Yes, we have gone from the idea that central university management is there to support teaching and research to the idea that teaching and research are there to support ‘the university’. We must bring in more money, and not cost so much in doing it.

Plashing Vole@plashingvole.bsky.social · last wk.

…more time, more loyalty, more staff presence, more duties, more obedience, more resilience. All the product of management teams that define themselves as the university and everyone else as begrudged dependents.

Tomorrow! Season Four of Flop TV debuts! It's a season of discussion about questionable Best Picture winners, and we're kicking off with GREEN BOOK! It's full of streaming shenanigans, audience interactions, and funny pretapes! 6 pm PT/9 pm ET! Tickets at theflophouse.simpletix.com!

I know just how much work is required to pull something like this off. CISA folk are doing amazing things to lift up long-neglected voices within archaeology, from Syria to Scotland and beyond

Jen Baird@jenbaird.bsky.social · last mo.

For too long, the people who have done the real work of archaeology have not been recognised. At Dura-Europos in Syria, one of the ways this is evident is in the lack of credit given, or even names recorded, for the many workers there.

New episode alert! @drdragases.bsky.social joins 101 to give us a crash course in Late Antiquity, a fascinating period that gives Game of Thrones a run for its money. Was the Roman empire really 'split in half'? How did Christianity become the official religion? And when did Rome *actually* fall?

If you’re a trans ally in the UK, here’s some urgently important things you can do to support the community and help protect and restore trans rights: 1. Support @GoodLawProject.org’s legal challenge against the UK government’s transphobic “guidance”: goodlawproject.org/crowdfunder/...

Fight back against the code of practice

The government’s transphobic code of practice is now up and running. But we’re not going to take it, we’re helping to fight back. Join us

goodlawproject.org

“No is, and always has been, an option”

Charlotte Weatherill@ckweatherill.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Full of despair today. Massive lay offs in social sciences and humanities across the country, Burnham puts out a video saying 'AI can write an essay', and my university is busy integrating co-pilot into all staff and student computers. We are being told we're defunct and there's no resistance.

Something a little different this week! Our new episode with @alexvandewalle.bsky.social talks about the various ways that video games treat and portray Greek myth, and it's more diverse than you might imagine! We discuss more than half a dozen games, from the good, the bad to the downright weird!

A new episode dedicated to the birthday boy: Alexander the Great himself! Stephen Harrison jumps on the pod to talk about knotty source issues, cultural identity, military 'necessity', Andy Murray and the Great Man Theory. Think you know Alexander? Think again...

'Government investment in defence-related higher education recognises the need for engineering, computing, cyber, robotics and autonomous systems. But if universities educate the next generation of defence specialists while weakening subjects that teach conflict resolution' [continued] 1/3

What universities count – and what they cannot afford to ignore - HEPI

This blog was kindly authored by Anna Zimdars, Christopher Playford, Eve Worth, Luke Graham, Joanna Merrett and Joseph Crawford, members of the Centre for Social Mobility, University of Exeter. He tha...

hepi.ac.uk

Anything by Jen and/or Adnan is worth reading. Stop what you’re doing and go check this out

Jen Baird@jenbaird.bsky.social · 2mo ago

What is the long-term legacy of foreign excavations in places like Dura-Europos in Syria? Out today and open access in @antiquity.ac.uk with my colleague Adnan Almohamad: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Under a Binface government, anyone who doesn’t accept human-made climate change as fact will be sent back to school, from Year 1 right the way to A Levels, to see if anything goes in the second time round. #VoteBinface

Fulvia's third husband was none other than Mark Antony - was it a marriage of convenience or can we detect a love match from our sources? Our full episode about Fulvia with guest expert Jane Draycott is out now! www.ancienthistory101.org/p/fulvia

The heritage sector generates £15 billion for the economy. If we cut archaeology as a subject, we lose the engine that helps generate it. We also lose our knowledge of past societies. We lose any grasp of who we are, who we’ve been, and who we might yet be.

Rachel Pope@prehistorian.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“In a letter to the Office for Students, which distributes the funding, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, said funding should no longer be given to support nursing, computing, history, creative arts, performing arts, archaeology, and geography courses.” removepaywalls.com/https://www....

Of interest to UK university #Skystorians: Royal Historical Society open online meeting on 'The crisis in UK higher education: The future for History'. 4 August 2-4 pm.

The Crisis in UK HE: the Future for History

An open meeting for historians in UK higher education on what is needed to best support and protect the profession and discipline.

eventbrite.co.uk

The grant for 2026/27 will now no longer support some subjects at all, including archaeology, geography, nursing, computing and history courses, in order that funding for the likes of medicine, chemistry and engineering is “protected”. Vandalism of the HE sector. Hugely damaging to the UK's future.

Arts Professional@artsprofessional.co.uk · 2mo ago

Performing and creative arts university courses will no longer receive funding from a government teaching grant as part of “difficult decisions” about spending priorities, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has said.

Archaeologists: this is our fight too. Our trans kin, friends colleagues and neighbours shouldn't have to fight this fight alone

Archaeologists for Trans Liberation

We, the Black Trowel Collective, stand with our trans members, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and community members. We do this out of care and in solidarity, but also backed by a scientific under…

blacktrowelcollective.wordpress.com

Catherine Frieman@cjfrieman.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Today and forever: there is no world and never has been a world without gender diversity, trans and queer folk

My dear lord. lareviewofbooks.org/article/dang...

A Better World Is Not Possible | Los Angeles Review of Books

Did the Weather Underground have a point?

lareviewofbooks.org

Just a reminder that this project is partially funded by Elon Musk. Where money comes from matters. Remember that DOGE fired hundreds & cancelled grants for hundreds more. I just can’t care about a carbonized scroll when it’s funded by fascism. hyperallergic.com/why-is-there...

Dr Naomi Scott@drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A lot of media coverage of the ‘AI’ reading of the Herculaneum scrolls really fails to understand what’s happened here. There’s no language processing happening, the AI/ML is not trained on a corpus of texts or language. It can detect ink to see shapes. HUMAN EXPERTS are then transcribing the text.

Cartoon by @bjennings90.bsky.social in @theguardian.com

A brief appreciation thread for some of my colleagues in Classics at Exeter, who the University of Exeter have put at risk of redundancy @exeter.ac.uk. A few are on here, most are not, but I'm going to say nice things about them anyway.

Happy CPD to all who celebrate! #startrek #makeitso

Phenomenal thread on the rejection of binaries and universalism that can apply not just to #anthropology but all #humanities. Incrementally, we challenge presumed knowledge and build more to be challenged.

Rosemary Joyce@rajoyce.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Anthropological research on subsistence is offered in the dangerous and authoritarian “report” on the humanities as a key example of supposed ideological weakening of scholarship. This critique begins to show how the key example cited actually proves the opposite. Let’s go into it in some depth 1/

If you live in the UK (or tbh anywhere) it'd be amazing if you signed up for a refugee action group or a emergency response phone tree or a deflagging crew for your cool girl summer 🌴🌊🏖️☀️😎💅

Hi friends! You can read and download a PDF of my new chapter on the laws and geography surrounding Roman troop billeting from the Republic to Late Antiquity here: works.hcommons.org/records/hhab...

Coming up on the show this week! On Wednesday we're joined by @debscavator.bsky.social, who reveals how much we've learned about disability in the Greek world... Make sure to subscribe on your podcast player of choice because you don't want to miss this!

'Manchester told Times Higher Education it was yet to attach a budget to the idea and that it represented a “long-term” strategy rather than a “programme”.' No mention anywhere of the fact that students are already working during their studies to pay for rent, travel and food.

Are days of degrees with no work experience numbered?

Encouraging students to take part in employment opportunities essential, leaders say, but Manchester could find new commitment hard work

timeshighereducation.com

I stand with trans and non binary people. This is a difficult and scary time - and the Govenrment must reject the framework. It's vital that everyone is treated with dignity and care and far too often trans and non binary people aren't. Solidarity always 🏳️‍⚧️

Lovely to see "Pathways to Inclusive Digital Archaeological Archives" available now via firstview in Advances in Archaeological Practice (open access). www.cambridge.org/core/journal...