Not enough attention is being paid to the effective closure of the bulk of one of the 2 or 3 most important public archives for modern British history. A terrible own goal for the BBC as a public-service agency.

A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death. Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written." Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating. 🧪🧬🧫

Focus on the beauty of a single angel in Melozzo's vault of the Sacristy of San Marco, Santa Casa di Loreto.

I am older than gender markers on passports! How do you regulate gender? By making it a form of government ID. It has nothing to do with state security, only regulation

📣 Save the date! Nominations for our annual Colby Book Prize opens next week on 15 November. To comply with tax laws, books must be nominated by somebody other than the author, so tell us about the best book YOU read on #19thC periodicals published in 2025. rs4vp.org/awards/colby...

Once again tapping the sign that there is no field of study or academic discipline that automatically makes you a good person for having studied it.

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

I do really feel for this lady but who hasn’t got to a point in their own work and thought that maybe peer review isn’t enough and only an exorcism will do

Hideous news from Nottingham on programme suspensions (read: de facto closures) in music and modern languages. Solidarity with all affected, directly or indirectly. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Good thread. Also — as an imperial historian — I hate calls to put things on the curriculum, because “putting the empire on the curriculum” could mean having a great big pink-stained map on the wall and learning about how the plucky Brits conquered and civilised a quarter of the globe.

#HistMed #HistSTM #DisHist and #MatCult folks - this online event's made for you 🗃️👇

I remember reading in the U. of Glasgow report that they suspected that some Caribbean students in the 18th century may have been free people of color, but they did not have specific evidence. And then sitting in the National Library of Jamaica and seeing positive proof in a 1740s will.

There is still so much work to do in making slavery and the slave trade a widely known and acknowledged part of the history of places that have minimized those links in the past.

I’m very happy to announce that I won a book prize from the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians. You can download the book for free at tinyurl.com/kahnbk. It’s about the history of Turkish migration to Germany and anti-migrant racism. @ghiwashington.bsky.social @universitypress.cambridge.org

This is very much following the conservative trends in the US and, once again, I beg the UK not to try to be like the US.

I think lots of you all will be as excited as I am to see Jess Moody’s “Plants, Enslavement and Public History” project website and you can sign up for the mailing list in the little box in bottom right corner plantpublichistory.blogs.bristol.ac.uk 🗃️🌿🪴

Strongly feel that adults learning a new language should be treated like babies doing the same thing. Look, I'm going through a developmental leap this week, so I'm just going to be more cranky, hungrier, cry a lot at night etc.

If you want a sneak peek at my forthcoming book, Temperance Lives: Life Assurance, Drink and Medicine in Britain, 1840-1918, you can read part of the introduction and check out the contents and indexes with this widget bloomsburycp3.codemantra.com/viewer/690c7... @bloomsburyhist.bsky.social

People seem to think academics object to the cranks among them out of some sort of ideological revulsion. Honestly we tend to despise godawful methods and cooking the books way more than that. If the evidence is there then people will look at it irrespective of liking the author much personally.

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.

Are you studying, researching or teaching digital histories? Try using the Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH). It contains 670,000+ resources from 55 BCE to today! Find out how to use BBIH buff.ly/yD11954 @brepols.net

When people talk about the excesses of MeToo, they have to lie, because the reality is that there was no massive social reckoning forcing people to believe survivors or hold perpetrators accountable. In fact, there has been a significant backsliding and new punishments in rejection of MeToo

Adding a note to a great thread: British fascists have laid claim to Remembrance memorial culture even earlier than this; Britain‘s first self-styled fascist organisation, the British Fascisti, held marches to the cenotaph for Remembrance Day in the 1920s.

It was great to participate in the Rural Museums Network meeting organised by @themerl.bsky.social this afternoon. I learned a lot about a range of archiving and heritage projects across the UK on land rights and protest.

Well that was quick work @abdulazim.bsky.social! Huge congrats, and can't wait to read this.

'Protest verses, produced by political workers and organic intellectuals of the anticolonial struggle, emerged as the definitive form of anticolonial performance in India.' Sara Kazmi on the role of poetry and performance in the Indian anticolonial struggle.

Just a reminder that the Call for Papers for our Spring Seminar Series closes this coming Monday, 10 November 2025. If you were considering applying, please do! We would love to hear from you. Submissions should be sent to our seminar convener at [email protected].

Posing the question should get you politely but firmly ejected from society by a large man dressed like an usher at the opera. He just appears with a tight smile and quietly suggests that it would be best if you don’t cause a scene.

'Impact' is such a buzzword across policing, education health and social care and research. With historic and current harms done to children and young people, exacerbated by systemic choices, we have to consider impact in a very different context. What we made happen. Who we failed to keep safe.

Then, as now, the extent of abuse of vulnerable children is largely unknown or forgotten about within wider society. Safeguarding has most definitely improved, but not to an extent we're keeping children safe or ensuring young lives are valued. County Lines is a good example of a similar problem.

I recall a well-intentioned awareness campaign with radio adverts with men saying something along the lines 'Why should I go to Thailand when I can abuse children in Bradford'? Several towns and cities were featured and outreach workers said they drove more abusers to their area, seeking children.

The systems that were supposed to keep children safe were putting them in even more danger. Many children and young people (boys and girls) were simply deemed expendable and deserving of harm because of poverty, trauma, behaviour, or appalling yet commonly held attitudes towards victims.

This was around the point in my career where my interest in safety/wellbeing became a priority. I was encountering horrendous situations I knew were wrong but, aside from a small number of amazing charities, dedicated outreach staff and activists there was no advice on what to do.

There's a lot of awareness now of past abuses, particularly in relation to grooming and related inquiries. But I don't think people are aware of just how poorly these exceptionally vulnerable children were treated. Many were looked after, with additional disabilities and learning difficulties.

I also remember having regular conversations with clinicians, police, probation and social workers who all held the view many young people wanted/deserved what happened to them. And/or blamed behaviour on copying the 'Band of Gold' TV show.

I remember going to events run by charities, activists and other concerned parties in the mid 90s when this was flagged as a major safeguarding concern and huge injustice. Many involved in health and social care, youth justice and policing held the view young people were complicit in their abuse

Hard to believe it was only a decade ago that groomed and exploited children received cautions and charges for prostitution and, in spite of being victims, were punished accordingly. They will now be pardoned but this shameful legacy and all its consequences remains. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Uuuuh does anyone have any suggestions about grants (for UK academics) to pay for image rights for journal articles? I’ve had something accepted and just found out that due to budget cuts I can’t claim expenses for article costs 😱

news.sky.com/story/the-x-... This study focused exclusively on Britain, but he is doing the same in a number of countries, including Ireland. #SpeirGorm

Everyone gets their own article in The Telegraph, this week and any week, provided they're willing to hail the transformative benefits of leaving the ECHR, but deny the reality that parts of the UK think very little of the quality of British justice shorn of international oversight.

Meanings of the word for November in various languages ▪️ Leaf fall (Czech) ▪️ Freezing moon (Ojibwe) ▪️ Dark period month (Inari Sami) ▪️ Wind slender (Navajo) ▪️ Month of goats (ChiShona) ▪️ Month of slaughter (Welsh) ▪️ Time of drumming (Yup'ik) ▪️ Arrival of the scorpion (Thai) ▪️ Death month (Finnish)

What's notable about vile shit like this is that they never have the courage to stand up and actually defend the proposition they are oh-so-provocatively putting forward with the framework. They love to be "just asking questions" so they can *suggest* what they're too craven to actually argue.

What happens when nationalist history meets the horrors of empire? For @jacobinmag.bsky.social, I reviewed a new exhibition on British counterinsurgency at the Imperial War Museum jacobin.com/2025/11/brit...

Really pleased to announce the launch of the all-new, all-dancing, London Lives website - www.londonlives.org It has been thoroughly re-engineered to facilitate more types of search, and redesigned for phones and tablets. The team very much hopes peope like it. 1/

Our first @beinghumanfest.bsky.social event is happening tomorrow! Come along to learn more about oral history and how it can be used to capture stories of motherhood and family life.

lol

Fellow #skystorians - does anybody know any publications on racism in Germany after reunification - the so-called Baseballschlägerjahre - in English. I need this for teaching and so far I found only literature in German 🙏🙏🙏

Excited to join historians @araujohistorian.bsky.social Ana Lucia Araujo and Toby Green as the new series editors of UGA’s fantastic, long-running “Race in the Atlantic World” Series. Please spread the word. We’ve expanded the geographical & chronological scope w/RAW 2.0 & welcome your proposals!

The strangest thing to have happened since Vanished arrived is that two finalists in Celebrity Traitors have read it! David wrote a lovely blurb while Nick read it as a Trivedi prize judge. Still amazed at where my roar has reached. 🐯 Expecting Alan or Cat to win tonight. To the roundtable!

So, do the British people actually want to leave the European Convention on Human Rights? 🔗 theconversation.com/do-british-p... via @theconversation.com Spoiler alert: No #ECHR #OurRightsAndFreedoms