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David Fearn

@davidfearn.bsky.social

350 followers 460 following 300 posts

HoD & Professor of Greek, Classics & AH, University of Warwick – lyric poetics esp.: https://tinyurl.com/5bzbk5xu Here for the intellectual serendipity. When I can, large-format 🎞 photographer: https://t.co/B4aSZJlSiM

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David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · Jan 20

This handmade print is in a frame on an easel in my office at work.

It is there to remind me of beauty, nature & calm when the rest of the world seems like a different kind of wild outside.

Peony Argyrotype

Full details in alt text.

#believeinfilm #largeformatfilmphotography #10x8 #8x10

Print: 26th March 2022 / 22ºC / 43% Relative Humidity

10x8 contact print from Ilford FP4+ negative, trimmed slightly, on 14x11 Bergger Cot320

3ml Fotospeed sensitiver, 1 drop of tween20 solution (mix of 1 drop and 5 drops distilled water)

Paper dried 1hr5mins, no prehumidification

8’30” daylight exposure in full sun, 1:35pm

5mins wash in 1.5l distilled water with squeeze of lemon juice
5mins wash in 1.5l tap water
3mins fix in hypo
1hr final soak

Original exposure:
2nd June 2021, 2.15pm

Chamonix 810V, Rodenstock Apo-Sironar S 240mm f/5.6
Ilford FP4+ 125 (EI 64) 10x8
400mm bellows extension
11” f/5.6, Lee #23A light red filter

Stearman Press SP810, Pyrocat HD 2:2:100, 8’53” for N, 21ºC
Acetic acid stop, TF4 Fix, Hypoclear

Print digitised with Nikon D800E and 85PC-E tilt-shift, stitch of two frames.

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David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 22h

Laughable for the stupidity and incompetence.

Times Higher Education (THE) @timeshighered.bsky.social · 1d

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, reports Patrick Jack #edusky
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/badenochs-number-caps-plan-would-cut-100000-university-places

David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 1d

Wot no visas? And presumably they think they can just milk rich Indians who can suck up new extra charges?
And "...seeking new funding streams" 🤦‍♂️
Patronising stupidity.

Again, almost as if govt doesn't know what universities are...

This an excerpt from www.gov.uk/government/n...

David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 5d

🤣

David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 5d

🤓🤓 Robert Redford film-watching with total camera geekery:
Spy Game 1980s Beirut section with Brad Pitt as photojournalist. Leica M6 √ but not with ?un-CLA'd Canon A1 shutter sound dubbed in! (Tbh all the camera shutter sounds are the same!) 🤓🤓
#believeinfilm

David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 5d

Well, just the usual (Homer, Pindar) mainly, but wonderfully collegiate serendipity has got me very much into Peter Riley (esp. as he's another northerner, like me, and was doing ecopoetics before the idea was even invented, seemingly). Alice Oswald also, quietly, absolutely incredible.

David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 5d

Excellent. And Kyle is lovely, isn't he. 💪

I currently find solace in reading and writing about poetry at the end of the world.

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David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 5d

Yes, my thoughts too. This habitual talk of schematic "generations" is divisive and uninclusive anyway - essentializing nonsense - , and also overlooks a sense in which what might seem generational attitudes can be more like organic trans-temporal intra-family attitudes or systems of value.

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Reposted by David Fearn

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 8d

'Graeme Atherton, head of the Ruskin Institute for Social Equity (Rise) at the University of West London, said the policy “is giving with one hand and taking with another” and will “exacerbate” the problems being faced by humanities and arts departments and disadvantaged students.'

Maintenance grants only for priority courses ‘deeply concerning’

Using financial incentives to influence student choice risk undermining Labour’s widening access goals, critics fear

www.timeshighereducation.com

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Reposted by David Fearn

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 7d

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

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Reposted by David Fearn

Wendy Xu @wendyxu.bsky.social · 9d

"single-use plastic of the mind" had me GAGGED

But a still graver scandal of AI— like its hydra-head sibling, cryptocurrency-is the technology's colossal wastefulness. The untold billions firehosed by investors into its development; the water-guzzling data centers draining the parched exurbs of Phoenix and Dallas; the yeti-size carbon footprint of the sector as a whole—and for what? A cankerous glut of racist memes and cardboard essays.
Not only is the ratio of Al's resource rapacity to its productive utility indefensibly and irremediably skewed, Al-made material is itself a waste product: flimsy, shoddy, disposable, a single-use plastic of the mind.

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David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 9d

Sounds as if international student fee levy is staying in place to fund maintenance grants for underprivileged students "on courses in line with govt's industrial strategy".

What a mockery. What a nonsense.

Utter failure to understand the HE sector, across the board, as an international success.

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David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 10d

Enormous loss; but a vast inspiration for what Classics might and can still be.
I like to hope there's just a little bit of him in me.

Reposted by David Fearn

Edith Hall @edithmayhall.bsky.social · 10d

My tribute to Tony Harrison number 2 here www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

Classics with added Yorkshire class: tributes to Tony Harrison

Harrison’s poetry and plays made an electrifying connection with readers and audiences through his use of Leeds dialect, and his ear for rhyme. Writers remember his greatness

www.theguardian.com

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David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 10d

They don't live here...
Tbh that's one grain of comfort.

David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 10d

Hence my horror at the news this morning that (it sounds as if) indefinite right to remain to be granted only to those who demonstrate 'contribution to society'. Let me count the ways in which this seems appallingly racist.
It's almost as if they have no fecking clue what they're doing.

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David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 10d

Liked this. Particularly struck by the risk of banal positivity in the fostering of arts education: "Art as a kids’ workshop in which no one ever fails." Challenge is SO important.

David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 11d

@ancient-tokens.bsky.social Warwick Classics Xmas/Saturnalia etc Cake prep!

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David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 11d

Wonder if the proposed new student migration scheme suggests that govt will scrap the idiotic and spectacularly damaging levy on international student fees that still appears to be on the table?? Answers on a postcard.

Reposted by David Fearn

Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 17d

Reform will apparently pledge today that they'd abolish indefinite leave to remain - including retrospectively, to people already granted it. Obviously this is a moral abomination but it is also a practical and legal impossibility.

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David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 16d

Is the BBC political team going to grow a pair any time soon? Answers on a postcard.