Mary Astell and Slavery in Newcastle Tuesday I had the great honour of giving the 2025 Antognazza lecture, the annual lecture of the British Society for the History of Philosophy. This took place in Newcastle, in the beautiful Phil and Lit library. My talk was on Mary Astell and her claim that…

Very excited to hear @devoney.bsky.social speak at the BL tonight, with a bit of fan girl excitement also reserved for Susannah Harker (Jane Bennett in the '95 P&P) ❤️

Ok. As a Romantic scholar, should I watch the new Frankenstein, or will it just make me mad?

Since becoming a parent of a school-aged child, this definitely feels more and more like the bad place. How will this help anyone?

Henry Tilney read the entirety of The Mysteries of Udolpho in only TWO DAYS! This is what phones have taken from us.

I love living in Sussex, but I do feel homesick for America, even with all of its (enormous/scary) problems. Spent morning listening to NPR between writing feedback for workshop tomorrow, & making minestrone. Love hearing the weather report from my hometown, thinking about everyone still sleeping.

What?!? Filmmaker Mira Nair is the new NYC mayor's mom? Like Monsoon Wedding, Mississippi Masala Mira Nair?? I already liked this situation but... wow. She is the ultimate babe. It all makes sense.

I love that the Bluesky community exists and can help with things like this in the absence of the little blue bird site, which I sometimes miss. (taken care of now, thank you!)

Can anyone access either of these sources for me? Looking to get the Intros as PDFs. muse.jhu.edu/book/128860/ www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt...

www.raceandregency.org/podcast We have a podcast!

It was such an EXCELLENT day. Trains, coffees, manuscripts reading room, snake weights. FIVE STARS.

I am visiting the BL tomorrow for RESEARCH & to look at a MANUSCRIPT. After a year of maternity leave, then taking time to start a new business, this feels EXCITING (& worthy of caps). Can anyone advise on the situation for ordering books/MS in reading rooms? Last visit, it was still paper slips.

Now would be a great time to check out this BBC radio 4 series on the far right and racism in Britain by the amazing Camilla Schofield. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Thinking this morning about the importance of writing, reading, creative practice. Not only do the stories we tell have political power, writing allows us to reconnect with parts of ourselves and subverts the noise we've all gotten so used to. Wishing everyone a quiet moment this weekend.

Thinking this morning about the importance of writing, reading, creative practice. Not only do the stories we tell have political power, writing allows us to reconnect with parts of ourselves and subverts the noise we've all gotten so used to. Wishing everyone a quiet moment this weekend.

Shocked that I received a (small) royalty payment for my monograph today. I thought they were a bit like unicorns 🦄 📖 I'm happy that people are out there reading this lovely thing boydellandbrewer.com/book/transna...

As the new academic year starts here in Cambridge, my thoughts turn towards libraries... I wrote about the extraordinary Mary Paley Marshall, who co-founded the Marshall Library of Economics in 1925, and worked there until her 90s.

Writing Historical Non-Fiction Weekend 7-9 November One space has become available on this sold-out workshop. Join us for an inspiring bonfire weekend in autumnal East Sussex and develop (or start) your project. www.starcroftfarm.co.uk/weekendretre...

Please send your writer friends, former students and lovers my way!

📖 Wolf Author Services 📖 I'm now offering support to writers & scholars. Feeling stuck with a non-fiction project? Need a trusted reader, or someone to discuss your research with? Have a look at what I offer. Please share with your networks. Reskeets welcome 🧡 www.alexiswolf.co.uk/authorservices

'Ilaheva Tuaone and I are still seeking panelists for our ASECS roundtable, "The Unwritten Word: Alternative Texts, Epistemologies, and Ontologies." Full description here: asecs.org/sessions2026/ Please get in touch with any questions!

The world feels heavy. I am wading back to myself after a month of nursery and reception settling. BUT, there are archival visits on the horizon. There are still little stories to be told. Please tell me: what things are you looking forward to this autumn?

This makes me think of Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, when the travellers end up trapped in a mansion in West London with angry protestors outside. Unfortunately, these asylum seekers don't have a magical door they can slip through to escape this hostility (so wish they did).

I have been quiet all summer! but the end of mat leave looms & I'm thinking about archives archives archives. I've updated my website w/some exciting autumn events (research & writing on a Sussex farm! speaking at the *British Library*) have a look & please share: www.alexiswolf.co.uk/news-events

I have been quiet all summer! but the end of mat leave looms & I'm thinking about archives archives archives. I've updated my website w/some exciting autumn events (research & writing on a Sussex farm! speaking at the *British Library*) have a look & please share: www.alexiswolf.co.uk/news-events

My favourite thing to do with my young children is go to the library. It follows that when travelling we would do the same. Hence, my babies spent the afternoon in the Oval at the Bibliotheque Nationale, reading and napping and occasionally screeching.

At least the author of this 18th c poem on insomnia didn't have to contend with doomscrolling (or Coldplay).

Weighing in at 827 pages and 2 1/4 inches, our Oxford Handbook of American and British Women Philosophers in the 19th Century is HERE! Huge thanks to @oupphilosophy.bsky.social and our 50+ authors. Restoring women to the philosophical canon is a matter of justice, but it is also better scholarship!

Grateful and delighted to finally be at #globalausten250 preparing to listen to Jane Austen Home and Away

Amused & glad it's coming - I saw it in May on a special trip to Bayeux (I live in Battle & am low key obsessed). Absolutely breathtaking in person. When I asked the staff if it would be coming to UK, they said 'non, elle est beaucoup trop fragile pour voyager'. I'm glad she's up to it after all.

Sometimes, when the world feels like a bin fire and you've been on maternity leave for approximately 4,000 months, you need a little Jane Austen conference. As a treat. Absolutely cannot wait for next weekend ♡

There is no such thing as “saving” money by cutting social programs. Need still exists, hunger still exists, illness still exists. Cuts merely push the remedies for these many forms of suffering into crueler social relations and more chaotic social outcomes.

Happy solstice. Woke up thinking about this essay from my little swimming #chapbook. I hope everyone has a chance to enjoy the light and heat today and hopefully go for a swim. www.twoplumpress.com/bookshop/bod...

Pretty much just using bluesky like livejournal now, but for middle aged moms

I am deep in the final months of parental leave w/a now-older baby & a preschooler. Summer heat, sticky life (every sticky thing imaginable), beautiful chaos. But autumn routines are coming. Writing! Archives! Events! Thinking! Will miss this 100% baby time, but I'm looking forward to change too.

Big fan of the way in France you can very easily have a bus stop called 'August 1944 Uprising'. Where are our 1798 Rebellion bus stops?

Really strange to see a permanent English lecturer post advertised in a department that recently made brilliant staff redundant.

Thinking a lot about how America is composed of generations of immigrants, including my family. Everyone making a new life on stolen land. When my grandparents went to Seattle from the displaced persons camp, they expected to see Native Americans, only to discover they had been displaced too.

Took my little ones to sit for their Polish passport photos today. Mulling all of this again especially in light of the struggles currently playing out globally around migration. Feeling extremely lucky and sad about the state of things.

Funded PhD studentship of €25,000/year for 4 years plus fees available @tcddublin.bsky.social to work with me on Irish women's life writing from the long 18th century! Please spread the word! @ecfjournal.bsky.social @cecs-york.bsky.social @clhlwr.bsky.social @oxfordlifewriting.bsky.social

Please can I recommend taking your baby abroad on the train? It is a joyful experience. Even if you have a wild baby, even if the French have few high chairs or changing tables. Even if the stone staircases in the accommodation don't have gates. Even if a squirming baby on a train is tricky (1/2)

Feeling so disappointed by the Polish election result as I confirm citizenship and prepare to get Polish passports for my babies. Was so refreshing to see one of my countries of citizenship not heading into a right wing spiral for a little while.

I liked the abandoned cinema across the road from Bayeux Cathedral.

So many things have changed in past decade. Globally but also as an academic in UK. Brexit / acceptance of far right thinking. Pandemic. Mass redundancy / decline of sector. British Library hack. I'm not a nostalgic person, things were far from perfect, but I do often think about the 'before' times.

Parisian newsagent

Decided to update my profile photo with my British Library bathroom selfie, feeling glam in ladies on the 1st floor before giving my talk at Birkbeck tonight. Definitely good to talk manuscripts and methodology and have a night away from the babies.

I'm speaking about and reading from my book tomorrow at Birkbeck. I'm told there's still time to sign up! Come join us. www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...

Pleased to have contributed this article about 'Ariadne', an enslaved girl in 19th c. Barbados. It explores the methodological + epistemological issues of using colonial records of violence from the Caribbean for life writing about the enslaved. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GYMFT...

a society where "bad immigrants" are demonised is a society where no immigrant can truly feel welcome, because aren't we all just one wrong turn or accident away from being unemployed? on disability benefits? unable to care for our children without state help? just no such thing as a safe immigrant