Catching up on the Big Academic News™️ and my main takeaway is... are hiring committees not actually reading applicants' work?

Was reading George Gissing's New Grub Street (1891) before bed last night and dreamed that I was absolutely fighting for Jamie Lee O'Donnell to be cast as Marian in a TV adaptation... which is a frankly bananas choice. So who are we casting? And why the fuck hasn't it been adapted into a miniseries?

So 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)

Tickets are now available for Chartism Day 2026. The £12 ticket price includes refreshments and a light buffet lunch (plus all the Chartism you can eat). All are welcome. #C19th #History #Chartism www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chartism-d...

Chartism Day 2026

Join us to discover the latest research on Chartism and get the chance to meet fellow Chartist scholars and enthusiasts. All welcome.

eventbrite.co.uk

Using this to remind folk that I am available for freelance and part-time projects! I am very qualified and competent; please hire me to teach, research, edit, or administrate so that I can afford my wedding.

will pooley@willpooley.bsky.social · 2w ago

youve heard of failing upwards. well academic careers in 2026 encapsulate the reverse: succeeding downwards. so many talented, highly qualified people, being punished for their achievements

In an attempt to cut costs in my skincare routine, I have replaced my The Ordinary retinol serum with Superdrug's own brand. Unfortunately the latter smells like fresh porridge, which had the effect of making me hungry, awake, and craving blueberries when applying it before bed.

Reflecting on a wonderful three days at #RSVP2026 @rs4vp.org. It's a scholarly community that is welcoming and collegial, and devoted to supporting scholarship at all levels and from all different paths. My heart is full and my brain is buzzing after needing out with friends old and new.

My heart is warmed (literally) to be in a packed room for the panel on Masculinity and the Working Classes (mostly Chartism!) for the last session of @rs4vp.org #RSVP2026 #PrintInMotion!

@jessicaotoole.bsky.social asks what undisciplining can look like in practice. Had never heard the term! Here's a definition: “a liberating act of temporarily suspending disciplinary regimes and practices in order to develop creative research (questions, ideas, and approaches)” #RSVP2026

Absolutely loving Francesca Colonnese's paper on media reports of Robert Browning's wax cylinder reporting, in which periodicals promoted both Browning's poetic legacy and the new technology of Edison's phonograph. @rs4vp.org #RSVP2026 #MovementsAndMigrations #PrintInMotion

I loved doing this work - super excited to develop it further and to get feedback from Cobbe scholars!

Marie Léger-St-Jean@marielsj.bsky.social · 3w ago

Collab between @vjctorianist.bsky.social & @emilyjlm.bsky.social based on their work on the Curran Index! Vic went through scrapbooks in which Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904) copy-pasted her anonymous journalism Cobbe also collected her anon articles from *The Echo* in *Re-Echoes* (1877) #RSVP2026

Day 2 of @rs4vp.org #MovementsandMigrations #PrintinMotion in Dublin. I'm at panel 3B, Uneven Mobilities this morning.

Settling in for the first panel of @rs4vp.org #MovementsAndMigrations in fabulous Dublin! Looking forward to the range of ECR papers in 1D, Tracking Change in Print: Food, News, and Politics.

for the next hydration break france have chosen a 2003 sancerre, let's see if that helps

Preparing for @rs4vp.org's #Dublin conference soon by asking the important questions: where can I get dinner/a pint of Guinness that won't bankrupt me?

Could someone please explain to the @nytimes.com that if we stopped to celebrate every country that has broken free from our tyrannical grasp, we’d never get any work done. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/04/w...

In Britain, July 4 Is Mostly Just a Saturday

nytimes.com

Today on the timeline I'm seeing a lot of thinkpieces on "American independence" and "politics" and not on "happy 33rd birthday Vic" so wtf is up with that?

Really good of all the job adverts to come out in the same two-week period of already having one bajillion things to do... and annoying that one can't list 'applying for this job' as an example of managing multiple projects with competing deadlines while executing work to a high standard.

My parents are visiting from Australia, but my partner and I have to work this week. They could visit some of the brilliant museums, parks, and gardens of West Yorkshire, or go for a walk on the moors. Instead, my dad has gone to B&Q and my mum is doing up our front garden.

We are dismayed to learn about further proposed HE cuts, this time at the University of Hertfordshire and the University of Exeter. In solidarity, please join us by signing and sharing the two urgent petitions below. 🚨🖊️ 1/3

Also working-class autodidacts didn't just read alone - they read in groups, set up libraries and reading rooms, and battled for Mechanics' Institutes (many long ago merged into unis) to teach music, history, and politics. They built the public adult education infrastructure that's being destroyed

Peter Whitewood@pwhitewood.bsky.social · last mo.

This misses the point. Self-education has become more accessible in the last 20 years than at any point in history, though not through ‘amateur reading’. The problem isn’t access to information but learning how to evaluate it critically - and that brings us back to universities (and Humanities)

zeitung.faz.net/data/863/rea...

At my partner's mum's for a long weekend and, on her behalf, I'd like to apologise to anyone else in Sheffield who was planning to buy ice lollies.

hello! Universities where this 'rational look at SSR' is happening: ask whether the spreadsheet about 'financial performance' measures something else beyond student numbers. Nous has a tendency to forget to check *how much it costs* to run a module. They forget the cost of labs and fancy equipment.

Elsa Devienne @elsadevienne.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Northumbria's announcement (30 people to go by end of July, 10 of whom from Humanities) is maybe less egregious than Exeter's, but the pattern is the same: Humanities are disproportionately targeted for reasons that do not align with a rational look at the situation (student staff ratios) 3/?

It's a great day for pedantic historians of British politics

Do you think as the spouse of a Prime Minister you’d get the ick having to watch them resign on the street

Being self-employed as a historian of labour and trade unions is a crazy experience. Labour relations become very muddled when you are your own employer and employee, let alone your own accountant, secretary, marketing & comms officer, HR rep, quality assurance... the list goes on.

My new short article is now out in no. 3-4, vol. 59 of @pop-jrnl.bsky.social. In the piece, I reflect on the experience of designing & delivering what was *probably* the first module on whiteness in modern British history in a UK university history department. The module is running again in 2026-27.

Working out whiteness in modern British history

Liburd’s Commentary considers the place of whiteness in the teaching and research of modern British history. It does so through a reflection on the experience of designing and delivering ‘The White...

tandfonline.com

#OtD 16 Jun 1836 the London Working Men's Association was formed by a cabinetmaker, two printworkers and a publisher. They laid the foundations for the Chartist movement, the first nationwide mass working-class movement in Britain stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8797...

It seems a good day to remind people that in the UK 3 times as many people work in Indian restaurants or for McDonalds as in the whole coal and steel industry. 5 times as many are academic staff at universities. If Labour does not understand its electorate, there is no way to appeal to it.