University of Hertfordshire closes a swathe of Humanities courses, accelerating the sweeping tide against Human-centred disciples in the UK. Because understanding humans is so yesterday today. With such happy consequences, as we see when we look around us.

Looking forward to this tomorrow! More info below.

Here's my take on that (other answers are also available...) www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

I am so looking forward to chatting with the brilliant @lauratisdall.bsky.social about her ace new book at the Gower St Waterstones on 13 May - book below if you fancy coming!

Really important Big Read this on what is just straightforwardly a misselling scandal taking place in plain sight in my view:

There are currently 6 permanent full time history jobs in the whole UK. 500+ PhDs being produced a year - not all of whom will want to pursue an academic year but likely most, and of course years will stack up onto each other. What a sector.

seems indicative of well, something, that none of the links to the candidates that Lambeth Labour are standing in the May election actually work on their website www.lambeth-labour.org.uk#our-track-re...

Anyone got any intel on what's happening with the British Library's oral history collections post cyber-attack? The website simply points you to look at updates on its sound and vision blog, but the link it provides is broken (!) ...

just seen this doing the rounds, and it is absolutely brilliant on the fundamental problems underlining the UK HE model, and I wish everyone in the government and the OfS was forced to read it ten times over until the message finally sinks in

Really looking forward to hearing Alex Mayhew speak on this this Thursday at the IHR (5:30pm, in person and online). Sign up here!

⏰ Less than a week to apply for this funded PhD opportunity - apply by 31 March!

Iran sent Trump a giant horse on wheels. It is about to be wheeled into Mara Lago's grounds.

Really looking forward to hearing Alex Mayhew speak on this this Thursday at the IHR (5:30pm, in person and online). Sign up here!

looking forward to this tomorrow - book below if you fancy it

looking forward to talking at this in Haringey in a week's time, even more looking forward to actually meeting the activists involved, who will also be part of the panel. link to book below

This is terrible, and made worse by fact that SHU has also historically been an institution which employs a lot of teaching only staff. My dad worked there for 25 years and him and his entire department (maths) were teaching only! (That might have changed since, but was case in 2015 when he retired)

Great opportunity for Samuel Beckett scholars to work on the Beckett archive at Reading samuelbeckettsociety.org/2026/03/10/c...

This is a fascinating looking paper by @benjamin-bland.bsky.social, on processes of racialisation in the popular culture of late C20th Britain. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

just to be clear there is SO MUCH precedent for arresting a senior royal. just not any precedent where it ends well for them

this would be a dream PhD for one lucky individual...

if you missed No Future first time round ....there's 25% off here www.waterstones.com/book/no-futu...

Fantastic funded PhD opportunity here in the School of Humanities at Reading - please share widely! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

On Thursday 26 March, the Royal Historical Society will be holding an online meeting for Directors of Research / REF Leads to discuss preparations by historians for the REF. Contact [email protected] to participate.

In these dark days of February, a little something to look forward to.

Three scholarships for PhD in Arthur Scargill Archive - quite the opportunity. Believe me when I say that I am sure that some of the stuff in here will be quite the eye-opener! (if the good stuff hasn't been already shredded or slapped with an embargo)

Great to see this out in the world - was a pleasure to work with Gary and Richard

They'll probably never repeat that episode of 8/10 Cats with Brand, Walliams and Noam Chomsky

"How can funders avoid crossing the Szilard point?" The Szilard point is "the threshold at which the total cost of competing for a grant equals (or surpasses) the value of the available funding."

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!

"the Student Loans Company (the taxman in plastic glasses and fake moustache)"

i do wonder how much of this supposedly counter-intuitive effect is about the social capital a lot of humanities graduates - who tend to skew very middle-class - have, though?

RIP Martin Luther, you would have loved Papal Audience Black Friday deals.

As we move into “foreigners are cancelling Christmas in the name of political correctness” season it’s worth remember that Christmas was indeed once banned in England, by Christians and the man who enforced the ban has a statue in his honour outside the Houses of Parliament.

I really love this from Keith G (and not just because it's nice about my book!). Properly insightful in a way that alas, quite often writing on the miners' strike is not...

Is this the result of under-awarding or over-applying? It’s both of course but it’s a particular problem that institutions require evidence of applying as part of promotions: they incentivise activity which cannot in all cases pay off, using up resources in performative performance review (1/3).

Really looking forward to Scott Anthony's seminar @ihrbritainseminar.bsky.social tomorrow at 5:30 - sign up below!

jenrick calling 80s football hooliganism 'good-natured fun' is both absolutely insane and the best #accidentalpartridge i've heard in a while

ah, i'm pleased to see this - read with great curiosity the book 'we pretty pieces of flesh' that this story is from as i went to school with the author, and it was great (as well as totally surreal to read a book set in a not-really-fictionalised-at-all version of the school you went to)

'They have imagined a socially authoritarian working class Labour voter who really is long gone. And as they ventriloquize through their creation, they are following their fantasy’s grievances. The Andy Capp in their head has left containment and is making increasingly incessant demands.' So good.

an amazing essay from Joan Scott here

kinda feel that Elizabeth Gilbert has seriously overestimated the relatability of 'i planned the murder of my life partner' here

🧵1/ Our branch just passed a motion condemning the stealth closure of the MA in Black British History. We did this to demand accountability — for the future of the MA and for the College’s promises on racial justice and equality. shorturl.at/gIUVG

Maybe Eric Cantona’s trawler statement was actually an attempt to warn Man United about Grimsby

holy fuck

Fantastic 4 year full-time PDRA position here in the lovely School of Humanities at Reading on the UKRI-funded 'Nation of Refuge' project - please share widely.

The University of Warwick has paid a lot of money, I'm guessing, for their internet banner ads on the Guardian and elsewhere. But they can't spell "curiosity". This isn't a US-UK variant. They just, genuinely, have a massive spelling error in their banner ads.

Can't fault the clarity of Labour's message on protest. There are BAD protesters who must be punished (Irish musicians, anti-genocide vicars) and there are GOOD protesters whose views deserve respect (masked thugs with petrol bombs trying to start a pogrom)

because I like depressing myself, last week I was looking at UKRI data on grant success, and saw that in the November 2024 round of AHRC awards, only 1 - one ! - out of the 35 applicants was successful...