Andre Keil
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andrekeil.bsky.social
Andre Keil
@andrekeil.bsky.social
#Historian, #football enthusiast and participating observer. Lecturer in Modern European History. Opinions here strictly my own!
Since people seem to post takes on #ww2 #films, this is my recommendation: "Die Brücke" (1959) tells the story of school boys thrown into the final days of the war and killed in a futile battle. Probably the most important #German anti-war film ever made alongside "All Quiet on the Western Front".
Die Brücke (film) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 24, 2025 at 12:09 PM
You wonder where they will get their Hattori Hanso sword from...
excuse me only Beatrix Kiddo can do this
November 20, 2025 at 4:09 PM
This is probably closer to the reality of using AI in higher education than the cloud-cuckoo-land fantasy that is sold to students (and academics!) by some people.
‘We could have asked ChatGPT’: students fight back over course taught by AI
Staffordshire students say signs material was AI-generated included suspicious file names and rogue voiceover accent
www.theguardian.com
November 20, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Wow... Musk's Grok AI bot dishing out the most horrendous kind of Holocaust denial. If this wasn't in French but in English, it would be a much bigger scandal.
On est pas bien là ? :)
November 19, 2025 at 9:10 PM
"Among the reasons cited by analysts for the Social Democrats’ decline in Copenhagen were voter fatigue over the prime minister’s hardline policies on issues such as integration and immigration, which have partly inspired a newly unveiled asylum and migration policy in Britain."
Social Democrats in Denmark suffer sweeping election losses
PM Mette Frederiksen’s centre-left party loses control of Copenhagen for first time in more than 100 years
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Andre Keil
We must copy Denmark Social Democrats' hardline anti-asylum measures in order to win back voters' trust, says Shabana Mahmood.

Meanwhile in Denmark:
November 19, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Haters gonna hate... but I really like the new Ken Burns series. Always have liked his documentaries, especially the ones on baseball and country music. Make of that what you will.
November 17, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reposted by Andre Keil
Brilliant to see the exciting work of our very own @malcolmcraig.bsky.social receiving such interest. Surely, the downloads will be in the 100s now!
Gee whizz! My article on Twilight 2000 in the Journal of American studies is now the most read piece over the last 3 months, despite it only being available for a couple of weeks. That's kind of terrifying! Thanks so much to everyone who's taken the time to engage with it!
doi.org/10.1017/S002...
November 17, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Why are they briefing this kind of stuff? Who do they think this will appeal to? It's baffling...
An absolute 🤯 at every level
November 17, 2025 at 1:12 PM
I WONDER whether the current #Labour leadership really espouses "Labour values"... Maybe they should look back to Clement Attlee, who gave shelter to a Jewish refugee mother and her two children fleeing from Nazi Germany in 1939... Or the indefatigable Eleanor Rathbone, aka the "MP for refugees".
Jewish refugee sheltered by Clement Attlee meets granddaughter
Paul Willer was just 10 when he was taken in by the then opposition leader in 1939 after fleeing Nazi Germany.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 17, 2025 at 12:20 PM
The other thing is that the narrative about how adopting extreme-right positions has saved the #Danish #socialdemocrats is flawed. In the polls, they are hovering around 20%. It's not the electoral panacea Blue Labour and No 10 think it is...
Opinion polling for the next Danish general election - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 17, 2025 at 12:14 PM
Even without @zackpolanski.bsky.social, stuff like this should make decent people seriously look at the Greens (or LibDems if that's your thing) as an alternative to Labour. The performative cruelty is just off-putting.
Somebody is briefing the Times that the Home Secretary finds inspiration in Kristi Noem's leading the Trump mass deportation effort - which has gone much too far for Americans

What a kamikaze piece of political madness that is on the eve of their asylum package
www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
Shabana Mahmood threatens Trump-style visa ban on three countries
Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo will face Trump-style sanctions if they do not start taking back more illegal migrants and criminals
www.thetimes.com
November 17, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Andre Keil
Hurrah! My article on the Twilight 2000 RPG in the Journal of American Studies is now open access (OA), so anyone who wants to can have a read. OA is important to me, as I want my work on RPG history to go beyond the academy and reach the gaming public.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
When You Say, “Thermonuclear War,” I Think You Mean “the Call to Adventure”! The Twilight: 2000 Tabletop Role-Playing Game and the Postapocalyptic World’s Imaginary Spaces | Journal of American Studie...
When You Say, “Thermonuclear War,” I Think You Mean “the Call to Adventure”! The Twilight: 2000 Tabletop Role-Playing Game and the Postapocalyptic World’s Imaginary Spaces
www.cambridge.org
November 14, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Andre Keil
An excellent PhD opportunity for someone to work on family separation during WW1 or WW2. I've done some research on Italian emigrant families separated when the father was serving in the Italian Army and it's a really fascinating area of study. royalhistsoc.org/calendar/phd...
PhD Studentship on Family Separation, funded by ERC - CALL FOR APPLICATIONS - RHS
PhD Studentship on Family Separation, funded by European Research Council Call for Applications, deadline - 1 March 2026 This is a call for expressions of interest for a European Research Council-fund...
royalhistsoc.org
November 14, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Reposted by Andre Keil
Marking the anniversary of the Miners' Strike of 1984/5, Keith Gildart reflects on a selection of recent titles in a new Review Article: 'Which Side Are You On Boys? Revisiting the History of British Coal Miners and the Strike of 1984/5'

academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...
#MinersStrike
Which Side Are You On Boys? Revisiting the History of British Coal Miners and the Strike of 1984/5
The year 2025 marks the fortieth anniversary of the end of the bitter twelve-month miners’ strike of 1984/5. The dominance of coal in British energy produc
academic.oup.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:38 PM
It's really a bit sad that historians whose academic work on the Holocaust I rate quite highly have been involved in this. None of the things discussed in this documentary will help to explain or understand anything better about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.
Did Hitler really have a ‘micropenis’? The dubious documentary analysing the dictator’s DNA
Was the wartime chant about his solitary testicle correct? Did he have Jewish ancestry? New documentary Hitler’s DNA is trying to answer these, and more contentious, questions – but should it have gon...
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:23 PM
As someone who grew up listening to (German) rap music, I found the docu extremely good. Haftbefehl's story is probably better-suited to understand contemporary Germany than many other things...
Haftbefehl shows that Germany loves art born from alienation – just not the people who create it
A hit Netflix documentary about Germany’s favourite rapper demonstrates how popular the aesthetics of migrant life are – just as politicians debate how to remove it from inner cities
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Please stop ruining The Traitors by making it a cheap cultural reference for political shenanigans. It's "cringe" as my students would say.
BBC News showed a clip of a journo yelling “is Wes Streeting a Traitor or a Faithful, Prime Minister?” at Starmer and I’m just going to go smash my head through a wall
November 12, 2025 at 1:14 PM
A job in history! At a UK university! (Not envying the colleagues at Warwick who will probably have to go through 100s of applications...)
🚨#History #envhist Job Alert: My Department is hiring an Assistant Professor in Environmental History.
🗃️

Come work with us at Warwick. You'll get both excellent colleagues and great students!

See details below... And do not hesitate to spread the word...
👇👇👇

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPK289/a...
Assistant Professor in Environmental History (111009-1125) at University of Warwick
Explore an exciting academic career as a Assistant Professor in Environmental History (111009-1125). Don't miss out on other academic jobs. Click to apply and explore more opportunities.
www.jobs.ac.uk
November 12, 2025 at 1:01 PM
This is worth reading closely. The piece makes a very strong case for being very careful when embracing AI for historical research.
"Historical analysis is fundamentally different and more complex than producing a mass of visualizations and statistics that are the lifeblood of many A.I. programmes."

Gordon McKelvie @gordonmckelvie.bsky.social on the problematic use of A.I. within historical research.
Artificial Intelligence: A Warning for History
Does A.I. have the potential to simplify, and ultimately impoverish, our study of the past? Gordon McKelvie considers the recent explosion in A.I. and what it means for historians facing the current H...
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
November 12, 2025 at 12:58 PM
#Trivia #Question of the Day: What do #Oasis's "Don't Look Back in Anger", Green Day's "Basket Case", and the Soviet National Anthem have in common?
November 10, 2025 at 11:25 AM
This is literally the inspiration for the song "99 Red Balloons". (Trigger warning: the video contains 1980s hairdos and German New Wave pop music.)
November 10, 2025 at 11:14 AM
This Wednesday, 4.30pm! Surely, this wil be a fascinating talk. As usual, everyone interested is very welcome!
This Wednesday, 12 November, our very own @jamescrossland.bsky.social will be talking about his current #research project on the #history of domestic #intelligence in #Britain. Everyone interested is very welcome to attend.
November 10, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Es ist sehr traurig zu lesen, dass Gisela Bock gestorben ist. Ich hatte das Privileg, von ihr an der FU unterrichtet zu werden. Sie war immer nahbar, hilfreich, und an den Ideen ihrer Studies interessiert. Ich habe viel von ihr gelernt.
Die Historikerin Gisela Bock ist gestorben. In der FAZ ein Nachruf von Daniel Schönpflug
@wiko-berlin.bsky.social
zeitung.faz.net/data/522/rea...
November 10, 2025 at 9:48 AM