxford Real Farming Conference #ORFC25 chaired by @olliedouglas.bsky.social of @themerl.bsky.social with @jcniala.bsky.social , farmer James Norman, @tallehatenchong.bsky.social & Samwel Nangiria Taresero.

From the Community, Food, Land, and Nature panel at Oxford Real Farming Conference #ORFC25 chaired by @olliedouglas.bsky.social of @themerl.bsky.social with @jcniala.bsky.social, farmer James Norman, @tallehatenchong.bsky.social & Samwel Nangiria Taresero.

Applications are now open for 2025-26 Fellowships at IASH, with 60 places available! Apply here: www.iash.ed.ac.uk/application-... Senior/mid-career programmes close 28 Feb. Postdoctoral/early-career programmes close 25 April. See our Fellowship pages for details: www.iash.ed.ac.uk/fellowship-p...

Thursday 9th January 16.00 — 17.30 UK time Venue: The Story Museum — THE WOODSHED, 42 Pembroke Street, Oxford, OX1 1BP COMMUNITY, FOOD, LAND, NATURE; LOCAL AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES Speakers: Samwel Nangiria Taresero, JC Niala, Atenchong Talleh Nkobou, James Norman Chair: Ollie Douglas

I'm so excited to announce that my department is now hiring TWO ECOLOGISTS at the Assistant Professor Level. We will be really excited to substantially expand research in ecology in our EEOB Department at UCR. Please Repost and share widely! aprecruit.ucr.edu/JPF01983

Thought I'd remind folk about the nature #writing starter packs and feed, now that @nicolawriting.bsky.social has joined the Bluesky crew. Please do like, 📌, repost & enjoy! Thank you 🙏🐸🐦‍⬛🌳🐌🐜 Starter Pack 1: go.bsky.app/NXoPc6D Starter Pack 2: go.bsky.app/7opWxNV Feed: bsky.app/profile/did:...

📣You have less than two weeks to submit a proposal for our 2025 conference! ⏰Deadline 17 January! Open to anyone working on cultural and social history. socialhistory.org.uk/events/confe...

Sobering, and important. Hannah Yelin (Ox Brookes): 'Her latest paper, published in the journal New Formations, found that 74 per cent of academics had experienced online harms as a result of sharing research publicly – affecting their careers and causing significant physical and mental harms.' 1/3

Here’s a piece I wrote about translation & the 2024 protests in 🇰🇪. If you do read it - do keep scrolling - there’s a lot of intentional blank space. Do share if you can… opencitylondon.com/non-fiction/...

Britain sends hard drives with digitalized images and archival files back to Kenya - including materials on the Mau Mau insurgency and intelligence of anti-colonial leaders. nation.africa/kenya/news/b...

I'm chairing a fascinating session on Community, Food, Land, and Nature at #ORFC25. We'll hear from an amazing panel of folks that we've worked with @themerl.bsky.social including: @jcniala.bsky.social, James Norman, @tallehatenchong.bsky.social, and Samwel Nangiria Taresero. Come and join us!

Today, December 1st, is World AIDS Day. From the archive: Clifford McManus discusses the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt as an object of protest and activism, and a symbol of love and remembrance. www.historyworkshop.... 🗃️✊ 🌈🗃️ #queerhistory #WorldAIDSDay

The Friends of the Landscape Institute Library and Archive is sponsoring a series of online lectures on Twentieth Century Women in Landscape Design, which looks wonderful. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/c20-women-...

www.ft.com/content/5d44... Such a powerful opening line to this piece ‘Markets are theatrical places.’ cities become hollowed out when we are estranged from the the theatre of our everyday lives.