Today, Filippo de Vivo, Martin Conway, @faridahzaman.bsky.social and I, along with 30 other members of the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford have written to the leadership of the University of Exeter to express our deep concern about the proposed cuts to Humanities and Social Sciences

This petition needs as many signatories as the Exeter one. Please sign and share — don’t let Hertfordshire managers get away with this just because a Russell Group one took the spotlight. #UKHE

Joanna Bourke@joannabourke.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Shocking news about redundancies in the Humanities at the University of Hertfordshire, despite their exceptional research activities. I have signed the petition against these actions: it would be great if you would as well: c.org/kDQynZV7J4 @bbkhistorical.bsky.social @bisa-bkk.bsky.social

Something deeply troubling & shocking is happening at Exeter University*, where a mass cull of staff is planned, even though it's in surplus. No good justifications given. @jamesgdyke.info provides the details: www.technosphere.earth/the-bonfire-... *Disclosure: I have a Visiting Fellowship here. +🧵

The bonfire of the humanities

150 academic posts at the University of Exeter are to be cut, most in the humanities but also in social sciences, engineering and environmental sciences

technosphere.earth

Please sign & share @exeterucu.bsky.social petition on wholly unjustified, hugely damaging cuts to humanities staff at uni of Exeter (including, potentially, mine). Help us defend the humanities! And stick up for higher ed in the South West! c.org/RFqMvrKb6z

Struggling to parse this. Exeter is celebrating its overall global ranking to 136th, comprised (it reports) of 151st (Natural Sciences), 131st (Life Sciences & Medicine) and 76th (Arts & Humanities) while announcing plans to make 25% of Arts & Humanities staff redundant. Does this compute?

University of Exeter@exeter.ac.uk · 3mo ago

We’re delighted to be able to share some exciting news: We’ve climbed 19 places in the QS World University Rankings 2027, and we’re now ranked 136th globally. This achievement reflects the growing strength of our reputation as one of the world’s top universities. news.exeter.ac.uk/staff-news/e...

‘No other Latin writer in antiquity surpasses Augustine in the breadth of his interests and the originality of his thought.’ Christopher Kelly on a new account of St Augustine. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Christopher Kelly · Unpleasant Medicine: Augustine in Africa

In Milan, Augustine, like colonial Australians or New Zealanders returning ‘home’ to London, experienced a social...

lrb.co.uk

'Andy Burnham has set out ambitions to put universities “at the heart of local economies” and to make the UK the world’s leading “innovation nation”, in a speech making those goals central to his “Manchesterism” vision for the UK if he becomes prime minister.' What's left of universities, that is.

Burnham: ‘UK can be world’s leading innovation nation’ - Research Professional News

PM-in-waiting wants universities “at heart of local economies” but pledges education shift beyond “university route”

researchprofessionalnews.com

A statement from Exeter UCU branch @ucu.org.uk - please share far and wide.

This is the ideal male body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like

Huge congratulations, Noel. A beautiful cover, and an exciting invitation to begin the art of knowing everything.

Noel Blanco Mourelle@mourelle.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Coming to a bookstore near you this summer! Thanks to everyone who made this possible. [Link in comments 👇]

My book is out and is open access! academic.oup.com/book/61892

Explaining Famine in the British Empire: Agricultural Science, Food Security, and the Rise of Statistics

Abstract. This book is about the famines and food shortages that struck India and Britain at the close of the eighteenth century, and it explores how these

academic.oup.com

Science fiction (good and bad) plays a lot of roles in public culture: one of those roles is to provide a repository for guesses + prognostications on what the future might hold. Sometimes science fiction becomes self-fulfilling (see Zuckerberg's choice of the term 'metaverse')... 🧵

Martin Peterson's creative response to being banned from teaching Plato (shared with his permission).

We should have listened when the modems screamed at us.

Archbishop McArchbishopface

Sky News@news.sky.com · 2y ago

Public asked to name next Archbishop of Canterbury after Justin Welby resignation

At a time when so many UK universities are closing Humanities courses and limiting so-called 'unfunded' Humanities research, this investment in 14 three-year postdoctoral fellowships by @official-uom.bsky.social 's Faculty of Humanities is especially impressive. Deadline 7 March.

I’ve lived in Oxford for fifteen years, and a lot of stylistic changes have happened in how undergraduates dress over that time. But for the last few years, they’re increasingly all wearing these plain black puffy jackets that feature a college crest. During term, they’re everywhere.

Found the review of Capital that led Marx to write that he was not interested in "writing recipes...for the cook-shops of the future"

I am one of these NSF postdocs. NSF has frozen everyone’s access to their salaries and research stipends (that were already awarded) with no information about when they might be expected to be unfrozen. It still appears like we are expected to continue doing our work though.

Katie Mack@astrokatie.com · 2y ago

Apparently all the PhD researchers holding prestigious NSF-funded research fellowships are having their salaries withheld until some unspecified time when the leadership figures out how to eliminate any grant funding that doesn’t align with the president’s political ideology.

It's all about promoting "meritocracy," we've been repeatedly told . . .

QuoProQuid@quoproquid.bsky.social · 2y ago

robert f. kennedy jr. submits his application to harvard university. his application is, in its entirety, a single page with his name "Robert F. Kennedy Jr." he is accepted immediately.

can you believe that it's the 459th day of January 2025 and yet there are still two more days in which you can make a January visit to The Museum of English Rural Life?

‘Perhaps the most critical judgment that might be made of this noted critic of market fundamentalism is that he badly underestimated the resilience of capitalism.’ Stefan Collini on Karl Polanyi’s 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Stefan Collini · The future was social: Karl Polanyi’s Predictions

The Great Transformation was an exceptionally bold effort to make sense of contemporary developments on an international...

lrb.co.uk

All the Oxford news you need in our weekly newsletter: 🚧 Botley Road to reopen in August 2026 🏙 Oxpens development gets go-ahead 🚌 New orbital bus for Oxford 🪧 Radcliffe Camera occupied 🐈 A lovely picture of a cat Read online or direct to your inbox: oxfordclarion.uk/clarion-week...

Clarion Weekly, 24 January 2025

Botley Road to reopen in August 2026 The Botley Road rail bridge will remain closed for another 18 months. Network Rail announced an August 2026 completion date this morning (Friday) at a meeting wit...

oxfordclarion.uk

Any feelings on what it means to assign an essay in the age of google notebook lm? Does assigning an essay no longer require time spent reading?

Very excited to announce the release of my new book today, Land Power! Based on 15 years of work, it tells the story of how land shapes societies, from racial hierarchy to inequality, development, gender & the environment. In hardcover/eBook/audiobook. More in 🧵

The only word that truly reflects the simultaneous feelings of joy, relief and utter terror at receiving proofs of your book is “Eeeeep!” ‘Transatlantic Threads: Scottish Linen and Society, c.1707-1780’ is one step closer to being unleashed. @edinburghup.bsky.social

More cheerfully, I start 2025 astonished that the wildest aspect of my 2024 was that I now not only know who Taylor Swift's boyfriend is but I have an opinion about him! Thanks to Amanda Herbert for this unexpected ride from French notarial records to Travis Kelce via Time. time.com/6971832/the-...

‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Stirs Up the Document Market

Swifties are buying old French documents for mood-boards and more. But this trivializes the importance of the documents.

time.com

Academic guilt season starts today, winter edition. Feel guilty if working, feel guilty if not.

For every noble or gentleman who did the 'Grand Tour', there was one or more servants who did it with them, but these men and women have been mostly invisible and unheard. @richardjansell.bsky.social's new edition finally gives us access to their perspectives and their #WrittenWorlds!

Richard Ansell@richardjansell.bsky.social · 2y ago

My edition of four travel journals by 18th-c servants is out now, including accounts of France, Italy, the Low Countries, Germany and the Ottoman Empire by three valets and a maid – the majority of people who went on the 'Grand Tour' #skystorians #18thc #c18th global.oup.com/academic/pro...