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Tom Hulme

@tomhulme.bsky.social

4K followers 700 following 560 posts

Reader in History (Queen's University, Belfast). "Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation" (coming Apr 2026, Cornell University Press). PI of AHRC-funded “Queer Northern Ireland: Sexuality before Liberation”. Sec. of UCU branch. 🏳️‍🌈

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Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · Dec 18

Some good news: “Hidden Belfast, Forbidden Love” - a drama series based on my research of the gay diarist David Strain - is now on BBC sounds indefinitely! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Storytellers - Hidden Belfast, Forbidden Love - Episode 1: A Hidden Man - BBC Sounds

The secret diaries of David Strain reveal a word of hidden passion and illegal sexuality.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Urban History @urbanhistory.bsky.social · 16d

📣 We're looking for a new Bibliographer to join the #UrbanHistory team!

This is a great opportunity to get involved with a world-leading academic journal and find out about the latest urban history publications.

Apply by 5pm on Friday 6 November. Contact Roey Sweet for more details.

Call for Bibliographer for Urban History

Urban History seeks to appoint a new bibliographer to compile our annual bibliography of publication in urban history.
This is an exciting opportunity to become involved with a world-leading journal for urban historical research. Urban History is published by Cambridge University Press and occupies a central place in historical scholarship, with an outstanding record of interdisciplinary contributions, and a broad-based and distinguished panel of referees and international advisors. Each issue features wide-ranging research articles covering social, economic, political and cultural aspects of the history of towns and cities and supplementary material including periodical reviews, thesis reviews and book reviews. The bibliography, which has a global coverage, provides an essential tool for researchers interested in exploring recent publications and historiographical trends in their fields.
About the bibliographer role
The role involves the following tasks:
• Searching for books, book chapters and journal articles published in the preceding calendar year, using online resources (journal websites, the Bibliography of British and Irish History and publishers’ websites).
• Compiling a bibliography of all the entries ordered by thematic categories (typically 1000 entries).
• Working with the production team at Cambridge University Press to check and proof-read copy edits before final production.
We expect the new bibliographer to be able to start on 1 January 2026.
We are happy to receive applications from individuals at different career stages and we welcome applications from historians – working in any context – from under-represented groups, including those from minoritized ethnic groups, disabled people, LGBTQIA+ people, and those who are ‘first generation’ in Higher Education.
The positions attract an annual honorarium.

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Successful candidates will be fully supported by the the journal editors (Shane Ewen, Prashant Kidambi, Roey Sweet, Domenic Vitiello and Rosemary Wakeman).
How to apply
Those interested in making an application for the position of review editor should send to Roey Sweet (rhs4@le.ac.uk)
• a CV (no more than 3 pages)
• a summary of 300 words outlining your interest in the role

Enquiries
Informal enquiries about the role, including honorarium payments, can be made to: Professor Roey Sweet rhs4@le.ac.uk
Deadline
Deadline for applications: 5.00pm on Friday 6 November

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Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 10h

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 1d

Reiss is absolutely awful now unfortunately - since they were taken over by Next a few years ago. Lots of synthetic and poorly cut clothes, not unlike Next but three or four times as expensive

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NOTCHES Blog @notchesblog.bsky.social · Sep 2

New on NOTCHES 🚻✨

“Dolled up to the nines to go to a flippin' public toilet!”: Cruising in Belfast During the Troubles by Niall Herron. How did queer cruising unfold during the Troubles, and what can it teach us about sexuality, space, and conflict?

Read the full feature here: wp.me/p6JJ6S-4Pq

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Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 2d

I admire your optimism… but I just don’t see any political will; Labour are terrified of intervening in favour of what Reform voters see as the ‘woke elite’. At the least they’ll let the mass redundancies run a couple more years before stepping in with a (presumably) more sustainable system.

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 3d

Men in balaclavas set fire to a mosque in East Sussex last night. It's only appearing on the BBC's local coverage, rather than its main national headlines, despite coming just a week after the (also under-reported) firebombing of an asylum hotel in London last week
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Peacehaven: Fire at East Sussex mosque probed as 'hate crime'

Video appears to show two people in balaclavas at the mosque before a large blaze spreads.

www.bbc.co.uk

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UnicornsRockUK @unicornsrockuk.bsky.social · 4d

This amazing article from @vic-parsons.bsky.social via @wearequeeraf.com shows the absolute criminal state of trans healthcare in the UK.

Scotland has a 224 year wait for a first appointment. Yes, you read that right.

www.wearequeeraf.com/gender-clini...

Latest waiting times for gender identity clinics in the UK

Revealed waiting times of all GICs in UK: Most Trans+ people in the UK will wait more than a third of their adult life to get an appointment, and some will never receive care

www.wearequeeraf.com

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UCU @ QUB @ucuatqub.bsky.social · 5d

We are horrified by the attack on the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue yesterday, which was also Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism. We stand with the Jewish community in Manchester & Belfast, & condemn those who fan the flames of antisemitism in our divided society.

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Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 5d

brilliant thread

Coates is Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · 5d

It’s 185 years to the day since a man called Thomas O’Conor wrote a report about a stone figure on a church in Kiltinane, County Tipperary. This wouldn’t be especially notable if we didn’t also consider what the statue looked like, because this was the first written use of the term Sheela-na-gig

The Kiltinane church Sheela Na Gig – a strange, naked, stone female figure, with one hand raised, and the other holding open her vulva. The stone was actually sideways when she was found, but it's easier to see her and her... features this way

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 6d

The Times finds it "unacceptable" that people who came here legally in 2021 and have been living and working here since should allowed to stay.

The sad decline of a once great newspaper into ignorant xenophobia and casual racism

archive.ph/TFZY9

There is a more pressing issue. Ministers must ensure that the vast numbers of immigrants who arrived in the so-called Boriswave of 2020-21 are not automatically absorbed into the permanent population. They are about to cross the the five-year threshold into ILR, yet Labour continues to dither. Ms Mahmood must freeze the status of this huge cohort while a new residency regime is finalised. A million or more extra permanent residents in these islands, let in on the nod, is simply unacceptable. Finally, the home secretary must acquaint herself, and the public, with an accurate estimate of the actual number of foreign nationals living here, what taxes they pay and what services they consume. Without hard data, all the political parties are fumbling around in the dark.

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Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · 7d

John Archer was the first Black man to hold senior public office in London when he was elected Mayor of Battersea in 1913.

Black History Month is about rediscovering our history, the stories of Londoners like John Archer and paying tribute to those who came before us.

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Michael Lawrence @mpalawrence.bsky.social · 8d

Nearly four years of work wrapped up with one e-mail! The thesis is officially off my desk 😌🎉

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Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 7d

😍

you can attend to those 11 Facebook notifications now - they might be important

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Matt Houlbrook @tricksterprince.bsky.social · 8d

This is where it all begins.

13 Great White Lion Street / 35 Mercer Street.

#SevenDials

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ALT: A photograph of a hand holding up a book in a street in Seven Dials. The book is open at an illustration of a café in in 1927. In the background of the photograph is the location where the café used to stand. It is now a new office block.

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Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 8d

It’s wonderful to see Kieran’s book on multicultural Britain getting the plaudits it deserves… you will not find a more humane and beautifully written book on this complex topic. Unfortunately, it is also both timely and essential reading for the moment in which we find ourselves.

Kieran Connell @kieranconnell.bsky.social · 8d

I’m honoured that my book, MULTICULTURAL BRITAIN: A PEOPLE’S HISTORY has been shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize. Hugely grateful to the judges and the many people who have supported this work along the way

@wolfsonhistory.bsky.social

www.wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk/2025-wolfson...

2025 Wolfson History Prize shortlist announced

The Wolfson History Prize has revealed its 2025 shortlist, with six books in contention for the UK's most prestigious history writing prize.

www.wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk

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Kieran Connell @kieranconnell.bsky.social · 8d

2025 Wolfson History Prize shortlist announced

The Wolfson History Prize has revealed its 2025 shortlist, with six books in contention for the UK's most prestigious history writing prize.

www.wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk

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Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 9d

Such brilliant work being done by @leannecalvert.bsky.social, finding the sorts of surprising everyday stories about sex, love and romance that don’t often appear in histories of religious Ulster! AND even without the 20% discount her book is a bargain!

Leanne Calvert @leannecalvert.bsky.social · 9d

#ICYMI You can bag 20% off my new book with the code PiousLimerick until this Thursday. Add the code to the checkout at shop.ria.ie/products/Pio... Pls share ☺️ #Family #IrishFamily #IrishHist #History #NewBook

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Justin Bengry @justinbengry.bsky.social · 9d

Join me 4 Nov at Senate House for History Day. This year I'm delighted to be working with the IHR to include a Queer History Trail and have a Queer Zine workshop at History Day 2025.

Come say Hi and check out the amazing historical work being done around the UK.

www.history.ac.uk/news.../even...

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Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 10d

…and a few more from Birmingham (Hockley) earlier this year!

Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 10d

A few shots from Coventry a couple of years ago…

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Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 10d

I hadn’t heard of William Mitchell before @osaumarezsmith.bsky.social posted a few photos but I’m kind of obsessed now…

Birmingham 81 @birmingham81.bsky.social · 11d

William Mitchell's mural by the entrance to the Cavendish Hotel car park on Duke Street in St James's, London

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Dan Sohege @danielsohege.bsky.social · 10d

Dehumanisation as policy.
It ignores people's actual lives and experiences in favour of some sick idea that migrants are just resources to be used and discarded at will.
It is incredible how Labour has become, in practice, the most anti-immigration government in decades.
news.sky.com/story/shaban...

Shabana Mahmood vows law reforms to prove migrants 'contribute' to UK society

The home secretary signalled in her first major interview since taking over the reins that she believed migration "has been too high".

news.sky.com

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Shelly Penton @plaidsilk.bsky.social · 11d

This just confirms for me what me and my academic colleagues have seen with our students: AI helps those who already know what they are doing (e.g., double-checking facts or knowing how and when to implement advanced writing/rhetoric). It does the opposite for amateurs (such as most undergrads).

Jon Jackson @iamjonjackson.bsky.social · 11d

Gift link to article:

How AI will divide the best from the rest

How AI will divide the best from the rest

Optimists hope the technology will be a great equaliser. Instead, it looks likely to widen social divides

economist.com

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Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 11d

horrifying.

Tom Hulme @tomhulme.bsky.social · 11d

100%. January and February are fucking awful, unless you’re doing a skiing holiday or something I guess lol

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