For anyone interested in our 18-month post in British Studies please follow the link below. @ihr.bsky.social www.jobs.london.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

New blog post! Ballet in St Petersburg, Shakespeare in rural Illinois, and... odd apparitions on one's deathbed drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2026/02/04/r... #amreading #booksky 📚💙

ICE tear gassed a bunch of children on Saturday. This was a massive escalation of force. They were shooting tear gas at the back of the crowd, it took these unmasked people maybe 3-5 minutes in the cloud of tear gas to escape in without trampling. www.theverge.com/policy/87278...

I'm here on BBC World Service's History Hour about 10.25mins in, talking about the history of children's protests! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w... #skystorians #histchild #historyhit

Happy abseiling lesbians day to all who celebrate!!!

Are you looking for book reviews, recommendations, author interviews, guest posts & so much more? Check out all these fabulous bookish folk We are as the name suggests: A Bunch of Book Bloggers with a passion for 📚 go.bsky.app/MQN615J

"The UK creative industries — which contributed £125 billion to the economy in 2024 and supported 2.4 million jobs — are being destroyed by an AI sector that, whatever its long-term potential, contributed just £11 billion in the same year and supported only 85,000 jobs." archive.is/hvRv2

Proud to have been one of the 9,200 people who submitted that name to the contest. Lol blockclubchicago.org/2026/01/28/a...

This sounds great! #histchild #skystorians royalhistsoc.org/calendar/gen...

On almost everything – fraud, polarisation, radicalisation, misinformation – evidence suggests that over 60s are in much more urgent need of online protection and education than teenagers. But that issue gets zero political attention, and is a total non-starter. Nothing good will come of it.

Feel free to mute me if you get tired of seeing me talking about my book over the next few months but BEFORE YOU DO, I just wanted to point out that the fantastic Francis Spufford has very kindly said that it 'gives us extraordinary, privileged access to the inner worlds of a generation' 🥂🥂🥂

Terrific to see this piece by Malcolm Russell (UCL) published in MBH. So many students & colleagues will be thrilled to read this research. @mbhjournal.bsky.social ‘All the Kids Wanna Sniff Some Glue’: glue-sniffing, deindustrialization, and moral panic in 1980s Britain doi.org/10.1093/tcbh...

Very saddened by the death of Deborah Cameron this week—a brilliant linguist, feminist, and colleague, who shone bright light on language and gender in society. Here she is talking about why people are interested in linguistic differences between men and women: englishandmedia.co.uk/videos/colle...

100% disagree. Have loved this series (the only truly unpleasant series of the UK Traitors is actually S1, IMO) and find it interesting that male Traitors are apparently allowed to be 'cut-throat' and yet 'stay on the right side of likeable', but not female ones www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

(Some) of what I've been reading in January... from early 00s fashion magazine drama to 1895 Paris to fantasy con artists drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2026/01/22/r... #booksky

“You can’t cut one in ten staff without damaging students and teaching.” 85% of University of Essex staff have voted for strike action over plans to cut 400 jobs and close the Southend campus. Show your support and solidarity as they prepare to fight back. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1432...

Well that’s me locked out. No pay for the foreseeable future, all because I refuse to reschedule lost teaching, for which I have already lost pay as part of the strike. Please donate to support @sheffielducu.bsky.social members like me at www.gofundme.com/f/heubvb-sup...

Sheffield UCU @sheffielducu.bsky.social has been taking strike action in defence of jobs this term. But in an alarming escalation, Sheffield management has threatened to "lock out", ie. deduct pay at 100% for each day, if members refuse to reschedule marking, beginning with the start of 2026. 🧵1/7

Statement from our client Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah. It is a tragedy that Adelaide Writers' Week has been destroyed, for nothing. However, this is a massive win for artistic freedom and hopefully a turning point in this time of unhinged McCarthyist witch-hunting. Randa is a hero and we love her.

📢Call for papers📢 for this year's Centre for the History of Childhood colloquium on Charity, Humanitarianism, and Childhood on 22 June 2026. Please send us your abstracts by midday on Friday 13 March. We look forward to hearing from you! More details here: www.history.ox.ac.uk/centre-histo...

Hurrah!!! The brilliant Sumita Mukherjee has a new book out about the lives of South Asian children in Modern Britain in just a few weeks. I love the cover photo! A must read so now would be a great time to preorder and commission reviews. www.hurstpublishers.com/book/imperia...

New blog post! I return to a book I struggled with and have an entirely different reading experience. Has this ever happened to you? #booksky drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2026/01/12/l...

This cause is close to my heart - please sign: www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/no...

“i want back my rocking chairs, / solipsist sunsets, / & coastal jungle sounds...” A poem by Renee Nicole Good, who was murdered by ICE earlier today. lithub.com/renee-nicole...

I applied to Trinity Hall from a state comprehensive school after their outreach team came to give us a talk. Without wanting to boast, I went on to do... pretty well in my exams. This is seriously embarrassing for the college (though good to see fellows opposed) www.theguardian.com/education/20...

I applied to Trinity Hall from a state comprehensive school after their outreach team came to give us a talk. Without wanting to boast, I went on to do... pretty well in my exams. This is seriously embarrassing for the college (though good to see fellows opposed) www.theguardian.com/education/20...

2026 reading plans! Do any of these catch your eye? drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2026/01/05/2... #booksky

I’m at Times Square, where an emergency “No War On Venezuela” protest just took to the street. Easily a thousand people here in real-feel 20°F weather. “No more coups, no more wars, Venezuela’s not yours!” “No boots on the ground no bombs in the air, U.S. out of everywhere!”

I wrote a v angry blog post about the Stranger Things finale... Spoilers, obviously drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2026/01/03/d... #strangerthings #strangerthings5 #byler #sff

My top ten books of 2025! drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/m... #booksky

My top ten books of 2025! drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/m... #booksky

Doorstoppers in December: round-up and reflections drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2025/12/29/d... #doorstoppersindecember #booksky #sff

Glad to see this: as historian who has been thinking 'Huh? historical invention of adolescence as category? centuries of children being expected to be responsible providing family members?' vs recently coming across advice column re whether 15-year old was capable of managing public transport 1/2

"The lives of the Palestine Action-affiliated remand prisoners now on hunger strike are at growing risk. On Friday, two reached day 48 without food. (In 1981, one IRA prisoner – 29-year-old Martin Hurson – died on the 46th day.)" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Eight Palestine Action activists on hunger strike while in prison awaiting trial are dying, according to a doctor

For avoidance of confusion, that’s just about all academic staff, excluding Heads of Dept and- of course - Senior Management Team.

Deadline to submit an abstract to the always fabulous @histchild.bsky.social conference at the University of Sheffield, 1-3 July 2026, coming up on 14th December!* #histchild #histyouth #skystorians *this is also a reminder to myself www.histchild.org/pages/sheffi...

1. The European Parliament’s attempt to ban plant-based foods from being sold as “sausages”, “burgers” etc is a direct response to livestock industry lobbying. This is a short thread on how utterly bleeding ridiculous it is. 🧵1/6

Deadline to submit an abstract to the always fabulous @histchild.bsky.social conference at the University of Sheffield, 1-3 July 2026, coming up on 14th December!* #histchild #histyouth #skystorians *this is also a reminder to myself www.histchild.org/pages/sheffi...

The idea that the effects of phones and social media on children is so dramatically different than on adults so as to justify interfering with children's freedom to use them but not with adults... I just can't get on board with this. It's the urge to control masquerading as science.

Lots of options for #DoorstoppersinDecember! If you fancy tackling some big books in December, do join this challenge and share what you'd like to read: drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2025/11/28/d... #booksky

My one #SciFiMonth post this year, featuring a feminist utopian classic, plus short reviews of two others drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2025/11/26/s... @scifimonth.bsky.social #booksky #sff

Word. Bourdieu said youth is a category created by struggle for power between adults and young people. The point of defining adulthood ever is to define the relative distribution of power between one person and another. Hand power to 9 year olds and you've got my attention

Maybe the term 'adulthood' is, in fact, not incredibly useful if we keep redefining it to mean a shorter & shorter section of our lifespans (without even getting into the problems with assuming changes in the brain map onto social roles...) www.theguardian.com/science/2025... #histchild #skystorians

I haven't got much to add to the general horror at Labour's migration plans, but the bizarre focus on ebikes as assets seems to serve - intentionally perhaps - to increase the stigmatisation of ebike riders (read: delivery drivers) still further and undermine migrants' everyday mobilities.

bookjotter.com/2025/11/15/winding-up-the-week-447/ #AmReading #Books #BookReview #DoorstoppersInDecember @lauratisdall.bsky.social @roughghosts.bsky.social

"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975 “It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975

For colleagues in the UK: Yale UP is running a 50% discount through November, using the promo code FIFTY. Lots of books at much better prices, including my own: yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

Making plans for Doorstoppers in December! Book bloggers & others, do feel free to join in drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/d... #doorstoppersindecember #booksky

I read the Booker Prize shortlist (again). Rum do, this year - but not uninterestingly. On the bourgeois novel: