Alexander Thom
@alex-thom.bsky.social
Lecturer in Early Modern Drama | Leverhulme ECF | University of Leeds (views my own)
Shakespeare • duty and service • exile and imperialism • English Renaissance drama (1575-1625) • law and literature
Shakespeare • duty and service • exile and imperialism • English Renaissance drama (1575-1625) • law and literature
Reposted by Alexander Thom
Computer, please summarize everything PG Wodehouse ever wrote in ten seconds
rich dudes got freakier after butlers fell out of fashion, like say what you will about having domestic servants but clearly it was some sort of moderating force on old rich dudes having a fancy man follow you around saying shit like "oh dear sir, that wouldn't be very becoming"
November 29, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Computer, please summarize everything PG Wodehouse ever wrote in ten seconds
It's not the students' work ethics. I have students who work until 3am turn up and try to make contributions at 9am.
The shifts needed to survive is noticeably higher than even ten years ago, when I was an UG.
The reality is that students are poorer, paying more, and have less time than ever.
The shifts needed to survive is noticeably higher than even ten years ago, when I was an UG.
The reality is that students are poorer, paying more, and have less time than ever.
An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.
November 30, 2025 at 11:07 AM
It's not the students' work ethics. I have students who work until 3am turn up and try to make contributions at 9am.
The shifts needed to survive is noticeably higher than even ten years ago, when I was an UG.
The reality is that students are poorer, paying more, and have less time than ever.
The shifts needed to survive is noticeably higher than even ten years ago, when I was an UG.
The reality is that students are poorer, paying more, and have less time than ever.
Thinking about revenge less as a form of interpersonal score-settling than as a didactic and theatrical impulse—'I'll show them'. Ideally, in front of others. The symmetry of injuries often suggests a restaging of the inciting trauma(s), whose cathartic output is noticeable but inadequate.
November 29, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Thinking about revenge less as a form of interpersonal score-settling than as a didactic and theatrical impulse—'I'll show them'. Ideally, in front of others. The symmetry of injuries often suggests a restaging of the inciting trauma(s), whose cathartic output is noticeable but inadequate.
Del Toro's Frankenstein is visually lavish and restores the creature's eloquence and sympathy—it ultimately relishes the spectacle and sentiment of violent revenge, rather than the novel's keen sense in which both men are coarsened by it. The Arctic is a set-piece, rather than a logical end-point.
November 14, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Del Toro's Frankenstein is visually lavish and restores the creature's eloquence and sympathy—it ultimately relishes the spectacle and sentiment of violent revenge, rather than the novel's keen sense in which both men are coarsened by it. The Arctic is a set-piece, rather than a logical end-point.
Reposted by Alexander Thom
Creating the US SA was always and obviously the idea.
"what began as a way to increase the pace of deportations has come to look like a national police force, answerable to the president, that is at least as focused on bullying the residents of Democrat-run cities as it is on deporting undocumented migrants" www.economist.com/interactive/...
See how Donald Trump is creating his own police force
Immigration agents are operating in cities with few legal constraints
www.economist.com
November 14, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Creating the US SA was always and obviously the idea.
Reposted by Alexander Thom
"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975
“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975
“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975
November 14, 2025 at 9:13 AM
"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975
“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975
“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975
What a spectacular inaugural lecture on accents, ideas of 'standard' language, and linguistic (in)justices by @snelljulia.bsky.social! Critical, precise, yet tempered by a profoundly humane attitude to teachers and pupils alike. Bravo, Professor Snell!
November 12, 2025 at 6:45 PM
What a spectacular inaugural lecture on accents, ideas of 'standard' language, and linguistic (in)justices by @snelljulia.bsky.social! Critical, precise, yet tempered by a profoundly humane attitude to teachers and pupils alike. Bravo, Professor Snell!
Reposted by Alexander Thom
Happy birthday to @bodleian.ox.ac.uk, which first opened its doors #otd in 1602. 423 years young today!
November 8, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Happy birthday to @bodleian.ox.ac.uk, which first opened its doors #otd in 1602. 423 years young today!
Reposted by Alexander Thom
sometimes an Oxford comma can make all the difference
November 8, 2025 at 12:36 PM
sometimes an Oxford comma can make all the difference
Reposted by Alexander Thom
Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.
October 30, 2025 at 8:21 AM
Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.
Watching John Carpenter's The Thing for the first time tonight.
I don't think I'll have lasagne anytime soon.
I don't think I'll have lasagne anytime soon.
October 31, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Watching John Carpenter's The Thing for the first time tonight.
I don't think I'll have lasagne anytime soon.
I don't think I'll have lasagne anytime soon.
Reposted by Alexander Thom
Looking to publish a salty monograph or edited collection? 'Maritime Humanities, 1400-1800' - now published by
@routledgehistory.bsky.social - welcomes proposals on globalization, post-colonialism, eco-criticism, environmentalism & histories of science & technology routledge.com/Maritime-Hum... ⚓️
@routledgehistory.bsky.social - welcomes proposals on globalization, post-colonialism, eco-criticism, environmentalism & histories of science & technology routledge.com/Maritime-Hum... ⚓️
October 16, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Looking to publish a salty monograph or edited collection? 'Maritime Humanities, 1400-1800' - now published by
@routledgehistory.bsky.social - welcomes proposals on globalization, post-colonialism, eco-criticism, environmentalism & histories of science & technology routledge.com/Maritime-Hum... ⚓️
@routledgehistory.bsky.social - welcomes proposals on globalization, post-colonialism, eco-criticism, environmentalism & histories of science & technology routledge.com/Maritime-Hum... ⚓️
Reposted by Alexander Thom
Graduate seminar did a deep dive on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense yesterday. At the line, “in America the law is king,” they (14 students from 6 countries) burst out laughing. I've been doing this for 35 years and this is the first time that was a laugh line.
October 22, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Graduate seminar did a deep dive on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense yesterday. At the line, “in America the law is king,” they (14 students from 6 countries) burst out laughing. I've been doing this for 35 years and this is the first time that was a laugh line.
Reposted by Alexander Thom
great bedtime story!
September 30, 2025 at 6:16 AM
great bedtime story!
Truly one of the greats. Nobody articulated the mixed potential of 'high' culture—both repressive and liberatory—quite like Tony. It was a particular relief to learn from his work that my teenage fascination with classics wasn't necessarily early-onset Conservativism.
Extremely sad that my much-loved friend and ally of over thirty-five years, the great poet, dramatist, socialist and acerbic wit Tony Harrison, died yesterday morning, peacefully, with his devoted partner, actress Sian Thomas, at his side. I'm so glad I visited them last week.
September 27, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Truly one of the greats. Nobody articulated the mixed potential of 'high' culture—both repressive and liberatory—quite like Tony. It was a particular relief to learn from his work that my teenage fascination with classics wasn't necessarily early-onset Conservativism.
Reposted by Alexander Thom
this exists it is called thinking
September 20, 2025 at 12:15 PM
this exists it is called thinking
Reposted by Alexander Thom
'“It looks awful now....says Carl Sayer, a professor of geography at UCL, who is dancing with glee around the bleak-looking, freshly dug hole. “The colonisation is so quick. Within a year, it is full of water plants. Within two years, it looks like it’s been there forever".'
Some hopeful weekend reading.
“This is nature’s emergency recovery mechanism. We’ve buggered almost everything up but this will still bring them back.”
“This is nature’s emergency recovery mechanism. We’ve buggered almost everything up but this will still bring them back.”
‘Just add water’: how to bring back ancient plants in a Norfolk ghost pond
An expert team are resurrecting ice age ponds and finding rare species returning from a ‘perfect time capsule’
www.theguardian.com
September 20, 2025 at 7:34 AM
'“It looks awful now....says Carl Sayer, a professor of geography at UCL, who is dancing with glee around the bleak-looking, freshly dug hole. “The colonisation is so quick. Within a year, it is full of water plants. Within two years, it looks like it’s been there forever".'
Can anyone recommend good work on Renaissance conceptions of volition and/or coercion?
September 9, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Can anyone recommend good work on Renaissance conceptions of volition and/or coercion?
Reposted by Alexander Thom
I've been away from social media for a while. Thanks to everybody who has followed me here despite my silence. I'll launch my first bsky post with news about my new book: Shakespeare,St Paul, and Dramatic Emancipation: disability, gender, race, ecology academic.oup.com/book/60795.
August 29, 2025 at 2:59 PM
I've been away from social media for a while. Thanks to everybody who has followed me here despite my silence. I'll launch my first bsky post with news about my new book: Shakespeare,St Paul, and Dramatic Emancipation: disability, gender, race, ecology academic.oup.com/book/60795.
Reposted by Alexander Thom
This is just textbook 1930’s fascism
August 23, 2025 at 4:25 AM
This is just textbook 1930’s fascism
Reposted by Alexander Thom
hoping that when they say the LLM talks like a Ph.D.-level expert, they mean "holds indecipherable decades-long academic grudges expressed largely in the form of questions that are actually more of a comment"
August 7, 2025 at 8:43 PM
hoping that when they say the LLM talks like a Ph.D.-level expert, they mean "holds indecipherable decades-long academic grudges expressed largely in the form of questions that are actually more of a comment"
Reposted by Alexander Thom
This book was tremendous fun to research. As an added bonus, you can try and guess which of us wrote which chapters. @euanroger.bsky.social @nejohnst.bsky.social
Today has been pondering treason A LOT, and I'm greatly enjoying the recent article by Sophie Ambler in A Journal of Legal History and this fab book 'A History of Treason' by Chris Day, @thegozfather.bsky.social, Neil Johnson and @euanroger.bsky.social - highly recommend both!
August 5, 2025 at 7:41 PM
This book was tremendous fun to research. As an added bonus, you can try and guess which of us wrote which chapters. @euanroger.bsky.social @nejohnst.bsky.social
For a blissful moment, I thought this was satire.
Introducing the first AI prototype of a British MP🇬🇧🤖
When constituent and local business owner, Jeremy Smith, approached me with this idea, I was very excited to work with him. The AI revolution is happening and we must embrace it to see how it can be useful, in all sectors.
When constituent and local business owner, Jeremy Smith, approached me with this idea, I was very excited to work with him. The AI revolution is happening and we must embrace it to see how it can be useful, in all sectors.
Speak to Mark Sewards 24/7
Connect with Mark Sewards, your AI assistant, anytime.
www.neural-voice.ai
August 5, 2025 at 8:05 PM
For a blissful moment, I thought this was satire.
Reposted by Alexander Thom
That panicked feeling you get when you suddenly find yourself stuck in the super tight jumper you were trying to take off - 14th century, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS G.24, f. 139v
August 5, 2025 at 4:41 AM
That panicked feeling you get when you suddenly find yourself stuck in the super tight jumper you were trying to take off - 14th century, The Morgan Library & Museum, MS G.24, f. 139v