if you work in a UK uni, drop everything and read this (not news to many of us, but sobering to have the dots joined up; the stories are outrageous and heartbreaking)

lol the labour party just knocked on my door

one fun interaction i had last summer was with a labour cllr in my ward of waltham forest (st james)—when i told him i was concerned about the govt's revival of section 28 in its RSHE guidance the dickhead just laughed and said section 28 was 'a bit before his time'

“A sprightly account of writers’ rooms on both sides of the Atlantic.” Read the @wsj.com’s review of The Writer’s Room by @kdclewin.bsky.social:

Is this extremely predictable, extremely predicted outcome unplanned, though? Or have capital and its assistant, the state, been relentlessly shaving down the mediating layer between public funds and private profit, "education," for decades?

Nobody understands this about the government’s settlement reforms. People think it's 10 years for most & 15 years for care workers But its 15 years for all midskill roles, whatever the salary, if not a graduate job role classified at RQF level 6. Lab technicians, data analysts, hotel managers

Infrastructure Landlords: The Rentier Capitalism of Commercial Academic Publishers This piece explores how major academic publishers are becoming “infrastructure landlords”, not just publishing research, but owning the systems around it. 👉 www.openlibhums.org/news/931/ #OpenAccess #ScholComm

It is being reported on the ground in Cuba that everyone on a ventilator at this hospital died overnight. As a Cuban, I'm devastated.

Has anyone written a review of the restructuring going on across UK HE? Trying to understand what is common across institutions: large, team-taught courses, centralised workload models, limited to no research time, promotion directly tied to grant income. How many consultancy firms are pushing this?

👇 excellent article that we were very pleased to published ♻️

Another tough day for team “there’s no point in complaining about AI, just accept it.”

Universities pay copyright fees. Libraries pay copyright fees. Theaters pay to perform copyrighted work. Artists and authors pay licence fees to quote others in their own work, usually out of pocket.

Call for Editors! The 'Critical Insights in American Studies' series from Edinburgh University Press is seeking a new co-editor. Apply before 18:00, 13th March. @edinburghup.bsky.social @emilysharp.bsky.social

Find me, nestled in amongst the absolute bonkers news, on @npr.org in a lovely conversation with Andrew Limbong about my book - Limbong goes on a little visit to Lucille Clifton's house...

over and over they say it out loud: big ideas for the elite class, and only widget grunts for the working people. ideas are for everybody. art is for everybody. education is for everybody.

Irish Migrations and Classical Antiquity / Isabelle Torrance (ed) www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?do... #openaccess @clic-erc.bsky.social @bloomsburyclass.bsky.social @daireach.bsky.social @pomuirch.bsky.social @ciaranruaoneill.bsky.social @kironward.bsky.social

Job losses at UK research-intensive universities double in two years. Exclusive: Scale of redundancies branded a “disaster”. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

📞 Gerald David Naughton & Yulia Pushkarevskaya Naughton's '"Unstable, in Chaos": Reading Ali Smith’s How to Be Both and Percival Everett’s Telephone in the Age of Cruel Optimism' is one of the articles in our latest issue c21.openlibhums.org/article/id/2...

Really happy to share this roundtable - thanks to all those who were involved and to @heyitsdenisew.bsky.social and @olihaslam.bsky.social for putting it together!

🗣️ Hanne Bolze's 'Charged Readings and Momentous Expectations: The Curious Case of Climate Change Fiction' is one of the six (and counting) articles in 'The Century at 25'—a brilliant assessment of the emergence CliFi as a genre. c21.openlibhums.org/article/id/2...

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

In some ways I'm philosophical about The End these days. It is what it is. But for the final wave to hit because of the crisis when we worked the hardest we possibly could, we nearly broke ourselves, and did exactly what the govt told us to do? It seems.. painful.

Hey so Grammarly is now basically Search Party / Ring cameras for education, enabling large-scale surveillance of both users (students) and educators alike

I have an article in the new special issue of @c21literature.bsky.social, 'The Century at 25'—working through some research that didn't make it into the book while processing Lucy Ellmann's _Ducks, Newburyport_ and Olga Tokarczuk's _Flights_

Part one of 'The Century @25' SI of @c21literature.bsky.social ed by @alicebennett.bsky.social @melissaschuh.bsky.social @heyitsdenisew.bsky.social and I, is out now (part two coming soon): please check it out! c21.openlibhums.org/issue/1422/i...

It’s so exciting that this @c21literature.bsky.social special issue on ‘The Century at 25’ is finally out! Such a labour of love, and I’m so grateful we got to work on it together for over two years @alicebennett.bsky.social @keeblearin.bsky.social @heyitsdenisew.bsky.social 🎊

Excited to announce that our new issue has opened! c21.openlibhums.org/issue/1422/i... 'The Century at 25' was guested edited by Alice Bennett, Arin Keeble, Melissa Schuh, and Denise Wong

This was not quite the last collection I catalogued before my retirement from Wellcome: wellcomecollection.org/works/hrsyzq94 He began his research in the 1970s.

Hilary Cass here arguing for children to be prevented from being known by a preferred name or getting a haircut in case it encourages them to continue later in life to transition. Hilary Cass acts like gender variant children should have the transness hazed out of them.

We are looking for review essays! You can see some of our selected titles at the post below. Get in contact with our review editors @heyitsdenisew.bsky.social and @olihaslam.bsky.social to request some or for further info

💃🏽 awesome to read my brilliant comrade @kdclewin.bsky.social's brilliant book reviewed in the new yorker: archive.is/202602131103...

this consultation closes on 12 feb at 23.59

Genuinely, if you live in the UK you should so the consultation just to find out some of the unbelievable details of what's being proposed. Even with their spin and obfuscation it's shocking

this consultation closes on 12 feb at 23.59

The UK government is proposing radical and punitive changes to settlement rules. This is settlement, not citizenship. The consultation is open until 12 February; please respond to it and oppose these evil proposals. Amnesty have a good guide: www.amnesty.org.uk/resources/gu...

The University is offering a fully-funded scholarship in English for prospective PhDs undertaking research in the following project: Exporting the Nation: Making the Commonwealth, Re-making Men (Supervised by Prof Plain & Dr Purdon) https://ow.ly/KZ7t50Y9Uwm Closing date: 27 Feb

This is so grim and it happening under a so-called Labour government is unforgivable www.theguardian.com/environment/...

So when do the course closures, job losses and contract dilutions begin? Becaue there’s absolutely no way that this isn’t the plan. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

The final final proofs have headed off for 'Hilary Mantel', part of @livunipress.bsky.social 'Writers and their Work Series'. Can't wait to see this one in the flesh liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10....

Happy Birthday, Joyce! Here’s a new Finnegans Wake website I've developed with Research Computing at St Andrews: research.st-andrews.ac.uk/elucidationo... @starcnet.bsky.social @standrewsenglish.bsky.social @uniofstandrews.bsky.social @bairishstudies.bsky.social #JamesJoyce #IrishStudies

So pleased to be launching @c21literature.bsky.social ’s inaugural roundtable review w/ @olihaslam.bsky.social ! Thank you to our fabulous contributors for their work on this excellent piece 👏👏👏

Interested nonfiction writers! Do you have a book project you'd like to get off the ground but aren't sure where to start? I'll be offering one-on-one consultations from February! DM me here or contact me through my website to discuss if it could be right for you

‘They are no longer strategizing for voluntary adoption by those who come to recognize the technology’s utility by electively applying it to the problems they face. They are planning how to cross the chasm by forced adoption.’ By @mattseybold.bsky.social

I hate to tap the sign but again: this is all made to make in-person education and access to knowledge transfer a preserve of the elite. Human education for the few, bots for the many.

you cannot convince me that any of the ai training being offered by any of our universities is substantively different from ai skills hub dot org dot uk

Hell of a thread on the UK government's AI training

BREAKING: A gender-critical challenge the City of London's trans-inclusive arrangements at Hampstead Heath ponds has been refused permission, just as consultation responses show majority back trans inclusion pa.media/blogs/pa-edi...

400 jobs at risk. A campus set to close. This film explains what’s happening at the University of Essex and why staff, students and the local community are organising to stop it. 📍 Southend rally | 5 February