melissa nolas
LightNews LightNews
banner
smnolas.bsky.social
melissa nolas
@smnolas.bsky.social
64 followers 110 following 43 posts
independent scholar | writer | photographer | occasional curator & digital archivist | undisciplined | giving Bluesky a whirl | seldom here

melissanolas.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
smnolas.bsky.social
melissa nolas @smnolas.bsky.social · Apr 11
In Dec ‘19 I started writing about my own experiences birthing w fibroids which was eventually published in Nov ‘24. I am now developing this essay into a full length piece of hybrid writing -part memoir, part cultural history- exploring inheritances, environmental stress factors & inequalities. 3/3
Reposted by melissa nolas
qmucu.bsky.social
Declaring financial crisis (against all evidence to the contrary) in order to justify ideological cuts to staffing and resources is always a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy, isn't it?

On the legacy of Frances Corner at Goldsmiths -- and on her agency: goldsmithsucu.org/2021/10/10/f...
So was Goldsmiths the financially ‘failing institution’ Frances Corner declared it to be when she took up her post in April 2019? In 2019-20 there were signs of some overspending on building, and a rather over-ambitious intake target, against which money had been spent. But two independent auditors, including KPMG in 2020, concluded that Goldsmiths’ operations had been cash generative, that the College had run surpluses until 2019 and had grown so-called ‘market share’ despite competition from the Russell Group since 2010. In three months, Frances Corner had gone from being the leader of a robust and thriving institution to one she continues to think of and respond to as a failure.
October 17, 2025 at 10:16 AM
Reposted by melissa nolas
petraboynton.bsky.social
With yet another university hosted event closed to 'non academics' (aka those not employed by a university)* I'm just going to leave this piece by @drhelenkara.bsky.social and myself here blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

* yes I know it's utter nonsense and academics/researchers exist outside unis
Institutional affiliation should not be a requirement for doing research - Impact of Social Sciences
Universities espouse a universalist approach to creating research-based knowledge. Helen Kara & Petra Boynton argue, from the outside these claims are hollow.
blogs.lse.ac.uk
October 7, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by melissa nolas
dans-knaw-nwo.bsky.social
Open Access Week 2025 (20–26 Oct) asks: Who owns our knowledge? This theme invites reflection on how knowledge is accessed, created, and shared, and how communities can reclaim control. Events can be hosted anytime, and materials are available to adapt locally. More info: edu.nl/vccet #OAWeek
October 7, 2025 at 7:44 AM
Reposted by melissa nolas
petraboynton.bsky.social
Many aspects of academia normalise abusive practices.

Like putting people through stressful situations, encouraging pile ons and put downs, all to be mitigated by alcohol.

When we ask 'who does this bring in? who does it leave out? who might it help? who might it harm?' so much becomes clear.
pengzell.bsky.social Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · Oct 6
Academia turns its eye toward itself

(Source: The art of anthropology: Essays and diagrams / Alfred Gell 1999, edited by Eric Hirsch)
The British-style (anthropology) seminar is a peculiar institution with rules of its own. A regular weekly (term-time) event, the 'ideal' seminar usually brings together some 20 or more participants, around a table, under the chairmanship of an experienced teacher and seminar leader. The chairman introduces, and generally gives moral support to, the speaker, while the audience undertake the role of critics, and may, indeed, ask extremely hostile-sounding questions. In a good seminar, there are usually three or four expert seminar practitioners, who can be relied on to give the speaker something of a grilling. The questioning goes on for an hour, allowing time for the more junior members of the seminar to intervene as well and acquire the interrogatory skills of their seniors. However, the seminar is not as unfriendly an occasion as it sometimes seems to visitors unused to its conventions. There is an implicit rule that really severe questioning is reserved for speakers who have shown, in the course of their papers, either that they possess the dialectical skill to handle even the most destructive questioning, or, on rare occasions, that they are so bumptious and thick-skulled that they are unlikely to comprehend the devastating nature of the questioning they receive. The mild, tentative, paper from an inexperienced speaker will not be dealt with harshly. Meanwhile, the skilled dialectician relishes the cut and thrust of debate, and exploits the opportunity afforded by hostile questioning to produce additional extemporized displays of wit, turning the questions back on the questioners and making fun of their positions. As the question period draws to a close, the skilled speaker elaborates the main points of the paper in a series of improvisations on themes suggested by the audience. Adrenalin flows copiously through the speaker's bloodstream by this time - now the hard questioning has been overcome - and unusual freedom of expression may be attained. The audience are enjoying themselves too. But the chairman must close the seminar once the time allotted for its duration is over, since, like Cinderella's ball, seminar bonhomie has a fixed temporal compass, which cannot exceed two hours, even by a second. At this point, the chairman thanks the speaker, conducts him to a place of refreshment, where adrenalin is tempered with alcohol, and happy, animated conversations ensue. The point is that the seminar is a social occasion, a game, an exchange, an ordeal, an initiation. To one of a naturally social disposition, to hear a paper in a seminar is intrinsically much more interesting than to read the same paper in cold blood, because one's social proclivities are excited as well as one's strictly academic or intellectual interests. I confess to being a social animal of this type. Consequently, it is much more exciting for me to write a paper for presentation at a seminar than it is to write for an imaginary reader, as one does when writing a book. Books do not give anything like the feedback that one gets from seminars.
October 6, 2025 at 10:06 AM
smnolas.bsky.social
Fascinating description. Yes, it was a game in my experience too: a blood sport. Some of us—who didn’t enjoy it—used to call it ‘who let the dogs out (who? who?)’ and I would bet good money that nobody in those PhD seminars or departmental seminars had a critical understanding of this ritual.
pengzell.bsky.social Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · Oct 6
Academia turns its eye toward itself

(Source: The art of anthropology: Essays and diagrams / Alfred Gell 1999, edited by Eric Hirsch)
The British-style (anthropology) seminar is a peculiar institution with rules of its own. A regular weekly (term-time) event, the 'ideal' seminar usually brings together some 20 or more participants, around a table, under the chairmanship of an experienced teacher and seminar leader. The chairman introduces, and generally gives moral support to, the speaker, while the audience undertake the role of critics, and may, indeed, ask extremely hostile-sounding questions. In a good seminar, there are usually three or four expert seminar practitioners, who can be relied on to give the speaker something of a grilling. The questioning goes on for an hour, allowing time for the more junior members of the seminar to intervene as well and acquire the interrogatory skills of their seniors. However, the seminar is not as unfriendly an occasion as it sometimes seems to visitors unused to its conventions. There is an implicit rule that really severe questioning is reserved for speakers who have shown, in the course of their papers, either that they possess the dialectical skill to handle even the most destructive questioning, or, on rare occasions, that they are so bumptious and thick-skulled that they are unlikely to comprehend the devastating nature of the questioning they receive. The mild, tentative, paper from an inexperienced speaker will not be dealt with harshly. Meanwhile, the skilled dialectician relishes the cut and thrust of debate, and exploits the opportunity afforded by hostile questioning to produce additional extemporized displays of wit, turning the questions back on the questioners and making fun of their positions. As the question period draws to a close, the skilled speaker elaborates the main points of the paper in a series of improvisations on themes suggested by the audience. Adrenalin flows copiously through the speaker's bloodstream by this time - now the hard questioning has been overcome - and unusual freedom of expression may be attained. The audience are enjoying themselves too. But the chairman must close the seminar once the time allotted for its duration is over, since, like Cinderella's ball, seminar bonhomie has a fixed temporal compass, which cannot exceed two hours, even by a second. At this point, the chairman thanks the speaker, conducts him to a place of refreshment, where adrenalin is tempered with alcohol, and happy, animated conversations ensue. The point is that the seminar is a social occasion, a game, an exchange, an ordeal, an initiation. To one of a naturally social disposition, to hear a paper in a seminar is intrinsically much more interesting than to read the same paper in cold blood, because one's social proclivities are excited as well as one's strictly academic or intellectual interests. I confess to being a social animal of this type. Consequently, it is much more exciting for me to write a paper for presentation at a seminar than it is to write for an imaginary reader, as one does when writing a book. Books do not give anything like the feedback that one gets from seminars.
October 6, 2025 at 12:39 PM
smnolas.bsky.social
What goes around comes around and everyone gets what they deserve. I’ll be raising a glass to Karma this evening.

www.gold.ac.uk/news/2025/vc...
October 3, 2025 at 3:40 PM
smnolas.bsky.social
How do you follow a #fibroid and other more-than-human actors?

In two weeks from today I will be in Lisbon giving a keynote on my current research / writing project on
#fibroids #womensreproductivehealth #multimodality
September 18, 2025 at 8:31 AM
smnolas.bsky.social
A little mid-monthly note about things I’ve been up to & things I’m planning to do as I venture forward as an independent multidisciplinary researcher, writer & photographer. Lots of things going on and I look forward to sharing more about in the coming months!

open.substack.com/pub/melissan...
Play #1
a mid-monthly note on happenings
open.substack.com
September 15, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by melissa nolas
shannonmattern.bsky.social
"It suggests that developing a commons-based, scholar-led publishing landscape through [presses] managed by working academics cld offer a productive counterpoint to marketised systems of open access + subscription publishing [—] a counter-hegemonic project based on mutual reliance and care"
samuelmoore.org Samuel Moore @samuelmoore.org · Sep 1
You can now download the book on the publisher's website: press.umich.edu/Books/P/Publ... (open access of course)
September 8, 2025 at 7:33 AM
Reposted by melissa nolas
shannonmattern.bsky.social
"The academic career is framed as a privileged but high-risk venture that ppl knowingly choose to embark on so they must endure the consequences or find a way to cope, thus obscuring deliberate adoption of biz models that [deprioritize] investment in staff + render large sections of the workforce 🗑️"
‘You just have to learn to play the game’: survival, resentment and resignation in women academics’ narratives of precarity
This paper discusses precarious academic labour and its implications for gender and interrelated inequalities, drawing on narrative interviews with temporarily employed UK women academics. It ident...
www.tandfonline.com
September 8, 2025 at 6:19 AM
Reposted by melissa nolas
smnolas.bsky.social
You are correct and I—with colleagues—did this: entanglementsjournal.wordpress.com the archive is here. It was a struggle to get indexed bc of our explicit political choice not to reproduce structures from existing systems that aren’t working as well as they should & can be damaging (peer review).
Past issues
experiments in multimodal ethnography
entanglementsjournal.wordpress.com
September 7, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Reposted by melissa nolas
right-here.org
💔 The Museum of Broken Dreams opens in Parliament this September, telling the stories of bold community-led projects blocked by red tape and bureaucracy.

🎟️ Invite your MP to visit and see first-hand the lost potential in our communities. Use the email template:
actionnetwork.org/letters/invi...
A pink ticket for Museum of Broken Dreams with a heartbreak motif. The text says: Invite your MP to visit Museum of Broken Dreams. 1 Sept to 4 Sept 2025 in the Houses of Parliament.
August 20, 2025 at 11:35 AM
Reposted by melissa nolas
aljazeera.com
Dozens of Israeli teenagers in Tel Aviv burned their draft orders, refusing to serve in the military in protest against the war on Gaza.
July 16, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by melissa nolas
aketchum22.bsky.social
The amazing @shannonmattern.bsky.social wrote about her departure from the academy. From title to final period, I have so many feelings about this piece that I can't articulate. @shannonmattern.bsky.social is such a generous and brilliant scholar.
wordsinspace.net/2025/06/30/i...
I Prefer Weeds to Ivy
Words in Space is the work of Shannon Mattern.
wordsinspace.net
July 2, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by melissa nolas
anikakoenig.bsky.social
I am delighted to share that Caroline Meier zu Biesen's and my article on #endometriosis activism and/as work is out now in Anthropology of Work Review (Open Access). It is part of a Special Issue on Disability, Chronicity, and Work by Giorgio Brocco and Stefanie Mauksch: doi.org/10.1111/awr....
doi.org
June 18, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Reposted by melissa nolas
benwritesthings.bsky.social
england’s commitment to self-abolition is really something
robinbisson.bsky.social Robin Bisson @robinbisson.bsky.social · Jun 19
Two senior @ukri.org figures this week have suggested unis could reduce how much research they do

“Concentrating on unique and high contributions & concentrating on less research, has the potential to bring the amount of activity into balance with research funding,” Steven Hill told #ARMA25

(1/2)
Research England official: universities could do ‘less’ R&D - Research Professional News
Arma 2025: Director of research asks whether system should provide “disincentives for lower-quality research”
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
June 21, 2025 at 7:57 AM
Reposted by melissa nolas
politicshome.bsky.social
MPs have voted to decriminalise abortion

In a historic step, the House of Commons backed an amendment by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi which proposed that women no longer face prosecution if they end a pregnancy after 24 weeks or without approval from two doctors
MPs Vote To Decriminalise Abortion
An amendment to decriminalise abortion has passed the House of Commons, bringing it closer to law.
www.politicshome.com
June 17, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by melissa nolas
ncecire.bsky.social
www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/re...
May 5, 2025 at 9:05 AM
smnolas.bsky.social
Reading this article you’d be forgiven for thinking that ‘UK science’ is made up entirely of men and of STEM…

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
UK wins £500m in science grants from EU Horizon scheme after Brexit lockout
Exclusive: British scientists ‘over the moon’ with re-entry to funding scheme after losing out for three years
www.theguardian.com
May 5, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Reposted by melissa nolas
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
Now emancipated from its paywall.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...
To save UK higher education, start talking about knowledge - Research Professional News
Until debate on universities foregrounds their core purposes, their woes will deepen, says Margot Finn
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
May 2, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by melissa nolas
drdiongeorgiou.bsky.social
Given its renewed topicality, I'm making my (spoiler-less) piece on Conclave from December freely available to read for a limited time (until there's a new Pope in place).

All reposts (and subscriptions) much appreciated, as always. x
#filmsky #skystorians🗃️ #polisky #polrel #socsky #geosky
Conclave
In its depiction of the Vatican in flux following the death of the Pope, Conclave explores the ideological schisms, political workings, and impact of scandal in the contemporary Catholic Church.
academicbubble.substack.com
April 25, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Reposted by melissa nolas
charlierumsby.bsky.social
Who knew an e-letter could feel as good as post on the doormat? This one’s packed with theatre obsessions, book club drama (the good kind), and big chats about motherhood, identity, and everything in between. theartofmakingfriends.substack.com/p/on-music-m...
April 25, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by melissa nolas
xor.blue
10 years ago today I published a blog post about the pomological watercolor collection, which you may know from @pomological.xor.blue. it changed my life in some surprising ways! take a little trip with me down memory lane parkerhiggins.net/2025/04/10-y...
10 years of pomological watercolors
A decade ago today I published a blog post calling for the US government to release its paintings of fruits. The Pomological Watercolor Collection, as I had recently come to know, is a beautiful and r...
parkerhiggins.net
April 12, 2025 at 11:04 PM
smnolas.bsky.social
Yesterday the @theguardian.com published a hugely important investigation into the failures in women’s gyne & reproductive health. This is the *first* time I have seen the admission in print that fibroids and endo are *serious* conditions, it was emotional 1/3

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
One in four women in England have serious reproductive health issue, survey finds
Exclusive: Racial disparities highlighted as researchers estimate 10 million women have conditions such as fibroids or endometriosis
www.theguardian.com
April 11, 2025 at 6:49 AM
Reposted by melissa nolas
nybooks.com
Vivian Gornick on the wonders of the City College of New York
The 176-Year Argument | Vivian Gornick
Who were we? Where did we come from? What did we look like, trudging up the hill between Convent Avenue and the subway, sitting obediently in class,
www.nybooks.com
April 4, 2025 at 6:11 PM