I am genuinely dumbfounded that anybody, even for a nanosecond, might have thought that LLM simulations of human participants could provide novel insights on the human mind

I'm doing a talk in Bath! Come and join me at Komedia on the 4th November 2025 for a whistlestop tour of women in the Gothic across four delirious centuries! It will be fast, furious, and hair raising! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gothic-fic...

Did Victorians believe heavy drinking caused spontaneous human combustion? Dr Pam Lock @pamplemoussepam.bsky.social is going to enlighten us on this rather unusual subject, on Thursday 16th October at Glenside Hospital Museum, and we can't wait! Tickets here: glensidemuseum.org.uk/introducing-...

I love Amelia B Edwards, not least because 'A Thousand Miles Up the Nile' has so many euphemistic applications

absolutely gobsmacked to find red and white flags painted on zebra crossings and roundabouts in my little part of bristol, ST GEORGE.

Spotted @jendeavour.bsky.social and @joanpassey.bsky.social’s books in the wild (“the wild” being The Bodies in the Bookshop in Cambridge in this instance)

Ahh yes, my favourite Jane Austen novels - The Schutzstaffel, Postage and Packaging, Member of Parliament, Electronic, Not Applicable and Phosphorous <3

a university is not for generating profit, it provides cultural enrichment via weird little gremlin people who love visigoths or haikus, and very occasionally a scientist who figures out faster than light travel

it's been DAYS since i saw it but i still can't stop thinking of the GENIUS of casting Jacob Anderson as Daniel Hall

This is why I am sometimes grumpy when people tell me how lucky I am to live somewhere with limited public transport links and an economy built on on low paid seasonal work. Yes, it's beautiful, but that's not enough, particularly for the young. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I’m (Lauren) pleased to announce the safe arrival of my first child, ‘The Gothic at War’, weighing 75 pounds. It was a long and difficult birth but worth the effort. If you want to support my sweet child, why not order a copy for you library: www.uwp.co.uk/book/the-got... #AcademicChatter #Gothic

I actually loved Thunderbolts. A profoundly on the nose reflection on self loathing and loneliness where a group hug saves the day but I'm a simple creature and I love a haunted house story with found family

Did you know? 100 years ago today, the BBC broadcast the #ShippingForecast for the very first time, produced by the Met Office for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. More than just a lifesaver, it’s become a beloved part of Britain’s cultural identity. Learn more: bit.ly/4kg877D 🛳️🌊

For 30 years I've been experimenting with ways to see & use the online collections of libraries, archives & museums. I've made useful things, playful things, & weird things. Here's a big list of them for you to explore! https://wraggelabs.com #glam #histodons #digitalhumanities

At this point I think I may be one of an incredibly small number of people to have read the second Sullivan report in detail. It is uniformly poor scholarship, containing flagrant fabrications and misrepresentations, calling into question Alice Sullivan's ability to conduct basic academic research

it’s hard to stress just how important it is for universities to provide tailored support for students for whom english is not a first language, and how counter-productive these proposed redundancies are www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... @ucu.org.uk

Massive Attack via Instagram.

Summer trips planned to a range of libraries and archives where I have some research time available. Let me know if you're in need of (paid) research in Cumbria, Yorkshire, Essex, London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Hereford, Devon, Cornwall or the West Midlands. 🗃️ www.joesaundershistory.co.uk

Hello folks, I just wanted to give you an update on our crowdfunder campaign. We hit 18% of our target in the first 24 hours! Thank you so much for all your contributions, it means a lot. Thanks for all your messages of support as well!

BBC Four is bringing us some classic #Moviedrome intros to The Wicker Man and Don't Look Now before showings of the films themselves. Thursday 10 July is the date for your diary.

You should always be reading trans fiction, but now feels like an even more important time to be reading our stories and supporting our art. Good thing 2025 has already served up some absolutely incredible novels by trans authors!

A trio of new Tales of the Weird visitors from @blpublishing.bsky.social and especially exciting to see new anthologies from @joanpassey.bsky.social and @kjsoar.bsky.social #TalesOfTheWeird #Horror #Weird #Fiction

It's day two of the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies ‘Gothic Crossroads’ conference! Are you feeling inspired by @joanpassey.bsky.social's session yesterday? Discover more in her brilliant book 'Cornish Gothic'. Find even more Gothic and Horror books on our stand in the Dalton Building 📚

Have found out that this is legitimately actually a murder hotel

It's Gothic Crossroads time at Manchester Metropolitan University!!!!

I need you to close your eyes… Huge thanks to @romgothsam.bsky.social and Romancing the Gothic for allowing me to revisit this topic. I had a lovely time talking about horrible things!

This term, I had the joy of convening the new Past Magics MA unit at @Exeter.ac.uk. Part of the assessment was to make a podcast, and I'm so impressed with the results. Please enjoy these funny, creative and informative episodes! sites.exeter.ac.uk/magic/2025/0...

"Could I be a single-issue ideologue with no medical expertise? No, it is the doctors who are wrong"

They’re here! Happy publication day to ‘Phantoms of Kernow’, a haunting new collection of ghostly Cornish tales from 1865 to 1952.🌊👻 Featuring rare Victorian chillers and eerie gems all edited together beautifully by @joanpassey.bsky.social Tap to shop: t.co/xQnKRPp2hK

Okay! Here's the new MP letter template to push back on the trans-exclusionary Code the EHRC are trying to bring in. I'm timing this letter to bolster the @transsolidarity.bsky.social Mass Lobby Day (next Wednesday), creating a swell of protest before, during & after. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Just FYI, my new kids book about the Stone Age AND series 10 of You’re Dead To Me, both launch in 2 weeks time! I’ll be in full promo mode, so apologies in advance for that, but also… if you are/know a journo or kids’ book person who might be interested in them, then please do get in touch 🤓📚🎙️🙏

Thrilled to be presenting my research on (marine) hauntology and 'Rebecca' (Du Maurier) at the upcoming Unquiet Shores Conference in Edinburgh Napier, organised by @hauntedshores.bsky.social and @macabredanse.bsky.social. Check out the programme: tinyurl.com/5yf38hws

I’ll be talking about sound and music in this story at the upcoming Unquiet Shores conference!

Check out the programme for Unquiet Shores here haunted-shores.com/unquiet-shor... You can join us online or in person. Register by 2 June 🌊👻

If anyone is going to the Unquiet Shores conference this week, Writers' Bloc will be there on Wednesday with some watery gothic spoken weird & stand-up horror.

My Tales of the Weird book subscription from @blpublishing.bsky.social comes with A5 art and info cards, so I’ve gathered them together and made a custom folder I’m sad that I didn’t sign up a couple of months sooner and get the ones I’m missing. Oh well 🩸📚💙 #booksky

Kernow, as Cornwall is known in the Cornish tongue, is a land steeped in ghostly legends and uncanny folklore...🌊 Pre order Phantoms of Kernow: Classic Tales of Haunted Cornwall now, out 19th June: tinyurl.com/PhantomsofKe...

Monica Germana on selkies and seals in our second panel of the day at 'Unquiet Shores'!

Contents page. Some great authors in there alongside some I’m unfamiliar with 🩸📚💙 #booksky

Book mail - Phantoms of Kernow June’s @blpublishing.bsky.social Tales of the Weird is another selection of classic gothic Cornish short stories collected by @joanpassey.bsky.social I enjoyed the first one and as Cornwall isn’t far from me, it makes it “local” (for “local people” 🩸📚💙 #booksky

My article on Geology and Genesis — and also an epic poem, strange metaphors, and the @nhm-london.bsky.social — in the new History Today.

🔔 Neurodivergent archive accessibility workshop! 🔔 Are you a neurodivergent researcher using archives, an archivist interested in accessibility, or a neurodivergent archivist? Apply for our first 'Divergent Minds in the Archive' workshop at Imperial War Museums, London, on 4th July!

Men are extremely keen to explain to me that Britain *needs* a domestic steel production plant and doesn't necessarily *need* universities. Okay. Steel contributed about £1.7bn to the UK economy in 2024. Universities contributed more than £200bn.

Normalise writing a nice quick note to scholars literally every time you read and like their work. Our world is small and getting smaller. We need encouragement.

There's a relationship between nonsense wellness industry 'regulate your nervous system' bullshit and Victorian sensation fiction and I will find it

Our map of cold spots in provision of humanities and social sciences courses and student numbers across the UK has been updated with the data for the 2023/24 academic year. Explore for yourself here: buff.ly/2x7yE5K

REMINDER: We offer bursaries of up to £500 per head to support UK-based postgraduate and early career researchers to arrange panels on London-related topics for academic conferences. See here for further details on how to apply (please repost to help spread the word!)

This is my favorite kind of AI take: phrased as a dunk but immediately grants the central complaint that most people are actually making about LLMs, which is that they do not and cannot do the thing they’re widely marketed to do

This is an excellent article on the energy usage of so-called AI both now and in the near future. And what they show is that the rush to AI basically promises to undo nearly all of the progress we've made towards reducing the impacts of climate change.