We had a glorious, sunny, October day at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal @nationaltrust.org.uk. Made even more special by the colours of autumn: it will no doubt be memorable for both our boys and for us parents.

Don’t be distracted by the news of the ceasefire.
The bombing doesn’t stop for even a moment, and it’s being intensified insanely!!!!
#ceasefire #Gaza

Govt promised to help Palestinians get to UK to study- but I'm in touch with 7 young Palestinians with scholarships at
@bristoluni.bsky.social
who are trapped in Gaza because the Home Office isn't doing what was promised
Shocking neglect putting lives at risk
www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

This is devastating but hard to think of more important journalism. 18,457 children have been killed in Gaza (many more not accounted for). Here, The Guardian prints their names and beautiful faces and tells us what they were like before Israel stole their lives. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

I’m sharing a Palestinian account every day and today is Doaa. Doaa is the mother of 3 children Omar, 10, Yasmine, 8 and Youseff, 4 but she primarily started this fundraiser to help her sister Amal who lost a husband and son and is trying to support her children Hiam, 13, Omar, 12 and Jawad, 7.

The shortage of English teachers has not been resolved - cuts in bursaries for trainees are a mistake, argues @sarahmullin.bsky.social @englishassociation.bsky.social

Even those of us working in universities but on teaching-only contracts are excluded from a variety of opportunities and funding.

Delighted to announce that my co-edited special issue, Material Feminism and Posthumanism, is out today with Contemporary Women’s Writing @oxfordunipress.bsky.social!
Featuring articles on Vinciane Despret, Mary-Jo Bangs, Larissa Lai, V.H. Leslie, Erín Moure, and Sarah Moss. doi.org/10.1093/cww/...

This year, in #NobelSoWhite (and white haired, and masculine). I don’t dispute the importance of their work for a second, but the optics are bad.

Read the full report: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/policy-and-r...

People being carted off into police vans for carrying placards

The government has stoked up so much more trouble than it was trying to solve.

We used to be shocked when they did this in Russia?

See how authoritarianism can move so quickly.

Such a terrible move from this government.

#PA

I ain’t gotta say much, y’all already know how bad things are in Gaza right now… just hoping you can help out, even if it’s just by sharing this post...
chuffed.org/project/layl...

And in the US there is no federal maternity/parental leave provision, so I imagine many parents needing to get back to work asap may not be able to pay for as much childcare as is actually needed, hence they recur to tablets and YouTube. I find this use of ChatGPT unsurprising.

What a gift to hear them speak! Did they give the lecture in Brighton?

Just heartbreaking.

And there we have it, if we needed any further proof: people who have suffered unspeakable loss, who have lived under occupation for decades, defined as terrorists merely because they do not just up and go to make room for a colonial expansionist project blathering about its Lebensraum.

As a module leader and course director, I struggle to see how this can happen. Except that the RG over-recruit and there are so many students on courses nobody can monitor them.

share.google/a0rqaLfYUnCn...

Sometimes it’s almost as if journals couldn’t fathom that we have things to do other than sitting at our desks thinking about our grand new research ideas and how to support our discipline. Also, ofc we’re neither paid nor rewarded for doing reviews, and that tone is always unacceptable regardless.

Presumably no Palestinian would want a second British Mandate headed by Blair, who, precisely because of his debacle in Iraq, has a bad reputation in the Middle East already. I despair.

Sama’a is spending her days at the hospital, as her cousin Raad remains in a coma 💔

Please help her be there for his family during this very difficult time.

tinyurl.com/support4samaa

UKIP have been given permission to march through Newcastle City Centre tomorrow to a hotel housing asylum seekers and people with refugee status.

Please email complaints and concerns to Northumbria Police and Newcastle politicians (MPs and councillors).

Link to template letter in alt text.

It’s gone so quickly from ‘boat people’ to all immigrants. So quickly from ‘I don’t mind if they come here legally and pay taxes’ to ‘actually it’s anyone foreign’. We are living in the ‘first they came for’ poem. All to give the population a scapegoat so the super rich can hoard yet more wealth.

Bookmarked. I haven’t listened to every episode, but have recommended the Ottoman and Persian series, esp the later episodes, to everyone I know. Plus, I regularly use the slavery and Indian Partition series in my teaching. An excellent, comprehensive podcast.

Small joys: my morning started with two lovely emails from students thanking me for past advising/mentoring, and references I wrote for them. One is returning from a summer fellowship in Canada, the other one is thinking about postgraduate options. This is why I love my job!