Well, that's another HOTCUS annual conference over. Things are pretty shitty in UK HE at the moment, but the quality of the work presented at the conference was really very high. And everyone looked fabulous too.

Off to the 2026 HOTCUS conference at the University of Manchester. Looking forward to seeing old friends, learning about new work and riding one of those famous buses. Will it feel like the future?

A rare public airing for the Oliver knees today. Apart from that, Lords is looking glorious.

Looking forward to this....

Also (sorry, but honestly) if I had to make a list of places cis men couldn't go to because a cis man had made a women "uncomfortable" there, it would be very long and there would be literally nowhere for men to go.

We may be a little later than some, but it was lovely to be at my cricket club this evening to see our first ever all-girls side take the field in their debut competitive fixture. The girls played amazingly well, only a few practices in. Many thanks to all those who helped us get to this moment,

This must be the place - Talking Heads When the Lord - Suzanne Sundfor Farewell, farewell - Fairport Convention Same situation - Joni Mitchell Do right man, Do right woman - Aretha Franklin Shipbuilding - Robert Wyatt Boulder to Birmingham - Emmylou Harris

I had a lovely time speaking to the staff and students at the University of Oklahoma's Department of History of Science, Technology and Medicine yesterday. Many thanks to the department for inviting and hosting me.

Once travelled to Fort Worth to work at the NARA office 9 miles out of city centre. Thought I would take bus from downtown to end of line and walk the rest of the way. Nearly died of heat stroke. Also tried to walk to the stockyard district and was stopped by the police for suspected vagrancy.

Ah, the romance of travel. Rough descent into Chicago this afternoon. Quite a few people puking. Buckets on the concourse at O’Hare to catch water from its leaky roof. At gate for onward flight, someone was wearing a ‘Guns, titties, beer & freedom’ t-shirt.

In a conversation, really struggling to follow what the person I was talking to was saying about the history of modern art. Turned out they were confusing Pablo Picasso with Rosa Parks. (!) It was a huge relief when we finally realized what had happened. But I'll never get those twenty minutes back.

Spent the evening at a tribute show for Nanci Griffith, performed by Clive Gregson, who was a member of Griffith’s Blue Moon Orchestra in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the Hayes Sisters.

Human thinks: 'Right, going out to a gig this evening. Just enough time to walk the dog round the park, collect and eat pizzas from the local van, and get to the venue for the start of the set.' Dog thinks: 'Excellent moment to discover a dead rat in the park and roll around its carcass.'

The nice folks in the Department of History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Oklahoma have invited me over to give their annual Michael Ruby Distinguished Lecture in a few weeks’ time.

The screening of Project Hail Mary I attended suffered from a visible grid of white dots throughout. We were handed refund vouchers as we left. But still, a good warm-hearted buddy movie set in space, blending The Martian and ET. If cinemas are going to survive, this is the kind of film they need.

Seems like a good moment to mention that I once wrote a book about American spaceflight and religion. www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...

Attended what was billed as a bat walk in the local park this evening. The stupid bats didn't get the concept at all. Just flew around over our heads.

Nothing beats as fast as the heart of a small dog who has realized that her humans are about to give her a bath

Not sure you can describe yourself as generous if you are also obsessed by the thought that your 'generosity' might be exploited

Two distinct strands of my life woven together in this image. 1) 40 years of Talking Heads fandom; 2) the study of space history. David Byrne singing 'Heaven' tonight before, above and also within the Apollo 8 'Earthrise' photograph.

This came on at a soul/jazz thing last night. I was confused. Had the DJ discovered some pre-Zutons version of 'Valerie,' though I was pretty certain the band had written the song? No, but it sure sounds like it should be the original. Dance floor gold, for what it's worth. youtu.be/fp1hbiLPyRw?...

Samurai warrior attending the Middle-Aged History Professor Exhibit at the British Museum.

Bummed to have missed this talk due to train shenanigans. Guess I'll just have to read the book, sigh....

No legal expert, but I wonder if UCL felt more exposed to an adverse judgement than some other institutions. Rightly or wrongly, my university reverted to full in-person teaching in 2021-22, in line with the lifting of government restrictions. I think UCL adopted a more blended approach that year.

Extremely happy to discover this evening that James McMurtry is coming to London in October. Bought his first album back in 1989 and many of the others since, but have never yet managed to see him play live. Ticket now in (virtual) hand.

Another chapter of THE BOOK completed. More than two years in the writing, as I took a break midway to work on something else. 181 footnotes. I learnt a lot about early quantum mechanics and interwar nuclear physics in the process. This was fun (sort of), but I'm very glad it's now done.

Living the 15-minute city dream. Cara Dillon and Sam Lakeman tonight, literally playing down my street. Lovely stuff. Though they made my wife cry at one point, the bastards…

English person here. Sorry about Lewis, and the fire, and empire and everything. So I have now spent at least 30 minutes of my Sunday morning contemplating the use of the word ‘twat’ in this post. Another four-letter word ending in ‘t’ was available.

Three weeks ago my daughter bought me a large tub of flapjacks as a thank you. Lovely. I have had one every day since, sliding from delight towards enjoyment, into indifference, then boredom. I am now approaching despair. There is still a third of the tub left. The situation feels existential.

I am in this photograph, and if there is a similar one taken at HOTCUS 2026, I shall ruin that too. Brilliant conference, brilliant city, see you there, I hope...

75 years late, I finally read John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids, on a flight over to Detroit yesterday for a family funeral. (Shout out to the pilot who landed the plane like a chaste kiss in near white-out conditions at DTW) (1/9)

This was great. It gave me the seeds of an idea for a new seminar on my special subject module. Future students be warned, things are going to get even darker....

I think this is right. The abrupt shift from 'well, we all have mad uncles and idiot citizens who vote for them' to 'no, enough of this' has been quite marked.

Applications for the 2026 HOTCUS Article Prize and Early Career Article Prize are now open. Both awards recognise outstanding research on twentieth-century US history published in peer-reviewed journals during the 2025 calendar year, and each comes with a £100 prize.

'Now I always have something smart to say, and people actually listen.' A fascinating ad, encountered on the NYT app - it reminded me of those 1920s advertisements suggesting that a liberal use of Listerine might make the boys (or girls) like them more. 'Microlearning' sounds just the ticket...

A lot going on this morning, not least with respect to Mark Carney's personal security arrangements, but fwiw a thread about something else - though possibly not completely irrelevant to the current moment. Last night I watched the Netflix documentary, ‘The Stringer,’ 1/12

Quite unusual for me to be in UK over Christmas, so important when here to honour the Boxing Day tradition of attending a 0-0 draw. Nice to finally visit the Cherry Red Records Stadium and to witness Haydon the Womble (not shown) banging his recycling bin to ginger up the crowd.

As the sole vegetarian guest at Christmas lunch tomorrow, I offered to bring along my own main course, which I have prepared in advance. Quite pleased with how it looks. Spiced potato and caramelised onion pie, seeing as you asked. To be served with veggie gravy, naturally.

In the early 2000s, my wife and I lived for a year in Earl's Court Square. Nice apartment. The previous tenants had been two East European prostitutes. Their tenancy had apparently ended rather abruptly.

Kendrick Oliver @koushist.bsky.social reviews 'After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon', by Greg Eghigian @gegh.bsky.social academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-... @academic.oup.com

I'm teaching a new class next week on the confirmation of Einstein's theory of general relativity by the British expedition to observe the 1919 total solar eclipse. (thread 1/11)

On the subject of Tom Stoppard: I have never seen The Real Inspector Hound, despite performing in the play at sixth-form college. I was the corpse, and had to keep my eyes shut throughout.

Some seriously deep cuts played tonight by Gen X indie cognoscenti faves The Clientele, in front of a suitably reverent audience at St Pancras Old Church. Next time, though, I'm bringing a cushion. Church seating is less forgiving than church doctrine.

I attended a very touching memorial service for my PhD supervisor, Michael Dockrill, today. Michael died seven years ago. He was a model supervisor: kind, humourous and supportive (and prompt with feedback).

Off to buy my son a new cricket helmet, to keep him safe when he watches the Ashes highlights

Please support and share this petition to help save American Studies teaching at The University of Nottingham. Staff are facing redundancy. The expertise that would be lost would be monumental. Please sign. c.org/26qjPmffNy

This is true

When two dogs snuggle up against you, one on each side, and then fall asleep, are you allowed to move?

We have two dogs in our house at the moment, one ours, one a guest. If I sit on the sofa with my guitar, they immediately turn up and demand to be petted. Two dogs, two hands required, guitar goes away. It's a service they provide to the community, I think.

Reading Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, a novel set against the imagined backdrop of Charles Lindbergh’s ascension to the Presidency in 1940 on an ‘America First’ platform, reminded me of a striking passage in Lindbergh’s posthumously-published Autobiography of Values,... Thread (1/15)