I guess being an academic in the age of generative AI means receiving phoney research supervision requests on a daily basis until the end of time. *sigh*

The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture on the verge of sinking into barbarism. Hannah Arendt

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” - Hannah Arendt

Farewell then, Béla Tarr

Happy New Year!

lol

Declan Rice we got him half price ♥️🤍

Amazing record for the FIFA

Excited that my first speaking event of 2026 is a virtual book salon co-hosted by the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art and the Dahesh Museum of Art, New York. Please join me and other panellists for conversation about the books on 19th century art we published in 2025. 😊

Today, I finished reading the first of many books I hope to read in 2026: Isabella Hammad’s really excellent Hamlet in Palestine novel, Enter Ghost (2024).

A stunning final 2025 sunset over Birmingham, UK, this evening. #NYE2026

the luxury of the Boxing Day siesta :)

Henri Matisse, Nuit de Noël 1952. Stained glass window.

The ambiguous intimacy of the census: women workers sort through forms in the French census office in Paris in 1911 (Gallica, BnF) 🗃️

I am very happy to see my January 2025 book, Édouard Vuillard, the Nabis, and the Politics of Domesticity, has been very positively reviewed by Katrin Pirner in Sehepunkte. www.sehepunkte.de/2025/12/4035...

F/T: 2-1 Arsenal. Three crucial points, now let's never talk about this game again.

Jesus #9 has returned. It’s an #Arsenal Christmas miracle. 🙏🏼🎄

getting excited now🎄

Rich Art History institution gets even richer, hoovers up even more students it cannot accommodate, and destroys Art History as an academic discipline taught across the UK. And we’re supposed to cheer. Nope.

That second half from Arsenal was fucking sensational. As good as you could possibly hope to put in against a team as good as this. Bossed it 100%. Madueke with his first goal, and then Martinelli, no less than we deserved. And Bayern offered NOTHING after the break. Hello Europe, we're Arsenal

😝

Solidarity to all affected Nottingham University staff. The dismantling of language teaching in UK schools & unis is a disgrace. Detrimental also to other teaching & research disciplines for which foreign languages are key skills. There’s more to life and research than the Anglophonic.

University of Birmingham is offering fully- and partially-funded scholarships for Arts & Humanities doctoral research students. Details in the link. I am very interested to hear from prospective research students wishing to work in the fields of: www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/schola...

Lost grave of daughter of Black abolitionist Olaudah Equiano found by A-level student

‘Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders.’ Francisco Goya’s caption to Plate 43, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters from Los Caprichos, 1799, etching, aquatint, drypoint, and burin. 🦇🦉🐈‍⬛

Today seems as good a day as any to covet Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People (1830) given it commemorates the July Revolution of 1830 and its toppling of King Charles X…

Bless Gabriel hahahah

Big Vik! #Arsenal

Beautiful goal that. ♥️🤍#Arsenal

R.I.P. D’Angelo buff.ly/zzvqHuz

Heartbreaking: Neo-soul legends Angie Stone and D’Angelo both passed away in 2025, just 7 months apart. Stone died in March at 63. D’Angelo died today at 51. They shared a son together. An entire generation’s soundtrack, gone. Rest in power to both 🕊️💔

‘An international stabilisation force is not something most Israelis would like to see. The Palestinian Authority playing a role in Gaza is certainly not something this government would want to see. But it's not a matter of those details.’ Robert Malley on the pod podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Proudly, I have never knowingly used ChatGPT, Grok, CoPilot or any slop making, mind vacating, word, image & job stealing, and environment destroying, GenAI software. Also, I have refused to license my recent book for LLM training (but know my research has/is being plagiarised).

more art, less war 🙏🏼 A photo from a trip in September to see the Impressions Nabies exhibition in Paris. PIERRE BONNARD, L'Enfant à la lampe. Planche destinée au troisième album d'estampes originales de la galerie Vollard (non publié), 1897. Lithographie en couleurs. BnF.

RIP Claudia Cardinale (1938-2025).

On Thursday 2nd October (5.15pm GMT), I am giving a research paper, hosted by HannahHalliwell of University of Edinburgh. It’s online and I believe anyone can register to attend. All welcome! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/history-of...

Great piece in Vittles on French university canteens www.vittlesmagazine.com/p/welfare-is... 1 euro - 3.30 for a 3 course lunch. Meanwhile, British student unions need to set up food banks...

The launch of my new @manchesterup.bsky.social book Songs of Seven Dials will be at 6pm, Tues 21 Oct, at Waterstones Covent Garden. I'll be in conversation with the wonderful @julialaite.bsky.social. Please do come along. Free tickets, but register in advance www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/songs-of-s...

I really enjoyed the vernissage today of the new Bibliothèque nationale de France exhibition on print making by the Nabis, Vuillard (the subject of my 2025 book) included. A highlight: a rare test proof in alternative colours of his Pink Interior III, 1896-9. L: the proof; R: the published print.

Paris.

Still on the EHCR are we? British politics is stuck in a post-Brexit doom loop, addicted to spectacle politics and unable to engage with its actual problems: the sclerotic post-GFC economy that has seen real wages stagnate and increasing inability of government to invest in public services.

lol.

Well, well, well ...

I think I’ll watch Arsenal today.

Barcelona 😎

More than 40 students currently trapped in Gaza with full scholarships to UK Universities are asking for a safe route to come and study. Please sign and share ⬇️ docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

😮😮😮 WOW www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

YEP

Hearing Arsenal have won the European Championship. More as we get it.