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 · 2d ago

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).

90 years ago, Parliament responded to the rise of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts by passing the Public Order Act, which banned political uniforms, private militias and the threat of force for political objects. The debates make very resonant reading today. Here's the Liberal Robert Bernays. (Short 🧵)

All else aside there is nothing I want or need genAI to do for me. I like reading. I like doing research. I like playing around in spreadsheets. I like interviewing people. I like writing. I like doing these things for myself because I take pleasure in the doing and they make me a better thinker.

Occasional reminded that Dr Seuss — yes, that Dr Seuss — nailed the logic of appeasing fascists back in 1941. Might be handy if your local MP hasn't yet made it beyond that level of reading comprehension.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The Guardian view on music and drama education: reversing elitism starts at school | Editorial

Editorial: The number of students taking creative subjects at A-level and GCSE is at a record low. The arts must not become the preserve of the most privileged

theguardian.com

Attending our annual conference? Come to our PGR lunch tomorrow!

Our annual conference starts tomorrow at Queen's University Belfast - see you there!

We need two Arday inquiries: 1) Into racist (and misogynistic) bullying by UK press and social media accounts (see also Diane Abbott); and 2) into the duty of care that HE has for its minority staff - a duty of care that in my repeated experience is reserved primarily for white male sex offenders.

Tes magazine@tesmagazine.bsky.social · 4w ago

The death of Jason Arday shows us that all leaders in education need to speak out against racism – saying nothing in the face of prejudice is not a neutral position, writes Sufian Sadiq

Steal from one thesis = plagiarism Steal from every single thesis ever written, including mine = business model

BREAKING! Nigel Farage returns to normality by refusing to turn up in Clacton.

Gender studies might be the most vindicated academic field of all time

Jeffrey Vagle@jvagle.me · last mo.

Really? Because I keep seeing them in charge of everything from car dealerships to the White House, and they seem to doing just fine despite their obvious handicaps.

@boydellandbrewer.bsky.social have a 50% off sale on all ebooks, including my recent co-edited collection 'Constructing Polish Musical Identities outside Poland since 1880'. Grab a copy for less than £10! boydellandbrewer.com/book/constru...

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 · 3mo ago

“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 · 3mo ago

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 · 3mo 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 · 3mo ago

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