Deborah Lam
@deborahlam.bsky.social
Non-English Lecturer in English @UoBrisEnglish | art historian in literary critic’s clothing | Art and literature in the overlong 19c
Reposted by Deborah Lam
Walter Benjamin, “The Storyteller” (1936)
August 3, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Walter Benjamin, “The Storyteller” (1936)
Back in York for the first time in over 5 years and am reminded of just how it feels to be in love with a place.
April 8, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Back in York for the first time in over 5 years and am reminded of just how it feels to be in love with a place.
Reposted by Deborah Lam
The university death spiral is everywhere, and for everyone: they're all just on a convoy into the same black hole. Oxbridge, LSE and Imperial excepted, they must all *necessarily and inevitably* end up crushed to the size of an Oxo cube if we go on like this.
www.bristol247.com/opinion/your...
www.bristol247.com/opinion/your...
'The University of Bristol has embarked on a path like a death spiral'
UCU members are opposed to academic departments across the university having to make at least a 50% operating surplus
www.bristol247.com
March 20, 2025 at 10:35 PM
The university death spiral is everywhere, and for everyone: they're all just on a convoy into the same black hole. Oxbridge, LSE and Imperial excepted, they must all *necessarily and inevitably* end up crushed to the size of an Oxo cube if we go on like this.
www.bristol247.com/opinion/your...
www.bristol247.com/opinion/your...
Sorry but this wins best architecture pun
Aviant garde architecture, right there.
March 13, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Sorry but this wins best architecture pun
Brought students to the @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social a couple of weeks ago, and had a great time talking to students about how poisonous and toxic everything was in nineteenth century art. At least they didn’t have to worry about microplastics?
March 6, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Brought students to the @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social a couple of weeks ago, and had a great time talking to students about how poisonous and toxic everything was in nineteenth century art. At least they didn’t have to worry about microplastics?
Today is print day at the Bristol Common Press, and Jamie and I have settled for a chaotic Pre-Raphaelites at the Oxford Union type energy.
February 18, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Today is print day at the Bristol Common Press, and Jamie and I have settled for a chaotic Pre-Raphaelites at the Oxford Union type energy.
Reposted by Deborah Lam
I hadn't know that in 1920 E.M. Forster wrote (in a review of Wallis Budge's memoir) such a concise and magnificent f*ck you to colonial collecting in general and the British Museum in particular: archive.org/details/p1at... (attn @alexanderchee.bsky.social!)
January 23, 2025 at 4:45 PM
I hadn't know that in 1920 E.M. Forster wrote (in a review of Wallis Budge's memoir) such a concise and magnificent f*ck you to colonial collecting in general and the British Museum in particular: archive.org/details/p1at... (attn @alexanderchee.bsky.social!)
Reposted by Deborah Lam
Max Beerbohm, Spring Cottage, Hampstead, 1860, 1917
https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1077727
https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1077727
January 19, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Max Beerbohm, Spring Cottage, Hampstead, 1860, 1917
https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1077727
https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1077727
I’m catsitting and forgot to make the bed after a nap, and Morty is so cute in his ammonite form so I guess I’ll just freeze. @pamplemoussepam.bsky.social
January 18, 2025 at 11:10 PM
I’m catsitting and forgot to make the bed after a nap, and Morty is so cute in his ammonite form so I guess I’ll just freeze. @pamplemoussepam.bsky.social
Reposted by Deborah Lam
I have taken
the resources
that were in
the budget
and which
you were probably
saving
for higher education
Forgive me
they were needed
to feed the AI bubble
and to dismantle the humanities
the resources
that were in
the budget
and which
you were probably
saving
for higher education
Forgive me
they were needed
to feed the AI bubble
and to dismantle the humanities
January 16, 2025 at 12:16 PM
I have taken
the resources
that were in
the budget
and which
you were probably
saving
for higher education
Forgive me
they were needed
to feed the AI bubble
and to dismantle the humanities
the resources
that were in
the budget
and which
you were probably
saving
for higher education
Forgive me
they were needed
to feed the AI bubble
and to dismantle the humanities
This is why Romantic literature exists and you can’t convince me otherwise.
people say they want hope when what they want is laudanum
January 16, 2025 at 11:50 AM
This is why Romantic literature exists and you can’t convince me otherwise.
‘Come on friendly quokkas and fall on Slough’ has now replaced ‘Not with a bang but a whimper’ as the best way the world ends.
if you’re gentle and smiley and don’t bite or run away, all you get is fingers snapped in your face, and bits of cucumber thrust at you, and people putting their babies in your personal space for selfies. come friendly quokkas and fall on Slough
January 6, 2025 at 8:57 AM
‘Come on friendly quokkas and fall on Slough’ has now replaced ‘Not with a bang but a whimper’ as the best way the world ends.
Actual photo of me in Edinburgh, fuelling my obsession with smoked fish
January 2, 2025 at 9:33 PM
Actual photo of me in Edinburgh, fuelling my obsession with smoked fish
Reposted by Deborah Lam
I just want to teach them to write...
January 2, 2025 at 6:00 PM
I just want to teach them to write...
When you have to be crucified but a banger just came on –
January 1, 2025 at 6:04 PM
When you have to be crucified but a banger just came on –
That’s the Wordsworthian lyric for you
my scrabble tiles spell out the gist of every wordsworth poem
December 24, 2024 at 2:38 PM
That’s the Wordsworthian lyric for you
Reposted by Deborah Lam
Did Elizabeth Bishop write this
December 4, 2024 at 8:33 PM
Did Elizabeth Bishop write this
Last year for Christmas, I asked for a head torch. This year I’m asking for a toolbox. They say most boys grow up and date someone like their mum, but my boyfriend is dating his dad.
December 2, 2024 at 12:48 PM
Last year for Christmas, I asked for a head torch. This year I’m asking for a toolbox. They say most boys grow up and date someone like their mum, but my boyfriend is dating his dad.
Today, I got taught what a womble is by English staff and postgrads, and I wonder now why wombles aren’t in the Life in the UK test as they seem much more culturally salient than Wordsworth.
every time I think I've got a secure grasp on British culture it raises a wing and a new monstrosity/ masterpiece/ monstrosopiece from its past emerges www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyux...
The Wombles - I Wish It Could Be A Wombling Merry Christmas Every Day
YouTube video by DramaticoMusic
www.youtube.com
November 28, 2024 at 10:57 AM
Today, I got taught what a womble is by English staff and postgrads, and I wonder now why wombles aren’t in the Life in the UK test as they seem much more culturally salient than Wordsworth.
Reposted by Deborah Lam
“Who can say how little we should know of many periods, but for their art? History (so called) has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; Art has remembered the people, because they created.”
November 27, 2024 at 12:42 PM
“Who can say how little we should know of many periods, but for their art? History (so called) has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; Art has remembered the people, because they created.”
Reposted by Deborah Lam
To get in on the fun that @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social seems to be having posting William Morris designs, here are some doodles that Edward Burne-Jones made of Morris 1/4
November 23, 2024 at 5:49 PM
To get in on the fun that @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social seems to be having posting William Morris designs, here are some doodles that Edward Burne-Jones made of Morris 1/4
God is dead, Ruskin is rolling in his grave.
November 22, 2024 at 5:45 PM
God is dead, Ruskin is rolling in his grave.
Reposted by Deborah Lam
proud to say that I am and will always be a deeply unserious person
November 21, 2024 at 1:53 AM
proud to say that I am and will always be a deeply unserious person
Can’t stop thinking about how ‘il contrapasso’ in Dante’s Commedia refers to the laws of punishment in ‘Inferno’ that corresponds to the sin (‘opposite suffering’) – but this is the bum version, the opposite posterior.
"Contrapposto" is a fancy word for putting your weight on 1 leg and tilting your hips. It tenses only 1 butt cheek, and it was invented by the Ancient Greeks 😁👍🏛️🍑 #MuseumBums
A figure from the Vesunna Roman Museum, Perigeux, France
Thanks @fc1999.bsky.social for sharing 😁
A figure from the Vesunna Roman Museum, Perigeux, France
Thanks @fc1999.bsky.social for sharing 😁
November 21, 2024 at 2:00 PM
Can’t stop thinking about how ‘il contrapasso’ in Dante’s Commedia refers to the laws of punishment in ‘Inferno’ that corresponds to the sin (‘opposite suffering’) – but this is the bum version, the opposite posterior.
Reposted by Deborah Lam
Another delightful discovery from today's foray into cat #poems that influenced Christina #Rossetti: William #Blake's water colour illustrations to Thomas Gray's 'Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat'. #Romanticism #cats
November 20, 2024 at 1:17 PM
Another delightful discovery from today's foray into cat #poems that influenced Christina #Rossetti: William #Blake's water colour illustrations to Thomas Gray's 'Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat'. #Romanticism #cats