I think this is the saddest point about the whole debate around UK higher ed right now, when we forget expanding universities was a choice about public good, not employability metrics.

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 3d ago

Between the 1970s and 1990s the UK state made a strategic bet to expand Higher Ed. They poured in untold billions of your money. Now it's been handed over to private creditors to burn in a furnace. Then they just laugh at you: at all the taxes you've ever paid or will ever pay. True story. (2/2)

It really is odd (as in personally dispiriting) to see how much of the European and especially US left has embraced the silliest type of nationalism in so many cases, completely forgetting there should be at least some anti-nationalist strain in the very DNA of the left?

Alexander Clarkson@aphclarkson.bsky.social · 7d ago

It is rather bizarre to see so many on the European and American Left embrace myths of Iran's supposed 2500 year continuity as a state that have their origins in Pahlavi-era nationalist identity narratives

So I don’t want to be the guy doing the postcolonial cultural history of kebab, but there’s a place in Paris that is officially specialised in naan kebabs with TV blasting local news from Uzbekistan in Russian and when I got asked what sauce I wanted I went “algérienne et harissa?” And it was ok.

People we have learned that Andy Burnham hates: 1. The creative sector, which is full of soft southerners who don't work down the pits. 2. Lisa Nandy.

James Ball@jamesrball.com · 2w ago

I can't work out if this is intended as a punishment to Lisa Nandy, who clearly hates the job; or a punishment to the entire UK culture sector, which is suffering as a result of that. Maybe both?

The anatomy of an AI-supported academic article is becoming more apparent. I desk reviewed ~70 manuscripts this week for our journal. Reckon 20ish had significant AI assistance. On top of hundreds of others recently I'm starting to see patterns. Are other editors are seeing the same or similar? 1/

Are we still a serious country? Discuss.

Jessica Elgot@jessicaelgot.bsky.social · 4w ago

Incredible amount of Binface truthers on the other place

Cranks splitting the pro-Binface vote.

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · 4w ago

Piers Corbyn is also standing in Clacton. Lucky lucky Clacton.

So the Clacton by-election is going to be a run-off between a clown solely interested in media attention via cheap stunts who plays a cartoon villain for social media idiots without the slightest interest in representing Clacton or doing the work of a parliamentarian... and Count Binface?

So today is the day of both Farage resigning and MLP being declared guilty again (yet with a more lenient verdict). And it feels like this should be the day corruption caught up with some of the far right goon squad, yet the vibes do not validate that.

Over the last few days I’ve become obsessed with all the “no petrol” videos from Russia. Here’s a good thread about what it all means.

Cédric Mas@cedricmas.eurosky.social · last mo.

#Russie 05/07 (1) Nouveau fil sur ce qui émerge du pays ces 2 derniers jours. Un pays connecté et industrialisé qui plonge dans le chaos et le collective. Rappel : ce clip UKR sur la question qui émerge « Qu’est-ce qui se passe ? »

The narcissism of small scale. This is us.

Marie Le Conte@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · last mo.

these debates about what the north is, where it starts, etc etc, always remind me of how geographically dinky England is, if you tried to argue with a French person about whether some north/south line is here or 40 miles down they'd look at you like you were an alien I think

This (and the whole of BlueSky) is the best ever example of Poe’s Law (no, not Murphy’s, but the one that says one should never try to make jokes on the Internet)

Ben Ansell@benansell.bsky.social · last mo.

OK, I’m calling it. Burnham to win next election with 550 MPs.

at an event today at the Institute of Historical Research: a genuine reminder of how much amazing work is being done on history AND how fortunate we are to have institutions like this+ people whose work sustains them. just in case anyone wanted something to feel good about amidst the general gloom

Having spent the last few weeks in the purgatory of organising AI vivas for over a half of my first year students, the thing that struck me most was colleagues’ unhelpful understanding of AI as an individual moral failing (and hence: the students they liked could never, but the bad students would).

Jeff Sharlet@jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 2mo ago

In winter, I spoke at a faculty event about AI. I was alarmed by the range of faculty awareness. Some believe our students are so "good" they'd never cheat. Yes, cheating's wrong. But systems that explicitly or implicitly incentivize cheating--AI does both--will produce cheating. 11/

"Es wäre eine klare Einschränkung der Wissenschaftsfreiheit, wenn die faschistische Agenda von Björn Höcke nicht als faschistische Agenda bezeichnet werden dürfte."

Henning Ernst Mueller@ermu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

So geht es los. TU-Präsidium verbietet AfD-kritische Vorträge, weil sie nicht "neutral" seien. Unfassbar! taz.de/Antifaschist...

Could not agree more. '... this war is unlikely to end at a negotiating table in Geneva or Istanbul. It will end when the cost of imperial ambition becomes unbearable for the Russian elite and the broader society... [The defeat] must be driven by a collapse of the regime’s capacity to function.'

Maria Popova@popovaprof.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My latest for @policymag.bsky.social “we should not be looking for a change of heart in the Kremlin, but for signs of a systemic failure [..] Until then, hopes for a “negotiated settlement” serve only to prolong the bloodshed. Russia will not take an off-ramp; it needs to be defeated.”

I have a student son Henry Nowak’s age & I can’t imagine what it took for his family to respond outside court with the grace they did, asking that their son’s death not be used for division and hate. That Reform & Restore chose to throw that back in their faces makes me feel sick.

This is a very reasonable kind of attitude which I will adhere to.

Dave Karpf@davekarpf.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Yet another newsletter just arrived in my inbox that was clearly written with (by) AI. Look, I'm not being unreasonable here: I am not going to bother to read your newsletter if you aren't bothering to write your newsletter. Have some fucking self-respect, people.

Lucille Bluth's Iconic 'Good For Her' - Arrested Development

ALT: Lucille Bluth's Iconic 'Good For Her' - Arrested Development

static.klipy.com

Hoodlum 🇺🇸@nothoodlum.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A bear was caught red-handed breaking into a parked U-Haul van in North Carolina and making off with a bag in its mouth. abcnews.com/video/133461...

The government really will do absolutely anything except just raising taxes a bit and using it to fund public services at a level where they stop disintegrating, won't it?

East Asian Studies is being gutted at Sheffield - all staff at risk with 8.6 FTE proposed to go (a third of us). Biggest cuts in Chinese and Japanese Studies. We’ll be taking a few days to process. Solidarity to Materials and Chemistry colleagues who are also dealing with similarly bad news.

Still some places left for this online workshop on presenting the history of the British Empire, Mon 1st June: onlineshop.sussex.ac.uk/product-cata...

but let's face it, getting wound up by obvious American trolling about British food is not a good use of anyone's time

#Ukraine Depuis cette nuit, les vagues ce succèdent sur l’Ukraine : À 8h, on était à 139 drones (111 revendiqués par la DCA). Et depuis des dizaines de plus… Les alertes se succèdent sur les grandes villes du pays.

For further context: almost everyone in the Faculty of Arts is at risk of redundancy. Music, Modern Languages & American & Canadian Studies courses to close completely. History will not close but staff numbers will be significantly reduced. This is what 'right-sizing' looks like, apparently.

Onni Gust@onnigust.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Every single member of the History Department at Uni of Nottingham is at risk of redundancy. Every single one of us.

"Hochstapelei: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Täuschung im 20. Jahrhundert" erscheint im Herbst im @verbrecherverlag.bsky.social , herausgegeben von Michael Homberg, Thomas Werneke und mir und basierend auf unserem Workshop am @zzfpotsdam.bsky.social. www.verbrecherverlag.de/shop/18184/

This is so true.

Musa Okwonga@okwonga.bsky.social · 3mo ago

At some point there needs to be a *proper* conversation about how cruelty has become a new normal for so many people. And we can't just keep putting it down to structures. Too many people with plenty of agency are actively choosing this.

💬 "Depuis 2006, le 10 mai est la journée nationale de la traite, de l'esclavage et de leur abolition. Mais la création de cette journée ne s’est cependant pas déroulée sans encombre." ( @ilotem.bsky.social ) 👇 ehne.fr/fr/encyclope... 🤝 @lettres-sorbonne.bsky.social @aphg.fr

Journée nationale des mémoires de l’esclavage et de ses abolitions - 10 mai (Le)

ehne.fr

At last a thread that made me think rather than just react with pure outrage at something/someone/anything.

derek guy@dieworkwear.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Pierre Bourdieu once argued that the question of whether something is art isn't answered by the artist's intention or even the object itself. Instead, the quality of being "art" is conferred by a community — curators, dealers, auction houses, audiences, etc. 🧵

Novo número da Práticas da História! Leiam, partilhem.

Práticas da História@pdh-journal.bsky.social · 3mo ago

📖🔓 #PdH21 is now online! This special issue, edited by Maria da Conceição Neto and João Lourenço, is dedicated to the theme "History and Memory: Epistemological Reinterpretation of Africa's Past in a Post-Colonial Context" praticasdahistoria.pt #openaccess #openaccessjournal