Jonathan Potter
@drjonpotter.bsky.social
Researches Victorian periodicals, visual culture, and literature. Teaches English lit. Probably the least online person you'll meet online. Author of Discourses of Vision in C19th Britain: https://tinyurl.com/5bxvawy6
Adam Tickell, Vice Chancellor at the University of Birmingham (previously Sussex VC) supports concentrating research in 20-30 universities, the argument too of Policy Exchange's Tarnished Towers report. An unevidenced, unmodelled ideological argument that's perniciously pervasive. Contest it. 2/2
The most letter to the LRB letter to the LRB that I have ever read.
Very excited at what just dropped through the letter box! It's the @vpfa.bsky.social special issue of Archiv (including a contribution from yours truly).
"AI" literally falsifying the historical record. On an industrial scale.
Caitlin G. DeAngelis@caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 3mo agoRecently, FamilySearch digitized and uploaded tons of microfilmed records, including many from 18th-century Massachsuetts. They're using some sort of AI to transcribe/summarize the handwritten documents. I've noticed that the AI strips out references to race and enslavement in 18thc documents.
Well this really didn't take long did it. I also feel like the headline could be clear this is not a run-of-the-mill misdemeanor, this is someone promoting Hitler's Nazi party in 2026. BBC News - Sheffield Reform UK councillor 'brought party into disrepute' - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Sheffield Reform UK councillor 'brought party into disrepute'
Reform UK say Sheffield councillor Nathaniel Menday has been suspended pending an investigation.
bbc.co.uk
Good luck with AI without humanities, UK.
Ceri Houlbrook@cerihoulbrook.bsky.social · 3mo agoWhy would we want to learn from our pasts, or ponder the power of the written and spoken word, or explore the deep questions of humanity? According to the University of Hertfordshire, we wouldn't. They've just cut all of our undergrad Humanities programmes
Benjamin wrote his "Theses on the Philosophy of History" in 1940, shortly before he died by suicide escaping the Nazis. Imagine, now, Hannah Arendt reading this aloud to fellow refugees fleeing the Third Reich on the ship that was smuggling them to the U.S.
Excellent news for the field www.ucl.ac.uk/social-histo...
UCL History Secures $575k Grant for Caribbean Enslaved People Database
A $575,000 grant from a North American funder will support the development of a database of enslaved people at the UCL Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery (CSLBS).
ucl.ac.uk
One of the more important tables imo. Pleased to see BCU moving in the right direction on this table - up to 7th place this year.
Dr Ian McCormick@wokestudies.bsky.social · 4mo agoLatest ranking of English universities based on their contribution to social mobility. University of Bradford, Aston University and the University of Wolverhampton take the top three places.
I hope UCU can successfully fight this! As an English student at Leicester I benefitted from both modern languages and film studies modules and had friends in both degree programmes. Arts & Hum was such a vibrant community when I was there and these are valuable subjects worth fighting for!
Dr Jo Edge 🏴@hagenilda.bsky.social · 5mo agoMore nonsense from Leicester www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
It's hard to do satire of a field that is continually self-satiring, but this is a valiant attempt: puregenius.education
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There's a bunch of Chevening Scholars in my Masters classes and they massively enrich it. Impressive people and also so obviously wedded to going back and improving their own countries.
Ben Ansell@benansell.bsky.social · 5mo agoCan anyone explain to me what the Blue Labour justification for this is? Who out there will vote Labour because Mahmood prevented a Sudanese Chevening Scholar? And to be honest, why won’t the PM simply overrule her?
Even as a cynical scholar of rape culture, I'm shocked that this isn't the headline story on domestic politics everywhere right now. It's just an unfathomable abuse of power, in clear violation of the law.
Corey Rayburn Yung@coreyryung.bsky.social · 5mo ago4 days ago, NPR reported that the Trump administration is still withholding, in violation of the Epstein files statutes, 37 pages of documents that implicate him in the rape of a child. This should end his presidency. www.npr.org/2026/03/05/n...
“In 2024 the UK’s creative industries contributed £145.8 billion to the economy while the entire AI sector contributed £11.8 billion.” www.thetimes.com/article/8561...
Creative industries hold upper hand in AI copyright fight
Artists, musicians, writers and journalists are pushing back hard as Big Tech firms seek access to their work for training AI models
thetimes.com
I still find it astonishing that, during Covid, the first response of so many people connected to the Conservative party was that it presented an opportunity to loot the country undercover of a national emergency. Unforgivable wartime profiteering. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
Tory peer to leave Lords after investigation finds he breached standards over Covid PPE deals
Lord Chadlington introduced government to company in which he had financial interest in 2020
theguardian.com
Join us for a mid-week, mid-afternoon writing retreat and beat that afternoon slump! As usual, this event is free for VPFA members, but we have now opened this up to non-members for a small fee of £5 (£6.13 inc. Eventbrite fee). Sign up is available here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1984543534...
CALL FOR PITCHES @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and I are at work on a new version of Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century aimed at a more general audience. We’re looking for new contributions: your model close readings of texts, canonical and not, from literary studies and not. Details below!
This house thinks this is the best party political broadcast we've ever seen.
The Green Party of England & Wales@greenparty.org.uk · 7mo agoHelp us make hope normal again. Join the Green Party now.
The video in the thread redacts the images, mercifully. But you can see from the prompts what is happening. This is obscene, vicious and intolerable. X and Grok should be shut down until this grotesque harassment can be stopped. Those responsible should face the full force of the law.
Eliot Higgins@eliothiggins.bsky.social · 7mo agoOne example of how Grok is being used to target women. Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch being sexualised, degraded, and humiliated step-by-step by Grok. All the images accurately reflect the prompts provided.
Everyone has their blind spots etc, but Hobsbawm is a great historian - accessible, interesting, provocative - for undergrads and general readers so I'd be surprised if he wasn't still on many undergrad reading lists (he's on mine!).
K M Flett@keithbeard.bsky.social · 7mo agodo you remember or know of socialist historian Eric Hobsbawm? Christmas University Challenge teams on 29th December didn't wp.me/p15p2Q-fQc
Out of curiosity, I just ran a few paragraphs from The Butchering Art through an AI checker and it got flagged: 88% AI. This book was released in 2017, and AI machines were subsequently trained off it. How many writers are getting flagged for AI because of the literal theft of their work(s)? Insane.
Dr Lindsey Fitzharris@drlindseyfitz.bsky.social · 7mo agoOMG - f*ck AI for ruining the em-dash for writers. I use them all the time. Of course, what a shock that AI uses them since they were trained off my voice and other authors' voices.
Disco Elysium being free on the Epic Games Store is truly a Christmas miracle. This is such a singular and superb video game. store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/disc...
Disco Elysium - The Final Cut | Download and Buy Today - Epic Games Store
Download and play Disco Elysium - The Final Cut at the Epic Games Store. Check for platform availability and price!
store.epicgames.com
December 25th. The day the Fellowship departs Rivendell to destroy the One Ring. Whatever you celebrate, may you have the courage to take the first steps to defy and endure against the dark, and rekindle light into the world.
