Happy 160th birthday to H.G Wells! Celebrate Wells by reading Sebastian Egholm Lund’s “The Climate of Utopia: Victorian Hothouses and H.G Wells,” where he explores the ties between Victorian high society, the climate, and utopia in Wells’s 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘦 and 𝘈 𝘔𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘜𝘵𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘢.

Despite a cyber attack on CUP on the publication date (interesting timing), I can happily announce that my first monograph, CHANGING THE CLIMATE AT THE FIN DE SIÈCLE, is available in both digital and print editions!!! www.cambridge.org/core/books/c...

CFP: Victorians, A Special Winter 2027 Issue Deadline: 11/1/2026 navsa.org/News/13644789 Image Source: “A Thaw in the Streets of London” by M. Jackson (1865)

CNCSI's Early Career Committee is hosting the *Emerging Research and New Directions: An Online Mini-Conference* on Saturday, 13 June 2026, 2:00–5:00 p.m. BST. Keynote by @egholmlund.bsky.social, followed by flash talks on AI in #19thC studies. Registration required: cn-csi.com/event/emergi...

New news: I've been awarded the Richard Stein Essay Prize for "The Climate of Utopia,” published in @victstudies.bsky.social! This is a great honor, which I could not have received without the generous help of editor @moniquemorgan.bsky.social and, honestly, the journal's highly skilled reviewers.

'ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.”...ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study.' time.com/7295195/ai-c...

ChatGPT's Impact On Our Brains According to an MIT Study

The study, from MIT Lab scholars, measured the brain activity of subjects writing SAT essays with and without ChatGPT.

time.com

"UK academics...need guidance on how to avoid bringing US-based colleagues unwanted attention, risk or danger. Even tagging people in social media comments, or careless comments in text messages or emails, could make them unsafe." www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

A safety manual for academics visiting America - Research Professional News

Petra Boynton looks at what advice UK universities should give US-bound researchers and students

researchprofessionalnews.com

This Friday I, megalomanically, am speaking to the world through the medium of Zoom. If piqued, one can register here: docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLS... Hope to see some familiar faces!

Word of the day is ‘erumpent’ (17th century), which describes buds and blossom that are bursting forth with vigour. Can also be used of energetic humans.

14 of my publications -- basically everything I've ever thought or written-- went into AI training datasets without my consent or knowledge

Michael Livingston@michaellivingston.com · 2y ago

Meta used at least 16 of my books, and numerous articles, to help train the AI it will use to make billions. Authors, search your name here: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

A classic history of the creation of modern Paris by Napoleon III and Haussmann. David H. Pinkney's Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris is now available in a new edition. Learn more: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

typical book project timeline

No shit Watson! "Cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for cities." theconversation.com/cycling-is-t...

Cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities

Active travel can help tackle the climate crisis earlier than electric vehicles – even if you swap the car for a bike for just one trip a day.

theconversation.com

Reading Hsuan Hsu’s wonderful AIR CONDITIONING (2024). Hsu poses an interesting rewrite of Descartes: ‘I THINK IN A STOVE-HEATED ROOM, THEREFORE I AM’ / ‘I THINK MY MIND IS INDISTINCT, THEREFORE I AM IN A CLIMATE-CONTROLLED ROOM.’