new Mary Oliver poem just dropped

I'll always be obsessed with this edit made by @tommchenry.bsky.social

This looks like a brilliant (and very practical!) series of events:

Islands Matter: #Faroese & #Shetlandic #Folklore 26 Feb, free online via @insuhi.bsky.social Prof Jóan Pauli Joensen: “Water Beings in Faroese Folklore – Tradition & Change” & Prof Andrew Jennings: “From Fetlar to Foula – Norse Roots of Shetland Folklore” www.uhi.ac.uk/en/research-...

He just called it "Iceland". We've lost track of which Atlantic island we're extorting Europe for.

www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/no... Sheffield University is under threat and we are doing our best to save it. Please, sign and share this petition to protest against the grotesque assault on university staff #Sheffield #againstculturalvandalism #UCUstrike @sheffielducu.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

Ok so this is one of those things I guess I knew in theory, but seeing it represented like this 😲 Mexico, I wasn't familiar with your game.

Here in Greenland we are scared, but certain of one thing: our home is not for sale | Malu Rosing

It's probably only come to mind because I was teaching on William Morris last week, but I think this gives a new ring to his famous quote: '[...] the past is not dead, but is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make' (Preface to 'Medieval Lore' by Robert Steele)

A replica of the Norwegian Alstad stone - a rune-stone and picture stone from the eleventh century - has been unveiled in Vytachiv in Ukraine. The copy was made by the well-known modern rune carver Erik Sandquist. www.regjeringen.no/en/whats-new... #runology

If you want to do an MA in London but have 'barriers accessing education or may face greater challenges while undertaking their degree' (specific criteria below), you can apply for a £3,000 tuition grant at Birkbeck. Lots of choices at @bbkhistorical.bsky.social: www.bbk.ac.uk/student-serv...

I do find it interesting that centuries of paleo-Inuit presence in Greenland is often described as ephemeral whilst five hundred years of settlement by the Norse amounts to the "first true ‘ownership’ of Greenland in a formal sense". [Not trying to dunk on this article in particular]

My 2 workshops on academic grant writing start NEXT WEEK—and there are still spaces available! (Pls share!) You get: - access to 2 dozen successful applications for major grants (e.g. ERC, NEH, NSF) - guidance to help you write stronger grant proposals - 1-year subscription to Page by Page 1/5

Norse in the North 2026: Mind and Body Deadline for Abstracts: 2nd February 2026 We welcome postgraduate students from any level with research on any aspect of Old Norse, medieval Scandinavian, and Viking studies that fits the theme. #NitN2026 #medievalsky #callforpapers #oldnorse

Attention creative medievalists! Eleanor Barraclough & I are co-editing a special issue of Public Humanities entitled CREATING THE MEDIEVAL NOW! See the cfp for details: essays of 2,000-3,000 words due 1 May 2026. (Amazing artwork by @hellomizk.bsky.social). 1/ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

saturation with Tolkien spinoffs has somehow not prepared our culture for the arrival of dark lords bearing a gift that everyone becomes convinced they can wield to accomplish great things but just makes them dependent and start whispering about preciouses if you suggest just throwing it away

CFP for "Nostalgia and Radical Politics, Past and Present," 15 – 16 June 2026 that forms the latest @menysnoweballes.bsky.social exciting series of events and publications on this theme. Deadline 14 February 2026! Details are included on the link below. 🎉 www.northampton.ac.uk/research-blo...

Can anyone recommend any academic essays (that are publicly available online or that you could send me) exploring the parallels between Loki and Ulysses expanding on Snorri's slightly throwaway lines on the topic. Or failing that, general explorations of Troy-as-Asgard? #MedievalSky #ClassicsSky

Julian of Norwich spotted on the new Florence and the Machine album:

I completely understand the ennui experienced by the average person in our modern age but it's very funny to be like "This sucks I wish I was a farmer in the 1400s"

I remember a fairly senior Education policy guy once telling me that this kind of standardisation of universities would be good because people would then respect non-RG degrees (such as the one I have) more. Just gives you a sense of the perspective they're coming from.

My blog post with the ADAM network has now been published. It's about precarity, the future of small subjects, and communal approaches to academic work. I hope it will resonate with some. #IchBinHanna #KleineFaecher #SkandiRetten difficultmedieval.com/2025/10/23/h...

4-year funded PhD in Old Norse-Viking Studies at UCC, working on the Literature & Art strand of the NorseMap Project. www.ucc.ie/en/hr/vacanc...

Call for Papers @imc-leeds.bsky.social Following my recent fieldwork sailing down the Seine in a reconstructed tenth-century ship, @stevedehailes.bsky.social and I are organising a panel on practice-based/experiential research in medieval studies. We welcome abstracts from any field. #Medievalsky

This is also the point that Labour have failed to grasp. They can promise as many deportations and draconian visa rules as they like but all that does is maintain the far right narrative that there's some kind of problem with migrants, the far right don't want anything less than ethnic cleansing

Finally caught up with the BBC's King and Conqueror series 👑🗡️. If you were interested in why shows and films set in the Middle Ages are so often filmed in Iceland, you might consider reading my chapter which touches on this in International Medievalisms (2023): www.cambridge.org/core/books/a...

SSNS has now reopened its funding schemes, offering grants to eligible students and scholars at any stage in their career. Our grants support fieldwork and publications, events, and travel costs. Deadlines in Dec and Jan. For more details, see www.ssns.org.uk/funding/

Call for applications for the British Academy SHAPE Involve and Engage funding scheme to support ambitious projects to engage the public with the humanities and social sciences. www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/shap... Deadline 15 October @britishacademy.bsky.social

This betrays their very middle class approach to university studies - that is, that everyone would be willing and able to move to wherever in the country offers the specialism that they want to do. They claim to want more equitable access to HE but are merrily creating education deserts.

First time I've sobbed at the end of a video essay

I've been talking about this network a lot recently! If you're a UK ECR (you have your PhD in hand), sign up for it! You don't need an affiliation. You get access to their brilliant events (they fund your travel so you can attend), offer biannual conference funding, + access to larger funding opps.

For those following this story, there has now been some movement with the UK government saying they will assist 40 students to reach a third country for visa processing. A glimmer of hope, but pressure needs to be kept up. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

@necron-network.bsky.social is coming to @imc-leeds.bsky.social 2026! This in-person roundtable is open to all current NECRON members. To get involved, email Natalie Hopwood ([email protected]) with a short bio and a brief overview of what you want to say by 15th Sept.

A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls.

Gently giving this a bump #medievalsky

Pls sign and share this open letter to the Bristol VC, against the School of Humanities's decision to withdraw the BA in English Literature and Community Engagement (ELCE): the only part-time, flexible undergraduate degree programme available at the University forms.gle/SbyhXPSJgQTc...

📄 Hello! Would anyone happen to have access to Geraldine Barnes's 'Travel and translatio studii in the Icelandic Riddarasögur'? 🙏

When is a landscape? Join The Landscape Consortium @imc-leeds.bsky.social with this #imc2026 #cfp exploring multi-scalar research and interpretations of medieval landscapes. Full cfp in alt-text. TLC is Karl Alvestad, Daniel Brown, @jwfr.bsky.social and Stefanie Schild. Please share far and wide!

Looking forward to hopefully seeing lots of you there!

An open letter has been launched today (27/7/25) for members of the UK academic community (academics and other university staff) to sign, to press the UK Home Office to facilitate safe passage out of Gaza for 40+ students with offers for UK universities. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Shaimaa has a scholarship to do a PhD on Palestinian literature with me at @uoe-llc.bsky.social, but she's stuck in Gaza because the foreign office won't help. Please share. www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2...

Shame on the Guardian for publishing this as if Sullivan is an independent expert. Sullivan is a well-known gender-critical campaigner, & advisor to Sex Matters, a prominent GC campaign group which is reported to be deeply entangled with anti-LGBTQ+ movements: yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/home-af...

📣 Attending #IMCLeeds2025 and work on the Medieval North? Come hang out with NECRON for a casual evening social! 🗓️ Weds 9 July 🕗 20:00 – meet at Parkinson Building 🍻 Social at The Library Pub after Meet fellow PhDs & ECRs in a chill, friendly setting. Stay as long as you like! Alcohol optional.

So much of what made York wonderful is being lost. Frankly it's shameful that it claims to be a university for public good yet does this. I've only taught one course for the CLL but it was full of a mixture of students - some looking for company, some for a new start, and some just for the joy of it

Israel kills innocent Palestinians. Activists spray-paint a plane. Guess which the UK government calls terrorism | Sally Rooney

Time for Norse at MAMO! 'Death, Burial, and Strange Survivals: The Norse-Gothic Response and Literary Receptions in Britain'. Sharon Choe (@sharonchoe.bsky.social, Copenhagen), Maggie Pavleszek (@maggiepavleszek.bsky.social, York) and Hannah Armstrong @hjparmstrong.bsky.social‬, York). 👇 #MAMOmonth

Feeling uplifted by my gorgeous new @transsolidarity.bsky.social badges 😀 You too can confuse and confound the 🚽 police while supporting our work 👉 www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/maybe-im-t...