Hello #academicsky! I'm sharing a cfp for an edited collection on "Naming & Classifying," pulled together by me, Kristin Girten, & @aaronrhanlon.com . We'd love to see your work! Please also circulate to anyone you think might be interested. Deadline 10/31. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Our current Visiting Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sustainability & Climate, Dr Kathy Davies, will be giving a public lecture on 'SMOG STORIES: A Lived History of Air Pollution in Britain' Please join us on Wednesday 29 October at 6.30pm - more info and booking page: events.bl.uk/events/smog-...

Hot off the press, the British Academy's Cold Spots: Mapping Inequality in SHAPE Provision in UK Higher Education report. Read it if you care about universities or access to the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for the rising generation. 1/5

All arts and humanities approaches welcome! - 'Dispersal of Manuscripts From the Cotton Library' - 'Libraries, Literacy, and Learning in Leeds' - 'New Sources & Perspectives on Sarah Sophia Banks' - 'Cold-War Socialism, Non-Alignment & Anti-Colonialism in Yugoslav Press, 1961-1979'

Are you a cultural theorist who is looking for postdoctoral research project? Research Ireland have a funding scheme opening. If you are interested in the politics of popular culture and intersectional theory, drop me an email at [email protected]

Julian's forthcoming PhD opportunity (Oct 26 start) has just gone live - take a look! #BuiltWithBooks We are looking for HEI supervisors to collaborate on 'The Dispersal of Manuscripts from the Cotton Library' www.bl.uk/services/res...

Absolutely delighted to invite applications from prospective HEI supervisors for four Collaborative Doctoral Partnership opportunities, to start October 2026. Deadline for applications Fri 28th Nov, 5pm. Further details below and here: www.bl.uk/services/res...

British Library/UEA collaborative PhD student Raphaelle Goyeau giving a brilliant presentation on Robert Cotton's collection at #BuiltWithBooks 'Shaping the Shelves of the Early Modern Library' symposium

If you do find your name, go here to file to get your money! www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com

Do it. Search your name. Take their money. It’s yours anyway.

Some heartening news in amongst all the gloom. Well done @nationaltrust.org.uk on sticking to your principles of inclusion and honesty about the past and present despite all the political pressure. It pays off in the end. www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

"The academic career is framed as a privileged but high-risk venture that ppl knowingly choose to embark on so they must endure the consequences or find a way to cope, thus obscuring deliberate adoption of biz models that [deprioritize] investment in staff + render large sections of the workforce 🗑️"

This 2-day workshop @royalsociety.org on the right to participate in science and science as a global public good brings together scientists, philosophers, and policy makers. The event is open to everyone and can also be attended online. Programme coming soon. Registration required 👇

I am a hypermasculine and extremely powerful alpha male. As such my greatest fears are seed oils, rainbows, people who don't look like me being on TV, and preventative medicine. I cannot explain any of these fears and consider that to be your fault.

it's aliiiiiveeeeeee! all 700 pages of my dissertation can be found here: hdl.handle.net/2429/92159

We have a paper on how Labour's strategy is disastrous. There's an exclusive coverage in @newstatesman.com www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Have you ever wanted to do historical research, but not been sure how to go about it? Join our heritage researchers @rach-anderson.bsky.social and @petermitchellnhsn.bsky.social in Oct for a specially curated course on finding your way through the archival maze: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-introdu...

Sounding the #jobklaxon for my esteemed colleagues @stsucl.bsky.social and paging the #STS #HistSTM #EnvHums feeds!

📣Only two weeks left to apply for the Senate House Library Visiting Fellowships 📣 In 2025-6 up to two awards of £1500 will be allocated to support a fellowship of up to two weeks. Deadline: 15 September 2025 More info 👇 https://tinyurl.com/ykudv9tn

If you have ideas for public engagement projects involving the British Library for this scheme, please complete our Research Collaboration: www.bl.uk/services/res...

Keir Starmer’s 'legitimising' of far-right protests outside of hotels housing asylum seekers has been described as 'shameful and beyond reckless'

To appease bankers Reeves says Thames Water should find ‘market-based solution’. Not possible. It is a monopoly, no competition, no choice. Since 1989 TW paid £10.4bn in dividends, £13.68bn interest payments. Rocketing bills, sewage in rivers. We can't afford more of the same. Nationalise water.

Have an idea you would like to develop into an academic book? Applications to the Bloomsbury Academic Writing Fellowship open 1st September 2025 to Black, Asian or Ethnically Diverse early career scholars (UK only). More info: bit.ly/4mHlgcn #academicsky #phdlife #highered

Middlesbrough, painting by Julie Foster Walker.

Heya. I got a bit bored by people asking me how to navigate away from the cycles of exhaustion and exploitation that the academia seems exceptionally well inclined to produce. So I decided to run a workshop on it. An antiwork-antishop, in effect. Sign up below. janabacevic.net/against-acad...

If you still have an Academia account, heres how to turn off the gross AI scraping

This historian was a little hasty in welcoming scientists as the true historians and would like to reaffirm his allegiance to multitudes of historical data and accept the limits of knowing historical truths

Fantastic.

Right. I've just had my first go in a flotation/sensory deprivation tank and I am almost alarmed at how relaxed I am as a result. Was physically vibrating with stress when I went in and now you could pour me into a cup. Absolutely recommend.

Is the BBC Reform UK's mouthpiece? Yup. "Researchers at Cardiff University have produced a detailed analysis of every episode of the BBC’s flagship Question Time programme broadcast between September 2014 and July 2023 to see if the broadcaster was balancing political viewpoints."

Just for perspective, a few weeks ago roughly 100,000 turned up for the London Trans+ Pride march. By contrast fewer than 3,000 ACROSS THE WHOLE COUNTRY, have turned up to anti-asylum "protests". Yet we are meant to take the latter as "the voice of the people" and the former as "the minority".

And don't forget the British National Bibliography (BNB), 75 years young this year! Search at https://bl.natbib-lod.org/ More info: https://blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/2024/11/british-national-bibliography-resumes-publication.html #OpenData #OpenGLAM #libraries #metadata

Have you checked out the @britishlibrary.bsky.social Research Repository lately? Loads of datasets and publications to explore https://bl.iro.bl.uk/

It can be galling to see one's period misrepresented onscreen but that shouldn't be reason to deny historical truths, like that medieval people shuffled around giving it the whole 'my liege' all the time, unless they had cheekbones in which case they were the king

Seeing a lot of critical responses from medievalists about this BBC 1066 thing. As an early modernist, just to say that I'm happy to confirm that medieval people were indeed covered in dirt all the time and did all sound like they were in the Wurzels.

And the reason is simple: Solutions for the cost of living crisis require fundamentally altering both the architecture of capitalism internal to Britain *and* relations to external, global capital flows, while immigration is nebulous and can be performatively addressed through spectacular violence.

This is just mad now - all beefed up by news execs and journos terrified of offending a so-called 'real' Britain that doesn't even exist.

Consider how sordid and squalid it is, to take people fleeing the hellhole that 20 years of vainglorious, stupid Western intervention created - people literally fleeing from our worst, most ruthlessly wicked enemies, that we failed to keep them safe from - and make those refugees into "invaders".

Had to get this one out of my head

"Legitimate concerns"

The SHAPE Involve and Engage programme opens on 1 September. We are looking for researchers from across the UK to deliver innovative public engagement projects working in partnership with a gallery, archive, library or museum (GLAM organisation). Find out more: buff.ly/efUOSoL

Somebody buy up a tonne of copies of Benedict Anderson’s book ‘Imagined Communities’ to hand out.

ACADEMIC BOOK SALE I am moving and want to move less books if at all possible... Please get in touch if you are interested in the following titles (all prices include postage and I am open to offers)

Javen and Patrick are the worst of men #LoveisBlindUK

Including a strong representation of British Library staff, PhD students, alumni and soon-to-be collaborators! Looking forward to it.

Unsurprised, but disappointed, to see that Newnham College's JRFs are being defined as explicitly trans-exclusionary: newn.cam.ac.uk/research/res...