Roger Luckhurst
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theprofrog.bsky.social
Roger Luckhurst
@theprofrog.bsky.social

academic/freelance writer, on Gothic, Science Fiction. Next up: Graveyards: A History of Living with the Dead (October 2025).

Roger Luckhurst is a British writer and academic and since 2020 the Geoffrey Tillotson Chair of Nineteenth Century Studies at Birkbeck College. He was appointed professor in modern and contemporary literature in the Department of English, Theatre, and Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London in 2008 and was distinguished visiting professor at Columbia University in 2016. He works on Victorian literature, contemporary literature, Gothic and weird fiction, trauma studies, and speculative/science fiction. Luckhurst is notable for his introductions and editorships to the Oxford World's Classics series volumes -- Late Victorian Gothic Tales, Dracula, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Portrait of a Lady, H.P. Lovecraft's Classic Horror Tales, King Solomon’s Mines, and The Time Machine -- and for his books on J. G. Ballard (1997), The Invention of Telepathy (2002), Science Fiction (2005) The Trauma Question (2008), The Mummy’s Curse: The True Story of a Dark Fantasy, and Zombies: A Cultural History. He has also written two books for the British Film Institute classic film series on The Shining and Alien. .. more

Philosophy 28%
Art 23%

Proof that campuses continue to be radically divided, even as holiday season approaches

Here is your Tuesday afternoon emergency fluffy kitten

Lots of woozy chest tombs in there!

Here is your Monday morning emergency fluffy kitten

Never seen this image of Trotsky in Stalin’s office before

At the end of a dream this morning I woke up as I said, in Patrick Bateman’s voice: ‘I need to return Kazuo Ishiguro’s video tapes’

I made the mistake of looking myself up on Amazon and the algorithm immediately posted me some suggestions of things I might also like

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Good piece. Hard to remember the absolute shower of shits that were culture secretaries under the Tories, who left the library to sink under attack because all populists hate cultural institutions
I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care?
The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity
www.cityam.com
I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care?
The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity
www.cityam.com

Home Office, just now

This is what happens if you leave the To Do list out of the fridge over the weekend

Many film-makers must be haunted by that line in ep 2 of Mr Scorsese when he remembers that after a screening of Boxcar Bertha John Cassavetes pulled him in for a hug and said ‘What are you doing? You’ve just spent a year of your life making shit!’ This came to mind watching The Running Man today.

Friday

Reposted by Martin Paul Eve

Categories include: Most Insensitive Friday Afternoon email about ‘Downsizing Staff Resource’; Most Preposterously Inappropriate Online Wellbeing Provision; Best All-Staff Reply Email Meltdown; the Golden Boot for Best foot-in-mouth Communication. Good luck everyone!
We can’t wait for tonight’s #THEAwards! Are you on your way to Edinburgh, or getting your glad rags on? Maybe you’re following from home? Show us how you’ll be cheering on your team tonight...
a woman in a gold dress is standing in an elevator with her hands on her hips and says or maybe this
ALT: a woman in a gold dress is standing in an elevator with her hands on her hips and says or maybe this
media.tenor.com

Reposted by Roger Luckhurst

We can’t wait for tonight’s #THEAwards! Are you on your way to Edinburgh, or getting your glad rags on? Maybe you’re following from home? Show us how you’ll be cheering on your team tonight...
a woman in a gold dress is standing in an elevator with her hands on her hips and says or maybe this
ALT: a woman in a gold dress is standing in an elevator with her hands on her hips and says or maybe this
media.tenor.com

Broadcasting House, just now

Someone has finally unlocked the perfect combination of words to guarantee I will immediately say yes to a request. This is niche, but for future reference, the question was: 'Would you be interested in talking to a group of Norwegian architectural students about corridors?'

Here is today’s emergency fluffy kitten

Long lost Mighty Boosh joke:

‘I told you not to mess with the occult!’
‘Really? I thought it was good for your digestion.’
‘No, that’s Yakult.’

Still no apology for Celia Imrie's fart. Completely disgusted.

This morning's best autoreply so far, sadly not from Vampire Quarterly, however: 'You have already been uninvited.'

Reposted by Roger Luckhurst

I pressed the button on this AIPhone in the elevator and a voice told me I was Montgomery Clift and that the telephone was invented by Carthusian monks in the 11th century

Airport waiting lounge logic: it’s now 12 noon, you can legitimately commence shovelling lunch even though breakfast was 3 hours ago.

Fantastic clash: what if Academic Board just read some Heidegger?

🎶 Moibye it’s becoise I’m a Londoner that I loive mass murder so 🎶