Post today, believe it's already out online, publication date in print 20th Aug! www.bloomsbury.com/uk/beyond-mo...
Andrew Frayn
@afrayn.bsky.social
Academic. Work on First World War literature (Assoc Ed., FWW Studies); modernist studies (former BAMS Chair); noncanonical literature; rural modernity; late style. Grumbles my own.
A deeply destructive and inexpert management consultancy class has emerged whose sole purpose is to shrink Anglosphere universities and to undermine their future - all the better to secure more work. democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...
Inside Britain's university crisis
As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter
democracyforsale.substack.com
Just one symptom of the crisis in Higher Education, and in the Humanities in particular: seeking peer reviewers, and of the top 5 scholars I would like to review, 2 are in institutions with massive redundancy schemes, 2 seem to have moved institution because of redundancy schemes [...]
I've confirmed that the UK's new Sovereign AI Fund does no due diligence on whether AI companies use copyrighted work without permission before investing in them. It took me 3 Freedom of Information requests to find this out: 🧵 1/10
I'm a big sports fan who lives in the central belt, and talked earlier this week, with my big sports fan partner who used to work in major events organisation, about how we'd not seen much about the Commonwealth Games, and I STILL didn't know this was happening tonight
Ross McKay@rossmc11.bsky.social · 2w agoI'm not saying the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony might be flying under the radar but this happened a good few minutes ago and there wasn't exactly an explosion of posts.
GIVEAWAY TIME! To celebrate the launch of my new book, How to Understand Theatre Audiences, I’m going to send a prize to the first person who messages/emails me to say they found the sex joke. What’s the prize you ask? A 3D printed trophy that says “I Am An Amazing Reader Slash Genius” Ready? GO!
Congratulations to the government on saving 2700 jobs by nationalising British Steel. Now, about the 18,000 university jobs lost in the last 18 months, with more coming…
The reality is that the UK Higher Education system only performed well in phases of academic immigration - the 1930s and the 90s/00s. Closing the pipeline isn't just a generational loss, it's a systemic one. bsky.app/profile/eica...
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3w ago“Without intervention, we risk narrowing the UK’s research and development knowledge base, reducing opportunity and access to key subjects, particularly in regions already underserved, and weakening the long-term sustainability of the Shape disciplines". (Margot Finn) 1/3
This base has already been narrowed in the great post-2008 recession, and the last decade is a lost decade for new academics in many subjects. Even in regions that are not so-called "cold spots," many will not be able to access courses for class reasons from grades to social "fit".
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3w ago“Without intervention, we risk narrowing the UK’s research and development knowledge base, reducing opportunity and access to key subjects, particularly in regions already underserved, and weakening the long-term sustainability of the Shape disciplines". (Margot Finn) 1/3
Overheard Leith phone conversation: "so, that's the positive thing. The negative thing is that Brian is doing my fucking head in."
Academic departments deserve to be saved, supported, resourced, allowed to grow even if they're not "best in the country," "first in the REF," "top-ranked," "at a Russell Group uni," or whatever other austerity-brained nonsense senior managers have been using to flimflam you out of solidarity
I completed my PhD in 2008. It isn't hyperbole to say that the entirety of my postdoctoral career has been, or at the very least has felt, precarious. Everyone I know has at least contemplated what they would do if they weren't an academic.
Stephen Shapiro@stephenshapiro.bsky.social · last mo.zeitung.faz.net/data/863/rea...
This week, Andy Burnham – an English graduate with a love of poetry – stepped closer to becoming Prime Minister. Andy’s remarkable journey embodies the central message of the #EnglishCreates campaign: this subject has the potential to enrich lives, open up opportunities, and shape the future.
Great letter in the LRB on the managerial university and its consequences.
I'm also in this, responding to Cristina Pividori (UAB) on our teaching in war literatures from the FWW to today. It was really enjoyable to write about pedagogical practice and think again about some of the things I've now been doing for many years at ENU. It's a really stellar set of contributors!
Chris Kempshall@chriskempshall.bsky.social · last mo.Our piece is in a special issue of @fwwsjournal.bsky.social focused on 'Teaching the First World War for the Twenty-First Century' and it was expertly edited by @teachlearnwar.bsky.social, Ann-Marie Einhaus, and Susan Grayzel. I recommend you all take a look! 🗃️ www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfww20/1...
the media and voter messaging should be this: the current government and the government in waiting do not want your children to be able to go to university, they will not support people in the UK to do original research, they do not care about job losses in one of the largest sectors in the economy
Lucy Burke@lucyburkemcr.bsky.social · last mo.It’s wild that politicians don’t seem to grasp the degree to which universities contribute to the economy- local, regional, national. The failure to intervene is a stain on this govt - a shocking dereliction of duty to every worker, every local business, every student, every area that is suffering
Of all the betrayals of the HE Sector, this is right up there with the most egregious since my time at university, beginning in the first year of fees.
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last mo.'Nearly nine in 10 incoming UK-based students expect to work during term time, according to a survey, with less than a quarter believing that they will have enough money to cover university costs.' 1/2
If you ask young people "Would you like to get a degree for free while also being paid to work part-time?", they will say Oh Fuck Yes by the thousand. If you ask employers to take responsibility for guiding someone through several years of work/study, they will say Oh Fuck No by the thousand.
Dave Andress@davidandress.bsky.social · 2mo agoThere is no shortage of technical education in this country. There is a shortage of apprenticeships, because employers won't or can't take on apprentices. This has NOTHING to do with universities. www.smf.co.uk/uk-skills-cr...
"Cardiff University has admitted that it doesn’t know how much it is spending overall on external consultants or hold a central record of what work they are doing." Staff expenditure: Count every last penny or you may lose your job. Their expenditure: Meh.
Cardiff University criticised over consultant secrecy
Martin Shipton Cardiff University has admitted that it doesn’t know how much it is spending overall on external consultants or hold a central record of what work they are doing. Academic sources have ...
nation.cymru
A reminder that Brazil banned Twitter for failing to stop the spreading of disinformation. There is nothing stopping the British government from doing the same.
Lecturers, teachers, students, writers, HE professionals - anyone with an interest in English studies: you are warmly invited to attend the EnglishCreates: Futures Online Symposium (2nd July, from 10am). Register for your (free) place here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/englishcre...
Not saying this academic year is cursed, but trying to get to Ponta Delgada, Azores, so far this weekend I've been Edinburgh - Heathrow - holding pattern off Ponta Delgada - aborted landing Ponta Delgada - temporary refuelling stop on a military base on neighbouring Terceira - ...
A functional democracy depends on its participants being able to understand the operations of their government. In honor of the 250th anniversary of the US's founding, we've published five essays about the interpretative skills required of participants in a democracy. style.mla.org/the-mla-demo...
The MLA Democracy Project: Essays on Teaching Democracy and Literature | MLA Style Center
A functional democracy depends on its participants being able to understand the operations of their government. The knowledge and skills that come from MLA disciplines–language, literature, writing, a...
style.mla.org
We used to talk about the University as an "anxiety machine", producing intolerable working conditions (slowness, for example, was a response), but it's really become a "grief machine" and I'm not sure we know what to do with the pain and loss yet.
21 Group@21group.bsky.social · 2mo agoBonfire of the Universities continues 600 staff at Sussex Uni will receive notification that their positions are “at risk” & asked to volunteer for redundancy If 200 volunteers don't come forward, compulsory redundancies will follow Grim & upsetting www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
As I finish work before a much-needed couple of weeks of holiday, here's what we're living with in UKHE right now, for anyone who isn't familiar. Even if you are, it's a compelling account from a real expert.
London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 2mo ago‘The truth is that both ministers and vice-chancellors are locked into a financial model whose premise is misconceived and whose side effects are profoundly damaging for higher education.’ Stefan Collini on the UK’s university problems, online now from the next issue. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
You can read the entire autobiographical preface of my book Culture Wars in Britain on Google books (for the ebook version) and on Amazon on a desktop (also a bit of the Introduction and the Index). I've put the opening paragraphs of the preface into this thread in order to whet your appetite! (1/-)
A PhD student at Stanford noticed her classmates were asking Al to write their breakup texts. So she ran a study. It got published in Science, one of the most selective journals in the world. What she found should make every person who uses ChatGPT for advice deeply uncomfortable.
But speaking of not being anti-trans, if you fancy it: I am running one hundred kilometres tomorrow (in part) to raise money for the youth centre that has been deeply instrumental in my trans non-binary kid’s self-acceptances and love and community building.
Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts@elliemackinroberts.net · 4mo agoI am running London2Brighton 100km and raising money to support Step Forward - a youth centre in Tower Hamlets supporting queer, trans, and gender non-conforming youth - so important at a time when these vulnerable youth are under attack from almost everywhere! If you can, please donate and share!