'"I think the point is to make us despair": *The Exorcist* as Allegory of Academic Life'

Please sign the petition below in support of colleagues at Nottingham, where courses in the highly respected Dept of Modern Languages & Cultures have been earmarked for suspension.

'"I think the point is to make us despair": *The Exorcist* as Allegory of Academic Life'

This call may be of interest to our readers!

Honestly, how do outlets keep looking at a sector in freefall, at 15,000 jobs lost, at maddening spikes in mental health concerns, and not think 'maybe we should hear from the people who actually care about that sector and what it does, and not just from those who've been wrecking it'?

Feel like this might be a niche opportunity for an early career romance scholar. Bit of a long shot, but anyone working on London in Regencies or K J Charles, for example?

The What I'd Like to Change... project led by myself and Rosie Tansley focuses on making cancer care accessible for disabled and neurodivergent individuals. Through participatory methods, we identified barriers such as inaccessible information and poor communication, while proposing solutions that…

Nobody is more surprised than me that I'll be a keynote speaker for the Emerging Researchers' Group at the European Educational Research Association Conference in Tampere in August 2026. (Conference submissions open from the 1st of December, by the way.) eera-ecer.de/conferences/...

An excellent, reflective article on teaching texts featuring sexual assault/coercion. Focuses on romantic fiction and the author's position as a male academic teaching (mostly) female students, but has much broader relevance.

Always enjoy @midnightpals.bsky.social but this one is particularly good - make sure you read right through to the end

Introducing Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Self-Assessment Toolkit We’re excited to invite you to a brand-new workshop hosted by The National Archives, introducing the new toolkit developed by Archives West Midlands. Book via Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.com/e/equality-d...

How is the digital creative? Check out Jamie Wood’s article ‘Creativity&Historical Inquiry in Digital Spaces’. It’s the penultimate early view article for @cathfeely.bsky.social &my special issue on creative history for @hisjournalha.bsky.social! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🎉Tomorrow:

Annual Lecture 2025 SCA is delighted to announce that the Chief Executive of National Record of Scotland (NRS), Alison Byrne OBE will deliver the 2025 SCA Annual Lecture on Thursday 27th November at 5.30pm. Book via Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/stewarding...

There are times when I really appreciate school WhatsApp groups but this morning there was a chorus of complaint about police speed van booking people on the road by the school (y'know, the one 100s of primary kids are crossing) and 🤦‍♀️🙂‍↔️

Today EDICa is holding its first workshop with the #BeingHuman2025 festival. We’ve partnered with the Community Wellbeing Collective in Wester Hailes, a part of Edinburgh with multiple deprivation, just 7 min drive from Heriot-Watt University.

Looking for images for my professorial inaugural, I was reminded of the time Cookie Monster went to Harvard Business School (Inaugural 5 December at Bristol Megascreen - DM me for details/registration link if you want to come)

Metaphor for life:

📢 @durham.ac.uk has announced the competition for eight PhD Studentships in Transformative Humanities, supported by our AHRC Doctoral Landscape Award and the Faculties of Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences, for candidates starting October 2026. Find out more 👇 www.durham.ac.uk/research/ins...

Our Carve Your PhD @ljmudoctoral.bsky.social winners are here! We were blown away by the creativity and carving skills demonstrated by our fantastic entrants! The judges' first choice was: Tom Hyatt, School of Arts & Creative Industries: Electromagnetic Art: A Portrait of James Clerk Maxwell

We're blown away by the level of interest so far and looking forward to a great couple of days exploring accessibility and/in archives and collections!

If you’ve been waiting to get the audio version of my book Black Disability Politics (narrated by @imanibarbarin.bsky.social), it’s currently deeply discounted on @libro.fm! libro.fm/audiobooks/9...

As Dr Meuss wrote, One cat, two cat, Dumb cat, coup cat.

I left my teaching-and-research HE job over 18 months ago for a new research-only one and my immediate reaction on reading this post was still to think about how I'd use it in teaching 😂

Been lucky enough to do a few keynotes and was thinking about this. I've tended to go a bit broader in keynotes than a standard paper. Also to offer a bigger picture take on the conf theme/topic (state of play, why important/timely, etc). Anyone else got advice for @badancient.bsky.social ?

I have read this and recommend!

Know your subgenres, Cracking open a cold one with the fellas: buddy comedy Cracking open fellas with the Cold One: dark fantasy Cracking open one fella with a cold: medical drama A cold open with one cracking fella: sitcom One cold fella with the open crack: public solo porn in winter

Writing a book would be so easy if there was literally nothing else going on at work or in my life

This looks like a really cool new journal: an "online and open-access platform for speculating about possible futures [...] encourages creative and interdisciplinary collaboration and non-traditional forms of knowledge production" #OpenAccess and no publication fees 👍

"Pathology lite complements the now well-known concept of neurodiversity lite. It highlights equally risky ways that scientific discourse and practice can subtly reinforce harm against neurodivergent people" Good thoughts from: @ombretarragnat.bsky.social ombretarragnat.com/2025/11/03/w...

Looks like there are still spaces available for this!

We're blown away by the level of interest so far and looking forward to a great couple of days exploring accessibility and/in archives and collections!

A hearty "well played" to whoever chose the accompanying image here, which makes me approximately 300% more likely to read it

"This is an impossible situation I have engineered masterfully, fueled entirely out of spite for you and the other rubes in this town."

There still some spaces left for our upcoming conference exploring the successes of the archives & records sector. Come along to hear talks from across the sector, network and celebrate what has been achieved! Book your space via Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1760134221...

A Genealogy of Neurodiversity and Its Entangled Politics by Tom Walters. spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

We've teamed up with @amfoster.bsky.social's brilliant 'Accessible Pasts, Equitable Future' project for a TWO day event (17-18 Nov) on archives, accessibility, neurodivergence and disability with some fantastic speakers. Registration link in previous tweet, programme below.

Psst! Who wants a freebie in exchange for feedback? We’re wondering if our free guide to optimising research recordings would be helpful for PhDs and ECRs and those who support them. Click here to download it direct academicaudiotranscription.com/wp-content/u... Then give ur feedback below pls 👇🏻

And I’ve teamed up with my fab colleagues @riacheyne.bsky.social @luciejones83.bsky.social for the second day. Please come along to either/both and dip in and out as you can

I am beyond excited (and nervous!) to announce that my first book, "The House Archives Built and Other Thoughts on Black Archival Possibilities" is available for sale! This series of essay includes reworked talks, new reflections, and a lot of my heart weherespace.myshopify.com/products/the...

As we come to the end of our @edicaucus.bsky.social funded 'Divergent Minds in the Archive' project, we're delighted to invite you to 'Accessing Archives and Collections: Disability, Neurodivergence, Chronic Illness' - a free online symposium on 17th and 18th November. 1/n

🚨 We're hiring! Seeking remote, part-time sales and marketing freelancers to join our unapologetically intersectional, disabled-majority social enterprise selling transcription and captioning services to researchers, writers, and businesses. Got lead-gen game, a confident closer, or both? Say hi!

This one is a bit special. I feel very lucky to have been invited to contribute an essay to a special issue of dream journal Feminist Media Histories on new methods in feminist film and media studies, edited by one of my very favourite scholars @katherinegroo.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1525/fmh....

📣 The Northern Network for Medical Humanities Research is pleased to present RETHINKING RIGOUR, a two-day symposium exploring creative-critical research in medical humanities. 📅 4-5 December 2025 Find out more about the event and book your free tickets 👇

Tomorrow is #Halloween which is a great time to read a spooky story. One of our favourite spooky stories is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irvine. First published in 1820 it tells the story of a terrifying headless horseman, but that's not why we like it. 🎃

As we come to the end of our @edicaucus.bsky.social funded 'Divergent Minds in the Archive' project, we're delighted to invite you to 'Accessing Archives and Collections: Disability, Neurodivergence, Chronic Illness' - a free online symposium on 17th and 18th November. 1/n

FANTASTIC piece on research culture and what needs to change here:

FANTASTIC piece on research culture and what needs to change here:

I have a PG student who's looking for introductory texts on queer theory (perhaps as it relates to law). What's your favourite? I've assigned Gonzalez-Salzberg's book - which has a great introductory chapter - to the class already.