"With dismay we witness our university leadership making soulless choices that hollow out our institutions from within and erode the critical and self-reflective fabric of academia". [from Guest et al., 'Against the Uncritical Adoption of "AI" Technologies in Academia']

Introduction week starts today. Teaching starts next week. Everything is fine and all is under control.

#cfp: “The Past and Future of the Environmental Humanities”, Conference "Beyond Dualism—Thinking Creatively Across Worlds" (8–10 July 2026, Germany), org. @carsoncenter.bsky.social Info: www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de/news/news_ev... Deadline: 31 October 2025 #envhum #envhist #ecocriticims

Interested in PG study in the fields of literary, cultural, heritage and environmental studies? Why not come along to our Open Day on Sat 4 Oct to find out more about our MA Literature, Romanticism and the English Lake District, based at our Ambleside campus: www.cumbria.ac.uk/events/open-...

I finished Karen Hao's "Empire of AI" today - 10/10 would recommend - and I appreciate the emphasis on an ecological approach to teaching about (and, I'd argue, against) AI, including the technology's political economy and the ideologies of Big Tech's leaders that shape the technologies.

🧵 Thread with my favourite quotes from: 📝 Guest, O., Suarez, M., Müller, B., et al. (2025). Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia. Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zeno... 1/🧵

Fully funded PhD with me, @uniexecec.bsky.social @rspbscience.bsky.social @btobirds.bsky.social working on insectivorous bird declines - hopefully esp. House martin www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

There is always a point in the academic term when it feels impossible to keep up. Impressively, I've managed to reach that point before term has actually started.

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...

I'm applying for research leave for 26/27, hopefully spring '27. Would love to know of any visiting fellowships that might be available in that time and perhaps suitable for me (will probably be trying to make progress on my water and world literature project).

It’s at utter farce that such research is funded or even carried out when we can’t even effectively conserve many declining species on this diseased rock of ours. Leave what’s gone, gone. Use your research skills for something that’s actually going to make a positive difference to real problems.

The UK spends proportionately less on HE than many comparable countries. And yet it has internationally excellent universities that yearly attract 100s of 1000s of students from around the world. Meanwhile, government treats the sector with a mix of indifference and hostility. I don't get it.

Chaps! Do yourself a favour and get a blood test done to have your PSA levels checked. I did last month and my elevated levels triggered off a scan, biopsy and prostate cancer diagnosis. The good news is that is a tiny amount, confined and not aggressive. Seems a good time to urge others to check!

Sigh, here we go again... Dibden Bay is a SSSI, important for overwintering birds. #Solent

Really important to hear these stories — yet more examples of the negative effects of generative AI. If you care about how tech affects our lives, and how it can be resisted, I really recommend subscribing to Brian’s newsletter. He’s doing fantastic work.

This is worth reading and it's clear that austerity has a lot to do with the resurgence of the far right. But there is arrant stupidity too e.g. Keir Starmer + asylum seekers being blamed for the state of the NHS, rather than 14 years of Tory government! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

No shortage of things to be angry about, but today I've selected all the pressure and stress around homework for kids in primary school (and I'm not talking Year 6). It's utterly ridiculous and unnecessary.

An NHS doctor who was working at St. Thomas' hospital, which is on the route where the far right marched:

Men in your 50s! Go and get a FREE blood test from your GP to test for prostate cancer. Colleague of mine, early 50s, did it after his brother was diagnosed and he found he also had it, despite being symptom-less. Very treatable cancer if caught early

After a massively busy August, work has been slow so far this month. If you know anyone who needs a copyeditor or proofreader for climate-related fiction or non-fiction, especially work that's solution-focused and justice-oriented, please point them my way. ☺️https://betterworldwords.com/ #amEditing

🚨 THIS IS NOT A DRILL 🚨 We’ve just seen this, by creator “Menapian” - a 4,998-piece set of the Great Exhibition (1851) Crystal Palace - complete with a bonus Megalosaurus and Ichthyosaur… beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

UK employee median wage £30,816 (net £25,707). Millions barely survive, bosses collect up to 1,112 times average wage. 37% on Universal Credit claimants are at work. People surviving on food banks, charity. Can't revive economy without redistribution.

National Parks encompass some of the most biodiverse and important rivers in the country💧 Yet even in precious #NationalParks, freshwaters have been ignored by successive governments, companies & regulators 📉 It's time to recue our rivers 👉 www.cnp.org.uk/support/camp...

I see so much of this in academic funding calls ‘we are looking for projects that explore how AI can help to solve … hunger, violence against women and children, poverty, etc.’ But there’s no space in there to say: ‘um, what if AI is not the right tool for this’

Really feeling it tonight that I am one of the 100s of thousands of people watching their life’s work be destroyed, day by day, by the US government. Many are in far worse circumstances than I. But I’m hereby claiming my right to spend one evening in weeping & despair. Then back to the work.

Some personal news: I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Thread incoming. substack.com/@karenattiah...

As the world rapidly heads into #climate #overshoot I've noticed a disturbing pattern in journal articles recently. I'll summarize it quickly in this thread 🧵

Imagine if anonymous Reviewer 2 was one of your own close colleagues but you were unable to act on their comments because the piece had already been published. Well, thanks to internal REF processes in UK universities, you no longer have to imagine!

This technology is so clearly designed to profit off cheating and struggling students--its insidious. And yet universities keep announcing how they're allowing this company into its midst, to exploit and incapacitate our students even more

Reminder @theguardian.com has a partnership with OpenAI; which explains this thinly sourced excuse of an article that relies on ONE Masters student and OpenAI's International Education Lead countered by measly words of "caution" from ONE university admin.

Any morning when you see an otter, a bittern, and a grey phalarope has to count as a good one.

I'm teaching Thomas Hardy's 'The Darkling Thrush' this semester, I think for the first time in my career, and fucking hell it is good. Also, why have I only just noticed the allusions to Keats's 'Ode to a Nightingale'?!

'"You can’t have hobbyist research that’s unfunded going on in institutions. We can’t afford it.”' Such a badly formulated phrasing of the issues, so open to so many misinterpretations. If this is the level of thinking about research among sector leaders and policy-makers, be very afraid.

One day, when preparing a talk, I will not 'cobble some slides together' but 'lovingly craft a beautiful presentation'. Not today though.

I need you to understand what this country feels like right now for those of us who look different. I'm sitting here, trying to plan for Saturday, make sure I don't even need to go to the corner shop for milk, like it's Christmas Day or lockdown. Why? Because I live near where Yaxley-Lennon will 1/

Butterflies need our help. If you’re in the UK please sign and share. 🦋 @savebutterflies.bsky.social #pesticides butterflyemergency.good.do/rescue-missi...

Last night my small daughter was overtired and angry and refusing to go to bed. What eventually calmed her down was sitting on my back while I crawled around the house pretending to be a pig and oinking Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’. Tune in next time for more top parenting tips.

If you’re a @societyofauthors.bsky.social member you might have seen I’m standing for election to the management committee. Here’s my first very professional campaign video.

For his birthday, my son has asked for a toy called 'XSHOT Insanity Motorized Rage Fire'. He has also suggested that I should invest in some protective clothing. May God have mercy on my soul.

I'm really pleased that @royentsoc.bsky.social is hosting a workshop on ethics in insect research later today at #Ento25. It's an area where the UK entomology community can and should lead the way. Can't make it? You can still access my slides here: drive.google.com/file/d/1rBzi...

Like bell hooks said, “I think that we have to restore feminism as a political movement. The challenge to patriarchy is political, and not a lifestyle or identity... we have to return to very basic education for critical consciousness, around what visionary feminist politics really is about.“

I’m sorry but let me unbury this lede: *the genAI industry is literally the financial engine that is powering the fascist regime in the United States* I hadn’t even made this connection and now I’m even more horrified by this tech than I have ever been. Boosterism == fascism, literally

The article is more nuanced than the headline suggests, but nonetheless this is a bad idea. AI yet again is a sticking plaster, an excuse for not dealing with deep-seated problems: in this case, too much bureaucracy, an obsession with measurement, and an academic culture of excessive productivity.

British NIMBYism is truly a sight to behold. “We are rejecting this solar farm, because one time I saw an electric vehicle on fire, which reminded me that decades ago a coal mining disaster killed lots of children”.

With students heading back to the classroom, a group of cognitive scientists and AI researchers has published one of the most forceful and evidence-backed calls yet to reject the "uncritical adoption of AI" in academia:

AFAIK, UK govt expenditure on HE has always been comparatively low, and what is remarkable is how amazingly strong and effective our HE sector is. Imagine the turbo-charging of R&D if we got up to OECD average levels. And yet, even with a national Mission of economic growth...

This is infuriating. What is the point of a Marine Protected Area if trawlers are allowed to keep ploughing it? Yet again, the government has succumbed to commercial lobbying. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Have not felt much like #UKbirding recently. Fortunately, my father-in-law is made of sterner stuff and so we were at Filey Brigg for dawn yesterday. Lively with terns and ducks in transit, plus gannets, gulls, and waders. Highlight was a roseate tern, its pinkish blush obvious in the sunlight.