A soft, small, hopeful thing.

Fishing-float Christmas tree! (Clogherhead, Co. Louth)

Thrilled about this new grant we are offering for under-represented early career scholars. The first cycle is for scholars in history and area studies. Please spread the word widely. @universitypress.cambridge.org ********************************* Read more here: 🔗 cup.org/4pF5xvr

Keith Haring, The Nativity, subway drawing, c. 1983

How delicately a Romanesque angel uses the lightest touch of a finger to wake one of the magi, snuggled with the other 2 under their embroidered circular blanket at St Lazare, Autun, c1130 (& how beautifully the textures of pillow & blanket are represented). Season's greetings to you all!

It is not "attribution and sourcing" to generate post-hoc citations that have not been read and did not inform the student's writing. Those should be regarded as fraudulent: artifacts testifying to human actions and thought that did not occur. www.theverge.com/news/760508/...

Looking for a New Year's resolution that is good for your mind and (relatively) easy to keep? Check out the Institute of Historical Research seminars for January 2026. Fourteen seminars in week 1 alone. Free, broad-ranging, open to the public and usually available both in person and online.

We are deeply concerned for the health of Qesser Zuhrah, who has been on hunger strike for 46 days. We join those calling on the government to act now, and address the serious concerns raised by lawyers acting for the prisoners.

I am 💯 going to do this

When will this crisis get any attention whatsoever!? A THOUSAND ACADEMIC STAFF AT ONE INSTITUTION SERVED REDUNDANCY RISK NOTICES! And that's not counting what's surely being visited on professional services staff too. This is an economic catastrophe, to say nothing of the intellectual catastrophe!

Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252: Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email. Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

Many congratulations on a fabulous piece of work. Looking forward to seeing it in print soon!

The human cost of AI: the real people, hired as "data labellers" and other euphemisms (after signing non-disclosure agreements) paid a pittance, and enduring immense harm in the process. A devastating anatomy of how tech companies exploit, dehumanize, and ultimately replace human beings. 1/

A new report by @runnymedetrust.bsky.social has found that 13% of British citizens — including me — are at risk of having their citizenship stripped from them by the UK government. It rises to 60% of British citizens of colour. This is absolutely shocking. www.runnymedetrust.org/publications...

This really is a must read for anyone in academia.

I’ve been thinking about the intellectual and affective labor involved in reading AI Generated student papers. I’m forecasting a little of the proposal that @cnygren.bsky.social and I advance in a piece that’ll be out soon but here’s where I’ve personally landed (o speak for myself not for us both):

We are pleased to launch today a new funding scheme, jointly with @ihr.bsky.social & DC Thomson. Applied History Fellowships bit.ly/4ijiuII offer financial / practical support to develop the wider impact and application of academic work. £12,000 for 6 months. Closing date: 31 Jan 2026 #Skystorians

I've got a new article on Valerie Solanas and her place in feminist history, part of the 100th issue of History Workshop Journal. academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-...

@cathfeely.bsky.social Just saw the news about Derby. What a shitshow. Hope you’re doing ok. Solidarity.

Come and work with us! We have a two-year, half-time postdoctoral research associate position working on the @storymachine-ht.bsky.social project www.jobs.london.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai.... If you’re interested in #DigitalHumanities and/or folklore, we’d love to hear from you. Closing date 27 October.

4x4-year, fully-funded PhD opportunities to work with an interdisciplinary group at Trinity College Dublin 2026-2030. One of these is to work with me on a public history and cultural heritage PhD, in collaboration with one of Dublins most interesting neighbourhoods. www.tcd.ie/graduatestud...

#visiblemending #proofofcat One day I will get round to redoing this with beautiful clashing patches rather than sticking-plaster beige. But for now,* at least the stuffing is back where it belongs. * she was scratching even as I was sewing, so this may be a short-lived moment

What a beautiful essay.

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them

RHS Funding opportunity: Postgraduate and Early Career Research Support Grants. Grants of up to £1000 for graduate and early career historians to undertake research projects bit.ly/4nWLNlI Closing date for the next round: 5 December 2025

@clairelanghamer.bsky.social @tricksterprince.bsky.social Starmer just listed offshore wind turbines being built ‘in Humberside’ in his conference speech

We’re delighted to publish a new Policy Paper today by Jonathan Moss & @emilyrobinson.bsky.social. They suggest that Mass Observation @massobsarchive.bsky.social - founded in the 1930s - can help us understand the reasons behind contemporary voter apathy. historyandpolicy.org/policy-paper...

Having had a sneak preview of this, I can say it’s every bit as good as the cover suggests!! 🔥

The new issue of @renewaljournal.bsky.social, themed around the far right, is out now and it couldn't be more timely. Free to read articles by guest editor @sachahilhorst.bsky.social, @profafinlayson.bsky.social and Cailtlin Prowle. Subscribe here to read the rest: renewal.org.uk/journal/volu...

My MP, Peter Kyle, might not be ‘disturbed’, but I certainly am!!

this didn’t happen at the height of the Brexit referendum. I don’t *think* it’s happened since National Front were at their peak in 1970s. This is organised racist intimidation & movement building, and it’s happening because Labour Party leaders have not opposed that campaign.

Sometimes politicians saying something is wrong, regardless of who that angers, can swing things their way in itself, because it is good to watch them standing up. As the Prime Minister did in the face of the riots last summer.

Labour has been quietly going quite hard on "community empowerment" – possibly because it's one of the few halfway coherent theories knocking around the party about how to tackle anti-politics. I've spoken to a lot of people about it for @newstatesman.com: www.newstatesman.com/comment/2025...

I just want him to come out and say “we’ve seen some disgusting, racist behaviour outside hotels housing asylum seekers and it’s got to stop”. Is that really so hard to say?

(Griffiths won Smethwick in the 1964 election, after his supporters used that slogan (“if you want an [n-word] for a neighbour, vote Labour; if you’ve already got one, vote Conservative”) — his response to the slogan as above. Harold Wilson condemned him as a “parliamentary leper”. Quite a shift.)

if people can’t apply for family to join them after their successful asylum applications, more women and children will be forced to make illegal and dangerous journeys to the UK, rather than sending male relatives first who later plan to reunite with family. this is: obvious.

If you have published anything, please consider doing this. The window is closing and you should get your details registered now for a chance at a settlement. The form works wherever in the world you are based.

Such a perfect ex of how these things get students to cheat themselves. You have access to 1-on-1 advice from experts in their fields, and seeking it would help build relationships with mentors and confidence in seeking counsel, but grammarly lets you skip all that and this is…winning, somehow?

I didn’t know until now that in the original Rosie the Riveter painting, she is crushing a copy of Mein Kampf under her foot. Happy feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, remembering all the women who crush the serpents of Satan under their heel.

#MaritimeHeritage #CoastalHeritage #Shipwreck

On Saturday 4th October, I'm running a guided walk around Ted Hughes's formative National Service Landscape at Patrington - It's a leisurely amble around the area, and an insight into a crucially formative but neglected part of Hughes's life. www.eventbrite.com/e/ted-hughes...

JOB ALERT: amazing 4-year post in postwar British history and refugee studies at @uniofreading.bsky.social Humanities! A post perfectly suited for someone working on political and social histories of race and migration in late 20c. Deadline 5 September. jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Barely an hour ago, Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif warned us all: “If this madness doesn’t end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.” Israel just killed him.

Israel claimed responsibility for killing five Al Jazeera staff in Gaza, including Anas al-Sharif, in a strike on their media tent outside al-Shifa Hospital, bringing the total journalists killed to 237 since the war began. 🔴 Follow our LIVE coverage: aje.io/1490et

If you want a weird but true fact to talk about: Dexter Holland, lead singer of The Offspring, was instrumental in this. His doctorial thesis in molecular biology was sequencing mRNA in HIV. The paper was also heavily cited in creating the COVID-19 vaccine.

"Because the LLM cares more about keeping the conversation going, and reassuring and affirming the user, it will prefer plausibility to evidence, facts, and expert consensus. A past that makes too much sense: this is history as confirmation bias." Another reason to avoid LLMs.

David Marquand’s Intellectual & Political Legacy SI edited by @pjsloman.bsky.social Colin Crouch & Ben Jackson with @emilyrobinson.bsky.social Will Hutton @npjgarland.bsky.social @anthonybarnett.bsky.social Hilary Wainwright Andrew Gamble Jean Seaton & + politicalquarterly.org.uk/collections/...

UK university staff: keep signing!

I shared the link yesterday, but (UK citizens only please) the Gaza petition to UK parliament is here if you're looking for it; just cracked 76k and the rate at which people are signing is creeping up; currently 4500/hour and only needs 347 signatures every hour for the next 3 days to hit 100k