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David Veevers @davidveevers.bsky.social · 1d

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.

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 1d

'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

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Lenny Hodges @lrhodges.bsky.social · 1d

Great post-film q and a with Fred Kudjo Kuwornu, director and producer of We Were Here: The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe.

Director Fred Kudjo Kuwornu seated middle between two discussants on a film stage.

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The Prize Papers Project @prizepapers.bsky.social · 1d

Earlier in September, we were able to welcome the Catalan TV for a news report on Catalan documents found in our collection at the National Archives, UK. Quentin Daste, an associated researcher of the Prize Papers and expert for the Catalan sources from the ship San Magin...

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Harry Turtledove @hntdove.bsky.social · 3d

Hell of a thing to put next to a statue of Joan of Arc. (h/t David Pilling)

Fire extinguisher next to a statue of Joan of Arc

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Lenny Hodges @lrhodges.bsky.social · 3d

Tintin in Palestine by Yto Barrada. Based on a colour analysis of Hergé's Land of Black Gold, which was originally set in Palestine, before being changed to a fictional country in the 1970s.

Square grids of coloured fabric dyed with plant, insect and mineral dyes.

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Lenny Hodges @lrhodges.bsky.social · 6d

Fantastic to see the stolen (and later recovered) copy of Shakespeare's First Folio at the Cosin's Library with @imems.bsky.social this evening!

Copy of first folio with torn bindings open on the first page of The Tempest

Portraits of Erasmus, Scaliger and Grotius above books in the Cosin's Library

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will o’the wisp pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 14d

“Without the ideas+perspective of ECRs… there will be no new generation of scholars to take up ideas and push them in new directions”

@wadehistory.bsky.social on “What can be done?” for the French History Network’s ECR in 2025 series

frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/6746/

🗃️#FRHistory

Let me be blunt: senior colleagues, institutions and organisations need to act in accordance with the mentality that French history in Britain is on the verge of extinction, because it is. Based on the nature of the job market today, the majority of ECRs in French history are, realistically, looking for permanent positions in European (or possibly global) history or in a particular subdiscipline of history (e.g. political history, economic history, social history, and so on). This puts them in fierce competition with historians studying other countries, all of whom face the same challenges. If ECRs in French history do not manage to secure permanent positions, the entire French history community will suffer: without the ideas and perspective of ECRs, senior scholars will only be able to have conversations with each other, and there will be no new generation of scholars to take up their ideas and push them in new directions. Put another way, senior scholars who do not wish to see their books merely gathering dust in libraries twenty years from now need to be doing whatever they can to support ECRs on the job market.

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Lenny Hodges @lrhodges.bsky.social · 15d

Been trying out lidded pots. Latest ones got a bit weird...

Bell shaped butter dish and lidded pot with protruding handle

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will o’the wisp pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 21d

Today a follow up to yesterday’s post on being an ECR in French History, by @wadehistory.bsky.social

frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/6744/ 🗃️ #FRHistory

For me, it is difficult to overstate how challenging it is to be an ECR in French history right now. One fellow ECR speaks of it being
'cataclysmically bad'; another speaks of the academic job market as a ravaging 'tornado';
neither are exaggerations.

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Dónal Hassett @donalh.bsky.social · 24d

🚨Call for Papers🚨Delighted to share the CfP for next year's meeting of @frenchcolonial.bsky.social which we will be hosting in Maynooth June 25-27. The theme is "Après la tempête: Afterlives of Colonial Crisis and Conflict". Deadline for submissions is November 14 frenchcolonial.org/annual-meeti...

Annual Meeting – French Colonial Historical Society

frenchcolonial.org

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Lenny Hodges @lrhodges.bsky.social · 27d

As much as I'll miss this feathered colleague an office probably isn't the best place for a magpie...

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Lenny Hodges @lrhodges.bsky.social · 29d

Very excited to be starting at IMEMS and working in such a fantastic building!

IMEMS Durham @imems.bsky.social · 29d

Happy #TransformationTuesday! 🔨

The last year has seen some much-needed restoration work take place at our headquarters here on Durham World Heritage Site, thanks to a wonderful team including surveyors, builders, joiners and decorators. We couldn't be happier with the results!

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Martin Lewis @martinlewis.moneysavingexpert.com · Sep 5

Worrying long term hidden fiscal drag

The family income threshold at which English students maintenance loans start to get reduced is just £25,000/yr.

It has been this level since the 2008/2009 academic year. We have had 64% (CPI) inflation since then. So it's been slashed hugely in real terms

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Lenny Hodges @lrhodges.bsky.social · Aug 28

Hi Liesbeth, did you see my reply to your email?

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Lenny Hodges @lrhodges.bsky.social · Aug 25

This might be useful: www.pierre-marteau.com/currency/con...

The Marteau Early 18th-Century Currency Converter : Money, Prices Wages, Currencies, Exchange Rates, 17th Century, 18th Century, Baroque, Enlightenment

Tools for the Conversion of 17th and 18th-Century European Currencies

www.pierre-marteau.com

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City Bridge Foundation @citybridgefndn.bsky.social · Aug 22

Then & Now: Blackfriars Bridge

Swipe to see Blackfriars Bridge today in 2025, alongside a beautiful watercolour of its grand opening by Queen Victoria in 1869.

Thanks to @thelondonarchives.bsky.social for the historic image.

#CityBridgeFoundation #BlackfriarsBridge #ThenAndNow

Painting of the opening of Blackfriars Bridge in London, with crowded boats on the river and spectators lining the bridge adorned with numerous flags.

A view of the River Thames with a red double-decker bus crossing the Blackfriars Bridge. In the background, the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral is visible against a blue sky with clouds.

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Lenny Hodges @lrhodges.bsky.social · Aug 20

Epic to swim in rough seas under the mournful glaze of a ruined castle. (Not pictured - slightly less epic golf course the other side...)

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Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦 @kfduggan.bsky.social · Aug 19

Medieval rabbits could play two recorders at the same time (one in each nostril) while simultaneously singing. But no one has seen this done since the thirteenth century. Humans have tried to accomplish this, but have been unsuccessful so far. True story.

A rust-colour rabbit is standing, holding a green stick-like object to its mouth in each hand. They're almost certainly not recorders (they're probably celery or sticks), but in a pathetic attempt to be funny I'm saying that they're recorders and that they're being played with his nostrils.

Reference: British Library Add MS 70000, f. 5r.

A white man is sitting in a chair. He has a recorder in each hand, and each recorder is being played in one of his nostrils. The image is a screenshot from the show "After Life" (season 1, episode 2).

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Damnèd Screamvens @thehighsign.bsky.social · Aug 13

Wow. The University of Chicago, a world-class institution whose humanities faculty in the past has included Homi Bhabha & Lauren Berlant & Ralph Ellison & Hannah freaking Arendt, is getting rid of basically every graduate department involving the acknowledgment that other cultures & languages exist.

Quote from a story on changes at the U of Chicago that notes they are "pausing" doctoral eduction in Classics, Comp Lit, Germanic studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Romance languages and literatures, and South Asian Studies.

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Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · Jul 28

We are very sorry to learn of the death last Saturday of Professor Peter J. Marshall (1933-2025), former Rhodes Professor of Imperial History @kingshistory.bsky.social and President of the Royal Historical Society, 1996-2000 bit.ly/4lUl74K

Peter will be greatly missed by many #Skystorians

Peter J. Marshall (1933-2025) - RHS

We are deeply saddened to learn of the death, on Saturday, of Professor Peter Marshall, former Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King's College London and President of the Royal Historical Socie...

bit.ly

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Lewis Wade 🗃️ @wadehistory.bsky.social · Jul 19

#GCFHSResist It was such a pleasure to meet/catch up with so many wonderful scholars in French history! Although French history/history/academia faces so many challenges, there is an abundance of kindness and generosity within the community that will help us face those challenges together.

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Roz @rozsro.bsky.social · Jul 18

Thrilled to have received an honorable mention for the FCHS Eccles prize for my paper, “Reframing Global Commerce in 18th-Century India: Views from the Homes of Tamil Merchants”

Especially grateful for the generous feedback I received from the audience at Buffalo
frenchcolonial.org/awards-prize...

Awards & Prizes – French Colonial Historical Society

frenchcolonial.org

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Lenny Hodges @lrhodges.bsky.social · Jul 17

Thanks to my fellow panelists and all attendees - a great experience to present together! #GCFHSResist

will o’the wisp pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · Jul 17

Great panel now on the (17-18th c French) Indian Ocean world now at #GCFHSResist feat @lrhodges.bsky.social @wadehistory.bsky.social and Rosalind Rothwell

SESSION 17.2.3 (11h30-13h)
> Salle 100-1
Corporate Political Economy & its Discontents in the Indian Ocean World, 17th-18th Centuries
Lenny Hodges
Lewis Wade
Rosalind Rothwell
› Ellen Wurtzel (CP)
品
This panel examines forms of institutional, economic and embodied resistance in France's Indian Ocean trading empire from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries.
Centring on French India, the three papers collectively interrogate how a diverse range of individuals and institutions, from indigenous merchants to Languedocian cloth manufac-turers, challenged, reshaped, or fell victim to imperial re-forms, colonial tropes, technologies, and market pressures.
Together the papers reveal the multiple and layered forms of resistance, legal, cultural, and commercial, that challenged and complicated assertions of French imperial authority and industrial strategy. Situating economic practices within sociopolitical contexts, they contribute to recent efforts to globalise understandings of early modern political eco-nomy. In doing so, they bring India into broader conversations about empire and capitalism, showing how both metropolitan and colonial peripheries were not passive sites of control, but arenas of conflict, negotiation, and imperial imagination.

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Lenny Hodges @lrhodges.bsky.social · Jul 2

Some great source discussion at Birkbeck's early modern research day today!

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Mark Williams @mrfw17thc.bsky.social · Jul 1

Coloured engraving of 'Het Huis van den Oost Indische Huis in Londen', with the English East India Company's headquarters on Leadenhall Street. It would be torn down in 1726.

#earlymodern #skystorians

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