Michael H Whitworth
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profmhwhitworth.bsky.social
Michael H Whitworth
@profmhwhitworth.bsky.social

Oxford, U.K. Prof of Modern Literature and Culture. Literature & Science, Modernism, Book History, Virginia Woolf, 1920s & 30s poetry. Also found on IG under the same name. All posts in a personal capacity.

Art 29%
Philosophy 21%
Pinned
2025 marks the centenary of A.N. Whitehead’s Lowell Lectures, Science and the Modern World; 2026 the centenary of the first British edition.

Nick Gaskill and I are organising a panel on Whitehead, focused on SMW, for the MSA/BAMS conference in 2026, and are looking for an additional contributor.
all those years work pitching the value of the humanities and STILL when financial crunch comes and management consultants role in, they could not care less.

history doesn’t have enough commercial applications! humanities aren’t engaged enough with AI! why isn’t my house a helicopter!
I'm hearing criticisms of the end to the two child limit, because it was done just to mollify Labour backbenchers, at a cost of £billions.

I remember another govt delivering a referendum on EU membership, just to mollify restive backbenchers. That's costing way, way more... A little perspective?
🔥🔥🔥 While everyone is distracted by other budget news, Labour have just announced that they will allow more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea 🔥🔥🔥

Genuinely catastrophic for our climate and further proof that Labour care more about corporate profits than people or planet.
"Protest over future of University of Nottingham language courses"
Protest over future of University of Nottingham language courses
The University of Nottingham has suspended entry for new students on modern language courses.
www.bbc.co.uk
Chief exec of OfS 'said the OfS believes there are 24 institutions at risk of exiting the market in the next 12 months, seven of which are large providers with more than 3,000 students. There are another 25 or so institutions of various sizes at risk over a two- to three-year period, she added.'
Seven ‘large providers’ at risk of going under in the next year
Skills minister says no higher education institutions are at imminent risk of collapse this year but OfS confirms more than 20 providers are being closely monitored
www.timeshighereducation.com
This story should be covered waaaaayy more than it is.

The US has sanctioned six judges if the international criminal court ICC, because Trump didn’t like them issuing arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.

www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...
Nicolas Guillou, French ICC judge sanctioned by the US: 'You are effectively blacklisted by much of the world's banking system'
Six judges and three prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have been sanctioned by the Trump administration. In an interview with Le Monde, Guillou discusses the impact of these measures on ...
www.lemonde.fr
📽️ The recording from our widely popular #RSVPDigiEvent "How to Get Published in an Academic Journal" is now live. We had a record-breaking 101 registrants for this panel! Since we did not quite hit that number in attendance, we know many will be interested to watch/re-watch: youtu.be/sP5Y1iicKJ0
How to Get Published in Academic Journal
YouTube video by Research Society for Victorian Periodicals
youtu.be
Friend of mine fell and broke his wrist while on holiday in New York last week. Had to have an x-ray and got bandaged up. His hospital bill was £7550. Just in case anyone was starting to buy into the current UK effort to privatise our healthcare and forgot how good we have it.
Come and apply to be the Professor of Bibliography & Modern Book History @engfacoutreach.bsky.social & @jesusoxford.bsky.social (and work closely with us @bodleian.ox.ac.uk). Following a long line of great scholars: Don McKenzie, Kathryn Sutherland, & Dirk van Hulle ... my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
my.corehr.com
What a way to go 😱 🐟
Now in my early 60s I have only just started reading Middlemarch (blame the education system…), so I am immensely grateful to @adamroberts.bsky.social for this wonderfully perceptive exploration of the epigrams at the head of each chapter. open.substack.com/pub/profadam...
Middlemarch: Epigraphs and Mirrors
George Eliot and Pascal
open.substack.com
Actual analysis of the BBC’s coverage of Gaza is devastating for Prescott and the right wing attacks on the BBC. Ratio of Israeli-Palestinian deaths: 1 /34. Ratio of coverage of those deaths: 19 / 1.

cfmm.org.uk/bbc-on-gaza-...
BBC On Gaza-Israel: One Story, Double Standards - Centre For Media Monitoring
cfmm.org.uk
forever grateful to @waterman.bsky.social who introduced me to patti smith ~15 years ago in his writing new york class as I see her play once again 🥰
Unclear where this war profiteering plan came from or why it emerged right now, but clear that it is in every way disastrous
This is not a peace plan. It is a proposal that weakens Ukraine and divides America from Europe, preparing the way for a larger war in the future. In the meantime, it benefits unnamed Russian and American investors, at the expense of everyone else.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Trump Has a Recipe for War and Corruption, Not Peace
Who would benefit from the White House’s 28-point proposal for Ukraine?
www.theatlantic.com

Email me by 12 December on [email protected] if you’re interested! We will be submitting our proposal by 19 December at the latest.

#WeirdModernisms #BAMS2026 #MSA2026
Oxfordshire swans have died from bird flu this week, including near us. Report it, don't touch, and keep dogs away. RSPB guidance page, including contact details, here www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wi...
#COP30 is about to agree a climate deal that doesn’t mention fossil fuels, which is a bit like an alcoholic agreeing a plan to tackle his addiction without mentioning the vodka.
A major healthcare policy paper commissioned by @govnl.bsky.social government from Deloitte at a cost of $1.6 million, cites research papers that don’t exist, making it the second major government policy paper called into question in as many months. #nlpoli #AI
theindependent.ca/news/lji/maj...
Major N.L. healthcare report contains errors likely generated by A.I. – The Independent
$1.6 million Health Human Resources Plan from Deloitte cites research papers that don’t exist, making it the second major government policy paper called into question in as many months
theindependent.ca
Ah yes. Harvard Law School in the early 1990s, well known for its Communist professors.
Newmarket MP Matt Hancock gave a £37bn Covid testing contract to Jockey Club director Dido Harding, who subcontracted it to Grand National sponsor Randox, employer of Tory MP Owen Paterson, whose late wife chaired Aintree racecourse. That's how the Tories handled the pandemic.
This is on the X account of the UK Home Office. A Labour government.
Where is this country going?

I would like to remind the British government that among the taxpayers in the UK there are millions of non-British people.

#notonationalism #migrantsarenotcriminals
Farage can now be easily boxed in to a corner where his only ‘defence’ becomes: “Yes I spouted Kremlin propaganda & Putin worship but, unlike Nathan Gill, I didn’t need bribes to do it.”
It is, once again, a question of whether interviewers have the temerity to shut down his whining obfuscations.
Anyone encountering a dead bird is asked not to touch it but to report it to the Defra helpline. The government announced measures for keepers of domesticated birds, including backyard chickens, earlier this month. www.gov.uk/government/n...
Early signs suggest an outbreak of bird flu (H5N1) in Oxfordshire. Following a dead swan in Witney which was subsequently confirmed by testing to have avian influenza, cases were confirmed yesterday in Blenheim and on Port Meadow.

The book looks at William Empson, Laura Riding, Charles Olson, W.B. Yeats, and Michael Roberts — I’m looking forward to reading this version #LitSci

Anirudh’s Sridhar’s Agon: Poetry’s Challenge to the Mathematization of Reality, has just been published by OUP, a monograph derived from the doctoral thesis he wrote under my supervision from October 2017 to April 2020.

Congratulations, Anirudh!
Marimar Martinez is a US citizen who was shot by ICE five times in Chicago.

She was then arrested, labelled a “domestic terrorist” and slandered on social media.

All charges against her have been dropped.

In this interview she shows on of the seven holes the ICE agent put in her body.
Almost a year now since I received this absolutely classic burn from the Canadian government.
On Free Thinking: geology considered as one of the humanities and everything you wanted to know about Object Oriented Ontology but were afraid to ask. With Rosemary Hill, Sarah Jackson, @anjanakhatwa.bsky.social @peterfrankopan.bsky.social @objectoriented.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Rocks
How can earth sciences like geology transform our understanding of history and society?
www.bbc.co.uk
X has changed their policy and now you can see where the accounts are based.

Here’s an “influencer from Texas”