Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 1h

So sorry Cath, sending solidarity to you and your colleagues

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Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 5h

Among the thoughtful things I’m grateful for on arrival: a little room of my own in the Weston Library.

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Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 5h

I never studied at Oxford, Cambridge or Ivy League so I’m experiencing this word for the first time as an ‘insider-outsider.’ A lot of things have been making my jaw drop. I’m glad this world exists, I just wish more people could access it or something like it elsewhere.

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Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 5h

I’m also reflecting on the wide gulf in experiences that undergraduates have here vs at institutions financially struggling. Have seen so many students get jaded at systems failing them, what does that do to their relationship to society long term, no matter what we teach them?

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Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 5h

People have been checking in after explaining things to make sure I’m okay with different services across multiple teams! Checking in! Imagine! Such a warm welcome.

Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 5h

I went to a lecture last night that had a team of event staff with headsets and multiple AV people in view. Imagine!

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Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 5h

I’m very grateful for the warm welcome here across various teams at the Bodleian, Somerville College, and from friends and history colleagues here in Oxford. It’s like experiencing another world’s version of a university, rather than an extension of the same system I’ve been working in for a decade.

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Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 5h

The biggest difference isn’t the architecture and storied past. It’s the connective tissue that makes the place highly functional: well-resourced professional services. Everyone has had capacity for quick responses to queries, run proper inductions. this shouldn’t be seen as a commodity easily cut.

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Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 5h

My first week in Oxford as a visiting fellow is underway! Coming from one of the ‘have-not’ universities, the disparity in UK higher ed feels pretty overwhelmingly stark. I just wish the former polytechnics and the post-92s could resource care for students and researchers like they can here.

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Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 1d

The @ihr.bsky.social Modern Religious History Seminar is now on Bluesky! Follow for updates on our 2025-26 programme ⬇️

IHR Modern Religious History Seminar @ihrmodernrelighist.bsky.social · 1d

👋 Historians! The IHR Modern Religious History Seminar is now on Bluesky. Follow us for updates on our 2025-6 programme. Up next:

Aleph Ross (Birmingham) on Sex, Health and the Anglo-Jewish Body.

🗓️ 15 OCT 2025 5:30pm
📍 @ihr.bsky.social and online

Sign up here: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Sex, Health and the Anglo-Jewish Body

This paper will explore the history of discourses around sexual health in Britain's Jewish community across the 20th century.

www.history.ac.uk

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Reposted by Hannah Elias

Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 1d

I got my first taste of archival research when visited the BBC written Archives as a 3rd year undergrad in 2001 to research my dissertation.

I studied the papers relating to radio programme 'Ack-Ack Beer-Beer', broadcast in WWII for Anti-Aircraft and Balloon Barrage personnel.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 1d

For reasons, it would be v. helpful to have information from a broad range of academic and non-academic (incl. GLAM) users of the BBC Written Archives OTHER THAN historians, briefly on: 1) What you've used it for and 2) How the proposed changes would impact on your research.

Reposts welcomed.

Historians dismayed by ‘scandal’ of BBC cutting access to...

Critics say new limit to trove of information sounds knell for independent research

observer.co.uk

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Reposted by Hannah Elias

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 1d

For reasons, it would be v. helpful to have information from a broad range of academic and non-academic (incl. GLAM) users of the BBC Written Archives OTHER THAN historians, briefly on: 1) What you've used it for and 2) How the proposed changes would impact on your research.

Reposts welcomed.

Historians dismayed by ‘scandal’ of BBC cutting access to...

Critics say new limit to trove of information sounds knell for independent research

observer.co.uk

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Reposted by Hannah Elias

Research Professional News @resprofnews.bsky.social · 5d

Over 15,000 university job cuts made in the last year, UCU claims.

“This analysis exposes a UK-wide crisis in higher education,” said Jo Grady, the union’s general secretary.

Free to read: www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

Over 15,000 university job cuts made in the last year, UCU claims - Research Professional News

Union urges government to “stop looking the other way”, ahead of ballot for nationwide strikes

www.researchprofessionalnews.com

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Reposted by Hannah Elias

Jill Blake @biscuitkitten.bsky.social · 6d

“the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa”

Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca

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Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 7d

Looks great Liam!

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Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 7d

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Reposted by Hannah Elias

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 7d

God bless The Church Times for their ongoing insistence on responding moderately but forcefully to the Reverend Canon Nigel Biggar’s nonsense. www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

Even given all that Biggar writes about the universality of slavery and the complicity of Africans, three things might be said. First, Britain played a key part and, however others may want to respond to their own history, it is morally responsible to face up to our own heritage. Second, as a Tory, he might have made more of Burke’s view that society is a partnership not just between the living, but between the living, the dead, and those still to be born. Third, guilt is not the only spur to action. There are the obligations that we owe one another irrespective of any personal responsibility for atrocities in the past.

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Reposted by Hannah Elias

John Maiden @johnmaiden.bsky.social · 8d

Our first @ihr.bsky.social Modern Religious History seminar of the year is 15 October at 17.30 UK time. Our speaker is @alephross.bsky.social .

To book:
www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

#Skystorians #history @hannahelias.bsky.social @dralanagharris.bsky.social @graceheaton.bsky.social

Sex, Health and the Anglo-Jewish Body

This paper will explore the history of discourses around sexual health in Britain's Jewish community across the 20th century.

www.history.ac.uk

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Reposted by Hannah Elias

Only in Birmingham podcast @onlyinbirmingham.bsky.social · 8d

#Handsworth could teach @RobertJenrick how to live in a global society. #BenjaminZephaniah - spirit of #Birmingham - said "Handsworth for me is...where I learnt all my skills, my communication skills, my hustling skills, my poetic skills, everything."

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Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 9d

Reading more closely - sorry - this is an article about a different kind of pay rise, but this was on my mind as institution I used to work for froze pay and grade promotions multiple times.

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Hannah Elias @hannahelias.bsky.social · 9d

The conversation about payrises in HE often obscures the fact that you have to be working above your pay grade for at least a year before getting the actual grade rise. So when grade promotions are delayed, that means years of working below value of your labour. Are any other fields like that?

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Reposted by Hannah Elias

David Hendy @davidhendy.bsky.social · 10d

Well, CNN are covering it at least, even if the British media are largely uninterested

UK mosque set ablaze with two people inside, police investigating suspected hate crime | CNN

A UK mosque was set ablaze with two people still inside in a suspected arson attack that police are treating as a hate crime.

www.cnn.com

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Reposted by Hannah Elias

Runnymede Trust @runnymedetrust.bsky.social · 13d

We send our deepest condolences and love to Jewish communities across the country in the wake of this morning’s horrifying attack.

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Reposted by Hannah Elias

IHR Black British History Seminar @ihrblackbritish.bsky.social · 15d

Kicking off our fantastic line up with a showcase of new research! Get in touch if you are a postgraduate or early career researcher who would like to introduce their work to the field.

📍 Hybrid: N304, IHR, Senate House, WC1E 7HU and Online
📅 Thursday 16th October, 2025
⏰ 17:30
🔗 bit.ly/3INwCfO

Email Olivia.Wyatt@ed.ac.uk or Meleisa.Ono-George@history.ox.ac.uk to present online or in-person

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Reposted by Hannah Elias

Art UK @artukdotorg.bsky.social · 14d

It's the start of #BlackHistoryMonth 🎨

This page gives you a useful starting point to begin exploring the work of Black artists on Art UK 👉 artuk.org/discover/art...

🧑‍🎨 Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (b.1977) © Courtesy of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and Corvi-Mora, London. 📷the artist.

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