There's a funeral on campus today for a long-retired academic, and I just met a former student of theirs who'd travelled some way to get here, having been taught by this lecturer in 1966, and I'm really touched.
Timothy C. Baker
@timothycbaker.bsky.social
Lectures on Scottish and contemporary literature, writes about animals, tries to be hopeful. He/they. Currently trying to open a cinema in Aberdeen.
What if I developed a big crush on Rock Hudson? What then?!
Great to see the Guardian champion the SHAPE (Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) subjects, but this piece gives impression that they are expensive, whereas many are 'cheap to teach' subjects subsidising more expensive subjects, mainly in STEM and medicine. The crisis demands better understanding.
The Guardian view on humanities cuts in universities: academic departments are more than cost centres | Editorial
Editorial: Literature, the arts and social sciences must not be sacrificed as higher education funding is squeezed
theguardian.com
Resetting the pressure on your boiler might not seem like the sort of task that'd lead to self-congratulatory posts, but my boiler is apparently so old there are no instructions for an even vaguely similar model on the internet, so that was a tense twenty minutes of experimentation.
I'm spending my evening reading Albert Murray for the first time (The Omni-Americans, which is brilliant) and listening to Napalm Death for the first time (the new Tiny Desk concert), and this world contains multitudes.
In perhaps our most devastating briefing we find early career staff in the humanities as a whole have declined by 20% since 2016/17. Between 23/24 and 24/25 early career staff across all SHAPE subject areas fell by 6%, (from 52,795 to 49,410 FPE). That is the pipeline for our disciplines
Random Scottish music recommendation: the first single by Peplo, which has 25 views on YouTube and is pretty great. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyI0...
For His Better Three Quarters
YouTube video by Peplo - Topic
youtube.com
It's kind of embarrassing how excited I am whenever anyone in the public sphere acknowledges what's going on in my sector.
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 3w ago‘Thousands of university job cuts in humanities and social sciences are creating widespread cold spots for languages, classics and theology degrees, the British Academy has warned’ www.theguardian.com/education/20...
One of the less-acknowledged consequences of widespread student AI use is breaking down trust between teacher and student. (Some) students perceive their job as being to fool their teachers; (some) teachers perceive their job as being to catch their students.
Very deep in spreadsheets of doom, and desperate to use my literary brain, I went to the library, picked up a volume of poetry by a poet I'd not heard of, and which had no information on the cover, and am reading it completely devoid of any context. It's super fun.
Your annual reminder that wheelchair doubles is by far the most exciting tennis played at Wimbledon. (I love watching the smaller courts in week two in general.)
This is your occasional reminder that Agatha Christie wasn't just the bestselling crime writer of all time but also she had a surfboard called Fred
Having one of those days where everything about modern life, particularly in relation to universities, seems completely catastrophic and really wondering if I made the right choices 25 years ago.
Katherine Stiles@katherinestiles.org · 4w ago· #AcademicSky · #EduSky · #AI · #AIHumanizerTool · New AI ‘humanizer’ tool tailored for “papers and grant proposals” released
First they came for the languages. In the hope that no one would have the words to say what was happening. 1/9🧵
University of Aberdeen's plans to cut modern language degrees were 'rushed' - review
The University of Aberdeen says it accepts there were "missteps" in its process in 2023.
bbc.co.uk
Obviously the humanities are for everyone, but sitting at graduation today I was so proud that there is still a place for queer/neurodivergent/awkward/etc students. So much university rhetoric is focused on what students can do, and I mainly want to see who they can be.
Reading a novel set in 1911 and they're drinking Whitman's Instantaneous Cocoa, and I don't know why I find that so funny. (Maud Hart Lovelace's Carney's House Party, which is possibly the best representation of Vassar I've come across in fiction, and I've read a lot of them!)
Is there a more instantly tantalising beginning to a book than the first page of the diaries of the Radnorshire clergyman Francis Kilvert, from the 1870s?
I appreciate the previous reader of this library book using sticky notes with squirrels.
No week that ends with new singles from Phoebe Bridgers, Carly Rae Jepsen, and PJ Harvey can be all bad, much as this one has tried!
Taking a break from administrative horrors to read, at last, Sinykin and Winant's Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century (because sometimes you just have to do something with the teaching and research parts of your job), and yet seeing contributors there I know are now at risk of redundancy...
"There’s a wider sorrow, too, and it’s watching waste... Watching departments, indeed whole faculties, built up with so much taxpayers’ money just cave in because of the whims of a mere here-today, gone-tomorrow fashion for markets." @gsoh31.bsky.social states it perfectly.
What Does It Feel Like to Live Under the Threat of Redundancy?
by Glen O’Hara
isrf.org
The background here is inspired by the Sir Duncan Rice Library at the University of Aberdeen, which is so darn cool.
PittodriePride@pittodriepride.bsky.social · last mo.Bit more of a sexy photo here
Starlog was a mainstay of my childhood reading, and under this editorship?!?! I'm sold.
Annalee Newitz@annaleen.bsky.social · last mo.That's right, friends! STARLOG is back and I'm the editor-in-chief. We have so much good stuff for you in our first issue, coming this November!! Science! Sci-fi! Fantastic weirdness! Plus you can subscribe now to our podcast hosted by @jhoffman.bsky.social and @da7e.com!
Academics are obviously sad about the collapse of universities; the press and wider public somewhere between apathetic and pleased (on the belief that this will lead to more apprenticeships), but has anyone asked students? They should matter most, and I can't think of a single mention.
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
Stephen Shapiro@stephenshapiro.bsky.social · last mo.UK to Universities: drop dead archive.is/PN5y7
None of us is safe until all of us are safe
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last mo.Outside permanent posts at Cambridge and Oxford, there are no safe spaces. Accepting that is an essential step toward resisting it. Likewise, there are no safe disciplines/subjects. Thinking strategically demands thinking with solidarity.
I just read May Sarton's The Small Room, which is the best and truest campus novel I've encountered and has reignited my enthusiasm for reading, which has been a bit lagging lately. She wrote 53 books! I've read two! I'm so excited!