Will Tullett
@willtullett.bsky.social
He/him. Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at University of York. Books on 'Smell in Eighteenth-Century England' and 'Smell and the Past'. Sniff: A History of Smells out 8th September #smellhistory #smellstudies #sensoryhistory
Keep seeing men walking about wearing t shirts with Lancaster bombers on them. As in, I’ve seen 5 separate people in two days wearing different t shirts, but all with the same bomber on them. What’s that about. Are RAF WW2 heavy bombers ‘in’ this season…
U.S. publication day for A History of England in Twenty-Five Poems, with Pegasus Books. 🎉🎉 They picked a different author photo - looking suitably studious... www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Hist...
Historian-as-nose is a description I can get behind: the researcher with a finely-honed talent for picking out the individual aromas of the past - the scents that make up the bigger composition, the complexity of the flavours we find bottled up in our sources, and carefully evoking them in new words
Will Tullett@willtullett.bsky.social · yesterdayLove that, despite smell's long-running association with the baser, animalistic, aspects of life, it's also the sense we reach for to describe the 'non-algorithmic' human at the centre of our work. It brings us back to the warm, soft, body and problem of living, moving, and being in the world.
Love that, despite smell's long-running association with the baser, animalistic, aspects of life, it's also the sense we reach for to describe the 'non-algorithmic' human at the centre of our work. It brings us back to the warm, soft, body and problem of living, moving, and being in the world.
Will Tullett@willtullett.bsky.social · yesterdayThis argument is music to my ears.
This argument is music to my ears.
Royal Historical Society@royalhistsoc.org · 5d ago"Details, in their singularity and idiosyncrasy, point to the capaciousness of human experience." New today in the Society's journal 'Transactions': Joe Moran 'On Detail in Historical Writing': bit.ly/44UMi8C Now available OA @joemoransblog.bsky.social @massobsarchive.bsky.social #Skystorians 1/2
Creative & performing arts subjects received £16.8 million SPG 2024-25; £12.9 million in 2025-26; £ O million in 2026-27. The University of Creative Arts will thus lose half of its government funding this year; Art University Bournmouth 40.7%, Norwich U of Arts 40.4% and Leeds Arts U 30.3%. 1/2
Arts institutions hit hard as OfS details teaching grant cuts
University for the Creative Arts loses more than half of its funding after support for creative subjects reduced to zero
timeshighereducation.com
Brilliant letter from Stuart Thompson to Jeremy Clarkson about his comments that benefit claimants should write weekly thank you letters to tax payers detailing how they spend their benefits each week.
This looks like a super interesting new piece taking a fat studies perspective on the history of body odour www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
“No monopoly on smell:” History of senses and fatphobia in historical newspapers
The history of the senses and olfactory-focused writings is loaded with ascribed meanings. In this article, I want to examine the links between the discussion of fat people and related stereotypes....
tandfonline.com
Your weekly reminder that universities cannot enhance the employability of our graduates if there are not graduate jobs to go to. Let’s hope Saint Burnham of Manchester can begin to fix the economy…
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3d agoNew graduate posts down 7% from last year's figures, at lowest level since 2020. Overall UK job postings are down 11% since the start of the year. This decline stretches across almost all occupations. War in Middle East and AI adduced as potential drivers.
Have you been to Jorvik? Do you remember the smells?
Will Tullett@willtullett.bsky.social · 3d agoOne of the best things about Jorvik is that was semi-compulsory for all children who grew up in Britain in the mid 1980s to early 2000s to visit it, so those smells are stuck in the memories of so many people.
Another favourite thing about this piece is that the quote in the title is from a poem written by a child who visited Jorvik in the 1980s that was then printed in a local newspaper.
Will Tullett@willtullett.bsky.social · 3d agoMy new article on Jorvik Viking Centre and its use of smells over the last 40 years has just come out today in The Public Historian! online.ucpress.edu/tph/article-... if you can't access it and want to read it, let me know.
My super ace colleague and friend's brilliant new book is getting closer to publication woooo!!!! Having read several bits I can confirm it is both a *very* good read and has changed the way I think about both sound histories and the sources early modern historians use to get at them.
Emilie K. M. Murphy@emiliekmmurphy.bsky.social · 6d agoproofs! 😍
One of the best things about Jorvik is that was semi-compulsory for all children who grew up in Britain in the mid 1980s to early 2000s to visit it, so those smells are stuck in the memories of so many people.
Rachel Willie@racheljwillie.bsky.social · 3d agoThe only things I remember about visiting the Yorvik Viking Centre, aged 7ish are a) the stench of urine during the part of the ride where there was a Viking mannequin standing up & weeing against the wall b) getting a replica Viking coin from the gift shop.
My new article on Jorvik Viking Centre and its use of smells over the last 40 years has just come out today in The Public Historian! online.ucpress.edu/tph/article-... if you can't access it and want to read it, let me know.
“It Smelt Real”Jorvik Viking Centre and the Experience of Museum Smellscapes
Despite the emergence of sensory history and the increasing use of smell at museums and heritage sites, little attention has been paid to how smell experiences and public perceptions of the past mutua...
online.ucpress.edu
The Greenhouse #envhum book talks start up again this month! Episode 199: Sara Pritchard @sarabpritchard.bsky.social on Transforming Night: The History and Science of Light Pollution (@uwapress.uw.edu, 2026), Monday 24 August 2026, 4pm Central European / 10am Eastern. newnatures.org/greenhouse/e...
So a whole lot of my talented Humanities colleagues are now unemployed as of today. A lot of understandable concern over Exeter. But for over two decades my Hums colleagues were in the top quartile for their research contribution to society. History top 10. Now gone with only a national whisper.
A lot of academics are quite capable of having a normal connection with the ‘real world’, whatever the hell that means, without having to spend a year doing a different job. The whole ‘real world‘ thing is just pernicious academic exceptionalism. It’s just a job like any other job.
Alan Partridge Shrugs 'I Don't Know'
ALT: Alan Partridge Shrugs 'I Don't Know'
static.klipy.com
Paul Bernal@paulbernal.bsky.social · 3d agoI feel like people in business/politics need a “ you must take a year out to spend at a university taking time to think and study” because being in forever-politics/forever-business really does seem to cripple a lot of people’s human development… (I’m not disagreeing with the original proposition!)
Still marveling at this bizarre little booklet from 1976. The "Scratch'n Sniff" technology was so advanced that the scents included all the important smells of 200 years of American history: Apples, Roses, Pine Trees, and Smoke.
It’s not easy to explain to younger people how omnipresent and occasionally odd the Bicentennial stuff was back then. That star logo was everywhere! The weirdness of some of it was normal for us kids—it was the ’70s after all—and the blatant commercialism apparently didn’t faze us either.
incredible discovery here: the 1762 original of the ha ha ha yes sicko cartoon courtesy of thomas waters new book “Magic”
The Leverhulme Trust, as part of its major (£100 million) centenary investment in UK research, has announced 3 new partnerships designed to enhance opportunities for underrepresented groups at the early stages of research careers. @leverhulme.ac.uk Terrifically good news, and sorely needed. 1/3
Investing in the future of UK research | The Leverhulme Trust
leverhulme.ac.uk
For some reason it's the little details like the red Walls Ice Cream bin next to the pool that really make me chuckle.
Madame Pinkness@madamepinkness.bsky.social · 7d agoAny time I see a noteworthy house listing, oh has @oldenoughtosay.com seen it yet? "Extensive entertainment facilities" indeed. www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/9...
Absolutely agree with the idea employers shouldn’t be using AI to shift through CVs, but I don’t understand Burnham’s dislike of Zoom or Teams interviews? Surely they can be helpful for *some* (not all) by ensuring that you don’t have to spend time and money travelling for lots of interviews?
Even for those who are AI curious surely the purchasing, destructive scanning, and shredding of millions of books is a bit of an ‘evil b*stard’ red flag? www.news.com.au/technology/o...
news.com.au
I propose that in order to make my students more employable, the new assessment for my module on the history of smell will involve getting them to build a train instead of writing an essay. This messaging is just so unbelievably flippant.
Rachel Coldicutt@rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · last wk.So one of the problems of announcing policies via social video is that you end up saying stuff like this
Andy Burnham would probably say that AI could do all that whilst the figure sculptors, novelists, rules-writers, and artists make trains instead.
Duncan Weldon@duncanweldon.bsky.social · last wk.Joking aside, 5 million novels a year plus computer games, the actual tabletop games, etc is a massive cultural industry. The Amazon series will only make that bigger. A ridiculously global British success story. And I’m surprised the newspapers didn’t run John Blanche obits in June.
Joking aside, 5 million novels a year plus computer games, the actual tabletop games, etc is a massive cultural industry. The Amazon series will only make that bigger. A ridiculously global British success story. And I’m surprised the newspapers didn’t run John Blanche obits in June.
All hail our new king of the north *checks notes* condoning essay cheating using generative AI? Wait, is this script right?
