Dr Cathryn Pearce
@cathrynpearce.bsky.social
5.3K followers 1.6K following 3.9K posts
British historian. Author: Cornish Wrecking, 1700-1860 | Researching c18th-19th shipwrecks, the Royal Navy & coastal communities. #CoastalHistory #NavalHistory #MaritimeHistory #SussexCoast
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cathrynpearce.bsky.social
For those who post on #CoastalHistory topics, please let me know if you'd like to be added to our starter pack. Coastal History involves the history of coastal communities, both urban and rural, or those who live between land and sea around the world. Coasts connect! go.bsky.app/Pfa95p7
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
NVIDIA and OpenAi:

Concerns that their “increasingly complex and interconnected web of business transactions is artificially propping up the trillion-dollar AI boom.“

@bloomberg.com $NVDA 👀
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
lhaasis.bsky.social
Calling all history lovers! The Prize Papers Project is about to reveal thrilling new insights from one of the most fascinating ships captured during the War of the Austrian Succession. A team favorite – don’t miss it! Follow & stay tuned! #earlymodern #history #maritimehistory
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
phillyrothers.bsky.social
Many mistaken assumptions made about the skills required in a post-AI world. Tech and formulaic stuff will be largely automated. The ability to write and parse complex text, present and influence will be key skills. Talking as an English Lit grad now working in complex tech roles and researching AI
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
hannahcooper.bsky.social
English and History graduate here who now works in digital marketing. If you want useful websites that provide genuine, relevant value and that people can understand, you absolutely cannot rely on AI. You need people who can research, analyse and write for specific contexts and audiences.
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
hagenilda.bsky.social
Exactly
redpeter99.bsky.social
The Rees Moggs will still do History degrees. The Johnsons will still do Classics.
Sadly, the Wilsons from South Bank in Middlesbrough won't get the intellectual stimulation of studying a subject of interest for a degree.
cathrynpearce.bsky.social
I hope all goes smoothly for you!
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
mariafarrell.bsky.social
Thank you @georgemonbiot.bsky.social for continuing to point out UK govt contempt for both science and ppl with ME/CFS

My reality: I gave a talk abroad 4 weeks ago, so now, after morning shower, I need to lie down for 1-2 hrs

20 minutes of dog walk? Lose 1/2 a day of work

We just want to be well.
georgemonbiot.bsky.social
ME/CFS is a devastating condition that has long been denied, dismissed, psychologised and underdiagnosed. Research is at last starting to catch up with it, with glimmers of hope for those who have been left untreated for so long.
There's a huge BUT coming ...🧵
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
Scientists develop first ‘accurate blood test’ to detect chronic fatigue syndrome
Research could offer hope for ME patients – but some experts urge caution and say more studies needed
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
davidveevers.bsky.social
All I think about when reading this is how many jobs the money spent on that pile of brick and glass could have saved in smaller humanities departments - my own colleagues. It’s like building a monument of gold in a landscape of wrack and ruin.
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
'The gleaming palace to the humanities – the single largest building project ever undertaken by the University of Oxford made possible by the largest philanthropic gift it has ever received – stands in stark contrast to the beleaguered, shrinking state of the rest of the sector.'
Oxford’s largest-ever project ‘shows what the humanities can do’
New building which brings together disciplines for the first time will also open its doors to the public to engage with big questions facing the world
www.timeshighereducation.com
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
earlymodlancs.bsky.social
I want to tell all students of the so-called 'rip-off degrees' named below that your critical thinking is important and makes valid contributions to culture and society

Without your skills, we wouldn't be able to unpack toxic discourses and do something about them
eve.gd
This makes me so angry. These people view all life as training for lifelong servitude/work. There's no room for interest, enjoyment, and culture in their bleak vision of education. At least she'll never be in power to see it through. Though Reform are probably worse.
Badenoch: Curb students taking "rip-off" degrees such as English. The performing arts, sociology and anthropology are among the subjects the Conservatives would like to cut
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
hpsvanessa.bsky.social
Reminder that basing funding on graduate income incentivises unis to close courses like nursing (too poorly paid), and to discriminate against female students and most minority ethnic groups (whose earnings on graduation are lower than white men).
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
'Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is expected to announce plans to cut the number of UK university places by about 100,000 annually by reintroducing student number controls.' 1/3
Badenoch’s number caps plan would cut 100,000 university places
Tory leader to use conference speech to attack ‘debt trap degrees’ and pledge more money for apprenticeships
www.timeshighereducation.com
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
henrysnow.bsky.social
My colleague Jack Bouchard's book Terra Nova is out today! It's about early 16th-century mariners and the seasonal fishery around present-day Newfoundland, and its place within the Atlantic World. I cannot wait to read it

yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...
Terra Nova
A bottom-up story of the fishworkers, whalers, First Nations, merchantwomen, oceans, and animals who together made a new colonial world in the early Atlantic...
yalebooks.yale.edu
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
colmpm.bsky.social
*Calling PhD students of modern British and imperial history in London*

The @ihrbritainseminar.bsky.social's first session this Thursday (9 Oct.) is dedicated to PhDs, at any stage, for elevator pitches and meet-and-greet. Do come along! Details in the link.

www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
New PhD Student Session
For the first session of term we will be hosting a meet and greet at the IHR for all PhD students in modern British and imperial history.
www.history.ac.uk
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
earlymodernjohn.bsky.social
Delighted to see the open access publication of Crossings: Migrant Knowledges, Migrant Forms -- a superb volume featuring artists, poets, scholars, and a short essay by me on Dutch- and French-speaking women in 16th-century London telling their stories of migration. punctumbooks.com/titles/cross...
Crossings: Migrant Knowledges, Migrant Forms – punctum books
punctumbooks.com
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
alexvont.bsky.social
I agree with every word Zelda Williams says. And this at the end from OpenAI makes me want to go full Ned Ludd. Creators can’t have a blanket opt-out on copyright infringement of their work and have to fill out a form appealing to OpenAI’s mercy every time? Fuck off into the sun
OpenAI told the Guardian that content owners can flag copyright infringement using a “copyright disputes form” but that individual artists or studios cannot have a blanket opt-out. Varun Shetty, OpenAI’s head of media partnerships, said: “We’ll work with rights holders to block characters from Sora at their request and respond to takedown requests.”
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
stonefishweirs.bsky.social
Join us at Indigenous People, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and Climate Change: The Iconic Underwater Cultural Heritage of Stone Tidal Weirs Project Group. #oceanspast #OceanAction46159 #maritimeheritage #IndigenousPeoples #oceandecadeheritage oceandecadechfp.org/.../indigeno...
7/7
Indigenous People, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and Climate Change: The Iconic Underwater Cultural Heritage of Stone Tidal Weirs - The Cultural Heritage Framework Programme
oceandecadechfp.org
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
stonefishweirs.bsky.social
Stone #fishweirs from #Morvern #SoundofMull, #Scotland. Called yairs in Scottish #Gaelic. Found as far back as the Stone Age, many being built in the 17th-19th centuries. Mostly made as ebb weirs utilizing firths tides of sea loughs.
#coastalhistory
1/7
Stone #fishweirs from #Morvern #SoundofMull, #Scotland.
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
willpooley.bsky.social
idly looking at the blog statistics for williamgpooley.wordpress.com and realised that between 2024-5 the number of referrals from Google halved. this of course corresponds to the period when Google rolled out their AI summaries on search.
Will Pooley
history/folklore/writing
williamgpooley.wordpress.com
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
onslies.bsky.social
How is anyone going to do the work that leads up to those big grants? You need loads of small bits of financial support for most humanities research (or, well, job security and non-overload with teaching & admin but 🤷‍♀️) and to support the groundwork. Only massive grants skew the research environment.
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
'“We need a more long-term strategic partnership,” he said, noting that this could mean fewer but larger grants being awarded across the research landscape.' 2/3
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
estherschindler.bsky.social
I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
greenleejw.bsky.social
Friends, with the world on fire, it feels useless to be here selling my services. But I do need to keep the lights on, and the #maps pay the bills.

So...if you need a map(s) for a book project, let me know! I have space for new commissions.

Here are a few of my favorite maps I've done lately:
1/2
Grayscale map of the Atlantic showing most of the Americas, Europe, and Africa. There are arrows showing the direction of trade, and each arrow has at least one number attached to it. The numbers match a key on the side that lists the products being traded and their place of origin. There are 15 different sets of commodities listed:
1:Midlands & Birmingham: Guns, Gunpowder, Metalware, Silks
2: Liverpool & Lancashire: Cotton-linens
3: Lancashire: Linens, Cottons, Cotton-linens
4: India: Cottons Cowries
5: Midlands & London: Metalware, Silks, Ceramics, Glassware, Guns
6: London & Glasgow: Credit, Shipping Insurance
7: New England: Beef & Pork, Fish, Rum, Wood, Whale products
8: Mid-Atlantic: Grain
9: Chesapeake Colonies: Tobacco
10: Carolinas, Rice, Indigo
11: Caribbean: Sugar, Molasses
12: Brazil: Coffee
13: Brazil: Gold
14: Mexico / Peru: Silver
15: Britain: Grain, Manufactures

The map has a set of grey arrows going from West Africa to the Americas showing the number of enslaved workers transported. The arrows are sized relative to the numbers. The largest arrow shows 6 million enslaved workers going to the Caribbean. 3.5 million went to Africa, 650,000 to the Spanish colonies in Central and South America, and 400,000 to North America.

A key in the bottom right lists a set of African kingdoms that participated in the selling of enslaved workers, including Benin, the Oyo Empire, Dahomey, the Ashanti Confederacy, the Kingdom of Allada, the Kingdom of Whydah, and the Nupe people. These kingdoms are outlined on the map. Greyscale drawing of a floor plan of what looks like the first floor of a house, with ten rooms and a flight of stairs. The title at the bottom reads: "The Magic Bookshop." There are two exterior doors: a front door and a back door. The floor plan is on a tattered piece of paper that looks as if it is being unrolled from the top, so there is a curl of paper, or a scroll, at the bottom. Around the floor plan are four animals. A cat, labeled Angel, is resting on top of floor plan, dangling a paw down. To her left is a huntsman spider named Drusilla. At the bottom of the page on the left is a golden retriever named Willow, sitting behind the scroll like a good boy. On the right side is a cat named Spike, who is sitting on top of the scroll and crushing it like an jerk. Typical dog and cat stuff. There are four piles of books around the outside of the floor plan: two large, and two small

From top left down in a switchback pattern, the rooms are labeled:
Yellow: Books with gold covers
Possibility: Mystery, Crime (where they do the spell)
Exeunt Omnes: Older books (where Kennedy finds the magic book)
The Office (where hazel makes tea)
Bathroom
Gurgler: Sci-fi, Fantasy (where Hazel goes to hide out)
The Scriptorium: More modern books (where Hazel sends Luke to find a book for his niece)
Taboo
The Fishbowl: Romance (where Luke makes a pink and purple bookcase)
Pooh Corner: Children, Young adult (where Bob has his armchair and the silent book club happens)

A label in the central hallway reads: "(where they put a bookcase for Today's Donations). Another label on the stairs reads "Hazel's loft apartment" and there is an arrow pointing up the stairs. Art. A greyscale map of southern Africa showing different biomes. The map map key indicates 7 different biomes: Succulent Karoo; Fynbos; Albany Thicket; India Ocean Coastal Belt; Mixed Woodland; Grassland; Nama-Karoo; and Kalahari Savanna. Each is represented on the may by a different shade of grey, with areas of more rainfall being darker, and areas of less rainfall being lighter. Several of the rivers are labeled, as is the Indian Ocean. Art. Colored map showing the locations of Alderely Edge, done in a fantasy style. The map is drawn to look like an old map done on parchment, with torn edges curling up. Two bars with ribbons wrapped around them form a frame at the top and right sides of the map. The ribbon on top is blue, the one on the right is a dusty red. On the right side of the map, between the frame and the edge, the map is colored turquoise and does not show any land forms. Written in large vertical letters in this space is the maps' title: "The Edge".

The main part of the map is cut with forests and cliffs, and has 13 locations noted. Each location name is in a small frame that looks like a torn piece of parchment. Two roads cut across the map, one labeled Macclesfield Road and the other labeled Artists Lane. They meet in the bottom 3rd of the map by a location called "The Wizard Tearoom."  An arrow at the top left points up one of the roads and has a label reading "to Alderely Edge (village). An arrow a the other end of the road, at the bottom of th emap, reads: "To Macclesfield."
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
navalairhistory.com
So after a challenging few days in the #LakeDistrict Mum and Dad have made the very sensible decision to take the easier alternative route from Patterdale to Shap, which starts with an Ullswater steamer trip up the lake to Pooley Bridge
Selfie of my parents on the Ullswater steamer
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
royalhistsoc.org
The RHS is a membership organisation of 6500+ historians. We welcome applications to join us at any time. Our next closing dates are 13 October and 15 December.

We offer categories for all kinds of historians and at all stages of research, from Postgraduate to Fellow: bit.ly/46V8WOQ #Skystorians
Closing dates for next application rounds:
Mondays 13 October and 15 December 2025
 

The Royal Historical Society represents the interests of historical researchers in universities, libraries, archives, museums, heritage and broadcasting, as well as those engaged in public, community and family history research.
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
davidveevers.bsky.social
Sorry, we can't afford to give you your real-terms pay cut.
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
'Staff at some institutions will not get even get the small rise due to them because of a clause in the negotiations that allows for a delay for up to 11 months if a university is facing financial difficulties.' So far, Dundee, Kent, Brunel, Coventry, Swansea.
Five UK universities tell staff they can’t afford pay rises
Negotiations over whether to honour 1.4 per cent increase ongoing at several other institutions amid financial crunch
www.timeshighereducation.com
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
cathamclarke.bsky.social
"I caught this morning morning's minion..." Monday morning on the #clifftop, watching a #kestrel hunt. I was too spellbound to take photos as it hovered right in front of me, so you'll have to make do with this zoomed-in shot in a tree. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44402/...
A view east along the cliff from Southbourne Kestrel in a tree Me on the cliff
Reposted by Dr Cathryn Pearce
pauljwillson.bsky.social
Subtle light on the western flanks of Aonach Eagach