i have to say, as a trans journalist who has covered the "trans debate" for about a decade now, there is no daylight between how the trump administration and conservatives lie about tylenol and autism and how they've lied about youth trans care.

you know what's great for teaching excellence, a whole sector in a spiral of austerity trying to pack in as many students as possible while employing as few staff as possible

All UK HE news talks of contraction. Bronze TEF providers will be defunded. Research funding is to be more "targeted". Total continuation of the Conservatives' vision for HE, under Labour.

UK meritocracy and social mobility update from The Guardian

I'm sorry, worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable permission to my voice and likeness? For what now? In any manner for any purpose??? This is in academia/.edu's new ToS, which you're prompted to agree to on login. Anyway I'll be jumping ship. You can find my stuff at hcommons.org.

absolutely horrific x

(the rule is that using speech to advocate for fascism is just doing good old liberal politics, the right way, but on the other hand, asserting that a fascist is a fascist is violent anti-speech and there is blood on your hands for it)

Can we shift away from low-quality UUK leadership?

we can tell what that robust good research is because it reaffirms the marketing narratives of big tech corporations

The last REF found that 98% of UK research was either "internationally recognised", "internationally excellent", or "world-leading". If you think low-quality research is the noteworthy challenge in UK higher ed right now, you are wilfully looking in the wrong direction

excellent mail

What they said! 👇 We are stronger together (but in a 'solidarity' way, of course) - so have a coffee and a chat with colleagues & invite them to join UCU if they haven't already www.ucu.org.uk/join

I remind readers of my plot of pay at the University of #Edinburgh in real terms, and of the blog post showing how I calculated the results: blogs.ed.ac.uk/hughpumphrey... (and its linked predecessors)

Here's something a bit different. We've been reporting from Edinburgh to try to get to the bottom of a mystery in London. Princes Street is the Scottish capital's most famous shopping street — and it's gaining the *exact same* tatty gift shops as London. www.londoncentric.media/p/edinburgh-...

First book spot in the wild (Foyles at St Pancras) 😱

"A boycott is in place until further notice." Utrecht University becomes first Western academic institution to announce an academic *boycott* of Israel. This is the result of strategic, ethical work by students & university staff.

“I don’t want asylum seekers to live on my street” is genuinely a wild thing to say as a notionally progressive politician

If correctly written: "Ministers are to announce a tightening of migration rules as the government hands over the political agenda to Nigel Farage" Both immoral and politically inept. Well done Yvette Cooper.

My new book - co-edited with Loïc Bourdeau - is now out with @edinburghup.bsky.social! Use code NEW30 if buying on the EUP site. Please ask your libraries to order this in, we’d really appreciate it!

The entire establishment right now is like “I’m sorry but only the bigotry we’re actively whipping up from fucking NOTHING can win elections”

Thrilled and terrified in equal measure to receive a finished copy of my book, out on 11/9/2025 from @eandtbooks.bsky.social

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

I wrote a chapter for Jennifer Greiman's and Michael Jonik's amazing new _Oxford Handbook to Herman Melville_—on the 'Metaphysics of Indian-Hating' episode from _The Confidence-Man_. Available at this link (or DM me 👀): doi.org/10.1093/9780...

The new journal is published by... @openlibhums.bsky.social. This rarely gets mentioned in these press releases, but if you ever subscribed to Journal of Political Philosophy and appreciate the move away from for-profit publishers to an OA model, then your institution should support OLH.

The only survivor of the original internet that didn’t turn into a tech oligarch billion$ business and it’s going to be blocked by a govt that thinks AI is going to save it.

Solidarity with the resident doctors and the BMA. It benefits all sectors whenever a sector fights back against eroding pay. They are doing a lot more for my students' futures than the new "digital and employability skills" page we're now required to include on all our Canvas sites

Holding important meetings, lamenting bad things, urging people to do good things. The same routine for 20 months. And all the while the arms exports continue, the surveillance flights continue, trade and investment continues, normal diplomatic relations continue. Complicity in genocide continues.

Something about the way LLMs build in the idea that to find something out, you shouldn't read an already existing text that other people have also read (ew!); you should get fresh text generated just for you. Each time, new disposable text.

There was a time when you could describe Gaza as an "open-air prison," and people would scoff at the ludicrous hyperbole, and now we're at "Gaza is an open-air death camp" and that's just ... true.

Absolutely dystopian juxtaposition from the Guardian front page. Difficult to understand how anyone of decency and conscience can defend this government at this point. Just sheer moral degeneracy to arm a state that does this and arrest people for objecting. Wtf are we doing as a country?

Thrilled that I'll be at the helm of @c21literature.bsky.social as co-editor for the next three years alongside my buddy/literary co-conspirator @kironward.bsky.social: c21.openlibhums.org/news/843/

🆕🚨 New statutory Relationships and Sex Education guidance published today will: - Restrict schools from using materials that "encourage pupils to question their gender" - Teaches children the laws about "biological sex" - Removes all references to the word transgender What we know so far 🧵

Return of Section 28

So much ❤️ for @kdclewin.bsky.social's upcoming book #TheWritersRoom on Netgalley! ‘Literary, sharp & utterly addictive' 'An interesting & compelling book for other writers and literary fiction lovers’ 'A gem of a book that I will be gifting' Pre-order @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social: bit.ly/44Ncr8Y

Latest article up in the @c21literature.bsky.social Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring–Summer 2025) issue is Kathryn Hume on Ben Aaronovitch's _Rivers of London_: 'Magic and Power: Ben Aaronovitch’s Multi-Level Approach' c21.openlibhums.org/article/id/9... ✨✨✨

🔊C21 are excited to be commissioning a series of new review essays! Check out the suggestion of topics and titles in this thread and get in touch via email or DM our review editors (@heyitsdenisew.bsky.social and @olihaslam.bsky.social) if you’d like to review any of these recent publications!📖

If you are interested in applying for a BA Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Sussex Centre for American Studies *or* the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence, please get in touch. www.sussex.ac.uk/research/cen... N.b. this is NOT the International Fellowship, which runs a bit later.

A really good opportunity here to study Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia: the Birch Family Scholarship is available to a home fees applicant who has applied for a place on the Poetry MA and identifies as a writer of colour. Deadline 1 August. Please RT! www.uea.ac.uk/study/fees-a...

Lovely review of Kiron Ward's @bloomsburylit.bsky.social book 'Encyclopaedism and Totality in Contemporary Fiction' in Textual Practice. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Upcoming research seminar: Dr Christine Okoth (Kings College London) - "Planning and the genres of the postcolony" 29th Jan 4-6pm in the Garden Room, Kennedy Hall events.st-andrews.ac.uk/events/engli...

Congratulations to Dr Kiron Ward on the publication of Encyclopaedism and Totality in Contemporary Fiction (published by @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social) The ebook is out today & it's available in hardback from 6th February: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/encyclopa...