Mirela Ivanova
@mirela.bsky.social
Lecturer in History. Pre-modern Balkans, Russia, Turkey. BBC New Generation Thinker. Social climber🎓. Rock climber 🧗. Loves context.
Family and friends of Chris Wickham have set up a fund in his memory to support PhD schol. in the social history or material culture of Byzantine Studies or early medieval history at the Uof Birmingham. Donations will be matched to double the value of gifts. www.justgiving.com/page/prof-ch...
In Memory of Professor Chris Wickham
Help Thomas Kay raise money to support University of Birmingham
justgiving.com
Thinking about this strange Monument to the Unknown Hero near Belgrade, Serbia. Built in 1938 to commemorate World War I heroes but strangely resembling the 6thc. BC Tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae, modern Iran.
"Pointing to estimates of about 30,000 job losses in the past three years, Stern said “these are talented people, often with a long career behind them. We should care that this many good jobs are going; if this was the automotive sector you’d get headlines.” www.ft.com/content/ded7...
UK universities cut jobs, research and teaching amid squeeze in overseas students
‘Very sharp downturn’ in enrolments risks hitting economic innovation and academic pipeline, lobby group says
ft.com
NEW: Three new books — Julia Ioffe’s ‘Motherland,’ Lea Ypi’s ‘Indignity’ and Olia Hercules’ ‘Strong Roots’— use family memoir to illuminate the lives of women in 20th-century Eastern Europe, writes @howardamos.bsky.social for @newlinesmag.bsky.social newlinesmag.com/essays/the-f...
The Family Memoirs Uncovering a Different History of the 20th Century
Julia Ioffe’s ‘Motherland,’ Lea Ypi’s ‘Indignity’ and Olia Hercules’ ‘Strong Roots’ place women at the center of revolutions and their aftermath
newlinesmag.com
On Saturday, 7 November, I will be running a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon around the theme of Byzantine women & genderqueer saints. I hope that this workshop will help to improve the coverage of women and LGBTQ+ history on Wikipedia. To attend, follow this link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wiki-edit-...
Wiki Edit-a-Thon: Byzantine Women & Genderqueer Saints
An in-person edit-a-thon that aims to improve the coverage of Byzantine women & genderqueer saints on Wikipedia. No prior experience needed.
eventbrite.co.uk
'Despite all their difficulties, universities remain an enormous and irreplaceable national asset. As well as educating millions of people, they generate about £24bn in export earnings, which is about 1% of GDP – more than aircraft manufacturing and legal services combined'. 1/2
The Guardian view on universities: Labour needs a clearer plan | Editorial
Editorial: Ministers promised a ‘change of approach’, but their new tax could tip weaker institutions over the edge
theguardian.com
Tomorrow at 3pm: David Edgar's brilliant play, the New Real, airs on Radio 4. It offers an origin story of far right populism set in Eastern Europe. It was a joy and privelege to play a small part in this project by doing some translation. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, The New Real
David Edgar’s sharp political drama explores the faultlines threatening modern democracy.
bbc.co.uk
"Higher education generated £24bn in export earnings for the UK in 2022-23, far above aircraft manufacturing with £12bn, legal services with £9.5bn and telecoms with £8.8bn." #HigherEd www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Less than Greggs? Public have no idea of value of top universities, study finds
Belief that snack chain’s revenues exceed those of Oxford’s one of many misconceptions about UK’s HE sector
theguardian.com
Universities continue to brand themselves as 'global' and chase international students whose culture and languages they appear uninterested in. Take a min to save modern langauges at Uni of Nottingham! www.change.org/p/stop-the-r...
Sign the Petition
Stop the removal of Modern Languages courses at the University of Nottingham!
change.org
People of Oslo! Come about my book on the invention of the Slavonic alphabet next Wednesday at 4.15pm. Details here: www.hf.uio.no/iakh/english...
nearly thirty years ago Bill Readings published this prophetic book The University in Ruins. Essential reading today as the sector is on the brink of collapse.
"LLMs don’t learn except by going through a whole new training process. ChatGPT doesn’t learn from any of the millions of exchanges it has with human users. It can’t afford to [...] it is frozen to prevent it being contaminated by any new knowledge.." www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
James Meek · Computers that want things
For all the fluency and synthetic friendliness of public-facing AI chatbots like ChatGPT, it seems important to remember...
lrb.co.uk
Loved this review of Lea Ypi's new book Indignity by @lilylynch.bsky.social - on class, communism, and family in Albania's twentieth century jacobin.com/2025/10/lea-...
Lea Ypi’s Reckoning With Family and the Legacy of Revolution
In her new book, Indignity, Albanian political scientist Lea Ypi discovers that online trolls are accusing her grandmother of having been a communist spy during World War II. To find the truth, she di...
jacobin.com
Istanbul folk - @drvukovich.bsky.social and I will be hosting a workshop on the Byzantine and Ottoman heritage of the Balkans in a few weeks at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul! Come join us and our amazing speakers!
"To generate knowledge in the context of hunger is to think through pain. To teach students who have not eaten and still tell them their voices matter. To insist, against all odds, that Gaza still thinks, still questions, still creates."
‘Too hungry to think, too weak to sit upright. Concentration slips away’: the struggle to stay focused as an academic in Gaza
It is hard to keep the mind sharp when the body is thin and dehydrated, but solidarity is teaching starving students their thoughts still matter
theguardian.com
Hello UK friends - please, please could you sign this petition against the job cuts at my place of work - 1 in 4 us will be out of a job by August next year if we don't stop the cuts. And once you've signed it, please share. We need your help! www.change.org/p/stop-mass-...
Sign the Petition
Stop Mass Redundancies at Lancaster University – Hold Senior Management Accountable
change.org
Excited on route to York for a workshop entitled Multilingual Lives and organised by @emiliekmmurphy.bsky.social and Purba Hossain!
For BBC Future, I wrote a piece for about the Soviet plan (it never happened) to reverse some of the country's great rivers, diverting them south to Central Asia: www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...
The Soviet plan to reverse Siberia's rivers with 'peaceful nuclear explosions'
In the 1970s, the USSR used nuclear devices to try to send water from Siberia's rivers flowing south, instead of its natural route north.
bbc.co.uk
"the funding freeze has had a devastating effect on civil society in Central and Eastern Europe" Excellent on the various agencies and media organisations fighting for civil liberties and rights in Eastern Europe which have been shut down by the USAID cuts. briefeasterneurope.eu/p/march-31-2...
📩 A world without grants
Plus: Cattle crisis
briefeasterneurope.eu
Fascinating YouGov poll shows over half of americans 'dislike' the Middle Ages; they like the Renaissance, even more than the Englightenment. Medieval things they do love: castles and chivalry! 16% love the Inquisition. today.yougov.com/entertainmen...
Violent, dark, and dirty: What Americans think about the Middle Ages | YouGov
Americans have favorable views of chivalry and castles, but not the Crusades or the Inquisition
today.yougov.com
"The flavour of crisis we are experiencing in UK higher education is far less about malice, and far more about political indifference." www.historyworkshop.org.uk/education/a-...
A Decade of Crisis
The UK's universities are in crisis. Dave Hitchcock on how the sector became 'broken' and why it must be understood as an interdependent system.
historyworkshop.org.uk
"Increasingly desperate, universities have made things even worse by taking the one-size-fits-all advice of a handful of consultancies to cut services in each department and centralise everything from recruitment to IT." www.ft.com/content/0ec7...
The UK’s academic recession is in full swing
This university crisis is a grim scrabble for numbers
ft.com
I published a piece in @neweasterneurope.eu on how the history of multiculturalism in the Balkans has been sidelined thanks to nationalism, population exchanges and war.
Essenial reading for historians of nationalism, byzantium and the theory of territory!
Nik Matheou 🇵🇸@historyastheory.bsky.social · 2y agoVery excited that this article is finally out! I hope it'll be of interest to anyone who: 1) is interested in the history of #nationhood & #nationalism; 2) is into the debate over Romanness in "#Byzantium"; & 3) wants to develop critical #Marxist frameworks before & after capitalism. A short 🧵/1
Just discovered that @bunyaminanderson.bsky.social and I's open access article on the Politics of Byzantine studies has made it onto the Wiki page for the 'Byzantine Empire'! Thanks to the anonymous editor!
Kalyan Minaret (12c.) in Bukhara. The oldest still standing in Central Asia, it was apparently (acc. to local man) spared by Genghis Khan because his hat fell off when he looked up at it. Also apparently (acc. to British spy) it was used for public executions in the late 19th/early 20thc.
excited to see that @bunyaminanderson.bsky.social and I's aritcle is now in physical print! what is byzantine studies all about?? find out now, open access!
The English Historical Review@enghistrev.bsky.social · 2y agoReflections Article in our 600th Issue: Mirela Ivanova @mirela.bsky.social and Benjamin Anderson @bunyaminanderson.bsky.social on 'The Politics of Byzantine Studies: Between Nations and Empires' academic.oup.com/ehr/article/...
A reminder about the EME/BSR fellowship: a month's stay in Rome for someone doing/recently finished a PhD on early medieval European history. Deadline 31st January. bsr.ac.uk/second-bsr-e...
Second BSR/Early Medieval Europe Fellowship - bsr.ac.uk
In partnership with the journal Early Medieval Europe, the British School at Rome is pleased to announce the second BSR/EME Fellowship. Aimed at early career researchers (defined as current PhD stu...
bsr.ac.uk