I want our young people to know that there is a path forward, that a better world is possible. I don't want them to give up, to become cynical. They deserve to be young and full of optimism. They are owed a world that supports and sustains optimism.

This is such an amazing teaching resource! I’ve set the diaries as primary sources for student essays this term and I’m so excited to see what they make of them!

"Hobbyist" is a truly breathtaking choice of phrase. It encapsulates a profound sense of contempt for the labour of academics in the UK, who already have to navigate an underfunded system dominated by precarity and overwork. "Knows the price of everything but the value of nothing" springs to mind

It is twenty years today since my first book Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918-57 was published by @uchicagopress.bsky.social and I am feeling contemplative. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

New! Self-study course 'Introduction to Research Ethics'. Free to LMIC scholars. Covers everything from understanding ethics and examples of good practice to what not to do. Also, I wrote it, so you know it'll be engaging and useful 😉 Please share #AcademicSky risingscholars.net/en/news/deta...

This is of course deeply upsetting on its own terms; also, we should absolutely be worst-case-scenario contingency planning for how we are going to resist this kind of thing when it comes to UK universities.

Peer reviewers are exhausted. It's common to spend *months* inviting reviewers, getting refusals, inviting more, maybe 12 or more, then 2 agree but 1 doesn't complete, so you go again. That's why your paper is in limbo. I'm very sorry, it's awful, but it's also an untenable academic labour issue.

Out now! In this book I explore struggles for reproductive rights & liberty in postwar France - telling a different story about the era of sexual liberalisation & legal reform, avoiding a celebratory narrative but looking at persisting injustices and inequalities. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

I, for one, welcome scientists as the true historians

This, from the Quakers, is a pretty good example of how to resist pressure from bigot lobbying groups. Effectively “we legally can allow trans people to use the loo, we morally should, and we tried it and nothing bad happened”

TOMMY!!!

An excellent no nonsense statement from the Women's Institute.

'Logan Lucky' released in theaters 8 years ago and this George R.R. Martin joke still holds true today

Ann Oakley & I discuss writing at the kitchen table, the Women’s Liberation Movement & eternal reinvention of housewifery as occupation. “I wonder how much women would have been able to accomplish if they hadn’t had to organise their lives around important men” 👇 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

And here's the link! www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/... all the chapters are absolutely brilliant. A much needed book that will become a classic!

The many contributions of Peter Mandler, including as a former President @royalhistsoc.org, are celebrated in a new OA book 'Democratising History', published @uolpress.bsky.social. Peter's innovations as RHS President (2012-16) are reviewed by @eicathomefinn.bsky.social and Richard Fisher 1/2

A thread on the march of modern biological tyranny, in this case transphobia, making life worse for everyone, but especially for people already treated appallingly for even existing. That the EHRC is implementing this shows just how bad things have become.

Legally, there isn't the slightest basis to the complaint, even on the most extreme possible interpretation of the Supreme Court judgement. A shop floor is not a single sex space, regardless of whether they sell bras or not. This is just hatred and spite, unleashed.

52. Never send the first draft of your peer review report when reviewing something.

This is wonderful, there’s a LOT of gender, and my absolute fave is the child who dressed up for a school project about ‘someone significant’ as ‘the man who invented traffic lights’ because they are ‘quite helpful’

now google each of those six universities and “redundancies”

🧵The education select committee is holding a session on school attendance this morning. While green shoots of improved absence rates are appearing, its still a persistent issue for school leaders and policy makers alike - esp for severe absence, which remains high. www.tes.com/magazine/new...

RIP Andrea Gibson, tour de force queer non-binary spoken word poet. Read and listen to their work www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNad...

We give students these incredibly marketable, transferable, but also subject-specific, skills that would put them in a great position to work in one of the most prestigious heritage organisations in the capital city - and in Europe, and actually the world - but we can't raise the starting salaries!

Historians: this is a worrying development. Historians use the Hansard to analyze what was said in parliamentary discussions. If the Hansard is subject to editing out things that are politically unacceptable at the time, we (and future historians) have a problem.

so chuffed to see this out in the world! I have a piece on 'Race, Sexuality, and South Asian AIDS Activism in Britain, 1990–2000' muse.jhu.edu/pub/15/artic...

Registration is now open for the annual @mbhjournal.bsky.social Pimlott Lecture! Prof Helen McCarthy will be speaking on “Family Stories: Retirement, Old Age & Generational Thinking in Britain since the 1970s” 🗓️ Tues 25 Nov | 📍KCL 🔗 www.eventbrite.com/e/modern-bri...

The half-forgotten history of the Haçienda before the rave and Madchester years. An era of William Burroughs, Jimmy Somerville, Burning Spear, videos, fanzines, self-defence classes, and teenage perverts davehaslam.substack.com/p/teenage-pe...

BISH offers nuanced and inclusive info and advice on relationships, bodies, sex, gender and more! For £1 a month you’d be supporting Justin and his wonderful work!

Applies to all journals. Please write reviews!

Be very, very careful what you wish for. A key point made in the REF2014 History sub-panel final report was that 2* research often clearly played a vital enabling role in the creation of 4* research. Process, not just products, needs careful attention in any restriction of UK research volume.

Out today (19 June)

Wow! 😮 youtu.be/iO24SGs4B_k?...

Tomorrow lunchtime! We'll be talking histories of childhood and youth, and our three new books: Gifted Children - global.oup.com/academic/pro... Teenage Intimacies - manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526173157/ Growing Up and Going Out - manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526152640/

Over the next three weeks, we're highlighting the 8 articles and 8 books shortlisted for this year's RHS Early Career Article and First Book Prizes. Today we feature Beth Bhargava, ‘The National Front and Environmental Politics, 1967–90’, Modern British History bit.ly/43DNNrR 1/2

Senior Research Associate: Plants, Enslavement, and Public History University of Bristol - Department of History (Historical Studies) #skystorians 🗃️www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNK213/s...

side effect of AI-in-higher-ed: having to spend my ONE WILD AND PRECIOUS LIFE googling footnotes for articles that I can't believe I missed off my reading lists only to discover that they aren't, in fact, real articles

I’m really excited about this joint book launch we’re having next week! It would be fab to have lots of #skystorians there!

Very excited that the articles for the Special Issue of the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law on 20 years of the Gender Recognition Act and Civil Partnership Act are starting to come out. Such a pleasure working with Alexander Maine and Peter Dunne on this! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

oh wow: every historian on the historical advisory committee that oversees FRUS was fired at the end of April

'Through this innovative approach, Cartoon Network helped revive television animation in the 1990s' Dr Jacqueline Ristola (Film&TV) considers the rise and fall of Cartoon Network as an essential kids brand in a new piece for @uk.theconversation.com theconversation.com/cartoon-netw...

Interested in starting a PhD (fee waiver) in Sept 2025 on 'Repression, silencing & criminalisation of activism & protest' at #LSBU? If yes click link below for more info. & please re-post 🙂. #activism #skystorians @socialhistsoc.bsky.social @womenshistnet.bsky.social www.lsbu.ac.uk/research/res...

I just learned that Susan Brownmiller has passed away. May her memory & work be a blessing. Her structural analysis of sexual violence shaped generations of thinkers & will outlive her *as* will the necessary correctives of it. Here's our Sexing History ep on her: soundcloud.com/user-1970211...

I know that it feels weird that an important public health resource like Bish is crowdfunded (and self funded). Shouldn't it be a charity or funded by the state or similar? Let me explain in this rambly thread 🧵

It is very much in the self interest of academics to stand against professional services cuts because you really do not want to be doing our jobs in addition to your jobs

Important to remember that in the 00s rates of gonorrhoea began to fall through a mix of public education, healthcare initiatives and drives. This news is very welcome, but the fact gonorrhoea rates are the highest now since records began in 1918 is of real concern. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

There's concern about "menstrual cycles & how they might disrupt or muddy the data & create noise. And yet, that’s the noise of real life – that’s the noise in which women take medicine, so we need to understand it." I spoke w @chemistryworld.com abt including women in research tinyurl.com/yjpx98mb

@technologyreview.com published an ambitious package on AI & energy today that reveals new insights into how much electricity generative AI really uses — & what it all means for the climate. Please be sure to check out the main piece by @jamesmodonnell.bsky.social ‬& @caseycrownhart.bsky.social

A gentle reminder that you can find people who genuinely, wholeheartedly, support and respect other people, in the most unexpected places.