It’s arrived!

It’s arrived!

Are bankers starting to worry about bursting bubbles too?

My inaugural lecture, "Humanist Yearning as Political Epistemology” last October was an opportunity to share my vision for a new field of knowledge and celebrate the creation of the first ever chair in Global Political Anthropology | @facultyofartsug.bsky.social books.ugp.rug.nl/ugp/catalog/...

New and important: academic.oup.com/book/61786?l...

I’ve tried this quiz, and it genuinely is quite difficult to tell them apart.

Can’t wait to hear this one!

Wirioneddol edrych ymlaen at hwn!

Travelling home from London. Spent the afternoon having fun recording an episode of YDTM with the great @gregjenner.bsky.social. Wait to see - or rather wait to hear!

New and important: academic.oup.com/book/61786?l...

I unrhywun fydd yn Aberystwyth ar 23 Ionawr/In case you're in Aberystwyth on 23 January

Really looking forward to seeing how this goes!

Edrych ymlaen at groesawu @irmorus.bsky.social i draddodi prif ddarlith Cynhadledd Chwilen yn y Glust ar 23 Ionawr 🪲✨ Mwy o wybodaeth a sut i gofrestru yma: linktr.ee/chwilenynygl...

I had a fascinating chat with @themadstone.bsky.social about Frankenstein a few weeks ago.

I had a fascinating chat with @themadstone.bsky.social about Frankenstein a few weeks ago.

I’m not quite sure what the kids have done…..

By our director Inanna Hamati-Ataya @berytia.bsky.social

Impromptu plumbing. Not in my plans for the fourth day of Christmas!

Daffodils? In December?

I was script consultant on this episode. Despite that, it’s great fun!

Pwy sy’n dwad dros y bryn.

Looking a little more ragged than last year, but the Twrch Trwyth is still poking his snout above ground on Christmas Eve to make sure the Overworld is still there.

Mae’r Nadolig yn dod!

For a change, I've just been talking about Edison with @historyextra.bsky.social. So watch this space!

For a change, I've just been talking about Edison with @historyextra.bsky.social. So watch this space!

They’ve found Ker Is! Cantre’r Gwaelod nesaf! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Fi fydd y prif siaradwr/I'll be giving the keynote!

Stir up Sunday and the Christmas puddings are made.

Hmmmm.

Well, that's us fucked, then.

The simplest definition of "enshittification" is this: Google has made it ridiculously difficult to google things and get a genuinely useful result.

I’m reminded of how, thirty odd years ago, I applied for AHRC funding for a project on science and culture in nineteenth century Ireland. The reviewers were unanimous that there was nothing there to study. Good to see that times have changed!

So the pusillanimity of institutions like the Royal Society or the National Academy of Sciences have no bearing on the erosion of trust? Or the bleating of self appointed leaders about keeping politics out of science?

Why can't they just analyse their data? Why is any computation or statistics called AI now?

There's no 'if' about it, surely. Bursting is what bubbles do.

posted by a friend who is Professor of Molecular Biophysics. PM me if you have any ideas and want to be put in touch.

We had a bit of a pumpkin crop this year.

Good to see someone involved in the field describing the techbro fantasies as “bullshit”. But note the link between this nonsense and eugenicist ideas from Altman. These people are rich, stupid and influential, which = dangerous.

Actually, folks, this is not phrenology (feeling the bumps on the skull) as people are saying in comments, it is physiognomy en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiog... a similarly exploded 'science'. (What it is to be C19th quackery nerd.)

New issue alert! ‘Nineteenth-Century Visual Technologies in Contemporary Practices’, guest edited by Gülru Çakmak and Patricia Smyth is now freely available online at 19.bbk.ac.uk. @openlibhums.org

Nos Galan.

This should make for an interesting year. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Machlud haul yn Aberystwyth/Aberystwyth sunset.

Y gwir yn erbyn y byd. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The beloved BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time has been awarded the 2025 British Academy President’s Medal! Professor Susan J Smith, President of the British Academy, praised the programme for bringing rigorous yet accessible discussion of complex ideas to millions of listeners: buff.ly/1bn63FD

SCIENCE RELIGION AND THE HUMAN FUTURE (Oxford UP) available Jan 16! So grateful to fabulous co-authors Charlotte Sleigh & David Wilkinson who stepped up after the dreadful loss of Tom McLeish (plus new jobs for other authors): book would not be here without them! @eclasproject.bsky.social

Still going cheap. You can't afford NOT to buy at this price!

I'm pleased to share the news that I have recently begun a term as co-editor of the British Journal for the History of Science (BJHS), working together with the now editor-in-chief, the brilliant Amanda Rees @amandarees.bsky.social.

Still going cheap. Hurry - it can’t last!