J. Michelle Coghlan
@jmcoghlan.bsky.social
C19 literary critic & cultural historian. Author of Louise Michel in America (Rutgers UP 2027) + Sensational Internationalism. Editor of NY: A Literary Anthology + the CC to Literature and Food. UCU NEC member. She/her. https://www.j-michelle-coghlan.com
Few people understand that the UK university system is in crisis, but even fewer realise that many of the people losing their jobs are amongst the best in their fields
Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 4d agoSo it's farewell to the History subject area at the University of Hertfordshire, not the first nor the last to go. One of the best departments in the country, just extinguished like a snap of the fingers. Think of the waste. (1/2)
"more fantasies of the good life need to be invented. turning the present from hunger to fantasies of better making do, that is the obligation of the Left." Berlant
Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 2w agothat was such a great conversation, here's a different one: from 1976-2026, best, fave, more interesting, most significant TV, film, or lit representing "the good life" however you conceive it procedural, realism, comedy, utopia, any genre or style and emphasis on the fictional
Happy Birthday, James Baldwin, who was born today in 1924. Baldwin was a writer and activist who was known for his work exploring race in America. I covered his life and legacy on the show in 2023 - check it out if you haven’t yet!
Those who believe things like this are working hard at not understanding the finite options available to someone whose abuser has not been prosecuted, found guilty, etc. by the law. And how rarely those things happen to abusers, esp. high-status white male abusers.
The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · 3d agoRep. Max Miller: "These are incredibly serious criminal accusations. If these accusations were true, I would be in jail — I would be. My former wife would not have been offering to cook me dinner and inviting me to playgrounds. Think about that."
That's weird, because a whole discourse happened where we were all told drinking was super normal and anyone asking questions was a gross communist who didn't understand? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
‘MPs have had their stomachs pumped’: concerns over ‘alcohol-soaked’ culture in Westminster
Alcohol is embedded in profession where long hours, loneliness and lobbying are the norm, report finds
theguardian.com
A long read on "Nousferatu" from the University of Exeter academic perspective, but ranging much more widely. Verhoeven & Eltham on "Nousferatu" (2023): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Inside Britain's university crisis
As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter
democracyforsale.substack.com
Often my academic friends ask how they can help when they learn how Texas is restricting teaching and denying tenure. The answer: Join AAUP. Your dues—small as they are (~$30)—help build collective power to fight for legislation, policy, and in the courts for students, faculty, & staff. Join us!
Harvard paid McKinsey a quarter of a mill to tell them to sack loads of people in Arts and Hums! Nice work if you can get it! 🤡 www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
Harvard Paid McKinsey $250,000 For FAS Consultation, Internal Documents Show | News | The Harvard Crimson
Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.
thecrimson.com
Glad someone senior from the sector is pushing back. Labour MPs need to understand the serious real anger from graduates and the people who produce them. And the dangerous financial situation they have allowed to fester, or indeed worsened, in one of Britain’s leading sectors.
Labour has harmed universities as much as Trump, London School of Economics head says
LSE vice-chancellor Larry Kramer points to domestic student fees freeze, international student limits and rise in employers’ national insurance
ft.com
‘In one place after another, policies aimed at sustaining families produced new inequalities. Such inequalities were magnified by the hegemony of the car. ’ Susan Pedersen on the modern British city. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Susan Pedersen · Worker, Hipster, Banker: Modern British Cities
Deindustrialisation was not a long, slow process but a very quick one, erasing whole occupations and transforming one...
lrb.co.uk
1. @robdelaney.bsky.social is the best read and smartest person in Hollywood/London 2. The dizzying adrenaline of talking about Moby-Dick with him every day was amazing and I think is contagious if you subscribe to the podcast?!? 3. Our digressions are EPIC and rival Melville's 4. 🐳 4 life
Rob Delaney@robdelaney.bsky.social · 5d ago1. This was so fun to make I almost threw up every day. 2. This is the trailer on YouTube if that’s how you’ve chosen to live your life: youtu.be/IZYZaRWwYR4?... 3. I’d be super grateful to anyone who reposted the post above. 4. Have any Qs about it for me? I’ll endeavor to answer! 5. Get in!🚣🏾♀️
And Research England released QR grant allocations for 2026-27 yesterday, so everyone can see what research income will flow into their university based on REF results. Get clicking. www.ukri.org/publications...
Research England payment profiles for grant allocations
The timing of Research England payments of allocated grant funding to individual higher education providers.
ukri.org
Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard put her body on the line to protect students fighting for Gaza & police assaulted her. Instead of protecting her, UC Irvine has stripped her faculty role & her health benefits. Please sign petition, write a letter, signal boost robindgkelley.substack.com/p/in-support...
In Support of Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard
Most academics in the U.S., as well as activists resisting the genocide in Gaza, are familiar with the case of Professor Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, a renowned Global Studies scholar at the University ...
robindgkelley.substack.com
Little by little, a picture is emerging – one that shows how Reform UK has been funded and by whom. Each new detail raises more questions for Farage and the coterie around him.
The tangled financial web at the heart of Reform UK
Nigel Farage’s £5m gift, the Cottrell family’s links and donations, and Richard Tice’s business dealings form part of an increasingly clear nexus of relationships
theguardian.com
One simple message - we could afford to do this everywhere, if we stopped pretending every council had to fund it out of their back pocket.
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 5d agoThis is interesting on Hammersmith and Fulham Council’s provision of free elderly home care. This is partly as they have a good tax base and relatively smaller number of older people. But by intervening earlier it also keeps costs down… www.thetimes.com/article/5aaa...
🐳 You’re God damned right @hesterblum.bsky.social & I made a TWENTY-FIVE EPISODE PODCAST just about 𝐌𝐎𝐁𝐘-𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐊. Subscribe now at exploringthegreats.com/moby-dick & enjoy our thrilling trailer:
Between the latest PMLA on Victorian Studies & Its Others and the recent issue of @victorianpoetry.bsky.social I’m not sure any Anglophone lit subfield is as full of critical self-reflection (complimentary!!) as Victorian studies right now. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Latest issue | PMLA | Cambridge Core
PMLA
cambridge.org
Here’s a fun thing I got to do today! Thanks, @sunsetandecho.bsky.social! avidly.org/first-senten...
First Sentence Fridays: Sari Altschuler - Avidly
First Sentence Fridays is a series focused on the style and experience of new books. About Before Disability: A History of American Citizenship: The history of
avidly.org
If they want a lot of books, MIT is closing three libraries 😑
404 Media@404media.co · 5d agoCiting backlash, ISBNdb removed its webpages about training AI, denied ever buying, scanning, or selling a book for AI training, and said the site was a "test of market interest."
‘“I thought about Alex Pretti because he was a nurse. He was helping someone up off the ground that had been shoved,” Bowe said.’
Candice Norwood@candicenorwood.bsky.social · 6d agoNorma Bowe, a nurse in New Jersey, runs a mobile health clinic that stops outside Delaney Hall detention center, where she provides blood pressure checks, stroke assessments and other care. Yesterday, she told me about the day she says she was assaulted by an ICE agent. My latest via @19thnews.org
Rachel Kuhn’s essay on the criminalization of pregnancy loss compares the legal proceedings of two women, who lived over two centuries apart. Kuhn argues that “Both women found themselves in a legal system willing to treat tragedy as evidence of criminality.” nursingclio.org/2026/07/29/p...
“Presumptive Testimony Only”: From Esther Davis to Patience Rousseau, Two Centuries of Criminalizing Pregnancy Loss
In summer 1802, a Baltimore jury convicted Esther Davis of murdering her newborn child. The newspapers that carried the story assured readers that the evidence against her was “clear and concise,” …
nursingclio.org
‘The Government Hopes To Set a Precedent’: An Interview With the Man Charged for Allegedly Wiping His GrapheneOS Phone www.404media.co/the-governme...?
‘The Government Hopes To Set a Precedent’: An Interview With the Man Charged for Allegedly Wiping His GrapheneOS Phone
The U.S. government has charged Samuel Tunick with allegedly typing in a passcode to wipe his phone before officers could search it. “I hope people understand that the charges against me are meant to ...
404media.co
Like, 'we must save Western civilisation' is another fig leaf that never gets any scrutiny in UK media. No questions from journalists, nothing like, 'You're speaking of key thinkers in Western civilisation like Marx and Engels, Butler, the Frankfurt school, and Wollstonecraft? Right?'
Nate O@nateo.bsky.social · last wk.Maybe whenever someone says 'some cultures are better than others' journalists should ask them to clarify which cultures, and if white English men rioting every summer these past few years may reflect broader white English culture
Every commentator saying too many kids go to university has to tell their own kid to not do a degree
Love a good prof slam: “It’s bewildering. It seemed weird and laughable,” Davis said of the indictment. “It felt like the length of the indictment was a cover for how thin it actually was. I’m a professor. I’ve seen people pad out papers when they’ve got nothing to say.”
The professor facing prison in ‘antifa’ case: ‘They want to scare all who oppose ICE’
Erik Davis is accused by the government of a ‘conspiracy’ to obstruct ICE – experts say it’s part of a pattern to criminalize lawful organizing and ruin activists’ lives
theguardian.com
Racists describing refugees to Britain as "Boat people" like our nation's most famous hobby wasn't using the boats of the British Navy to take over other countries. Like... British people are, very famously, boat people. We were boat people all over the world. It was our whole thing.
Dead or alive, Mitch McConnell is on extended medical leave — on your dime. This is the same Mitch McConnell who voted against: paid family and medical leave for everyone else.
'Abusive chanting against immigrants has become a feature of football matches in England, according to new data from Kick It Out.' 1/2
Abusive chanting against immigrants in English football on rise, new data reveals
Kick It Out data said reported incidents of all discrimination had reached a new high, while abuse in grassroots football rose for a fifth consecutive year
theguardian.com
#OtD 29 Jul 1968 riots rocked Seattle after a police raid on the local Black Panther Party HQ. Seattle BPP leaders Aaron Dixon and Curtis Harris were arrested for possession of a stolen typewriter but later acquitted. More about the BPP in these books: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...
