nest-maxxing

Reading a new OUP book with the stomach-turning mixture of a serif font for the main text and sans-serif for block quotes.

This enormous student will devour us all.

I would refer you to Kantorowicz's classic study in political theology, The King's Two Boobies.

Really pleased to advertise these 4 LSE postdocs in the history of popular government as part of our ERC Synergy Project "Popular Government in Global Perspective (POPGOV)"

Keir Starmer should stop vowing to do things.

I was the only person in the gallery this morning, and it turns out absolute desolated solitude is the best way to experience art.

Academic cant is bad but art cant is worse.

On #WorldFrogDay I'm shamelessly exploiting the chance to promote my article on gay frog memes, which I hope may delight and entertain: read.dukeupress.edu/environmenta...

Here's the essay on AI that I've been hinting at for a while. The argument is quite condensed, and could be elaborated in any number of ways, but I hope people will find it interesting.

Hey everyone, a collective I'm part of is starting a radical bookshop and community space in Newcastle, a city where the last radical bookshop closed around 40 years ago. We've just launched our crowdfunder. Please take a look a share widely! www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/booksfromb...

Realising you only received that email in the dreamworld.

Generative AI writes like Robert Brandom.

Ah, yes, felt I knew him well — once dined with him, upon a time, and my supervisor would tell me the tales — one of the greats perhaps, but not without blemish, oh no. All had to contend with his thought, did we not? We must continue onwards, I suppose. Yes, the work, the work of ideas, for us.

Peer reviews from political theorists can be unfair but are usually pretty straightforward. Philosophers are more likely to spring some ‘answer me these riddles three’ scenario.

Five years of the Feminist Futures Programme! Thank you so much to everybody @autonomy-institute.bsky.social for half a decade of hard work. Lots coming up in 2026, too. Catch our selective retrospective here: autonomy.work/wp-content/u....

View from the office in Edinburgh this morning.

Going to be publishing my book on Socialist Republicanism with Cambridge University Press. Should be out in both hardback and paperback next year.

The first set of postdocs for our ERC project on popular government have just been advertised. These 3 postdocs will be based at UC Louvain with my co-PI Pierre-Etienne Vandamme and focus on contemporary democratic theory. Apply! jobs.uclouvain.be/Personnelsci...

It’s book launch day! Marx & the Politics of Need is out today, available open access. I hope it sparks ideas and conversations. Dive in here: doi.org/10.4324/9781...

This essay could have been very slight but managed not to be.

I reviewed Pete Wolfendale’s new book, ‘The Revenge of Reason’, for @radical-philosophy.bsky.social www.radicalphilosophy.com/reviews/arti...

View from my new shared office.

I 👏 can 👏 post 👏 like 👏 a 👏 radlib 👏 when 👏 I 👏 want 👏 to 👏

The University of Edinburgh has £3.1bn in assets and made a surplus of £43m last year. But the senior management team is still threatening huge staffing cuts while implementing a massively destructive austerity drive.

Trying to read the text in this print-on-demand book.

With many thanks to @uoe-cahss.bsky.social for funding, I'm delighted that the Network for the Study of Work (NSW) is launching in February: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cahss-netw... With help from @haylesben.bsky.social, @ibalilebali.bsky.social and @tomoshea.org

I had a nightmare where I was on In Our Time but completely fucked it.

Taking more recommendations for books in the genre Weird Medieval Guy.

Here at last is the 3+ hours recorded by myself and @profafinlayson.bsky.social on nationalism and the future of Britain. Subscribe in any podcast app to Culture, Power, Politics. Yes, Burnham-block emergency pod, other guests, more solos, all coming soon. culturepowerpolitics.org/2026/01/26/n...

With the contract now signed, I’m pleased to say that I’ll be publishing my second book, *Peasant Modernism: Marx, Culture, and the Future of Eating Well*, with Brill in the @histmat.bsky.social Book Series. It should be out by early 2028 at the latest.

aspirational

Upon receiving my own message to the mailing list: What fresh bastard has emailed me now?

We’ve been using tape to mark out locations for new sofas and now the living room looks like Dogville.

Saw a series of academic conferences about Mary Wollstonecraft which were called Wollapolooza.

The Sistine Chapel is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the pope's official residence in Vatican City. Originally known as the Cappella Magna, it takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who had it built between 1473 and 1481. Since that time, it

I thought it was strange for Maduro to plead not guilty rather than refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the court. But then I remembered how that strategy worked out for Charles the First.

Lost my phone yesterday, and have been watching its merry journey around and around the bus route, before ending up safely in the depot.

If you’re wondering what the weather is like in Scotland at the moment: Hannah, carrying three separate hot water bottles upstairs, asks, ‘Shall we have a second duvet?’

Still searching for a theory of justice on which it turns out to be ‘just ice’.

May the white mausu guide and protect you this year.

For the hogmanay not the hogafew

If you want to hear, not me, but the normally mild-mannered @profafinlayson.bsky.social suggest that Britain might now be entering a pre-revolutionary phase, get your ears around this massive Christmas pressie of a Culture, Power, Politics Emergency Podcast. culturepowerpolitics.org/2025/12/24/p...

My favourite tracks released this year. open.spotify.com/playlist/2J7...

Who protects the mattress protector?

no microsoft word i would not like to live deliciously by turning all the chapter headings blue

Here, for @historyworkshop.org.uk I discuss the history of a refuge for trans women. I show women’s shared experiences of violence across the spectrum of cis and trans. I highlight histories of solidarity against male violence by feminists and trans women. academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-...