"Academics literally cannot make genAI go away" we also can't make underage drinking go away and we're not advocating for installing bar carts in every classroom.

My wife reading a joke from a cracker: why do they call it the Dark Ages? Me: they don’t Her: because there were lots of knights. Everyone: hahaha Me: ok let me stop you there. Number one…

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

You have no idea how historians work, do you? You can just say, "I have no idea how things work." You don't have to do this.

I think it's important to keep in mind that when dudes like this say "military history" they never mean the actual rigorous academic discipline, they mean comparing stats of WWII tanks or drawing maps of the same three battles from Caesar's campaigns or whatever

Destroyed by the end of E.T. (literally in floods of tears remembering my Dad crying every year, the daft sod), I turn over and ... shitting hell, it's only The Snowman. Solidarity to my elder millenials, just trying to keep it together this Christmas Eve in the face of the wall of nostalgia.

Hope you all have a happy Christmas, one and all. I'm signing off for a few days to see family and do a bit of this.

Re-reading Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Orwell's writing is even more objectionable than I remembered. Orwell really was one of the best writers and one of the very worst people. I can't imagine writing about the mid-20th c without some outrageous statement of his to disagree with for 10,000 words

Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 became UK law #OTD 23 Dec 1919. "A person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from exercise of any public function...holding any civil or judicial office..carrying on any civil profession..or admission to any society" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Dis...

Not now, haunted Victorian shoes

Am I happy or sad that Paddington has replace Charon in our mythology? We're going to start burying people with a pot of marmalade on each eye

PhD Funding! University of Leeds The School of History invites applicants from Black, Asian and other minoritised ethnic groups who wish to study for a PhD commencing in the academic year 2026/27 to apply for the School of History Access to Research Scholarship. phd.leeds.ac.uk/funding/387-...

Had the misfortune to hear this person on the radio earlier (despite her and her friends being 'silenced'). What fragile egos these people have.

Absolutely right. AI might be able to summarize (poorly) what we currently know, but a major goal of historical research is to find the hidden surprises out there. Let me illustrate …

These people really have no idea what we do or how we do it and they are out here with incredible audacity and hubris, presuming they can tell us how to research and think and write.

My number one reading tip for students: follow the footnotes.

Citation chains are positioned as stuffy pedantry, but they can be the gift economy at work, a virtual open community, a generous pedagogy and a honest dialogue with readers. Here’s who’s in the room with us right now; here’s who I am compelled to speak with; here’s work that will blow your mind…

That was great. #Strictly

Following a message from the Queen with a Five medley is absolutely bang on what I want on a Saturday night. #Strictly

I am not sorry. This is simply true. Academics should be able to write fluently and express themselves clearly and academics should do their own work. It’s literally our job. It’s what we trained until 22nd grade to do. This is a simple observation that should require no explanation or defense.

The whole point of being an academic is that you need to be willing to spend three days creating a 700-word footnote that you will later delete. And you need to LIKE IT.

Well that was moving - look at the other dancers' reactions! #Strictly

yall this is so, so funny to me 😂

I’m embarrassed for these people. I was at a writing retreat this summer that suggested we use genai for ideation. They told academics to use a plagiarism machine for ideas. If you are doing this, do us all a favor and leave the field. If you have no more ideas, you shouldn’t be an academic.

I think one of the reasons why people don't take the study of the humanities seriously is they think being a history buff = being a historian and reading a lot = being a literature scholar because there's still so little public understanding of what methodologies in those fields actually look like

One thing that absolutely definitely happens for real in the academic job market is that when you do not get a job, the Dean calls you and explains why you didn't get it. This is extra-super true when the explanation is something legally actionable on its face.

THERE ARE NO JOBS IN ACADEMIA! NO JOBS! DOZENS OF HYPER QUALIFIED APPLICANTS PER JOB!

I was doing a joint honours anyway but were strongly encouraged to take an option beyond both disciplines. I enrolled late in first year so the only one still open was 'The Mind and the World' in Philosophy, an introduction to epistemology. Shaped me as a historian before I was even a historian.

You do not know how much I needed this for teaching ...

Does anyone have the weird 'problem' of work people coming to the house *before* the time they said they would? This seems to happen to me all of the time and I have a traumatized indoor cat who has just been manhandled into her 'safe room' to prove it.

rejection letter recorded

Just lol.

Yeah, congrats to President Kennedy.

Amazing really that the popular/media understanding of 1919 to 1940 (and arguably 1914 to 1945) has so little relationship to what most serious historians now think (Treaty of Versailles, Munich, Maginot Line, Battle of Britain etc). Slightly depressing tbh.

Are you a PG research student based outside of London? Did you know that you may be eligible for a bursary of up to £500 to take one of our short courses in 2026? Find out more on our IHR Research Training and Short Courses page: www.history.ac.uk/study-traini... Applications open until 31 Jan 2026!

We have responded to the OfS consultation on quality regulation. We welcome some proposals, including the expansion of TEF to all providers. Yet we are concerned about proposals to transform the TEF’s core aims and raise the stakes of TEF performance. Here are our key takeaways:

Repeat after me: The point of Erasmus isn't just to go to a European university for a period. It is also having European students come to institutions in the UK, where they bring their ideas, perspective, viewpoints and skills.

Hey, do you all know that there are people in prison in the UK, arrested for connection to Palestine Action, who have been on hunger strike for 45 days. David Lammy refuses to even engage with MPs to discuss the issue. David Lammy has taken over £30k from pro-Israel lobby groups.

Great! Now do a Customs Union!

we can kill them all if we just work together and ✨believe💫

This is the exact lighting they use for the pic to accompany a profile of a professor who got suspended because he kept using slurs in class as a supposed intellectual provocation.

Apropos to a post I'm not going to quote: no, you are not fucking obliged to battle the fucking right on fucking social media, or go to where they are. Why make yourself miserable shouting at bots (who don't care) or trolls (who get off on your misery). Make your fucking social media enjoyable, FFS.

The cultural impact of Rob Reiner cannot be understated. Legend isn't big enough a word. It goes to 11. You can't handle the truth. As you wish. I'll have what she's having. I'm your number one fan. You guys wanna see a dead body? The very idea of a bucket list. The West Wing. All from his movies.

I somehow just saw the trailer for 2025 computer-animated version of Animal Farm with a twerking Napoleon voiced by Seth Rogan. It might be one of the funniest things I've ever seen and I wish Orwell were alive to see it.

Just given notice on my rental of ten years. It's a lot at a time of officially 'a lot'. Very glad to be moving into our own place and will be happy not to have to deal with many things, but I will miss a lot, especially the yard.

People writing emails in the next week or two: everyone is up against it (in any sector), we have multiple responsibilities, all of us (because human) have stuff going on in our lives. Even if someone is annoying you, remember that. Here ends my public service announcement.

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!

This destruction at Essex isn’t going to result in an improved learning or working environment. It will ossify research, it will diminish student learning environments, it will be catastrophic for working conditions. Hard to see what the outcome will be aside from something not like a university.