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Dr Sarah J Young

@sarahjyoung.bsky.social

1.9K followers 660 following 380 posts

Russophone culture & history, prison/gulag writing, and C19 literature. Also cats. And needlework. Author/translator of Writing Resistance: Revolutionary Memoirs of Shlissel’burg Prison, 1884-1906 https://uclpress.co.uk/products/173021

uclpress.co.uk

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Dr Sarah J Young @sarahjyoung.bsky.social · Nov 18

Greetings to new followers! One of the things I’m going to be using this account for is posting about the revolutionary populists imprisoned in Shlissel’burg Fortress from 1884-1906, the subject of my open access @uclpress.bsky.social book Writing Resistance uclpress.co.uk/book/writing...

Writing Resistance

In 1884, the first of 68 prisoners convicted of terrorism and revolutionary activity were transferred to a new maximum security prison at Shlissel´burg Fortress near St Petersburg. The regime of indet...

uclpress.co.uk

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Reposted by Dr Sarah J Young

Simon McGarr @tupped.bsky.social · 11h

Just to be clear, an English degree - learning to critically assess texts - is actually one of the most dangerous for people such as Badenoch.

An educated population, able to bring hundreds of years of context to statements in a dawning age of AI slop and attention-seeking dishonesty is also vital.

The Bear @bearlypolitics.co.uk · 13h

So, the plan is to cut English, the arts, and sociology - the degrees that actually study culture - while on another part of your platform claiming to “defend” British culture.

It’s performance nationalism with a reading age of seven.

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

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Dr Sarah J Young @sarahjyoung.bsky.social · 10h

Perhaps just me, but I saw a woman being hanged.

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Dr Sarah J Young @sarahjyoung.bsky.social · 1d

Interesting and rather bizarre story that I will need to incorporate into my class on Pushkin this afternoon
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

The Pushkin job: unmasking the thieves behind an international rare books heist

The long read: Between 2022 and 2023, as many as 170 rare and valuable editions of Russian classics were stolen from libraries across Europe. Were the thieves merely low-level opportunists, or were bi...

www.theguardian.com

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Dr Sarah J Young @sarahjyoung.bsky.social · 1d

Interesting and rather bizarre story that I will need to incorporate into my class on Pushkin this afternoon
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

The Pushkin job: unmasking the thieves behind an international rare books heist

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Dr Sarah J Young

Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 3d

I wouldn’t normally endorse AI prompts but these are indeed essential for all academics.

profserious @profserious.bsky.social · 3d

Here are your 10 -essential- AI prompts for academics ... make your life easy with help from @profserious.bsky.social profserious.substack.com/p/10-ai-prom...

10 AI Prompts for Academics

making those hard jobs a little easier ...

profserious.substack.com

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Reposted by Dr Sarah J Young

Cold War Steve @coldwarsteve.bsky.social · 14d

Handmade by the artist. Comes in gift box with numbered and signed card of authenticity. Available for preorder for short time only👇👇👇👇
coldwarsteve.bigcartel.com/product/patr...

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Dr Sarah J Young @sarahjyoung.bsky.social · 3d

After a couple of decades of breaking or losing at least one umbrella a year, my first winter in London I bought a decent one from the proper umbrella shop on New Oxford Street. It cost roughly as much as half a dozen cheap ones, but 18 years later it’s still going strong.

Luke Tryl @luketryl.bsky.social · 4d

Increasingly convinced umbrellas are up there for most useless invention - rain is *often* accompanied by wind and yet the slightest breeze and they become not just unusable but actively hostile.
(Yes i did just get soaked)

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Nick Lloyd @spaincivilwartours.bsky.social · 4d

Cable Street battle, Jewish London East End #OnThisDay 4 Oct 1936 with banner explicitly adapting antifascist slogan of defence of Madrid "NO PASARÁN." They shall not pass. Remember Olympia refers to 1934 British Union of Fascists meeting where they set on antifascist protesters

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Ian S. Pumpkins @icpetrie.bsky.social · 5d

JOB: TT Assistant Professor, Slavic Comparativist, University of Toronto

"candidates must have demonstrable ability to teach & research in at least 2 different Slavic language & culture areas. Czech &/or Slovak specialists are particularly encouraged to apply."
universityaffairs.ca/search-job/?...

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Reposted by Dr Sarah J Young

Quinn Dombrowski @quinnanya.me · 6d

Was introduced today to the work of Olia Fedorova, who makes striking embroidered textile maps (among other pieces) about Ukraine. Adding this to my list of examples for the Data Visualization with Textiles class. #DHmakes

Maps of the Disappearing — Olia Fedorova

www.oliafedorova.com

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Jeremy Millar @jeremymillar.bsky.social · 11d

From when Channel 4 was my education, my art school, my university

RIP Tony Harrison

Harrison V Part 1

YouTube video by realthedeal33

youtu.be

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Katja Bruisch @kbruisch.bsky.social · 13d

📣 It's publication day! 🔥Burning Swamps🔥 is out with @universitypress.cambridge.org ! My book tells the forgotten history of peat in the context of Russia’s industrialization & electrification and points to the lingering presence of past extraction 1/5

#envhist #energysky

Book cover of "Burning Swamps: Peat and the Forgotten Margins of Russia's Fossil Economy" by Katja Bruisch. A black and white photograph shows a woman with a headscarf stacking peat

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Memorial in English @enmemorial.bsky.social · 15d

A postcard that carried hope across the Iron Curtain

In July 1979, Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus signed a small pink German postal card in exile in Magadan, far in the Soviet Far East. Next to his signature, he squeezed in a few extra words:

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Polly Jones @drpollyjones.bsky.social · 15d

Last chance to register for Friday’s workshop (in person or online)!

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North American Dostoevsky Society @dostoevskysociety.bsky.social · 19d

The North American #Dostoevsky Society invites applications for the Deborah A. Martinsen Conference Travel Award. This cycle will support an award of up to $1000 towards the cost of attending the 2025 @aseees.bsky.social Convention. The deadline is September 29.
bloggerskaramazov.com/2025/09/18/c...

Call for Applications: 2025 Deborah A. Martinsen Conference Travel Award

The North American Dostoevsky Society stands with all the people of Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of the world who condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. See our statement here. The North America…

bloggerskaramazov.com

Reposted by Dr Sarah J Young

Catherine Fletcher @cathfletcher.bsky.social · 18d

Ah, the hallucinating spires

University of Oxford @ox.ac.uk · 19d

Oxford staff and students will access OpenAI’s flagship GPT-5 model through ChatGPT Edu, a university-focused version with enterprise-level security and controls.

Find out more ⬇️

Oxford becomes first UK university to offer ChatGPT Edu to all staff

OpenAI’s flagship GPT-5 model will be provided across the University and Oxford Colleges through ChatGPT Edu, a version of ChatGPT built for universities that includes enterprise-level security and

www.ox.ac.uk

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Reposted by Dr Sarah J Young

Dr Matt Barnard @matthewbarnard.phd · 19d

As always with Peter Kyle, the context makes it worse. He’s actually talking about how British students aren’t entrepreneurial enough. What does that even mean? Everything he says really does come from ChatGPT doesn’t it.

Screenshot of the article shared below: “In Britain,” he said “if you went to a group of undergraduates, how big would that group have to be before you found someone that said their choice of going to university, and that choice of going to that specific university, was because they wanted to become a founder?

““The entrepreneurialism simply isn’t there – the drive, the vigour.”

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 19d

An actual quote from the Secretary of State for Business and Trade

Too often people go to university to ‘explore research and knowledge’

Look forward to Wes S saying 'too often people go to hospital to have operations' or Heidi Alexander saying 'too often people go to the station to catch a train'

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Peripheral Histories? @peripheralhist.bsky.social · 20d

Call for papers: BASEES 2026 Conference Colloquium - 'The Long Eastern Crisis: Habsburg, Ottoman and Romanov Europe in the Struggle for Imperial Definition, 1860–1916
networks.h-net.org/group/announ...

*CALL FOR PAPERS, BASEES 2026 Conference Colloquium - 'The Long Eastern Crisis: Habsburg, Ottoman and Romanov Europe in the Struggle for Imperial Definition, 1860–1916* | H-Net

The year 2026 will mark the 110th anniversaries of what are increasingly recognised as defining moments within the wider history of international anti-imperial and anti-colonial struggle: the Easter R...

networks.h-net.org

Reposted by Dr Sarah J Young

UCL SSEES @uclssees.bsky.social · 27d

Join us for a lecture & event with Arbër Qerka-Gashi, Ana Ilievska -Zavrsnik, Mirela Xhaferraj and Ramona Gonczol: The Balkans, its Diasporas, and the Stories of Material Culture

🗓️18 November at 5pm
📍UCL SSEES
➡️Free and open to all: www.ucl.ac.uk/arts-humanit...

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Vanessa is the name of the Doctor! @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 21d

I do wonder what would happen if we made the workload lie a reality. 50 mins total prep for a lecture then pens down. Max 10mins per essay, use crap irrelevant genAI prompts. Actually let students experience the reality that management design.

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Dr Sarah J Young @sarahjyoung.bsky.social · 21d

Passed me by last month, but Russia banning the International Baccalaureate feels like a real blow. According to a (now former) examiner, the most popular authors chosen by Russian students for IB literature essays recently were Orwell, Bradbury & Zamyatin. www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/08/25/r...

Russia Bans Educational Nonprofit International Baccalaureate - The Moscow Times

Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office on Monday designated the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) as “undesirable,” accusing it of promoting Western values and spreading anti-R...

www.themoscowtimes.com

Reposted by Dr Sarah J Young

Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 21d

This is genuinely (academically) dystopian — Kings featuring a lecturer who has to mark 100 scripts in a fortnight (!) and presenting AI as the approved workaround to that problem. This is why we can’t let this stuff into our working practice…

Ernesto Priego @ernestopriego.com · 21d

Simply astonishing. Maybe Lecturer A should not have to mark over 100 essays in a two-week window in the first place? Invest in qualified staff and reduce impossible workloads FFS www.kcl.ac.uk/about/strate...

Screenshot. King's College London page. Examples of effective practice

The following scenarios follow the above guidelines and offer insights into ways that academic staff can use AI transparently and in an assistive capacity, always ensuring human oversight and judgment remain central.
Scenario A – Scaling feedback while maintaining quality

Lecturer A is responsible for marking over 100 essays within a two-week window.

Conscious of the limitations this workload places on the depth of individual feedback, they adopt a hybrid approach using their university’s approved or supported LLM tool, Copilot.

Without ever uploading student work directly, Lecturer A composes an anonymised summary for each student, noting which marking criteria were met and the approximate percentage achieved for each. They input this summary alongside the official rubric into Copilot, prompting it to generate supportive, criterion-referenced feedback. This feedback is then carefully reviewed, adapted, and personalised before being uploaded to the marking platform.

Students are made aware of this process in advance and shown a demonstration, reinforcing transparency and trust.

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Anton Barbashin @abarbashin.bsky.social · 21d

86 years ago today Red Army marched into Poland acting as an ally of Nazi German, occupying parts of it.
This phrase alone can land you in prison in Russia.

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Reposted by Dr Sarah J Young

Crystal Palace Dinos @cpdinosaurs.bsky.social · 21d

🚨 THIS IS NOT A DRILL 🚨

We’ve just seen this, by creator “Menapian” - a 4,998-piece set of the Great Exhibition (1851) Crystal Palace - complete with a bonus Megalosaurus and Ichthyosaur…

beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

Screenshot of part of the LEGO Ideas website, showing a side view of a diorama featuring both creatures

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