History prof & author. Sometimes on your radio. President
@SocHistoryWar
. New book: THE ROADS TO ROME (US edition out Dec). Also history of guns. Tweets own ๐
I see
#REF2021
is asking universities for 2.5 pieces of work per full-time staff member which totally solves the problem of what to do with my half-written article.
Three Egyptian curators refused visas to attend international conference *for Egyptology curators*
@SwanseaUni
. The
@ukhomeoffice
is a national embarrassment.
Might I encourage investigative journalists with an interest in universities to focus on the fact that students won't have time to read anything if they're working all hours to pay the bills.
Reading a letter from 1494 in which the duke of Gandia is apologising for being behind with business 'due to the turbulent times of pestilence' and I think we can all relate to this.
Things that should be cut but probably won't in cost-saving measures for universities:
1. the REF
2. restructuring advice from management consultants
3. contract with Key Travel
4. clunky 'virtual learning environment' when you could just email a PDF
The decision to shut History, Languages and Politics courses at Sunderland isn't (only) local philistinism but a logical consequence of the government decision to remove the quotas on student recruitment from 2015.
Exciting news! My new book, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance, is out on 5 March 2020 and doesn't it have a dramatic cover...
A thing no-one ever tells you about being a mid-career academic is that there will be facts you know, that you cannot remember how you know, and you will have to spend hours digging through folders of old notes to try and find out how you know them.
The Beauty and the Terror, my alternative history of the Italian Renaissance, is 99p on Kindle all this month. War, empire, religious division... plus some very gorgeous art. Get your copy now!
Delighted to share the cover of THE ROADS TO ROME, out in June 2024. Get a preview of what's coming tomorrow, Wednesday 29 November, at 1800 CET (register for link)
Absolutely disgraceful that universities that didn't value someone's work enough to keep them on will now be allowed to take credit for that work in the government's assessment system.
Final submission rules for REF 2021 just announced: funders to allow universities to submit outputs by staff they have made redundant via
@RachaelPells
Looking forward to next year's Hallmark Christmas movie in which two hunky lorry drivers find themselves stuck in a queue on the M20 and enjoy a slow-burn gay romance in the Kent countryside.
Iโm a history professor from 1971. I havenโt actually finished my PhD but I got the job anyway. Every summer I rent a villa in Tuscany for three months, where the nanny looks after the kids while I get on with research.
This article, by an associate professor of biology, has made me feel more relaxed about the prospect of coronavirus infection while shopping/by passing joggers and a lot less relaxed about making classroom teaching work even with social distancing.
A key scientist behind the Moderna-BioNTech vaccine got kicked out of her faculty job because she couldn't bring in grant funding. I'd say it was astonishing but sadly it is not.
I know there's a shortage of cheerful news today, so I'm pleased to tell you that I now have an entire, if very rough, draft of my new book (a history of Italy 1492-1571).
Just three months until THE ROADS TO ROME hits bookshops. Very grateful for all the kind comments already coming through: 'erudite, entertaining and infinitely readable,' says Helena Attlee. Pre-order your copy here:
Very telling how many people, one way or another, are talking about leaving UK academia. Even among colleagues with permanent jobs, I've seen a lot more early retirements/moves to Europe/switches to part-time in the last couple of years.
When G. M. Trevelyan wrote his account of Garibaldi's campaigns he walked all the routes through Italy on foot, and I endorse this research method and will henceforth be doing all my research in the form of walking holidays.
I'm seeing a few people here irritated at the use of 'forgotten' in this headline, and indeed in the Italian context 'deliberately neglected' would probably be more appropriate.
Deux รฉtudiants arrรชtรฉs en manif, ils sont fouillรฉs...
La police trouve un livre "La Rรฉvolution nรฉolithique", la police s'inquiรจte, la police veut comprendre pourquoi il y a le mot "rรฉvolution" dans le titre, la police craint le pire !
C'est l'auteur de l'ouvrage
@JPDemoule
qui
I see the Spectator has published an article comparing the current situation to the Battle of Lepanto, so just in case anyone needs to hear this may I emphasise that the coronavirus is NOT the Ottoman Empire ๐คฆโโ๏ธ๐คฆโโ๏ธ๐คฆโโ๏ธ
Jacob Rees-Mogg: "If we can deal with the abdication of a King Emperor in 24 hours, we can deal with leaving the European empire within 12 days"
#Ridge
So I have an inventory of 1554 listing a 'large crocodile' and one of 1560 listing a 'small crocodile'. What happened? Did it shrink? Did someone sneakily swap them? Have crocodile standards changed?
I see Penguin has joined the list of miscreants who deposit only ebooks in the British Library, and would like to say this isn't going to make me buy the book, it's just going to make me annoyed as I walk across town to a different library to consult a hard copy.
This morning I'm transcribing a sixteenth-century criminal investigation into one Cesare from Bologna who was in trouble for both illegal gun use and cross-dressing.
At the funeral of Renรฉ of Anjou, 1480, his heart was carried in a silver box by โfour distinguished men with university degreesโ. Graduate jobs aren't what they used to be.
If all possible university teaching went online now, students who wanted to be elsewhere for Christmas could make their own decisions about exactly when was the best time to go, allowing for quarantine if necessary.
I realise it's a minor issue in the
#coronavirus
scheme of things but I do feel for the organisers of the massive 500th anniversary Raphael show, which has had to close after just three days
#Raffaello
Oh...oh dear.
The NYPD has found...the
@OUPAcademic
Oxford Very Short Introduction series.
I wonder if he thinks the Antisemitism is also a how-to book.
I don't want to put this on individuals, but do think
@ucu
should campaign for a shift away from competitive grants towards a basic income system. Would be good for everyone.
At this rate whole swathes of the country will end up as deserts for humanities provision. Student choice must include good local options, else it isn't a choice at all.
Today we have been officially informed that our BA History, BA Human Geography, MSc in Refugee Studies, MSc Development Studies MSc Education for Sustainability will be closed with immediate effect, no student recruitment from Sept 21
@UCU
@UCULondon
@LondonUCU
@DrJoGrady
Off to London for the launch of a new
@BBCTwo
documentary featuring the story of Alessandro deโ Medici and other tales of Africans in Renaissance art.
An example of the kind of exploitative hiring the
#UCUStrike
is about: a university using a three-year entry-level fixed-term contract to develop a new MA programme. Wrong grade, folks, that should be SL at least
@NewcastleUniUCU
Writing my travel risk assessment: "Because these countries have lower Covid rates than the UK I will actually be at less risk during this overseas trip than I currently am working in Manchester."
In short we're now in a situation where some university courses are overcrowded to the point where tutors can't possibly provide proper pastoral support, while others disappear to the detriment of students who aren't in a position to move for a course that fits their needs.
For people interested in why certain historians kept getting picked to front TV shows, I recommend this excellent research article by Erin Bell, "No-one wants to be lectured at by a woman", which takes its title from a TV executive's comment in the 90s:
You may say great this is the market in action, letting more students go to their first choice uni. It isn't for the applicants whose first choice is a local institution with lots of experience dealing with first-generation working-class students.
A historian committed research misconduct when she claimed that a Jewish concentration camp prisoner had a lesbian affair with an SS guard, a university investigation has ruled.
Appalling behaviour from the editor here, which
@PalgraveHistory
needs to address. I'm co-editor of a book in this series, but won't be back without a change of leadership.
I've dealt with some pretty shitty things in my life, but this is up there with the worst. Charles Beem has sought to bully me into silence and submission.
@PalgraveHistory
@Palgrave
: do you think it's acceptable that a series editor can send these kinds of emails? Do you think