Hello #academicsky! I'm sharing a cfp for an edited collection on "Naming & Classifying," pulled together by me, Kristin Girten, & @aaronrhanlon.com . We'd love to see your work! Please also circulate to anyone you think might be interested. Deadline 10/31. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

⭐️Happy Launch Day: TEN CHILDREN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD!⭐️ #Waterstones #HachetteChildrensGroup #ChildrensLiterature #History

Great start for @sophiasgaler.bsky.social 's 'Universities Challenged' with its 'Tuition Impossible' episode. A primer for the uninitiated on university finance and economic impacts. Hoping research too gets attention in the next episode, when culture wars are under view. Well worth listening to.

There are only 4 Reform MPs in Parliament (which has 650 seats in total). At the moment, with approx 0.6% of the Commons they are a statistical non-entity. Other parties that saw a rise in popularity at the last election aren't getting nearly this much extra BBC news coverage.

What a nasty little man he is. He should try reading Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns

On Anna May Wong for the Guardian www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

Have an idea you would like to develop into an academic book? Applications to the Bloomsbury Academic Writing Fellowship open 1st September 2025 to Black, Asian or Ethnically Diverse early career scholars (UK only). More info: bit.ly/4mHlgcn #academicsky #phdlife #highered

TWO MORE SIGNATURES and we'll have 450 - every voice counts, you don't have to be an academic or involved with universities in any way <3

BOOK REQUEST! Staring down the barrel of a Biology GCSE retake with a 16yo who is terrific at writing and reading but just can't get the names and processes into his head. Is there a good popular science book - not a teaching aid - that might make some of this stuff stick?

Pls sign and share this open letter to the Bristol VC, against the School of Humanities's decision to withdraw the BA in English Literature and Community Engagement (ELCE): the only part-time, flexible undergraduate degree programme available at the University forms.gle/SbyhXPSJgQTc...

Yet again: please do not share image posts without alt text. It makes it harder to turn doing alt text into the norm. Also: if you share videos here, alt text is not the way to make videos accessible. Please do a video description post after the video post. 1/?

📢The initial programme is out for 📚Liverpool LitFest 📚 Now in its 10th year, it will run from 17 to 19 October 2025. Look out for more info in the coming weeks, including a reading by the winner of our 2024 McGahern Prize - events announced so far are at: www.liverpool.ac.uk/literary-fes...

And people want to study reading too So, dear government, stop the demise of my discipline #EnglishCreates

For all of the educators trying to deal with AI, I did a deep dive in early June and these are the four articles I decided to assign to my students. 1. This is the longest of the bunch, but so wonderfully comprehensive. www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...

Use it or lose it, as they say

There's a Doctor Who episode about a future like this where practically everyone dies because the space ship they were working on wasn't generating enough revenue

New version of the Slave Voyages website launched: www.slavevoyages.org/blog/slavevo... #History #EnslavedHistory 🗃️

I’m so honoured to be doing an author visit for the RtG @romgothsam.bsky.social book group on ‘The Roma’ in September. RtG is such a special project and so dear to me. Come along to the author visit & book group on 1 & 2 September. Sign up for 1 September: www.eventbrite.com/e/book-group...

Barely an hour ago, Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif warned us all: “If this madness doesn’t end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.” Israel just killed him.

AI. Don't trust, don't use. Reject it!

I wonder if Google might be persuaded to remove those infuriating 'AI overview' sections at the start of every Google search, now that there is an official 'AI Mode' for people who actually like that kind of rubbish

We are delighted to be co-hosting the Laurence Sterne Conference this year from 5th - 7th November 2025 at @sotauol.bsky.social🌍 Deadline for registration: 1st September Deadline for proposals: 15th August Find out more and how to register: bit.ly/SterneConference25 @lsternetrust.bsky.social

July is Disability Pride Month, and we didn't want to end the month without celebrating indie authors with disabilities and chronic illnesses. Here we have FIFTY (!) SFF books for you to choose from and support! There's something for everyone. www.readindiefantasy.com/celebrating-...

BREAKING: The number of Palestinians who have died from Israeli-induced starvation in Gaza has risen to 147 people, including 88 children, says Gaza's health ministry. 🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/ym2wr7

Protesting over Gaza’s starvation feels like screaming into a void – but we mustn’t stop | Nesrine Malik

It is NEVER - never ever - moral to starve children

Considerable respect for Johns Hopkins for including an opt-out contract: would be good to see some more academic publishers doing this

Severe malnutrition among under-5s in Gaza City has tripled in two weeks, charity says

My monograph, ‘Theological Monsters: Religion and Irish Gothic’ coming out next year 🖤🧛‍♀️

Israel Waging "Fastest Starvation Campaign" in Modern History in Gaza: U.N. Special Rapporteur on Food

Remember me telling you the university redundancy situation was far worse than it looked? Well, here's the evidence - not renewing contracts, forcing people to 'retire' and the like may not show up in the stats, but it cd double the losses number. (1/2) www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-univ...

Why doesn’t Princess Sophia Duleep Singh have a biopic/miniseries? Every chapter of this thrilling biography by Anita Anand could be an individual feature film

now with correct cover image!

Read our latest news piece on AI, and the Translators Association’s campaign to emphasise the importance of human translation. societyofauthors.org/2025/06/23/s... #MakeItFair #DoTheWriteThing

We are offering an online offer for the PGR/ECR @bsecs.bsky.social conference 30th-31st July to anyone who wants to join us! For just £10 you can join all paper panels + the keynote across the two days live via Zoom. To sign up register here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Reminder that now my PhD is done I’m available for work! Writing, narrative design, historical and narrative consultancy, research etc. I’ve got a PhD, 5 academic publications (another on the way), 3 shipped games (3 more on the way), lots of experience collaborating with cultural institutions

This article is going to turn me into the Joker. Literary style is not a puzzle you solve to get a little information treat 😩😩😩

Have finally worked out what Google’s AI overview twinkle icon reminds me of: in Doctor Who the star-like Megara were opinionated logic machines that have no sense of humour & severe difficulty accepting when they’re wrong. Funny, that.

I came home last night to find this waiting for me: my first academic monograph. The Gothic at War is developed from my PhD research, with new work on Clara Reeve & Charlotte Smith, exploring the Gothic as a literature of conflict. Thank you to @uniwalespress.bsky.social for being great publishers!

🚨 There’s a lot of horrific news out of Washington right now—but you might have missed this: Senate Republicans just introduced a plan to sell off 120 million acres of our public lands. Let me break down what’s in the bill and why it’s a full-scale land grab. 🧵

Six members of Jewish Voice for Peace Chicago are launching an indefinite hunger strike to demand an end to the Gaza genocide

We are deeply disappointed that the Data Bill will not include the necessary provisions to keep creators' works safe from being used without their knowledge or permission by AI companies, despite clear and unified calls from across the creative industries. (1/3)

Call for Papers: 'Charles Ignatius Sancho: A Black British Man of Letters and His World' conference. Deadline for submissions 14 July 2025. Conference will be held 13-14 March 2026 at Northeastern University, London: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Evergreen reminder that my 'weird little guy' book (as I have come to think of it) is HERE, and it's PERMANENTLY OPEN ACCESS. Relevant to the interests of those who study: book history, library history, gender history, reading practices, 18thc novels, & more. www.cambridge.org/core/books/r...

Happy pub date to Josie Billington's 'Reading Literature and Chronic Pain'. Another fabulous addition to the @bloomsburylit.bsky.social medical humanities stable! Check the book out here. www.bloomsbury.com/reading-lite...

You know that thing in detective films/stories where the sleuth makes a pencil rubbing from the top sheet of a notepad to reveal the impression of the last message written? Where have you seen this? Is it ever in Agatha Christie?