I’m having a break from social media for a few weeks. Contact me on WhatsApp or my Oxford email if you would like to be in touch.

This year's Duncan Tanner Prize is now open! If you're a PGR/ECR working on an article on modern British history do consider entering! Deadline Sept 1st. #skystorians 🗃️ academic.oup.com/tcbh/pages/e...

The Duncan Tanner Prize

The Duncan Tanner Prize recognizes outstanding scholarship amongst postgraduate research students in Britain and abroad. Entrants submit an article manuscript.

academic.oup.com

Happy to make the queer pilgrimage to Edward Carpenter and George Merrill's old house in Millthorpe. It's surprising there's no plaque

Why is the BBC not focusing on these lobbyists, instead of reporting fantasy politics being pumped out by Reform to grab the headlines and distract us from the emergency, during a deeply worrying August.

Josiah Mortimer@josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 3w ago

Politico: "The PM is already coming under pressure on all sorts of environmental issues … like considering cutting the target for new electric vehicles to as little as 50% of all new cars in 2030 (down from 80%) I fear caving to car makers on this will cost us all - inc car makers - in the long run

Addendum, to brighten your feed: Day Release at Milton Park features artwork by Oxford artist Lisa Made it. Her other works include East Oxford's Flower Lane mural.

Oxford Clarion@oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 3w ago

Multi award-winning Oxford social enterprise Tap Social Movement has opened Day Release, an all-day café, bar, and community space at Signal Yard, Milton Park's new £14 million social and retail destination. It is the organisation's fourth community venue, and largest to date.

Intrigued by Alfred Lord Tennyson's chaotic business decisions

‘Oh shit’ was the immediate reaction. Ht @joqatana.bsky.social

R.U. Sirius@rusirius.bsky.social · 3w ago

🎓 Heading back to university? Explore new ideas and classic literature with our recommended reading list of Very Short Introductions and Oxford World’s Classics. Enjoy 10% off on Bookshop! US: oxford.ly/4qisSEu UK: oxford.ly/4htOjjD

Presenter: [The argument was put that DEI advanced people not on merit] Woolley: "There are 975 Professors at Cambridge. How many do you think are black? Paddy O'Connell: "Its a fair question you're asking me. So I am going to say 30%" Woolley: "I tell you: less than half a per cent"

A former director of BBC News speaks:

Richard Sambrook@sambrook.eurosky.social · 3w ago

BBC’s coverage of Reform’s welfare plans is frankly bizarre. Headlines in Ten, leading on some radio networks. Reform are not even the official opposition and the plans have less credibility than Count Binface. Will BBC News do the same for Lib Dem and Greens policy two years out from an election?

A brief note for Nadhim Zahawi.

"This is not generosity. It is suicidal empathy" writes Robert Jenrick (Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08...) quotes in para 3 of the BBC report, with a link. "Suicidal empathy" is also the core phrase Elon Musk wants to popularise to promote remigration, political violence + civil war

My local fire service have handled an exhausting number of serious fires this last two months, including one a mile from me, and have asked for donations to the firefighters charity. Firefighters suffer physical and mental distress from their work. www.firefighterscharity.org.uk/give-support...

‘One​ morning in October 1552, Felix Platter left his hometown of Basel for Montpellier, where he was to study medicine. He was fifteen years old. Things started to happen to him, and he wrote them down in his daybook.’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on a Renaissance diary. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Erin Maglaque · Green into Gold: A Renaissance Diary

One​ morning in October 1552, Felix Platter left his hometown of Basel for Montpellier, where he was to study medicine...

lrb.co.uk

Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel is stoking anti-Muslim prejudice with juvenile trolling of Britain as "an Islamic Republic", that plays mainly to the American far right www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Benjamin Netanyahu describes UK as ‘first Islamic republic to get a nuclear weapon’

Israeli PM criticised by political rival for attacking an international ally and overseeing ‘horrific diplomatic failure’

theguardian.com

This article is rich in primary research, drawing on multiple archives: well worth reading if you’re interested in Loy’s cultural context in Florence.

Jennifer Ashby@jenniferashby.bsky.social · last mo.

Delighted to share that my article on Mina Loy's conversion to Christian Science in Florence around 1909 has been published in Feminist Modernist Studies! Thanks to @euilibrary.bsky.social, the article is Open Access so is free to read & download (see below): doi.org/10.1080/2469...

I hate that we have let the nastiest racists on earth define and redefine our language. From "woke" to "DEI." Trump's policies are not anti-DEI. They are racist. US firms did not abandon DEI policies. They fired competent black women in droves on the basis of race and sex.

Ian Johnson@mrianjohnson.bsky.social · 3w ago

DEI means recruiting the best candidates and appealing to the widest possible customer base - which results show is good for people, and for business www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Sure the country’s on fire, most of it is in drought, people are dying, drowning, off work with heat stroke, the railways have buckled and trains have derailed, we’re in the grip of a fifth heatwave, and it’s cost the economy £4bn, BUT…is net zero really worth the cost?!

Two junior research fellowships @kingscollege.bsky.social opening soon due on Oct 1st. The theme is REPLICATION conceived broadly to encompass different research projects in humanities and social sciences. As a philosopher of science I am esp hoping for applications in #philsci #metascience #hps

Current research opportunities

kings.cam.ac.uk

Ironclad surveillance dictum: any failure of surveillance tech will be used as a rationale for more surveillance tech, and any success of surveillance tech will also be used as a rationale for more surveillance tech.

Exclusive: The Founders of Flock Say Their Surveillance Tech Would’ve Solved the Nancy Guthrie Case

In their first joint interview at the company’s sleek but rather deserted HQ in Atlanta, Flock cofounders Garrett Langley and Paige Todd deflect all the criticism and lament that they haven’t megaphon...

vanityfair.com

So here we go then: the result of many years thinking about how dinosaurs make science and the imagination work together. It's written for both literary critics and scientists and my dearest hope is that it will help foster an academy where we talk to each other more

My god, what an image. Dead kings in a plastic box, carried off as the world burns.

Reuters@reuters.com · 3w ago

Spain removes remains of 11th century kings from monastery as wildfire rages reut.rs/4zAAN4r

“I leafleted for Reform a couple of years ago but they were not nice people… Oh, have you seen Andy Burnham’s TikTok?” Spent 5 hours trying to do a 1 hour (cancelled) train journey back to London yesterday. Ended up with two teenage mechanical apprentices joining the mission. They taught me a LOT.

It shouldn't even be possible to think of education as a 'waste of time'. It gets me down how many students see their degree only as an investment that they'll see financial returns on in the future. Getting away from this attitude needs, in my view, to be the overall guiding goal

Ewan Gibbs@ewangibbs.bsky.social · 3w ago

Just remember this message is aimed at your children not theirs.

Just remember this message is aimed at your children not theirs.

It was noticeable that Lee Anderson had abandoned this claim on Radio 4 this morning, saying instead that Farage wanted to celebrate with "real people". Farage has a history of making these lurid claims (like his phone being hacked by Russians) then dropping them when they've served their purpose.

Adam Bienkov@adambienkov.bsky.social · 3w ago

Nigel Farage suggests the police advised him against attending the result of the Clacton by-election. Essex Police completely deny this, telling the BBC "we have a proportionate and robust policing operation to ensure the safety and security of all participants in the count"

I’ve packed away my books, so I can’t jog my memory. I’m looking for a piece of fiction (ideally short story, novel, play) where there is an unspecified physical illness *but* crucially, not being able to know what it is isn’t the plot. Anything come to mind?

We never write history just once. Any person or group who thinks they can get to a “best version” of history and then be done does not understand anything about history, historiography, archives, or data.

Riley Bruce@rileybruce.bsky.social · 3w ago

What’s a thing from your area of expertise (or special interest) that you think it would behoove everyone else to know?

The fact there’s multiple dickheads giving £5 million to racist wasters tells you we don’t tax these fuckers anywhere near enough

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · 3w ago

Racist loser Laurence Fox got 27 times fewer votes than Binface. That £5 million Jeremy Hosking gave him really paying off.

There should be greater recognition of the extent - & the lawfulness - of racial discrimination in Britain until the 1960s And of people like Asquith Xavier who resisted and overturned racist policies The struggle for civil rights & race equality was a British not just an American phenomenon

Asquith Xavier: Euston's first Black rail guard gets blue plaque

Asquith Xavier was initially refused a guard's job because of the discriminatory "colour bar" but challenged the decision.

bbc.co.uk