There’s a poetic symmetry to the Makerfield result with the ten year anniversary of Brexshite coming up next week. Out far-righted by his deviant offspring Restore, Farage will have to swallow democracy without any sweetener. #RIPJoCox

Keeping an eye on these cultists

THIS and at the same time that academics in the Humanities are being asked to identify UNWANTED BOOKS in their own research collections. There’s never been, as far as I’m concerned, an UNWANTED BOOK😢

Students value above all else access to resources namely books, articles etc. (print and digital). These enhance the ‘learning experience’ more than any pie-in-the-sky, proof of concept, pushing the envelope brain farts. you.38degrees.org.uk

University management consultants

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... English nationalists tell Welsh museum how to present Welsh history. Reform truly are the Alan Partridge of UK politics.

Good thing some US colleges are closing their Religious Studies departments—definitively not “useful” at all or an area of expertise that might be relevant for understanding our present…

Classics and Medieval Studies under threat at Calgary. Please sign their petition.

www.sehepunkte.de/2026/01/4046... A recent review of a former student’s book. The point about the institutional junking of excellence and expertise built up over years should invite further scrutiny.

New Biblical Time Machine podcast about everyone’s favourite dualist, Mani and the Manichaeans! With my excellent Cardiff University colleague, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/m...

Please consider signing this petition to preserve the study of the ancient world at uOttawa. There’s a rich legacy of scholarship and teaching here which we can’t afford to lose.

Robert Redford… I mean, no, really!?! Come on …

Upcoming #Carthage book events: Sept. 5th @londonpodfest live with @ancientstristan (tickets shop.kingsplace.co.uk/31650/31654) Sept. 10th @nomad_books 781 Fulham Road, London 6.30-8.30pm Oct 2nd in conversation @maimusie at @waterstones Gower St at 6.30pm (www.waterstones.com/events/searc...)

La France profonde

At least two Cardiff University ‘in scope’ historians boiling in the Cypriot heat.

Notes from a highly charged and devastating meeting show not a single member of Cardiff University’s senate body backed the latest cuts plans ✍️ Martin Shipton

Peter Oakes and I have written about our Coptic Manuscripts & Community pilot project @thejohnrylands.bsky.social, where we share initial insights on how the manuscripts came to be in Manchester & how we might connect these ancient artefacts with folks today. rylandscollections.com/2025/06/13/f...

Latest news, announced yesterday: Music and *some* Modern Languages provision to continue, while Ancient History, Religion and Theology still for the chopping board with no evidence to support the decision shown to staff. 1/6

Because reading and writing have lways been my way to cope, here are some musings: ancientrecipes.wordpress.com/2025/05/28/t...

Cardiff University’s group of teachers in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies recently established a new series, Critical Debates in Global Late Antiquity, with Routledge. Proposals are welcome on a variety of topics about which see below www.routledge.com/Critical-Deb...

It's final paper season.

Don’t usually post personal stuff but wanted to note a momentous day. My son is now a school leaver, finishing secondary school. He’s coped with Covid, lockdowns and his mum going through cancer (x2). He is very irritating sometimes but also very loveable and I am very proud of him today.

What many students don’t understand is humanities profs don’t assign writing to get the product. We are extending invitations to know yourself. If you conjure AI, it doesn’t impact us. You cheat only yourself. And knowing yourself today is the best defense you’ve got against fascism.

Specifically for my Gospel of Mary student

The existential threat to the study of Theology in a secular Welsh university context is a major issue and one which Cardiff has yet to address. Wales should not have to rely on English institutions for this provision.

#Cardiff #optimism

Catching up with the excellent work by my Cardiff colleague @rklwood.bsky.social

**Job Klaxon Deadline 31 March ‘25 www.archaeology.wiki/blog/2025/03...

New book by Cardiff University’s Susanna Towers #religion #ancienthistory #lateantiquity #manichaeism

Open letter to the Cardiff Uni VC Larner from the three most senior officials of united churches org Cytun says proposed cuts to religious studies & the Humanities more broadly will be “disastrous” for Wales. nation.cymru/news/churche...

Joey Molland, guitarist with the Welsh pop-rock band Badfinger that was known for 1970s hits like No Matter What and Day After Day, has died aged 77

This is the original column written as a homage to the great @timothysnyder.bsky.social's 'On Tyranny'. It keeps going endlessly viral which makes me think there is an appetite for a pro-democracy, anti-broligarchy media & movement. 6/ open.substack.com/pub/broligar... bsky.app/profile/caro...

Vance was right on just one thing: Europe lacks a clear positive vision of what it wants to defend. The answer must be "the things Vance rejects": truth, science, liberal democracy, rule of law, resisting dictators, climate action. It will have to do that without, & sometimes against, the US Govt.

Mani. The first religious globalist? New podcast with Cardiff’s Nic Baker-Brian podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/s...

‘These subjects play a central role in fostering a sense of global citizenship and nurturing respect for cultural diversities.’ www.change.org/p/save-our-r...

‘No Theology in Welsh universities is a tragedy’ www.bbc.co.uk/cymrufyw/ert...

‘Any reduction to these degree subjects would undermine economic potential and social cohesion for the whole of Wales’ www.learnedsociety.wales/cardiff-univ...

In a gloomy week, a ray of light. A new edition of Cardiff University Press’ Journal for Late Antique Religion and Culture has just dropped. Read it here for free jlarc.cardiffuniversitypress.org

It’s the Overheads, Stupid!

Sharing this again because, in my experience of being a union branch leader during a massive, year-long onslaught of redundancy consultations, no one ever brought up the problem of the cost allocation death spiral. I wish I'd had this information in my arsenal. www.linkedin.com/pulse/cost-a...

Excellent new addition to Late Antique and Constantinian scholarship, Cardiff’s own Will Lewis

Serious Christmas Day dog walking stylee

Cardiff graffiti at its finest

Universities would have gone bankrupt long ago if staff had billed them for all the unpaid hours clocked up over the years.

Today’s fascinating read

There is still time to apply for 4 doctoral fellowships at Cardiff University, as part of the Marie Curie StoryPharm project, on Storytelling as pharmakon in premodernity and beyond. Deadline 16 December. Details on the individual posts in the thread. euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/277190