In case anyone thinks Reform could ever get a foot in in Oxford, here are photos of the two opposing protests taken within minutes of each other today.

I’m all in favour of tech tools that can support research, but I kind of feel on this one… what if we want to be left behind?

"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975 “It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975

Reminder: This Monday (10th) at 4:30pm, @susannah-lw.bsky.social will be presenting her research into the global and natural material culture of the 17C English Queens. Memorial Room, Jesus College. All are welcome!

One week till I'll be speaking on the Stuart consorts and their global entanglements @oxfordcourtstudies.bsky.social. Please come if you can!

Just received an email from my Faculty that was essentially, 'Note to students: you are welcome to come to the Faculty for very short official amounts of time, but it is NOT FOR YOU'. Loving our new £185m building...

A neat tool I just came across: Viabundus, a digital road map of northern Europe 1350-1650, that lets you calculate contemporary travel routes/times. In 1500, going Amiens → Köln by horse took almost 7 days and 13 toll payments. #medievalsky www.landesgeschichte.uni-goettingen.de/handelsstras...

This is all very true, the grim darkness and dampness of a British winter is very dispiriting. But only someone who hasn't lived through a real winter (where the outside hurts and can kill you) would write this.

Begrudging respect to whoever puts on the 'Oakeshott Lectures', for successfully laundering the reputations of some discredited and controversial figures through booking out Oxford's Sheldonian and strong PR. Everyone now assumes @ox.ac.uk endorses their views.

FFS not more days

This is such a clever idea on taking kids to museums/galleries www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

So proud of my daughter, Honours with Distinction in English and History.

Michaela and her article are indeed brilliant.

How is this making anyone safer? Why has our government decided to waste police and courts’ time with this nonsense? People peacefully standing up for human rights are not the enemy.

Badenoch wants to eliminate ‘rip off degrees’ like English. The usual philistine crap that a degree is just about work. The mission to create the stupidest nation on earth. And counterproductive. Young people will work for years. They’ll retrain endlessly. A degree can help them learn how to learn

“We’re also hoping that the research facilities for our researchers and early career researchers take us into a completely different stratosphere for them so that they feel they can thrive.” ‘Research facilities’?! There isn’t even graduate study space. The faculty shrunk by half. It’s all flash.

The most telling argument I have against private school is that I’ve met several people over the years who’ve been to private school who somehow never heard arguments against private school.

What are we even doing here. Why is this a priority, at this time? ‘The force said 488 arrests were for supporting a proscribed organisation.’ Even if it were a terrorist organisation, how is peacefully holding a sign in support against the law?

@earlymodernjohn.bsky.social congrats on the (dubious?) honour of the What a Day newsletter!

Without comment, a snippet from a 2023 article on ChatGPT in the Cherwell.

It’s that time of year again! Here is the term card for the upcoming talks. As always, everyone is welcome! Fortnightly, 4:30pm in the Memorial Room, @jesusoxford.bsky.social

I probably shouldn’t have procrastinated all day assuming I would be raptured. Beginning to think it isn’t happening today.

Very glad I can still be legally anti-fascist in this country.

this exists it is called thinking

Re: Oxfords equipping its students with ChatGPT…

Excited to see Oxford has treated us all to fancy ChatGPT licenses! I will be able to submit my thesis imminently! Let me just run my key questions through it... oh, wait. That is a bunch of absolute nonsense not backed up by the hundreds of sources I have read. Back to the word mines.

I love London so much. So much. Did you know that London has the lowest level of ethnic violence of any city of comparable size in the world? Multiculturalism has in fact worked here. They just don’t want it to be true because we happen to have a Muslim mayor.

I grew up with these stories, and read them a million times to my children. A true Canadian national treasure. So sad to hear of his isolation and frailty now, having seen him perform in his prime. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/m...

Just saw the best comedy show ever in a tiny theatre WIP: James Acaster as Craig Simons as James Acaster. Hilarious, dark, and very clever.

A brilliant idea for a Master’s course.

Read and sign Asylum Welcome‘s open letter here docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Seeing a lot of critical responses from medievalists about this BBC 1066 thing. As an early modernist, just to say that I'm happy to confirm that medieval people were indeed covered in dirt all the time and did all sound like they were in the Wurzels.

📌Va paraître chez #Perrin 📅 📕📍Alexandre Farnèse. Prince et capitaine (1545-1592)📍 ✍️ Olivier Poncet @ecoledeschartes.bsky.social @ehess.fr @crh.ehess.fr : crh.ehess.fr/index.php?7615, www.chartes.psl.eu/annuaire/oli... ▶️ crh.ehess.fr/index.php?10...

Just for perspective, a few weeks ago roughly 100,000 turned up for the London Trans+ Pride march. By contrast fewer than 3,000 ACROSS THE WHOLE COUNTRY, have turned up to anti-asylum "protests". Yet we are meant to take the latter as "the voice of the people" and the former as "the minority".

The 'Archives & Objects' special issue of the JEMH @earlymodhistory.bsky.social is out ! 🥳 Edited by Y. Glazer-Eytan/G. Marcocci, this multi-authored conversation centres non-textual artefacts in records & broader intersections between the archival and material turns brill.com/view/journal...

As a person with several nemeses in rotation, I love this poll so much.

I have been a reporter for 25 years. I know the risks reporting in war zones. This is not that situation. This is systematic silencing by Israel. If we do not act now, there will be no one left in Gaza to tell anyone’s story. Me today for @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Tell me you don't understand the purpose of humanities research without telling me you don't understand the purpose of humanities research @economist.com @eui-history.bsky.social www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

When you wear denim jeans with a denim jacket, you create a very unique look. Sometimes you can even include a denim shirt. This look is known as The Canadian Tuxedo....but why? It all began in the 1950s in Vancouver. This is the story. 🧵 1/7

Postgraduates, studying for a Masters' or PhD in history or cognate discipline, are also warmly welcome in the Society bit.ly/45adrEh PGR membership includes access to student research support, professional training, publications, online resources and our Directory of historians #Skystorians

It turns out my supervisor is a trope.

Oh the cunning and duplicitous Europeans... '...other nations have greater facilitie to hide their vices then we English men, so that their outward shew is commonly good, and honest, but inwardly there lurkes all kinds of vice and vitious affections.' (Justus Lipsiu,s 1578, tran. John Stradling)

trump and the goons frantically going from rosie o’donnell to mexican cokes to pro sports team names to fake obama arrest videos is like the end of fireworks shows where they just blow up whatever they have left to get the oohs and ahhs from the crowd

Discovering the bawdy notes of my great-grandfather in his old diaries.

#historians I have a set of daily diaries, c.1897-1951, starting in Brighton, England, but most from Vancouver. They are terse, but for anyone studying weather in the early 20C, they might be helpful. Also another set, almost the same, but from India during WWII- weather and sports on base.

Spending the summer in my hometown - we are all just living in my mum’s future regrets.

So proud of my brilliant friend!

2 days! Panel 3.11. #rensoc25