A fascinating read. It nearly set me off on a whole new caper with my 'fictional poets' project: euoia.weebly.com. But I resisted...

Turner. Post- Xmas lunch slump.

Christmas Eve, 1968, Apollo 8. The first photograph of Earth from the Moon, taken by one of us. Rarely seen, Anders took this extraordinary B&W shot (remastered / cropped here) before using the colour magazine to take one of the most famous photographs in history (both are in the book).

Carol of the Bells in # Kyiv subway. Voices of the Embassies of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom came together to perform Shchedryk in the Kyiv metro as a sign of solidarity with Ukraine. Thankful to everyone who stands with us!

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar Final window ‘Skating by Moonlight’ Artist: Ronald Lampitt

Okay this is brilliant

The Sound of Music is on TV tonight, so we must point you, yet again, to this all-timer by Melinda Taub from our archives.

Absolutely wild pink nitrogen ribbon aurora burst last night here in Iceland. There was cloud cover, and I was worried the show would stay shrouded. Voila! The purpley-pink & white ribbons are much closer to us in the atmosphere than standard green arcs, and are fast moving. #northernlights #aurora

via The New Yorker, Ellis Rosen cartoon

In vain I have struggled, It will not do All I want for Christmas, unfortunately, is you

This is a great 🧵. Such fabulous stories of archival bizarre-ness!

The Higher Education Authority has published its policy framework for generative AI in higher education teaching and learning. hea.ie/2025/12/22/h... Policy framework: hub.teachingandlearning.ie/genai/policy... Resource portal: hub.teachingandlearning.ie/genai Thanks to everyone involved.

New in the Cambridge Elements series, and free to read and download until 15 January: The London Foundling Hospital and Eighteenth-Century Objects of Charity Recovering the Digital Archive by Hilary E. Wyss. www.cambridge.org/core/element... #History #DigitalHistory

Today, and the nights that gather closely around it, mark the deepest stretch of winter’s darkness. Many know it as the Winter Solstice, and in Gaelic it carries the evocative name “Oidhche nan Seachd Suipearan” - the Night of the Seven Suppers. #WinterSolstice #Gàidhlig

23 years ago today, one of the greatest died In memory of Joe Strummer 🖤 ... gone but not forgotten... 📸 Anthony Saint James #punk #punks #punkrock #punklegend #joestrummer #theclash #punkrockhistory #history #otd

Today the Sunday Times discusses the decline in students studying A-level and beyond. I believe this is reversible. I believe it is necessary. And I’m glad to have some of my words on the importance of the discipline and the vibrancy of our degrees in English at York in the article.

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 21 Artist: CF Tunnicliffe (What to Look for in Winter, 1959)

Lantern Light with William Holman Hunt for day twenty-one of our #ArtistAdventCalendar and to celebrate the longest night of the year #WinterSolstice. 🖼️ ‘The Light of the World’, William Holman Hunt, 1851-52, @kebleoxford.bsky.social.

The Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society has a new website that is well-worth checking out for details of the annual conference, journal, and news of the inaugural ECR bursary, which was awarded to @mzukovs.bsky.social. The next bursary will be announced shortly. www.ecis.ie/news-events/

Have you heard?! We currently have 2 vacancies on the #BSECS Council: 1. Postgraduate Representative 2. Communications Officer (working with me!) Posts are voluntary but #BSECS pays travel and accommodation costs, the term of office is 3yrs. Details here: www.bsecs.org.uk/the-society/...

Christmas came early when this pleasingly chunky lad plopped through the letterbox this morning. So good to hold in my hand the proof of, well, the best part of a decade’s work, really. Hope @bsecs.bsky.social members enjoy reading about Mary & gang over a festive tipple. bsky.app/profile/soph...

"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future." - @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit. Incredible words. Listen to all of it!

December 2025 PBSA is out! We've got Ahmed El Shamsy on Ibn al-Nadīm's 10th century bibliography of all books in Arabic, a descriptive bibliography of The Water-Babies, printing history of Poissons, & an exploration of bib notes from diverse perspectives! www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/pbsa/202...

slow day in the office so figured we'd start some beef with museums

Hivemind: I am looking for suitable reading on data for 2nd-year undergraduate module called "Liberal Arts and the Public Sphere". Anything on critical data literacy or the importance of data to the political economy. The reading must be fairly accessible. #teaching #liberalarts #data

Environmental contradictions of large language models in higher education A short piece by Mark Kelly and myself has just been published in UNESCO's Ideas LAB. www.unesco.org/en/articles/... #largelanguagemodels #AI #genAI #highereducation #sustainability

Don't steal pies this Christmas.

For the December '25 issue of PBSA (The Papers of @bibsocamer.bsky.social) we wanted to explore the scholarly genre of the bibliographical note (or bib note) in the journal. In my contribution I explore the emergence of the bib note within the pages of PBSA: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

The #18thC Ecologies Network, based @cecs-york.bsky.social is a hub for researchers interested in the many diverse ecologies the period. Details of their seminar series will be published here: hzj520.wixsite.com/eighteenth-c... #skystorians #climate #environhist 🗃️

Don't miss our bumper special issue of #JECS this month on all things Mary Hamilton! Edited by Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, and Nuria Yanez-Bouza and available here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/17540208... #skystorians #maryhamilton #hamiltonpapers #18thC #womenswriting 🗃️

The #RomanticPeriodPoetryArchive is officially in beta and open for testing! 🚀 We are modelling #GlobalRomanticism through the #SemanticWeb and your participation is encouraged and appreciated! Explore the beta: www.romanticperiodpoetry.org #Romanticism #19thC #poetry #DigitalHumanities

I'm sharing this here, as I have on Facebook and Instagram, but there's no account on here to share from, and I just think this is wonderful. A really good balance of design and implementation, and appears to achieve everything it set out to do, and it *SO* appeals to my inner 'work nerd'.

Launching our new series Arden Studies in Early Modern Material Culture! 'Book Culture in Shakespeare’s Stratford' uses newly discovered material evidence to explore book ownership, Latin literacy & education in early modern Stratford-upon-Avon. https://bit.ly/3Lu0nDj

I’m passing on a question from @drtlwagner.bsky.social & their students: Do you know of existing/in process book history work on clip art? I know Shep’s history of print emoji & anecdotally I know some early clip art remediated printer’s ornaments—as does the "font" Wingdings—anyone digging in more?

Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252: Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email. Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

Bloody love this account!

We have a copy of Richard Ardagh's beautiful *Type Archived* book to review for the *Journal of the Printing Historical Society*. Who's gonna snap it up? I'm sore tempted myself... vol.co/collections/...

We have two vacancies on the Council of the *British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies*: 1. Postgraduate Representative 2. Communications Officer Happy to answer any questions about @bsecs.bsky.social Council life! More info here: www.bsecs.org.uk/the-society/...

Great!

Today is the 252nd anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Along with British East India Company Tea, the first edition of Poems on Various Subjects was among the cargo carried from London to Boston on The Dartmouth. Today, the Boston Tea Party museum displays WC #1234: www.wheatleycensus.org/wc/1234/

Alas! Wonderful producer emails to say that the Baronetage stuff didn’t make the cut on Front Row… but you can still tune in to hear me disagreeing with John Mullan about Austen’s nastiness and giggling hysterically/fangirlishly at Harriet Walter’s readings

'Hodge’s report recommended that ACE be retained, but that the arm’s-length principle must be strengthened at all levels of government “to ensure that arts funding is protected from politicisation”.' 2/2

As we mourn Rob Reiner, don’t skip this: he was, pretty much, personally responsible for overturning California’s Prop 8 banning same sex marriage. www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...

🤣

"I wanted to be the one up front who jumps up and down and throws his arms around. But somebody once said that when they saw #theClash play, it was like watching three Eddie Cochrans onstage—so that’s always quite a nice thing to hear." Happy birthday to #PaulSimonon