Am I missing something here?

Good news for the University of East Anglia, which could do with good news. And also good news for the study and enjoyment of art too. Great to see such a generous philanthropic gift outside the golden triangle.

Back in Wolfenbüttel for some research & the Early Modern Conference/ Frühneuzeitkonferenz #FNI #HAB

Devastating.

University of Chichester earlier this month joined the ranks of HEIs employing all new staff through a subsidiary company to avoid TPS and LGPS liabilities.

Commiserations! Every single story hurts, and there's no long-term plan for HE, just short-termism.

Looking forward to hearing more about this research. For a non-native speaker of English this is particularly fascinating. Having lived in different parts of the country, I've often wondered if words and phrases I've picked up along the way might be regionalisms...

📢 CFA - 3 Postdoctoral Researchers in Early Modern History (35 months) within the project ‘Travellers’ interactions in early modern Italy’ at the Italian-German Historical Institute in Trento. Deadline: 8 May 2026. jobs.fbk.eu/Annunci/Jobs... Please circulate widely!

Periodizing the Early/Modern Annual Colloquium hosted by the Centre for Early Modern Studies, King’s College London Call for Papers Deadline: 7th April Colloquium: 11th June royalhistsoc.org/calendar/cfp...

New Milton Studies Special Issue (68.1) highlighting the impact of precarity on the field & Milton himself. To cope 🫣 I ended up combining 3 of my favourite things: John Milton, Jane Austen, & roses 🌹 scholarlypublishingcollective-org.uoelibrary.idm.oclc.org/psup/milton-...

If your library doesn't subscribe to Milton Studies, you can access my article for free for 90 days via this link: scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/milton-...

Our Special Issue on "Precarious Milton" is now out - thanks to the wonderful Jeffrey Miller and Esther van Raamsdonk! And to Stephen Dobranski as the editor of Milton Studies. scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/milton-... Here's my article on "Toland's Milton": doi.org/10.5325/milt...

Our Special Issue on "Precarious Milton" is now out - thanks to the wonderful Jeffrey Miller and Esther van Raamsdonk! And to Stephen Dobranski as the editor of Milton Studies. scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/milton-... Here's my article on "Toland's Milton": doi.org/10.5325/milt...

Thank you @alcs.co.uk for all the work you do for #writers, academic or otherwise! Your payments are always a reminder that someone somewhere is reading my work, and it always gives me a little boost. Very important for academics in precarious positions right now.

“Do not confuse precarity with inadequacy.” - An important sentence to hold on to. www.timeshighereducation.com/depth/strivi...

Look, what came through the post while I was away: The (brand new) Cambridge History of Rights, vol iii, ed by Andrew Fitzmaurice & @rhammersley99.bsky.social My chapter addresses Rights of Asylum in the early modern period.

In other fox news: www.bbc.com/news/article...

Job alert: 18th century historians! historyofparliament.com/2026/01/12/v... #skystorians #c18th 🗃️

Some professional news: I'm now hiring two postdocs to be part of the research project I'm leading on global republicanism and the making of democratic cultures in the early 19th century. If you know someone for whom this may be relevant, don't hesitate to let them know. www.au.dk/om/stillinge...

Only just saw this: ...'“the best students from such schools arrive at Cambridge with expertise and interests that align well with the intellectual demands” of the subjects.' - That's how self-perpetuating elites work. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/cambrid...

South Park writer buys ‘Trump Kennedy Center’ domain name

'Mary wrote what is believed to be her last letter at 2am on Wednesday 8 February 1587 when she wrote to her brother-in-law Henri III in France to put her affairs in order. She was executed six hours later at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire.' #Skystorians

PhD studentships available in: Creative and Cultural Industries, Media, and Arts Practice (EDI in Practice); Identity, Representation, and Social Justice (EDI in Theory and Experience); Humanities, Philosophy, and Literature (EDI in Knowledge and Method). More details in link below.

CFP: Truth and Un-Truth in the History of Political Thought https://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-158929 Naples, 05.10.2026-07.10.2026, European Society for the History of Political Thought & University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Bewerbungsschluss: 15.03.2026

'The union said management had "agreed to halt all planned compulsory redundancies for academic staff until at least July 2026".'

CFP: Truth and Un-Truth: Eighth Biennial Conference of the European Society for the History of Political Thought, University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy, 5-7 October 2026. Deadline for proposals is 15 March 2026. Spread the word! europoliticalthought.wordpress.com #HPT #skystorians

ESHPT-Brill First-Book Manuscript Prize in the History of Political Thought, deadline: 31 Dec. The winner receives €500 at our conference in Naples in Oct 26 & a chance to publish their book in the Brill Series History of European Political & Constitutional Thought europoliticalthought.wordpress.com

It's beyond me why interest in #foreign #languages should decline in a globalised world. Stop provincialisation - learn a foreign language! www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/late...

📢Here's a fully funded 4-year PhD position at Leiden within the ERC project LangPro led by Dr Alisa van de Haar, and co-supervised by yours truly, on professional opportunities for women in the early modern language sector bit.ly/47Y3hYI Apply by 15 Feb. 2026; starting date 1 Aug. 2026

'...further inquiries suggested the university was “explicitly trading my academic freedom for access to the Chinese student market,” Murphy said, which was “really shocking”. The university denies that the decision was based on commercial interests.' #HE

Look what just arrived in the post! Essays on Sidney in French & English, edited by the wonderful @tomaashby.bsky.social and Christopher Hamel. #earlymodern #republicanism

“Talent can be born anywhere, but opportunities are not,” says Ina Ganguli, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “I think that’s the reason we see so many foreign Nobel laureates.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o... #history

The Wolfson History Prize shortlist for 2025 is announced. Good reading.

I'm very pleased to announce that the call for proposed Special Issues of the Historical Journal is now live, with a deadline of 12th December. Please do spread widely among your networks — @saracaputo.bsky.social and I look forward to reading your submissions! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

'A panel of five judges, chaired by O’Farrell, will assess 15,000 words of a novel in progress, and both winner and runner-up will receive not only money, but mentoring from Mantel’s literary agency, AM Heath; the publishing house John Murray; and the creative writing charity Arvon.'

Just finished reading "Regicide in the Family: Finding John Dixwell" (2022) by Sarah Dixwell Brown. Very personal and very moving, combining family history with the history of the English Civil Wars and the fate of the regicides in exile. thehistorywoman.com/2025/09/21/p... #skystorians #earlymodern

1/14 "... [for] their weal, not their woe". Today is the publication date of "Le Républicanisme d'Algernon Sidney" @classiquesgarnier.bsky.social, co-edited by myself and Christopher Hamel (@univrouen.bsky.social). This is the first ever volume on Sidney classiques-garnier.com/le-republica...

Happening today! www.hab.de/event/transl...

Arrived in lovely Wolfenbüttel for our workshop www.hab.de/event/transl... #skystorians

"The reason languages are so desired among employers isn’t just for the words & grammar, but because of the soft skills that come with accumulating them – the resilience, the creative thinking, and the openness to new ideas that is demanded of you when you immerse yourself into different cultures."

Old master painting looted by Nazis disappears from home in Argentina

'It is...a living archaeological, architectural, cultural, historical, human and even scientific laboratory, praised and prized by everyone from medievalists and heritage restoration experts to professionals in the sustainable construction industry.' 1/2

CFP: Truth and Un-Truth in the History of Political Thought. Eighth Biennial Conference of the European Society for the History of Political Thought, University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, 5-7 October 2026 europoliticalthought.wordpress.com/2025/08/19/h... #skystorians #HPT

And just over a week to go until our next WS at the HAB: "Translating Cultures: Migration, Mobility and Translation in Europe, c1600-1850" with Luc Borot, Alessia Castagnino, Veronika Čapská, Luisa Simonutti, Ariel Hessayon, Ann Thomson, Laszlo Kontler, @matthewcleary.bsky.social 1/3

Only 4 days to go: WS "Republican Translations in the 1790s", organised by @ebuchetmann.bsky.social. Speakers include Mark Philp, Ann Thomson, Sanja Perovic, Erica Mannucci, @nicolaivoneggers.bsky.social , @hakonevju.bsky.social and Sylvie Kleinman. www.geschichte.uni-rostock.de/storages/uni...

"Thanks to the new excavations, the picture is now clearer: post-79 Pompeii reemerges, less as a city than as a precarious and grey agglomeration, a kind of camp, a favela among the still-recognisable ruins of the Pompeii that once was," the site's director ... said. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Fire-scorched land is less able to handle climate-driven downpours.

Here's my review of Women in exile in early modern Europe and the Americas, edited by Linda Levy Peck and Adrianna E. Bakos - you can read/ download it for free www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #skystorians #EarlyModernHistory #women #exile