Science fiction (good and bad) plays a lot of roles in public culture: one of those roles is to provide a repository for guesses + prognostications on what the future might hold. Sometimes science fiction becomes self-fulfilling (see Zuckerberg's choice of the term 'metaverse')... 🧵

Martin Peterson's creative response to being banned from teaching Plato (shared with his permission).

We should have listened when the modems screamed at us.

Archbishop McArchbishopface

At a time when so many UK universities are closing Humanities courses and limiting so-called 'unfunded' Humanities research, this investment in 14 three-year postdoctoral fellowships by @official-uom.bsky.social 's Faculty of Humanities is especially impressive. Deadline 7 March.

I’ve lived in Oxford for fifteen years, and a lot of stylistic changes have happened in how undergraduates dress over that time. But for the last few years, they’re increasingly all wearing these plain black puffy jackets that feature a college crest. During term, they’re everywhere.

Found the review of Capital that led Marx to write that he was not interested in "writing recipes...for the cook-shops of the future"

I am one of these NSF postdocs. NSF has frozen everyone’s access to their salaries and research stipends (that were already awarded) with no information about when they might be expected to be unfrozen. It still appears like we are expected to continue doing our work though.

It's all about promoting "meritocracy," we've been repeatedly told . . .

can you believe that it's the 459th day of January 2025 and yet there are still two more days in which you can make a January visit to The Museum of English Rural Life?

‘Perhaps the most critical judgment that might be made of this noted critic of market fundamentalism is that he badly underestimated the resilience of capitalism.’ Stefan Collini on Karl Polanyi’s 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

All the Oxford news you need in our weekly newsletter: 🚧 Botley Road to reopen in August 2026 🏙 Oxpens development gets go-ahead 🚌 New orbital bus for Oxford 🪧 Radcliffe Camera occupied 🐈 A lovely picture of a cat Read online or direct to your inbox: oxfordclarion.uk/clarion-week...

Any feelings on what it means to assign an essay in the age of google notebook lm? Does assigning an essay no longer require time spent reading?

Very excited to announce the release of my new book today, Land Power! Based on 15 years of work, it tells the story of how land shapes societies, from racial hierarchy to inequality, development, gender & the environment. In hardcover/eBook/audiobook. More in 🧵

The only word that truly reflects the simultaneous feelings of joy, relief and utter terror at receiving proofs of your book is “Eeeeep!” ‘Transatlantic Threads: Scottish Linen and Society, c.1707-1780’ is one step closer to being unleashed. @edinburghup.bsky.social

More cheerfully, I start 2025 astonished that the wildest aspect of my 2024 was that I now not only know who Taylor Swift's boyfriend is but I have an opinion about him! Thanks to Amanda Herbert for this unexpected ride from French notarial records to Travis Kelce via Time. time.com/6971832/the-...

Academic guilt season starts today, winter edition. Feel guilty if working, feel guilty if not.

For every noble or gentleman who did the 'Grand Tour', there was one or more servants who did it with them, but these men and women have been mostly invisible and unheard. @richardjansell.bsky.social's new edition finally gives us access to their perspectives and their #WrittenWorlds!

"Sector leaders expected more than 100 of the UK’s 140-odd universities to be making redundancies by the start of 2025, in what has been described as a “cataclysmic” situation where “everything is on the table”." www.timeshighereducation.com/news/univers...

more users are joining and the hog grows longer

It has snowed in Chicago and YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! Time to remind everyone that we light our train tracks on fire to prevent the switches from freezing.

Interesting— I wonder who the biologists are in the story.

This snow squirrel made me happy.

Spotted in the wild: Peter Frankopan’s new book included on the fairy tales section.

Remembered earlier today the story of Sociologist Max Weber visiting the US and remarking how extraordinary it was American academics could get any work done, given their lack of servants.

Listening to a running playlist while not running is like watching that beautiful pebble plucked from the bottom of the sea become dull and mundane. A pebble in poor taste. A pebble you shouldn’t be seen with. “This isn’t the kind of stone I’d normally collect, you know.”

Recent article on Advance Access: Rachel Singer on 'Contextualising Edix Hill: First-Pandemic Plague and Britain' @rachelbsinger.bsky.social #plague academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...

Recent article on Advance Access: Matthew Jones on ‘"A Matter of Joint Decision": The Origins of British Nuclear Retaliation Procedures and the Murphy–Dean Agreement of 1958' #nuclear academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...