Recording a short clip for this was such fun - can't wait to listen to the whole episode :-)

This appalling fat cat wants to shut the door on all my mature students, many of whom left school after GCSE and give up a lot to go to university. I can tell him that they’re the hungriest for education and far from being unable to graduate, they regularly get the highest grades. Hateful man.

When academia's stars mistreat people, they're "punished" with relief from teaching, mentoring, and service responsibilities. This frees them to spend more time on the more valued work of research. And dumps less valued responsibilities onto colleagues, making it harder for them to become stars.

How to turn off Gemini in Gmail without turning off tabs & other innocuous "smart features." In the general setting tab you'll see a check box to turn on smart features. You don't want to uncheck that. You want to click on "manage workspace smart features" and toggle the features off in the popup.

It never ceases to confound me just how many folks think the point of essays is to provide teachers with essays. That teachers just like, collect them, or need them for sustenance or something. Rather than the point of them being the *actual fucking act of learning how to think about shit*

#academicsky heads up: If your institution uses Canvas as its LMS, be aware that they are currently offering a bunch of AI features for free (drug dealer model) and they just announced this: community.instructure.com/en/discussio...

One of several scholarships for Palestinian students available at the University of Liverpool. This one is for the MRes in Irish Studies. Please share to relevant circles. www.liverpool.ac.uk/study/fees-a...

Call for Papers, please circulate! Ethics of queer in/visibility Heidelberg, September 30 - October 2, 2026 queer-in-visibility.de Keynote speakers: J Calder (Linguistics, University of Colorado Boulder) Anna Hájková @ankahajkova.bsky.social (History, University of Warwick)

📚 Get a lucky dip of 15 Babels ✉️ £10 UK, or free for UK schools. Email for overseas prices 📧 Get in touch at [email protected]

Ooof 😥

For UK people feeling gaslit by our government’s plans for “AI” “skills” “training”, here’s a series of videos by an actual expert that will tell you how it works and how to engage with it critically (if at all); see also @olivia.science's excellent papers.

If you are also horrified by ICE's actions in Minnesota, here's a great resource for finding organisations, communities and individuals who need donations. Everything from mutual aid to help people cover their rent and fund emergency food packages to organisations offering legal defence.

Please check your vaccination status - I was so sure I'd gotten both MMR shots but when I checked early last year I realized I actually hadn't. Quick call to the GP, all done within a couple of weeks. Free on the NHS.

Call for LavLang32 now on Linguist List. Submit a paper here: lavlang32.ppls.ed.ac.uk

My course syllabi now contain a link to this document, "why Professor Holliday Doesn't Use Generative AI". Feel free to share/repurpose or just check out the links for your own reference. It won't stop some of them, but I want students to know why. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Yay - going to Lancaster for #CADS2026 as well, with 2 (co-authored) papers: 1. 'Representations of Chinese foodways in the UK press ‘post-COVID'' and 2. 'Multilingual parenting discussions on Reddit'. Looking forward to seeing lots of my brilliant colleagues and friends there!

Are you a PhD student or ECR in language, gender & sexuality? Join me (an ed. of Bloomsbury Studies in Queer Linguistics book series) and Lexi Webster (an ed. of Gender & Language journal) for a FREE @lgas-baal.bsky.social online seminar on publishing (2pm 18 Feb) docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Random factoid: Reminder that the University of Victoria (@uvic.ca) host the world's largest Transgender Archives, and it's all digitized for your online use around the world. Trans rights are human rights.

Learn more about my newly out book How to Organize Inclusive Events and Conferences. Here's a brief excerpt: microcosmpublishing.com/blog/2026/01... @microcosm.bsky.social @mcgillarts.bsky.social

Sky News on Renee Nicole Good murder: "There are deeply conflicting accounts of what happened." REALLY? Gonna both-sides this? One "account" can be seen on video and is confirmed by a dozen eye-witnesses. The other is a social media post by history's most notorious pathological liar. Grow a spine.

Just filed my tax return early (24! days before the deadline) - please clap!

Tomorrow is the publication date for my book How to Organize Inclusive Events and Conferences comes out tomorrow!! microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/book... @microcosm.bsky.social @mcgillarts.bsky.social

Join us for #LavLang32 in Edinburgh this September!

Diaries at the ready... the next Corpora & Discourse International Conference will take place from 23-25 June 2026, at Lancaster University. We are also very excited to launch our website, with plenary speaker info, key dates, and much more besides: wp.lancs.ac.uk/cad-2026/. Please share widely!

📣 RedditScraper, already a browser plugin, now also lives as a web app to help you build corpora of Reddit posts for discourse analysis. #linguistics #discourseanalysis

On March 17, 2026, join us as we discuss queer food access. This event is a collaboration between Right To Food's Indigenous Network and Queers at the Table contributors. To attend this free, virtual event, here is the zoom link: www.eventbrite.com/e/queer-food...

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality. And trans lives are grounded in reality. We see y'all. No matter what. www.popsci.com/science/tran...

Today is the final day to send us your abstracts! You have until midnight (UK time)! 😁 Here is the submission link: forms.cloud.microsoft/pages/respon...

I'm delighted to share that my book is out and available to read online for free! Thank you to the many people who either participated in my research or supported me to do it 😊 Book page: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/navigatin... Free online access: www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?do...

Battlefield Linguistics is finally out there in the world! We packed this volume with cutting-edge scholarship on language and gender/sexuality across diverse linguistic contexts. Together, our authors meet the reactionary transantagonistic moment with inspiring & brilliant resistance!

We are a team at the University of Manchester researching what UK undergraduates with ADHD and/or autism would like to see in university staff training on ensuring undergraduate courses are accessible to them. Study link: www.qualtrics.manchester.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_...

Join us on January 6th! with Sinister Wisdom us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Hi! Tomorrow (December 15th) is the last day to submit your #cadaad2026 presentation or poster proposal! Don't miss it ☺️ See you in Valladolid ☀️😎

Anti-A.I. stamps! For illustrations, comics, photos and all your creative works, printed and digital! You can download the transparent file for free here: ko-fi.com/i/IT6T718NAKF (but consider donating please 😘)

📯 Get 26 Babels - only pay postage! 🛍️ £10 UK - or get in touch for overseas prices 📧 Get in touch at [email protected]

Across the UK, trans people are facing hostility like never before. The UN and @Amnesty.org have warned that Britain is backsliding on LGBTQ+ rights, with trans rights under particular threat (@ILGAEurope.bsky.social , 2024). #HumanRightsDay

Come and join us in Valladolid in July for the CADAAD conference Deadline is Monday 15th Dec.

📖Have you recently published a book? 📖Has your work appeared in an edited volume or special issue? 🔎Looking for project partners? 🎓Running a summer or winter school? The next CADAAD circular will go out next week. To be included, send details to [email protected] by Friday 12th Dec

Liverpool! I am thrilled to be coming to celebrate the Lunar New year with you! My book Nate Yu's Blast from the Past features Liverpool's Chinatown and more. Learn why I set the book in Liverpool, ants, and let's make some lanterns with riddles on them! www.waterstones.com/events/celeb...

I'm giving an online lecture Wed 17 December. 🎓 "Expertise and Engagement in YouTube informational videos". What makes finance influencers compelling? Financial advice on social media is not just information, it's also entertainment and peer-support. 💸 Link to lecture in image, feel free to share!

The very lovely Melinda has got us to £104.50. We’re over a third there to our target of £300. Thank you ALL for support. Please keep sharing. pay.collctiv.com/stockbridge-...

My book is out today! Big huge thanks to my co-authors Andrine and Xiuwei, the wonderful team at @routledgebooks.bsky.social and everyone who supported me in this process. I hope many students will find the book very helpful as they conduct their research projects! www.routledge.com/Researching-...

We’ve got £70 in the kitty. £230 to go. 🙏 Then I’ll stop mithering you all. Maybe 😂 pay.collctiv.com/stockbridge-...

Annoying post. 👇 Trying to raise £300 to support Stockbridge Village Community food bank. Got £54.50 in the kitty so far. Please help! pay.collctiv.com/stockbridge-...

Cis women need to step up and ensure that any women’s groups they attend are inclusive, if they aren’t boycott them. I refuse to access any women’s space that doesn’t include trans women. We are all women when you discriminate against one of us you make us more vulnerable as a group. We stand as 1.

Thank you for your kind donations to help out the Stockbridge Village pantry & food bank affected by the Big Help/ Knowsley Food Bank scandal. Be super grateful for reposts. pay.collctiv.com/stockbridge-...

all academic applications should have consolation prizes. doesn’t have to be much, like a mug that says “i applied for leverhulme 2020” or a t-shirt “UKRI reject 2023”

Also, to be clear, when a trans instructor at OU is being punished and targeted for quite fairly grading a terrible essay, it’s bizarre to see academics online debating the rubrics. That’s…not the problem.

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n