'Six Axioms of Failure', by @willpooley.bsky.social.

having written “im doing DIY” i have come to the conclusion that presumably the direct formulation would be “i’m DIM”

the washington ghost

Delighted to announce our seminar - 'Race and the Early Modern' - now has a full schedule of events. We'll be convening monthly to discuss research on race, racemaking, and racialisation across #earlymodern studies. @kingsartshums.bsky.social @folger.edu kingsearlymodern.co.uk/race-and-the...

We are organising a big "Festival of Social History" at the IHR, Friday April 24. The ticket price is an absolute steal for SHS members (join!). Trust me when I say this one's built different, it will be a hands-on day demonstrating how vibrant and engaged UK social history is. ONLY £10!

taking my mind off the *waves hands* by rereading this banger doi.org/10.1086/ahr....

Take the time to do this folks. The proposed changes to ILR are shocking and cruel, which is made abundantly clear in the text of the public consultation linked below. Please lend your voice to try to mitigate the cruelty.

A French caving guide did propose a spring Olympics for the Pyrenees in 1988! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Would have had adventure sports like mountain biking, paragliding etc

Our conference #cfp is now live! This year's conference, "Embodied Histories: Body, Mind and Experience" will take place on 17th July 2026 at University of Birmingham! Keep on reading to find out more...(1/9)

Sometimes reddit is an amazing resource. www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/co...

Puddle surfing

sorry to be a downer, but im actually more excited about next year and the spring olympics

I just got a copy of my cover for my forthcoming book! It features a postcard from Fez by the Moroccan Jewish photographer Joseph Bouhsira. Bouhsira was the first Moroccan to establish his own commercial photography studio, and many of his images featured the Jewish community in Fez.

I am giving the Edinburgh Uni LGBTQ+ History Month lecture on the evening of 27 February, with the title 'Scottish Trans Pasts, Useable and Otherwise'. Details and link to register are here: hca.ed.ac.uk/updates-even... Do come along if you're in Edinburgh!

“The existence and extent of the new institutional weighting leaves open the possibility for distortions in Unit ranking to the benefit, generally speaking, of larger, research intensive units.” #REF2029 blog.royalhistsoc.org/2026/02/02/w...

I need this alt history high budget netflix series .

For anyone interested in our 18-month post in British Studies please follow the link below. @ihr.bsky.social www.jobs.london.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

every time i see a reference to arno mayer’s “the furies” my mind does a double take

winbuzzer.com/2026/01/28/g... (what’s the betting that the answer to this mystery is LLMs and crawlers)

Google books going down is just the latest in the long catalogue of “don’t rely on big tech to save the commons”

Reminder that "jaywalking" was literally made up by american car manufacturers to shift the blame for accidents from drivers to pedestrians. "Jay" was a slang term meaning "idiot" or "rube".

*drum roll* Here is the cover for my book, which will be published by @cornellupress.bsky.social on 15 April 2026! I thought it would be nice to share a bit of info on who these men were and how their lives and interests inspired the design...

I just learned about something called recency bias. It's my favorite thing ever.

What happens if you fail to pay your exorcist tax? Your house gets repossessed👻

New article by Katherine Astbury and Abigail Coppins, 'French prisoner-of-war sociability in Hampshire during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars' Open Access here: doi.org/10.1093/fh/c... @frenchhistory.bsky.social

Just uploaded a recording of the SSFH Douglas Johnson lecture to the society's youtube channel. You can explore some past lectures there as well: www.youtube.com/@societyfort... 🗃️#skystorians

I am still shocked at just how much emailing is involved in being evil

Will's whole thread on the threat of Reform to UK HE is on the money. And yeah, I've seen the environment already 'deplatformed' in very real ways at institution level (counterbalanced by rise of, you guessed it, AI). Please do read what a prick NF was about wind in the 00s! (and some Cons tbf)

MS word playing a ‘fun’ game today where it deletes any document I keep open for longer than 5 mins *while I am still editing it* 🤡 just what I need in essay marking season!

Just to offer the counterpoint here, as I think it is very very important we do so: this is absolutely anticipatory obedience 101. Much as university leaders might see it as their responsibility to “plan” for this possibility, in effect REF are getting to set the agenda without winning any election

it’s called magicbooking because no one understands how it works

today is charlie and the chocolate factory day.

"At least Leni Riefenstahl could frame a shot." brutal.

“Papa, why wasn’t there a Mario Mangione?” 🎯 northshoremovies.wpcomstaging.com/2026/01/31/r...

Delighted to have had this joint article published - even if the keynote it grew out of was almost 3 years ago now! Thank you for being so patient with me @tombhamilton.bsky.social @frenchhistory.bsky.social

Academics vying for a spot in Epstein‘s world. There are so many. I feel the need to make a thread, so I don’t keep confusing them. 1/

Please read this extremely thoughtful & careful post on Tim Walz, Anne Frank, & the US Holocaust Memorial Museum from Martin Shuster, philosopher, Isaac Swift Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies, former Holocaust Memorial Museum Fellow, & scholar of genocide, the Holocaust, & authoritarianism:

Am currently comfort reading Sourcery, the fifth Discworld novel, and I’m tempted to put this in the front of all my future books

my most petty take on interview with a vampire s2 is the weird way they anglicize parisian culture. eg the mock trial. i know why they’ve dressed these characters like this but this is how justice was visually staged in 1940s france!

How can we scaffold that growth rather than admonish students for not having it?

SO SO GLAD to see a PROPER rebuttal against Silvia Federici's very wrong scholarship in the latest Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft! Thank you, Rita Voltmer! muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/artic...

One of my most cherished classes is my 18th century novels course where the primary learning objective is "learn how read long novels." We did a "couch to 5k" approach to attention span and note-taking.

100th issue and 50th anniversary of History Workshop Journal. A democratising powerhouse. #HWJ

Im hearing this weekend no.10 are growing increasingly worried about a leadership challenge from the 2022 lettuce who defeated Liz Truss

This is much shorter than she deserved, but I wrote a few words about the late, great, Catherine O'Hara. www.thebulwark.com/p/catherine-...

RIP to the QUEEN, Catherine O’Hara. 💔

walked past the commonwealth gates with friend this week. he remarked on the names inscribed. being the most predictable historian i took this as my cue to ask him how many people from the British Empire served, e.g. the British Indian Army in ww2 (2.5 million+) www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/it...

look im a text based life form, im too old to adapt to getting my information from a video or a podcast, please provide transcripts that i can speed read and copy paste

'The alehouse became the second space in the community after the church.' Dr @markhailwood.bsky.social (@uobrishistory.bsky.social) research on the history of the pub in 16th and 17th century England features in today's @telegraph.co.uk Read more 👇 www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01...