Andy Burnham says UK authorities are “clear” there was Russian interference in the Brexit referendum as @catneilan.bsky.social reports in today’s @theobserveruk.bsky.social observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

From Russia with interference: Burnham first PM to confir...

The prime minister has revealed UK authorities told him there was ‘clear evidence’ that Moscow meddled in the referendum

observer.co.uk

🚨 ALERT 🚨: All of Stuart Hall's notebooks have been digitized and are freely available to browse and read??? stuarthalldigital.bham.ac.uk/archival_mat...

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 4d ago

Archive of @britishacademy.bsky.social Fellow Stuart Hall is now live. Includes looking at his impact on the history of communication theory, culminating in the architecture of contemporary AI models www.theguardian.com/society/2026... Archive link: stuarthalldigital.bham.ac.uk/archival_mat...

amazing that Bill Cronon was concerned about the crisis of reading (and university press business models!) back in 2012. feels like this talk could've been given yesterday. www.historians.org/presidential...

William Cronon – AHA

Storytelling

historians.org

NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light. My reporting:

‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences research

Agency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year

science.org

Starbucks’ rollback of its climate commitments is just the latest example of why voluntary climate standards like net zero are only useful when coupled w/ credible threats of regulation or (gasp!) *actual* rules on climate action. Mini 🧵

Starbucks retreats from green goals amid drive for $2bn in cost cuts

Early corporate champion of climate action scales back or reviews targets to halve emissions, waste and water use

ft.com

The pitch here seems to be, ‘we’ll build the houses and infrastructure we failed to build during the 14 years we were in government, but we’ll do it in the most damaging and lowest quality way possible’. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Tories to pledge to scrap Environment Agency and Natural England

Shadow chancellor will also promise to scrap affordable homes regulations as part of strategy to refocus on growth

theguardian.com

Access the 2026 report on the teaching of empire and recommendations here: ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid...

Alan Lester@alanlester.bsky.social · last wk.

And here’s what right wing propagandists get so wrong about the teaching of Empire: alanlester.co.uk/blog/teachin...

US datacenter discharged large amounts of pollution for almost a year with no permits

US datacenter discharged large amounts of pollution for almost a year with no permits

Records show Vineland facility in New Jersey emitted health-harming pollution before regulators stepped in

theguardian.com

Very happy to announce the seminar programme of the Decolonising Plant Knowledge research network @crasshlive.bsky.social for Michaelmas term 2026 www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/research/net...

I was wrong. It’s happening

I'm on strike for the next five weeks with @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social because management continues to threaten mass compulsory redundancies. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Edinburgh University lecturers begin five-week strike over cuts

Members of the University and Colleges Union are walking out in part of a long-running dispute over job and course cuts.

bbc.co.uk

A titanic, pioneering figure in more than one field of history.

The White Horse Press@whitehorsepress.bsky.social · 3w ago

We've added a post to our blog, remembering John M. Mackenzie, who passed away last week. John was an early editor of 'Environment and History', whose important work paved the way for the journal's success since. The post is here: whitehorsepress.blog/2026/09/21/j... #envhist @eandhwhp.bsky.social

ERC Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship applications went from just 7.000 applicants in 2022 to over 21.000 this year 🤯🤯🤯

The Fifth World Congress of Environmental History is Coming to Toronto in 2030! We are excited to welcome @iceho.bsky.social and environmental historians from around the world to Canada! niche-canada.org/2026/09/18/t... #envhist #envhum

The Fifth World Congress of Environmental History is Coming to Toronto in 2030!

York University in Toronto will host the 2030 Fifth World Congress of Environmental History, marking its North American debut.

niche-canada.org

Academia in the unregulated AI era. We need boilerplate language specifying draft manuscripts cannot be uploaded into an LLM @aaup.org @local6741.bsky.social Adding to list..

Mollie Holmberg@octoqueenphd.bsky.social · 3w ago

I was so horrified to learn that there are editors/reviewers who do this that I now have legal language in my book contract specifying that my unpublished manuscript draft cannot be uploaded into an LLM (also shout out to University of California Press! They were super lovely when I requested this.)

Story time. Got a paper rejected. No big deal. It happens. Except one reviewer explicitly stated they were unfamiliar with our methods and asked a GenAI to explain it. They then used this to trash the paper, oh, and the journal forbids AI use in reviews. Livid is mild to describe my feelings.

Tuomas Pernu@tuomaspernu.bsky.social · 10mo ago

I find this very alarming. AI is being used in explicitly prohibited ways. No doubt this will soon be the norm. The consequences of this will be dramatic. Over the holidays, the publishers and the whole of academic community are doing nothing else but working on a solution to this, right? RIGHT?!

The programme I run - the MSc in Contemporary History - will be axed, amongst so many others. We've also been told our undergrad courses will need to have a minimum of 20 students over a 3 year period. The bonfire of the universities has truly come for Edinburgh.

Josh Pizzuto-Pomaco@joshpizpom.bsky.social · 3w ago

EXC: 90 programmes in Edinburgh University's College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences are to be closed. The casualties, which include 48 language and literature programmes, will be 'taught out', w/ no admissions after 2027. @heraldscotland.bsky.social www.heraldscotland.com/news/2655839...

Really excited to announce the online launch of The Ethics of Medical Photography Toolkit, the result of two years of work between academics, archives and museums. Register here forms.gle/PYBjxGNDitDp... to join us on Friday 16 Oct at 3 pm BST online #histmed #photohist #ethics #medhums

I'm just going to keep yelling this louder and louder until it clicks: weird overpaid AI nerds hand-wringing about human extinction are trying to distract you from the extremely deadly and serious harms they are causing yesterday, today and tomorrow www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

It was a real pleasure to contribute a piece to this fantastically interdisciplinary volume organized by Danielle Sands & Daniel Whistler, in collaboration with colleagues in the Library & Archives at @rbgkew.bsky.social 🌿 #envhist #histsci #plants www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?do...

It was a real pleasure to contribute a piece to this fantastically interdisciplinary volume organized by Danielle Sands & Daniel Whistler, in collaboration with colleagues in the Library & Archives at @rbgkew.bsky.social 🌿 #envhist #histsci #plants www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?do...

We have a book cover!

Trying so hard to not shout BUT OUR BOOK COVER IS UP SO I CAN FINALLY POINT YOU ALL TO THE MOST GRATIFYING COLLABORATIVE PROJECT EVER. @emilypawley.bsky.social Head over on Nov 17th for the OA version &/or NOW to preorder it: mitpress.mit.edu/978026205625... #envhist #envhum #hisSTM #skystorians

A Historian's Handbook for Saving the World

The work of historians is vital to this moment. As climate debates shift from “believing the science” to fighting for the massive changes needed ...

mitpress.mit.edu

“You do my dad's legacy and the legacy of all these victims no honor by using this tragedy to spread hate…I've had to grow up and spend the past 25 years seeing people use it to hate on our Muslim brothers and sisters, to hate on people who don't look like them."

Spectrum News NY1@spectrumnewsny1.bsky.social · 4w ago

The last speaker at the 9/11 remembrance ceremony lost his father to the attacks.

So rather than increase faculty payroll and lower student:teacher ratios, UMass would rather spend it on Claude. I would argue that a better investment would be hiring 100-200 tenure-line faculty.

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · last mo.

According to a meeting I was in, UMass estimates that if the capacity of these tools were maxed out by student, faculty, staff users, the total cost to the university would be $130,000/day, or about $47 million / year.

It's just weird isn't it when the British Museum is running a sold-out exhibition, when The Odyssey reports $1billion at the box office, when the V&A has just opened the most innovative and accessible museum model in Europe....and this is what our minister for research comes out with.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last mo.

A cheery message from the new minister responsible for research funding for the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences (and the subjects that the majority of UK taught undergraduate and Masters students study).

SCOOP: An anonymous census report claimed thousands of noncitizens voted. But @davidgilbert.bsky.social and I found that not only was the report based on bad data, its authors include members of a Trump-aligned think tank and a former member of DOGE. @wired.com www.wired.com/story/a-us-c...

A US Census Report on Noncitizen Voting Used Bad Data to Reach Faulty Conclusions

Trump has touted a recent Census report. WIRED found grave flaws in its analysis and the process behind it, and confirmed the identity of several of its authors—among them a one-time DOGE affiliate.

wired.com

So if you protest a genocide you are automatically a "terrorist" but hold up a major shipping route while wearing balaclavas and you are a "protester" and the police "engage with you"? www.bbc.com/news/article...

Disruption at Port of Dover as masked men hold protest

Images appear to show hundreds of protesters, all dressed in black and wearing face coverings.

bbc.com

Just copy & share everywhere please. Absolutely thumping.