Sad to learn of the death last week of Kerin O'Dea, an outstanding nutritional epidemiologist, who advanced the study of chronic diseases, especially type 2 diabetes, and Indigenous health. A model for engaged & activist epidemiology. I first met her some 40 years ago... Lancet profile here:

Interesting confirmation (and specification) of the role of autoimmunity in ALS published yesterday in Nature, open access. Still, not enough attention is given to the contributions of autoimmunity in disease causation. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our Lancet viewpoint, 'Bioethics for the Planet', seems ever more timely. Caring for humans and all life forms demands we care also for the planet. Viewable with registration www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... #climate #planetaryhealth #globalhealth #STS #ethics

Important research here from Joel Barnes tracing the origins of philanthropic wealth in Australia. How should institutions reckon with these legacies? theconversation.com/the-dixson-f...

Ghostly Lessons: New Forum at Anthropology Theory Commons @anthrotheory.bsky.social led by Emma Kowal & Amanda Domingues Right on time before the 2025 AAA Meeting on "Ghosts" in November @americananthro.bsky.social Essays are short but deep (including mine)! www.at-commons.com/ghosts

#HPS program at the University of Copenhagen invites applications for Postdoc in History and Philosophy of Science as part of research project Human Variables in Biodiversity Assessment (PI: Joeri Witteveen): employment.ku.dk/faculty/?sho... #philsky #PhilJobs #philsci Deadline is November 7, 2025.

A sweet story

Australia's universities are blighted by a "culture of consequence-free, rotten failure", according to the former chair of a senate inquiry examining governance at public universities. ... "There's no other sector in the country where failure is rewarded so handsomely and with so little scrutiny."

Two ageing men sitting on the beach at Byron Bay, chatting about history and philosophy of biology, as one does. Paul Griffiths and me, photo Terese Hayward

Finally saw the Sydney Opera House seal.

Disgraceful. No govt that actually cares about climate change would do this. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Shameful decision from the Labor govt

A moving essay by Joan Scott, addressing our current predicament. Her parents remind me of my own, though in Australia, a more democratic country, the consequences of their politics were less severe.

We'll be celebrating (and critically reflecting on) 100 years of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, 9 October 2025. A great program! From Radcliffe-Brown ('Anarchy Brown') to ... who knows? An Indigenous professor of anthropology, maybe.

Big turnout at this morning’s rally against @mupublishing.bsky.social vandalism of Meanjin. @beneltham.bsky.social called for Meanjin’s name and archive to be surrendered so the magazine can be published by someone who deserves to and appreciates the honour

Some good news for the ANU, let's hope. But the rest of the failed university 'management team' should go too. @ouranu.bsky.social

So pleased to see Mardi Reardon-Smith's book "Making Do: Conservation Ethics and Ecological Care in Australia" is out any minute now. Grab a copy + tell your librarian to grab a copy! @mardirs.bsky.social www.sup.org/books/anthro...

A nice article about friend and colleague Raewyn Connell in the SMH, including foreshadowing her new trans memoir. Pleased to see she's delivering this year's Ted Wheelwright lecture in political economy at Sydney University - one of the few universities to maintain political economy and Marxism.

I too am a subscriber and would have been willing to make a donation if asked. Very odd....

So many unanswered questions posed in this excellent piece on the Meanjin closure. eg. -Why the sudden irreversible decision? -Why didn't they try to save it (community, donor drives etc)? -Why the secrecy? -Why use the financial viability argument now? As if the v wealthy UniMelb can't afford it.

Opinion | Melbourne University Press says it shut down Meanjin for "purely financial reasons". Perhaps the university could have used some of its $273 million surplus to safeguard the seminal journal, @catrionamp.bsky.social‬ writes.

An open letter to the University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Emma Johnson (for whom I have a lot of respect) playfully suggesting she might save Meanjin, the fabled literary magazine she's shutting down, by offering a mere 10% of her vast salary... I've signed it, in very good company...

At last, some good news:

At European conferences I've been asked why an anthropologist (me!) would attend history meetings - though I regard myself as a historian. My father said he often was seen as a literary critic, not as a historian, because of subject and style. Familial disrespect of disciplinary boundaries?

Lmao at this open letter to the Unimelb VC proposing she pay for Meanjin with a 10% salary sacrifice that would still leave her better paid than the VC of the University of Cambridge It was my joy to sign, & I recommend doing so to all in the world of arts & letters

Curiouser and curiouser...

"Meanjin isn't just a magazine, but an important cultural institution [that] provoked national conversation for the best part of a century ... ensuring Australia could speak to itself – critically, insistently, sometimes uncomfortably" Another cultural institution on the managerial chopping block 🤬

Literary journal Meanjin to close after 85 years of publishing www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/04/m...

A brief article on spectrality has appeared open access in Anthropological Theory Commons: 'Snap, Crackle, and Hiss: Noise in the System' www.at-commons.com/pub/3ngd8x6m...

Lovely to have a Penn HSS reunion of sorts at EAHMH in Berlin last week, including @hanspols.bsky.social Jennifer Gunn and @eblucyclio.bsky.social Photo of me and Jennifer in a beer garden (of course) by Elizabeth:

These are trying times, so it's both a relief and a joy to engage intellectually with such brilliant scholars in Berlin, all of us trying to imagine a better world. www.cambridge.org/core/books/m...

Great conversations at the launch of Medicine on a Larger Scale in Berlin last night. @ctimmermann.bsky.social Sebastien Fonseca @doravargha.bsky.social Projit Mukharji Jeremy Greene me @ahlie.bsky.social Projit gave a stirring speech....

Happening this evening - see you there in Berlin!

Commentary on the Forum - Snap, Crackle, and Hiss: Noise in the System, by Warwick Anderson @wombatscholar.bsky.social I, too, know how it feels to be a ghost. At least, I think I did. In the early years of this century, I found myself in the eastern... www.at-commons.com/pub/3ngd8x6m...

Surprised and delighted to receive the 2025 Arthur J Viseltear Prize from @apha.org for lifetime achievement in public health history. Hoping to be at the APHA meeting in DC in early November to collect it. #publichealth #sts #histstm #histmed #histsci

Pleased to see our viewpoint, 'Bioethics for the Planet', published in @thelancet.com yesterday, and featured online: www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... Medical ethics needs urgently to address global heating, the major threat to human health and the health of the planet #bioethics #planetaryhealth

The second volume of 'Dhoombak Goobgoowana', the Indigenous history of the University of Melbourne, subtitled 'Voice', now available entirely open access @mupublishing.bsky.social At: www.mup.com.au/books/dhoomb... @austhistassoc.bsky.social @humanitiesau.bsky.social

A note in the Monash Sustainable Development Institute newsletter drawing attention to our recent @thelancet.com article, Bioethics for the Planet: #ethics #planetaryhealth

In light of the passing of STS luminary Michel Callon, we have arranged for his landmark 1994 article "Is Science a Public Good?" to be available for free access: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

If you're in Berlin on August 29, come along to the launch (again) of Medicine on a Larger Scale (open access CUP 2025)! #histmed #histstm #sts

Another day, another death, alas. David Isaacs was a brilliant pediatric infectious diseases expert and ethicist, a fighter for social and environmental justice. Another great loss. (Brought up in England, he was born in Melbourne, I believe, where his father discovered interferon...)

So sad, Callon was such an important figure in STS. Who can forget those scallops? I met him once at the École des Mines, Bruno Latour introduced us, around 1990 - that was it. I wish I'd gotten to know him, too late now - yet the scallops and ANT live on #STS @4sweb.bsky.social @aussts.bsky.social

Mince, Michel Callon est mort, il était l'autre grand nom des STS françaises, avec Bruno Latour, bien sûr, avec lequel il a beaucoup écrit et collaboré, donnant naissance notamment à l'ANT. Les coquilles Saint-Jacques ne seront pas les seules à pleurer sa disparition 😢

Congrats to Dr Thao Phan, winner of the Australian Academy of the Humanities 2025 Max Crawford Medal for her exemplary scholarship investigating dynamics of race and gender in algorithmic culture @thaophan.bsky.social #AlgorithmicCulture #MaxCrawfordMedal #GenderStudies admscentre.org/47nJF1g

so cool ...

I know David Brophy as a wonderful colleague and a brilliant scholar - this seems excessive to me. One of the more depressing aspects is learning that the university has a 'brand team' that determines these matters

Delighted to learn that Dr Thao Phan is awarded the 2025 Max Crawford medal, Australia's major prize for early-career humanities researchers! Pleasantly surprised it went to an STS scholar for the first time too. Such good news! @thaophan.bsky.social @humanitiesau.bsky.social #STS