BBC Radio 3 doing what it does best: in the Proms interval, a serious look into what's going on in the Shostakovich 11 that's coming up in the second half. Well done.

Today marks the beginning of a brave new world, my first working day as Head of Music at Royal Holloway (technical term in our new structure: 'Section Lead') In a rather unusually busy day for August (!), I have plenty of meetings - capped off with speaking live on BBC Radio 3 at the Proms!

OY OY, THEY LET ANYONE IN HERE THESE DAYS @danelphick.bsky.social

not saying anything new, but if these folks actually believed in genAI writing, they'd disclose it, tout it, and build their own audiences elsewhere and leave others be. hiding and sneaking it to markets who want no part of it doesn't prove you're good at writing. just proves you're good at fraud.

I agree with all the takes about an attack on the humanities being an attack on critical thinking, &c. It’s also about joy, though. ‘Why bother studying that’ is always also a sneer at — why do you think you should get to do something you enjoy? Grow up and be miserable all the time!

First they came for the languages. In the hope that no one would have the words to say what was happening. 1/9🧵

University of Aberdeen's plans to cut modern language degrees were 'rushed' - review

The University of Aberdeen says it accepts there were "missteps" in its process in 2023.

bbc.co.uk

Do people not know that there are at least ten musicologists on here who want to explain the answer to your music question to you so badly that they will drop everything to do it?

I know I’m a broken record but to see universities abandon critical thinking and completely chuck out their own policies around sustainability, research ethics, academic integrity, etc in the pursuit of shiny new tech has been quite something

Daniel Bellingradt@dbellingradt.bsky.social · last mo.

“This collaboration is a result of the University of Oxford’s participation in NextGenAI, a consortium with OpenAI and 15 leading research institutions dedicated to using AI to accelerate research breakthroughs and transform education.” www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/...

“I have done all of the things that one is supposed to do to earn a tenure-track position. And I have done approximately 85% of them by typing prompts into a large language model and then moderately editing the output.” 🤣🤣🤣 brilliant 👌🏽 open.substack.com/pub/inprepar...

Opinion: I Was Not Allowed To Type Prompts Into ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk And This Is Discrimination

By Dr. Rachel Simmons, Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University

open.substack.com

'About 150 academic roles are set to go at the south-west institution, which said it was targeting areas that are “no longer sustainable” or have seen changes in student demand.' History and English are name-checked. 1/3

University of Exeter cuts an ‘existential threat to humanities’

Russell Group institution cites changing student demand as it puts 500 staff at risk of redundancy, with 150 jobs set to go

timeshighereducation.com

Imagine a government that was helping everyone do this, instead of locked into a permanent psychodrama about how many refugees to hate this week.

Chris Kendall@ottocr.at · last mo.

Air-to-air heat pump is air conditioning my home; drawing on power generated by solar panels; which also charge domestic batteries, which can keep powering the AC at night time. I can thankfully cool my home in this weather without importing any electricity, in fact I’m exporting excess to the grid.

More job news: from 1st August, I'll be Head of Music at Royal Holloway. As is well known, it's a brilliant team. I'm lucky to have such wonderful colleagues and hard-working students. Looking forward to being 'captain of the ship' for a few years (and hope I can live up to the task!)

£3,000 each: The fellowships, open to applicants in all music sub-disciplines, will facilitate completion of a major musical research project by scholars not holding full-time, open-ended teaching and research, or full-time research-only academic posts in Higher Education.

RMA@royalmusical.bsky.social · 2mo ago

RMA 150th Anniversary Fellowships: Call for applications The Royal Musical Association 150th Anniversary Fellowships (for Early Career Researchers) Given the extremely challenging environment facing...

RMA Journals - move to digital default  RMA Members have long received a physical copy of the latest issue of Journal of the Royal Musical Association, released twice yearly. Owing to new contractual arrangements with...

RMA Journals - move to digital default 

RMA Members have long received a physical copy of the latest issue of Journal of the Royal Musical Association, released twice yearly. Owing to new contractual arrangements with our publisher, Cambridge...

rma.ac.uk

RIP the brilliant David Hockney www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Artist David Hockney dies aged 88

Hockney was one of Britain's most important artists of the modern era.

bbc.co.uk

so if AI is so amazing, why don’t articles and books written with it have huge “proudly made with AI” banners and stickers on it we all know why

That's a pogrom. She's describing a pogrom

Josh Halliday@joshhalliday.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My colleague @hannahalothman.bsky.social is in Belfast tonight. This is what she’s seen. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Pogroms.

Anti-immigrant violence erupts across Belfast after knife attack

Masked men burned families out of their homes in Belfast and torched a number of vehicles ​in a wave of anti-immigrant violence that followed a knife attack for which a Sudanese man appeared in court ...

reuters.com

You lovely people have got me up to 190 responses, so I'm going to keep going to 200! If you're an academic in UK HE who's had pastoral responsibility for students in the last 5 years under any title, please take 10 mins to share your thoughts about that work. Please do share to widen the pool.

The Role Of Interpersonal Relationships And Care In Personal Tutoring Within UK HEIS

Take this survey powered by surveymonkey.com. Create your own surveys for free.

surveymonkey.com

The Royal Holloway PLAY! Festival has started! www.royalholloway.ac.uk/about-us/eve... It's just a few days until my modest contribution for it - Dan Elphick sings Bob Dylan II: More Bob, More Dylan (featuring the brilliant Simon Watterton on piano). 9pm on Wednesday, the Packhorse.

Incitement to riot is a serious criminal offence (Public Order Act 1986). So are encouraging/assisting offending, causing fear/provoking immediate violence, stirring up racial hatred, & terrorism (variously under POA 1986, Serious Crime Act 2007, Terrorism Act 2006 etc). Enforce the law.

Adam Boulton, "The family did say that they didn't want Henry Nowak's murder to be exploited politically" "As the front page of the I paper says, that plea has been ignored, particularly by Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson"

Today, 4:30-6pm BST: online launch event for our collection, 'Constructing Polish Musical Identities Outside Poland since 1880: Sounding Polish' (ed. Stephen Downes and Daniel Elphick) Featuring three contributors and both editors, this promises to be an engaging book launch! Message me for link.

Very pleased to share that I've been promoted to Associate Professor (effective August). A warm thank you to everyone who helped with the application process and for support over the last few years.

Boots Riley is resolute in his belief that AI proponents and studio heads who say that gen AI is the future of filmmaking are simply lying. Read the full interview from @charlespulliam.bsky.social: www.theverge.com/entertainmen...

I suspect that within a year or two MPs will increasingly hear from A level students and parents finding that degree courses they want to take have vanished. Those who banked on being able to stay home for cost reasons, especially those living in areas with only one local uni, will be badly hit.

www.rma.ac.uk/2026/05/21/t... The Jerome Roche Prize for 2026 is awarded to Edwin Li for his article ‘Retranslating Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde‘, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 150/2 (2025), pp. 401-35.

www.rma.ac.uk/2026/05/21/d... The Dent Medal 2026 is awarded to David R. M. Irving, who is an ICREA Research Professor at the Institució Milà i Fontanals de Recerca en Humanitats, CSIC, in Barcelona.

Unbelievably sad that the glorious Felicity Lott has passed. There have been many great sopranos, but few had the radiant intelligence of this extraordinary musical legend.

Oof. Missed this the other day. By our measure Nottingham is the UK big city most reliant on the universities for local 'knowledge' jobs. One in four of all of these high skilled jobs in the city are academic and non academic staff in higher education. Could be a big blow

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 3mo ago

What can one even say any more. The Nothing will eat almost the entire sector if controls aren't brought into force. Hey, government! Anyone there? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...