Alex Shepard
@shepardalex.bsky.social
Feminist historian Widowed parent Figuring out how to live well Lover of good coffee and chocolate
I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.
There’s “off the charts” and there’s France’s absolutely bonkers June & July 2026 temperatures (see black line below). Bad things are happening. Fast.
If soccer should never be for sale, why do we allow land, food, healthcare, housing, education, and everything else we need to be sold?
Please share! A rare PhD studentship @kingshistory.bsky.social *fully* funded by @slaveryinwar.bsky.social to work with myself and Maeve Ryan, supported by a broader community of experts in Caribbean history, transatlantic slavery, and the history of war. www.kcl.ac.uk/study/fundin... 🗃️
AHRC Studentship: Slavery and the Seven Years’ War within and across the Caribbean Archipelago | King's College London
The Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War (CRSW) is pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded AHRC doctoral studentship, to be jointly supervised across History and War Studies
kcl.ac.uk
‘We urge the Government to prioritise this issue. Should this situation continue unchecked, the damage to the health of higher education, research and innovation will be profound and have long-lasting consequences.’ www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/stateme...
British Academy President: UK higher education crisis risks irreversible damage
As course closures, shrinking provision and widening regional inequalities threaten the future of UK higher education and research, President of the British Academy, Susan J Smith calls for an immedia...
thebritishacademy.ac.uk
'What is perhaps remarkable about the Exeter cuts is that they are targeted at some of the university’s most successful departments, many of which turn over a profit even after they have made enormous and increasing contributions to the central university budget.' Read, rage and weep.
The Crisis in Britain’s Universities
The cuts that have been proposed at the University of Exeter demonstrates the crisis of purpose in Britain’s universities. Should not universities also be places to prepare for "eternal dwellings"?
johnheathershaw.substack.com
Being at Chalke History Festival reminds me yet again how interconnected university-based history and other forms of history-making are. The thing we do in one place explicitly supports the thing we do in another. University cuts, closures and job losses harm the entire history eco-system.
Advocating for History by Doing History - On History
This blog was written by Claire Langhamer, Director of the IHR Historians are very good at crafting arguments and in recent times very many people have advanced very many arguments about why history m...
blog.history.ac.uk
the media and voter messaging should be this: the current government and the government in waiting do not want your children to be able to go to university, they will not support people in the UK to do original research, they do not care about job losses in one of the largest sectors in the economy
Lucy Burke@lucyburkemcr.bsky.social · last mo.It’s wild that politicians don’t seem to grasp the degree to which universities contribute to the economy- local, regional, national. The failure to intervene is a stain on this govt - a shocking dereliction of duty to every worker, every local business, every student, every area that is suffering
A grim day in a grim week in a grim month for UK higher education, with Dundee, Exeter and Hertfordshire all making major announcements of planned redundancies. Shrinkage of the research & teaching base by the invisible hand's visible fist is not an 'us' or 'them', SHAPE or STEM phenomenon. 1/2
The Brexit disaster in charts. National Bureau of Economic Research paper shows UK GDP per capita is today 6% to 8% lower than it would have been if Britain had remained in the EU. @rjpartington.bsky.social
How Brexit has made Britain poorer – in charts
Forecasters were wrong about an immediate recession but right that we would be worse off outside the EU
theguardian.com
30 women killed since 2020 in Northern Ireland "Nobody rioted over their murders." #Farage #Trump #Musk #Reform #Restore #TommyRobinson #EDL #FarageRiots
Lauren Dobson-Hughes@ldobsonhughes.bsky.social · 2mo agoThese are the 30 women killed since 2020 in Northern Ireland, all by white men 21 killed in their homes by men they knew. The youngest 20, the oldest 82 21 were mothers, 4 were killed with their children in the home. Two were pregnant Nobody rioted over their murders www.bbc.com/news/article...
'It offers a set of bold policy proposals, including hefty wealth taxes on billionaires, sharp reductions in working hours, a change in diets and a shift of investment from materially intense sectors like industry and mining to education and health.' 2/3
Global Justice Report: the World Inequality Lab maps a path to €5,000-a-month average incomes for all countries within +1.8°C of warming - WID - World Inequality Database
Global Justice Report: the World Inequality Lab maps a path to €5,000-a-month average incomes for all countries within +1.8°C of warming The newly released Global Justice Report sets out a new vision ...
wid.world
We are stronger, and better historians, together. Historical societies abound in the UK, and we've listed 150 with BlueSky accounts in this updated Starter Pack. go.bsky.app/AZaYQDd Other societies appear on a new listing of subject societies on the RHS website bit.ly/4ebwP9r #Skystorians
“Westminster needs to wake up…” An important statement from the RHS today on the unfolding situation in UKHE.
Royal Historical Society@royalhistsoc.org · 3mo agoThe Society's President and Council have released the following statement on the proposed closure of undergraduate degrees at the University of Hertfordshire, in #History and the wider humanities bit.ly/4dmV5oO This comes at a time of further bad news from Essex and Nottingham #Skystorians
While we are transfixed by the antics of our supposed "leaders", a catastrophe of astonishing proportions has been creeping up on us. Climate scientists now believe it is more likely than not to happen, and soon. This week's column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
A catastrophic climate event is upon us. Here is why you’ve heard so little about it | George Monbiot
Scientists say a crucial Atlantic system is set to collapse. But the billionaire death cult that steers humanity’s destiny just doesn’t do existential crises, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
theguardian.com
To be frank, History & Policy is struggling to find a precedent for this. But we’re waiting to hear back from Suetonius who’s promised us a policy paper.
This is not a 'masculinity crisis', it's a misogyny crisis. This is not a problem with 'masculinity'-- millions of men model positive masculinity every day. This is a problem of male violence. Stop calling it 'masculinity'. www.theguardian.com/education/20...
A ‘masculinity crisis’ is brewing in UK schools, union says
Misogynistic abuse of female staff is increasing, leaving teachers feeling ‘traumatised’ and ‘humiliated’
theguardian.com
Applications are open for any students, undergraduate or post-grad, to register for the Humanities International Summer School at University of Glasgow in June-July 2026. Please share with interested students. More information in the clip. youtu.be/b3XYBhnETcA?...
International Summer School / University of Glasgow
YouTube video by University of Glasgow
youtu.be
Wonderful job opportunities coming up in Berlin!
Ketil Slagstad@slagstadk.bsky.social · 6mo agoCome work with us! Two fully funded 36-month PhD positions in the history of medicine at Charité Berlin. The positions are part of the EU-funded Gender Insight network researching biopsychosocial aspects of diverse hormonal transitions. Deadline 28 Feb 2026 #histmed genderinsight.eu
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli... This has now been conformed. The resident (junior) doctors of the BMA have condemned the Supreme Court judgement as "scientifically illiterate" and reached without sufficient expert and stakeholder input. The BMA as a whole will take a position in June.
Doctors condemn Supreme Court ruling on trans women as ‘scientifically illiterate’
The resident doctors’ wing of the BMA argued that a binary divide between sex and gender ‘has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender-diverse people’
independent.co.uk
Our response to the recent Supreme Court ruling ‘For Women Scotland Ltd. v. The Scottish Ministers’: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Response to Supreme Court ruling ‘For Women Scotland Ltd
Response to Supreme Court ruling ‘For Women Scotland Ltd. V. The Scottish Ministers’ Centre for Gender History, 02/05/2025 The Centre for Gender History at the University of Glasgow expresses dismay...
docs.google.com
