We need humanities more than ever in the age of AI ft.trib.al/SDdQK9q | opinion

Feels bad that a director of a major studio film is perfectly comfortable saying that casting non-white actors is just something you do to look woke and otherwise isn't remotely necessary

This is better than any AI "movies" I've seen.

Jesus. 35 UK universities quietly- without debate - joined the Ministry of Defence’s “Battlefield Alliance” which seeks to “reorientate academia towards Defence and National Security” They’re destroying the social sciences and humanities while militarising the institutions

Now do universities

The Harvard system is an abomination (Saunders 2026). It's like space junk (Lucas 1978) clattering around the beautiful cosmos of one's prose.

First they came for the languages. In the hope that no one would have the words to say what was happening. 1/9🧵

The U.K. creative industries contribute well over a hundred billion a year to the U.K. economy, Google aren’t just stealing from creatives, they’re stealing from everyone. And only the most corrupt would grant them free reign to do so.

‘Margaret Busby acknowledges the importance of anthologists and editors in championing overlooked or underrepresented writers, but also recognises that their selections sometimes give the impression of being definitive.’ Christine Okoth on the Black British publisher. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Just one more day to send in your paper from #MBS26 if you want to enter our ECR best paper prize modbritstud.org.uk/events-awards/

Scholars from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka & beyond stand in solidarity with 500 colleagues at Exeter facing potential redundancy - deeply concerned about the damage these cuts would do to the scholarship & international partnerships that have taken years to build. #DefendExeterUni shorturl.at/sNnAb

More evidence of the ‘greater financial stability’ in HE that Jacqui Smith spoke of this week.

That was loud. SUNN O))) at Project House, Leeds. ⚡️ 🧙‍♂️

Super happy to finally share this piece on the little-known first trans org in Spain! Including previously unseen photographs, testimonies and debates :)

UK-based early career historian in need of up to £2,000 to complete a project? Deadline for the Royal Historical Society's scheme is 4 September: royalhistorical.smapply.io/prog/early_c...

⭐⭐ It's publication day for 'I Felt All This': Enslaved People's Emotional Lives in the Antebellum US South' published by @universitypress.cambridge.org! You can now buy it here: www.cambridge.org/core/books/i... ⭐⭐

And behind the accessible *quality* content now available you'll repeatedly find higher education: students who benefit and go on to create content, and academic researchers whose expertise and training make possible such content. It's rightly a dialogue, though one increasingly at risk #Skystorians

*Anti-racism in Britain: Traditions, histories and trajectories, c. 1880-present* is out now in paperback AND half price in the @manchesterup.bsky.social summer sale! 50% discount applied automatically at checkout manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526199775/

This is it: there's no coherent logic driving these changes. It's an ideological choice in the guise of a financial crisis. As Kent proved post-REF 2021, you can top all the tables and jump through all the hoops. The vandals are still not going to listen or respect you. Because they're vandals.

📣 Call for Applications 📣 History Workshop is seeking to appoint one Editorial Fellow in 2026, with specialism in pre-1800 CE history from any part of the globe. This is a part-time, paid role. Application deadline: 7 August 2026. Please share widely!

This is utterly depraved.

Microsoft blaming the rising costs of computer components after spending $146 billion dollars on AI investments

This is one of the dumbest and saddest things I've ever seen. We should not think of universities in this way, and if we do that'll destroy everything that is both useful and good about them. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This year, Exeter University’s vice-chancellor has received a pay rise (bringing the total salary to nearly 400,000 GBP) despite hundreds of staff leaving the university under cost-cutting measures. What an absolute shame. thetab.com/2026/02/12/e...

A great university, incredibly important to the city of Exeter, and to the southwest. Isn’t it interesting that university heads can choose to wreck a local economy, disrupt communities, and destroy depts that were there long before them?

Bridget Phillipson studied History and Modern Languages at Hertford College, Oxford. Pat McFadden studied Politics at Edinburgh. So these people get to do Arts, Hums and Social Sciences and benefit hugely. And, no doubt, so will/have their kids.

Universities don't currently have a 'business model'. Home UGs do not provide it, and overseas PGs are viewed as too (geo)politically volatile to be relied on. Hence, we're in the situation where the highest-ranking 30 universities live off the other 100, aka 'accumulation by dispossession'

Now is a time when university degrees need to be *less* about acquiring ‘skills’ than ever. Abstract thought, flexibility, problem-solving and so forth are much more important. That means *less* vocational education, not more.

I got three paragraphs into this and had to stop reading. It’s such fucking nonsense. Government blaming universities and doing down young people for the failure of their own economic model. Bridget Phillipson ought to be fired into the sun.

At this point I can count on my fingers the number of UK universities that *have not* conducted a major cut and restructure in the last year or two. I do think very soon it will be every single university in the country. The snake is done eating its tail, and is moving up.

We are always looking for pitches for @jich.bsky.social new Current Debates section. Do not hesitate to get in touch and please share widely. networks.h-net.org/group/announ...

We have an 18-month temporary lectureship in early modern British and European history just advertised at Newcastle - closing date 9th July www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRW166/l... #skystorians

Brilliant new article by the fantastic @saimanasar.bsky.social in @jbritishstudies.bsky.social. Going straight on my reading lists for the next academic year!

Here's some excellent mid-week listening, with @profkepickett.bsky.social, Gurminder Bhambra, and @academicdiary.bsky.social.

Bans, moral panics, the shutdown of thousands of third spaces, and now maybe you can't get a student loan to study anything unless you pass the worst subject (for many) at the most chaotic (for many) time of life. Why does England hate its young people so much? www.theguardian.com/education/20...

The fiscal irresponsibility at the top of UK universities is shocking.

Associate Professorship in Middle Eastern Politics at the University of Oslo. The position is linked to the Middle Eastern Studies group, with 12 permanent faculty with expertise in Persian, Turkish and Arabic, politics, anthropology, literature, media, and history. www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Almost every day, the Starmer-era Labour party does something to make me freshly appreciate how impressive it was that Blair and Brown kept these guys anchored in the present day and committed to economic policies that backed our areas of comparative advantage for 13 years.

One of the absolute greats.

Depressing, though not surprising, that a senior Labour figure would back impunity for British military crimes against civilians in Northern Ireland.

I'm attending a digital humanities event in Montreal. There was a keynote on AI and something about the talk made me wonder if it had been written by Claude. I said as much in the Q&A. As I posed the question, the speaker shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. What he said next shocked the room +

For 2024/25, 11% of students studying History are IMD 1 (the most deprived background), yet when you filter for those living with parents, it doubles to 20% of students in the IMD 1 quintile. A clear case for regional unis supporting access to Hums www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/policy-and-r...

Under 16s to be banned from social media, and a white supremacist who fuels riots on our streets, still allowed to run a whole platform.

Outsourcing and AI. But staff is unreasonable for calling out the complete destruction of the resource base of #UKHE… Yes, we’re fighting for our own jobs, we’re also fighting for a university that does critical, curiosity-driven research and research-led teaching. AI & consultants can’t.

Being a part of this #MBS2026 panel was a real treat! Many thanks to my fellow speakers @drrochellerowe.bsky.social @oliviawyatt1999.bsky.social Aleph Ross @leilarsellers.bsky.social @benjamin-bland.bsky.social and @evemworth.bsky.social and our fantastic chair @tsasson.bsky.social

The Chapeltown Bonfire Night trial in Leeds, 50 years on. This looks interesting, at @leedslibraries.bsky.social next week.

Palantir wrote a fascist company manifesto which was pretty explicitly "the purpose of this company is to do fascism" and I'm not sure why that shouldn't be an automatic deal breaker for them getting government contracts

Back home after the #MBS2026 🇬🇧 Thanks to fellow panelists @benjamin-bland.bsky.social, @liamliburd.bsky.social and Jessica White for making it one of the best panel experiences, and to @saimanasar.bsky.social for chairing. Thanks to @drsarahlkenny.bsky.social for being a wonderful host.

My latest article has just been published in The Historical Journal. It looks at the ways in which HIV/AIDS was positioned as not just an urban problem, but one that was antithetical to rural spaces. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...