Hello friends new and yet to be made. I haven’t done age verification on this app, so I don’t receive dms. Apologies, but please contact me via other means. I’d love to hear from you. Thank you.

Academics all over the country could put their hand up and say they're in the same boat. But when did you last see a big feature on redundancies at a post-92 university?

*David Attenborough‘s voice* As the sun rises on this early July morning hundreds of medievalists begin their annual migration to Leeds. Scientists have not fully understood this ritual but it seems to be crucial for the survival of the whole species. Intensive days of medievaling will follow.

1000 evaluators given identical resumes & told candidate used AI. Only difference on resumes was candidate’s name: Emily vs James. Study found women using AI are evaluated as less competent than men who use AI...To evaluators, women’s AI use signaled inability, while men’s AI use signaled initiative

We know students want some module choice in their degrees. I am so effing cross!

Me, after failing to secure tickets to see The Bayeux Tapestry before they sold out. 🥲

Head of the EHRC really did just say Phrenology will help solve the issue of transgenders in society

To my understanding, this is an accurate summation of the state of schism:

Another salvaged #medieval MS thread, from my very first day in the Bod (9/10/26). Today was my first opportunity to access items from special collections, starting with this 1463 girdle almanac. It was made to hang from a belt, and I wanted a good look at the binding, to recreate later. 1/21

🌿📚 More than 64 million pages of biodiversity knowledge are freely available through the Biodiversity Heritage Library. As funding challenges put its future at risk, the Internet Archive is proud to help preserve this invaluable resource. 🌎 Learn more 👇 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Just got Vital Byl’s new history of witch trials in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - a subject I wrote about in the Bloomsbury Cultural History of Magic, but until now little studied. This book looks like a game-changer. Review coming soon…

The only thing flat earthers fear... is sphere itself.

It’s here! Publication day for my @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social @catholicismsem.bsky.social book. Click here for disgruntled ministers, canny bookwomen, and a world of Catholic print that was more complex and multiconfessional than you could have ever imagined. boydellandbrewer.com/book/print-a...

'Most people are not conspiracy theorists; they are trying to make sensible decisions for themselves and their families. What appears to be changing is more the way people are deciding where to place their trust.' 1/3

I am coming around to the notion that in order to understand why it’s important to be a medievalist every scholar of the Middle Ages should read Tocqueville, Fukuyama, and now, Lepore.

Fly the angel sleeves of your hostess dress at half mast, dim the standard lamps of all suburbia and please be seated at the telephone table to make the gossipiest call you can from a landline in memoriam💙

Being an academic in the UK is to be told that your research having a real-world impact is hugely important... only for you to wake up every day with the government announcing a new stupid policy clearly devoid of any fact-based evidence or underpinning research to justify it.

“The installation, unveiled in February 2024, allows guests to ask Douglass questions through an iPad. Using a closed database of Douglass’s autobiographies and speeches, the artificial intelligence generates responses based solely on Douglass’s recorded words.”

The idea that LLMs 'hallucinate' is itself a clever invention of the tech industry to disguise actual failures of their systems. Rebranding these serious algorithmic glitches as 'hallucinations' was designed to make the public accept this bullshit by linking it to the vagaries of human psychology.

'The career ladder in academia is of particular interest as it is a “greedy” occupation due to its lack of substitutability among workers, long hours with increasing returns to productivity, and the importance of establishing and maintaining personal contacts.' Academia is a "greedy" occupation.

We are excited to announce St Gilbert’s Medieval History Doctoral Award, established through the generous support of an anonymous donor to assist our PhD students who may face personal, structural, or practical challenges during their studies. For details, visit uhihistory.short.gy/JC0kC4

And in case anybody is wondering, Edinburgh isn’t in debt, and is one of the UK’s WEALTHIEST universities. If the university is/will be in financial dire straits as he claims, then that was on his watch so maybe he should do everyone a favour and resign - and take his team with him.

The UKHE sector needs ofc government intervention asap. But we also need to find a way to end the professionalisation of university upper management. We need to end the insulation of upper management from the rest of colleagues. We need to end revolving doors for VCs between institutions.

“Exciting” 🤯

Nottingham VC Jane Norman called plans to cut 700+ jobs and axe 40+ degree programmes “exciting.” Staff disagree. Today a marking boycott begins. 62 days of strikes follow from June. We will keep fighting. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1450...

I’d love to hear how other academic colleagues are managing written assessment in light of AI. (but please not “I let them use it but ask that they reflect on their use of it”)

Reposting as I posted this too late at night for Henry to get his flowers.

to paraphrase Ada Palmer in Inventing the Renaissance - the Victorians are, as ever, the true villains of historiography.

I don’t know what to tell you, man. I’m a medieval historian, and, in my field, if you don’t check your sources (and your sources’ sources) you are just asking to be taken for a ride by some bored 19th C. aristocratic English antiquarian with a penchant for inventing history.

FYI, Neil Gaiman appears to be lurking around Bsky again All are encouraged to block: bsky.app/profile/neil...

'Last week’s report from the House of Commons’ Education Select Committee recommended that the government should work with the higher education sector to devise a scheme that would see part of the pay of universities’ senior leaders only paid out once they finish the job.' 1/3

Loving reminder from the Muppets that your compassion for others and desire for a better world is never a bad thing even if it feels most people disagree

The charmed life of Henry, the world’s most relaxed Maine Coon.

same but for STEM profs too...

How Medieval Religious Images Evoked Sound www.medievalists.net/2026/05/how-... #medieval

Overhaul of my blog on Anna of Denmark's household servants and expenses in Scotland, with new and better references: vanishedcomforts.org/2019/05/20/v...

This semester I experimented with making my students print out their readings.I thought I’d get slammed in evals.In an anonymous survey, 24 of 25 students praised the policy. Reasons ranged from fewer headaches to easier to annotate to harder to forget to read to better retention.Long live paper. 🗃️🗺️

I keep forgetting to do stuff here. I’ll just start adding more cat photos.

Ignore my previous! The proper dates for THE MIDDLE AGES IN THE MODERN WORLD CONFERENCE in Oxford are 22-24 JUNE 2027!!! (I had end of week brain freeze, so sorry!) themamo.org

the theory that LLMs are just a huff your own farts machine seems intact

On protecting what matters. @ihr.bsky.social @royalhistsoc.org @histassoc.bsky.social History UK www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

I’m very pleased to say that the smear campaign didn’t work. Sussex completely vindicated and OfS exposed as right wing culture war vehicle. alanlester.co.uk/blog/smearin...

Vandalism. Appalling to read and happening everywhere. Our students all deserve better.

I’ll never forget watching The Wicker Man with my outer Hebridean mum. “I just don’t know where there got all that wicker from”

Facebook AI nostalgia-slop seems to be doing a number on the elderly. Really interesting read

Just in case you don’t believe me. This is a thing I’m always upset about when it comes to public scholarship, which is a topic I care so deeply about. www.patreon.com/posts/900009...

In 2024 The Conversation had 8.3M in revenue and 7.8M in expenses and paid $0 to writers. Is that really ok with you? projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/o...

Golden age of idiots. 🙄

Of course a website full of humanities graduates has loads of people who have a favourite verse from the most influential work of literature ever published, come on.