Prof. Catriona Pennell
@teachlearnwar.bsky.social
Prof. of Modern History & Memory Studies & Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Research & Impact HASS, University of Exeter | RHS Councillor 2025-29 | all views my own
HaSS Cornwall was delighted to welcome Prof Leith Davis from Simon Fraser University to Penryn campus, Kresen Kernow and Trebah Gardens. Dr Jim Kelly, Prof Joanie Willett and Prof Davis discussed exciting research and teaching collaboration possibilities around the theme of Celtic identity.
Congrats to the winners of the inaugural Tony Hibbert Prize. At a time when humanities subjects are asked to justify their value, the entries are the perfect answer to that challenge: creativity, curiosity, critical thinking & clear communication are qualities our society needs now more than ever.
University of Exeter Humanities and Social Sciences, Cornwall@hass-cornwall.bsky.social · 3w agoWonderful to celebrate the winners of the inaugural Tony Hibbert Prize at Trebah Garden on Saturday. Created by Prof. Catriona Pennell (@teachlearnwar.bsky.social) and HaSS Cornwall in partnership with the Hibbert family and Trebah Garden. @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social @exeter.ac.uk
Of interest to UK university #Skystorians: Royal Historical Society open online meeting on 'The crisis in UK higher education: The future for History'. 4 August 2-4 pm.
The Crisis in UK HE: the Future for History
An open meeting for historians in UK higher education on what is needed to best support and protect the profession and discipline.
eventbrite.co.uk
Institutions collaborating and co-operating as part of a wider structured system would be a better system than having competing institutions
Our huge double Special Issue, 17:1/2, is out now! Teaching the First World War for the Twenty-First Century – Pedagogies in Dialogue, eds Susan Grayzel, Ann-Marie Einhaus & @teachlearnwar.bsky.social has no fewer than 10 paired explorations of teaching the FWW www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfww20/c...
First World War Studies
Teaching the First World War for the Twenty-First Century – Pedagogies in Dialogue; Guest editors: Ann-Marie Einhaus, Susan R. Grayzel and Catriona Pennell. Volume 17, Issue 1-2 of First World War Studies
tandfonline.com
"So ... so I said ... why not sign your treaty here, at Versailles?"
Just finished at ‘Doing Impact With Care: Reparative Pedagogies, Futures, & Research Encounters’ - an AHRC/IAA funded workshop in Cardiff reflecting on our GCRF-funded EdJAM project (edjam.network). Many threads continue to run from this work: including two fantastic new books, almost published!
‘Poetry bears witness to what cameras cannot reach and numbers can never explain’
The Guardian view on literature in wartime: words do not stop when the bombing begins | Editorial
Editorial: Writers do not only document the horror of conflict; they speak to a future that must exist beyond it
theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
‘They are disturbing the dead’: reconstructing the site of the forgotten first genocide of the 20th century
At least 3,000 Herero and Nama people died in a German concentration camp at Shark Island, Namibia. A new forensic exhibition in Berlin is using digital technology to unearth how colonisers scarred a ...
theguardian.com
Excellent thread on UK uni sector risks, can vouch for the cardiff non-crisis
Andrew McGettigan@amcgettigan.bsky.social · 2mo agothere are other issues in the sector - but this is taxonomy of those facing insolvency. There are also institutions - e.g. Cardiff & Edinburgh - plagued by management paroxysms prompted by status anxiety. Those two have huge cash reserves ...
Enjoying the weather at Streatham Court before @exeter.ac.uk Prof. John Wedgwood Clarke’s inaugural lecture ‘Bright Containers: On bottles, Jars & Poetry’. Have brought Jago along for some creative inspiration in midst of half-term. Persuasion c/o promise of posh meal out afterwards #academicmum…
Day 2 of @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social ‘Science is Culture: Practicing Interdisciplinarity for Real-World Challenges’ starts with a gentle warm up & recap, incl. a reflection on positionality, imagination, & the potential constraints of background knowledge prompted by a 1967 photo of the Beatles 🥁🎸🎤
UKHE is collapsing - there is no serious intervention, no credible plan from the government. On the contrary: bold HE policies and real alternatives to the grim status quo are urgently needed if the UK wants to remain a knowledge economy and research power committees.parliament.uk/committee/20...
“A very serious problem”: No clear government plan for universities risking insolvency, MPs find in new report - Committees - UK Parliament
Today MPs on the Education Committee warn that the government has no clear plan for universities facing insolvency and that protections for students are inadequate, as the Committee publishes a new re...
committees.parliament.uk
Every single member of the History Department at Uni of Nottingham is at risk of redundancy. Every single one of us.
In July IWM London opens Childhood in War. This free exhibition shares children's view of war from more than 100 years. 450 million children live in conflict zones worldwide; their stories have never been more important. Read more here: www.iwm.org.uk/events/child...
Diwrnod diddorol a chynhyrchiol iawn hyd yn hyn @aberuni.bsky.social gyda haneswyr o bob cwr o Gymru. Y sesiwn foreol @librarywales.bsky.social ystyriodd addysgu ac ymchwil hanes Cymru, ac mae ein paneli prynhawn yn mynd i'r afael â moeseg hanes llafar a dulliau o ymdrin ag AI #Skystorians 1/2
A very interesting and productive day so far @aberuni.bsky.social with historians from across Wales. The morning session @librarywales.bsky.social considered the teaching and research of Welsh history, and our afternoon panels address the ethics of oral history and approaches to AI #Skystorians 1/2
'In a counterproposal to the university’s cost-saving plans...the UCU branch at Nottingham said that job losses on the scale suggested...could set the research-intensive, Russell Group institution on an “irreversible transition” towards becoming a teaching-led university.' 1/3
Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 3mo agoNottingham job cuts ‘pose systemic risks to research’, union warns. Research-intensive university told it risks “intellectual stagnation” as 2,700 staff put at risk of redundancy. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
We bring day 1/2 of @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social ‘Science is Culture’ event to an end with our Vice-Chancellor, Prof Lisa Roberts reminding us of how new knowledge will not emerge from a single discipline & that HASS is at the centre of the uni’s mission for a cleaner, fairer & healthier world.
And we’re off: our second - and biggest - interdisciplinary event, Science is Culture, has begun! Over two days @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social have brought colleagues together from across @exeter.ac.uk to explore cross-faculty responses to some of the biggest challenges we face in the world today.
Fantastic to see this article in The Guardian all about Belfastmen, @tomhulme.bsky.social's amazing new book on gay history in early 20th C. Northern Ireland, challenging assumptions & uncovering a range of complex experience 🌟 @qubhistory.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
‘Live and let live’: Northern Ireland historian uncovers surprising era of tolerance of gay men
Public records and private papers reveal compassion and tacit acceptance before ‘moral panic’ took hold in the 1950s and 1960s
theguardian.com
America has a long and well-established history of covering up massacres. Just saying... edition.cnn.com/2026/05/02/p...
‘We are killing them all over again’: Critics say history is being erased as Trump reshapes narratives at national parks | CNN Politics
At national parks, visitors will be confronted with changes enacted after Trump’s order to remove or replace narratives that “disparage” Americans.
edition.cnn.com
On protecting what matters. @ihr.bsky.social @royalhistsoc.org @histassoc.bsky.social History UK www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
Protecting What Matters: A joint statement by the Historical Association, History UK, Royal Historical Society and the IHR
Protecting what matters: A joint statement by the Historical Association, History UK, Royal Historical Society and the IHR
history.ac.uk
We are now closing our day visit to Warwick with a fascinating lecture by Professor Sasha Handley of the University of Manchester. Sasha’s lecture is a study of ghost stories and the meaning of a haunting at the Wesley family’s home in 1716-17.
A great day of meetings today @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social as part of @royalhistsoc.org Council concluding with a talk from @sashahandley.bsky.social on ghost stories and women’s lives in early modern England. And yes, followers, I got lunch with the legendary @purseigle.bsky.social
Off to @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social for my first in-person @royalhistsoc.org meeting since being elected to Council. Along with the usual agenda, we’re hosting a meeting of Independent Historians to understand how to better represent their interests. Looking forward to seeing old colleagues and new!
“As a history student, my world view was shaped by photo[s]: I saw the violence humans were capable of, & it horrified me…Being against war is like being against clouds – it’s so much part of human existence, & it always will be until it destroys the last of us & leaves only the cockroaches behind.”
The shot that shows the absurdity of war: Peter van Agtmael’s best photograph
‘US soldiers would look for “suspected terrorists” in Iraqi homes and usually find nothing. This could be my grandma’s living room – it shows that insane violence can continue amid normal life’
theguardian.com
