picture of the 8th thesis. text reads: The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the "state of emergency" in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm. The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are "still" possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge-unless it is the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable.

Benjamin wrote his "Theses on the Philosophy of History" in 1940, shortly before he died by suicide escaping the Nazis. Imagine, now, Hannah Arendt reading this aloud to fellow refugees fleeing the Third Reich on the ship that was smuggling them to the U.S.

UCL History Secures $575k Grant for Caribbean Enslaved People Database A $575,000 grant from a North American funder will support the development of a database of enslaved people at the UCL Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery (CSLBS).

Excellent news for the field www.ucl.ac.uk/social-histo...

One of the more important tables imo. Pleased to see BCU moving in the right direction on this table - up to 7th place this year.

I hope UCU can successfully fight this! As an English student at Leicester I benefitted from both modern languages and film studies modules and had friends in both degree programmes. Arts & Hum was such a vibrant community when I was there and these are valuable subjects worth fighting for!

The World's First Fully Automated Genius System Experience the future of education with PureGenius - an AI-powered learning platform that unlocks every student's potential. Sign up for early access today.

It's hard to do satire of a field that is continually self-satiring, but this is a valiant attempt:

puregenius.education

Well, this is bad.

There's a bunch of Chevening Scholars in my Masters classes and they massively enrich it. Impressive people and also so obviously wedded to going back and improving their own countries.

Even as a cynical scholar of rape culture, I'm shocked that this isn't the headline story on domestic politics everywhere right now. It's just an unfathomable abuse of power, in clear violation of the law.

Creative industries hold upper hand in AI copyright fight Artists, musicians, writers and journalists are pushing back hard as Big Tech firms seek access to their work for training AI models

“In 2024 the UK’s creative industries contributed £145.8 billion to the economy while the entire AI sector contributed £11.8 billion.”

www.thetimes.com/article/8561...

Tory peer to leave Lords after investigation finds he breached standards over Covid PPE deals Lord Chadlington introduced government to company in which he had financial interest in 2020

I still find it astonishing that, during Covid, the first response of so many people connected to the Conservative party was that it presented an opportunity to loot the country undercover of a national emergency.

Unforgivable wartime profiteering.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Join us for a mid-week, mid-afternoon writing retreat and beat that afternoon slump! As usual, this event is free for VPFA members, but we have now opened this up to non-members for a small fee of £5 (£6.13 inc. Eventbrite fee). Sign up is available here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1984543534...

Coen brothers' Pickwick Papers.

Close Reading Is For Everyone Dan Sinykin and Johanna Winant Call for Pitches Based on our previous Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century, we are at work on a new version that’s shorter, slimmer, and aimed at a more general audience. We’re looking for a new set of contributors who would write excellent, brief, model close readings of texts that high schoolers might know and care about. Think: “The Gettysburg Address,” Macbeth, and Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” but also song lyrics, idioms, or even a visual image. What is your best, most instructive, most exciting, most welcoming example of how a close reading builds a real argument out from a tiny, perhaps overlooked detail? If you’re interested in pitching us, please send us your 250-word close reading of the text you propose. Your close reading should be mappable using our vocabulary of close reading: the five steps of scene setting, noticing, local claiming, regional argumentation, and global theorizing. (Our close reading of “The Red Wheelbarrow” in the early pages of our introduction is the sort of thing we’re seeking.) If we think we can use yours, we’ll ask you to expand it to a 1,200 word essay in which you explain how your close reading works step by step. We seek close readings both of texts that are canonical and also ones that aren’t. And so we invite contributors both from the discipline of literary studies, and other disciplines across the university, and the public humanities beyond it. Send your pitches—please include your name and contact info—to daniel.sinykin@emory.edu and jwinant@reed.edu by March 15.

CALL FOR PITCHES

@dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and I are at work on a new version of Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century aimed at a more general audience.

We’re looking for new contributions: your model close readings of texts, canonical and not, from literary studies and not.

Details below!

This house thinks this is the best party political broadcast we've ever seen.

(cartoon Mike Luckovich) #politics #ice

The video in the thread redacts the images, mercifully. But you can see from the prompts what is happening. This is obscene, vicious and intolerable. X and Grok should be shut down until this grotesque harassment can be stopped. Those responsible should face the full force of the law.

#fascism

Title: New year's resolution A man sits at a table with a coffee writing in a notebook: “This year i will devote myself completely to reading serious, improving literature, forsaking easy pleasures and tirelessly seeking out truth and profundity in the work of the greatest writers.” He looks at it Says: Hmm... then “Scratch Scratch Scratch scratch” scribbles out words until the text reads: “This year I will read for Fun”

Happy New Year, everyone!

This is a @theguardian.com books cartoon from a few years ago.

Everyone has their blind spots etc, but Hobsbawm is a great historian - accessible, interesting, provocative - for undergrads and general readers so I'd be surprised if he wasn't still on many undergrad reading lists (he's on mine!).

Out of curiosity, I just ran a few paragraphs from The Butchering Art through an AI checker and it got flagged: 88% AI. This book was released in 2017, and AI machines were subsequently trained off it. How many writers are getting flagged for AI because of the literal theft of their work(s)? Insane.

Disco Elysium - The Final Cut | Download and Buy Today - Epic Games Store Download and play Disco Elysium - The Final Cut at the Epic Games Store. Check for platform availability and price!

Disco Elysium being free on the Epic Games Store is truly a Christmas miracle. This is such a singular and superb video game.

store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/disc...

December 25 The Company of the Ring leaves Rivendell at dusk.

December 25th. The day the Fellowship departs Rivendell to destroy the One Ring.

Whatever you celebrate, may you have the courage to take the first steps to defy and endure against the dark, and rekindle light into the world.

Go check out Bob for Wired!

We are delighted to be co-sponsoring this event alongside @ihr.bsky.social and @royalhistsoc.org. Details and sign-up information is below!

KarolinaM (@permanent_optimist) on Threads So, everyone has already seen the comparison of Miller to Goebels, but have you seen these? Rubio the same as Nixon in January 1973 (6 months into Watergate) And Scavino like Himmler?

Its all over Threads www.threads.com/@permanent_o...

Amazing 😳 digital archaeology

How AI’s annoying blandness “accidentally replicated the linguistic ghost of the British Empire”

💪🏽💪🏽

a man in a hat is dancing in a crowd of people ALT: a man in a hat is dancing in a crowd of people

Happy 100th birthday Dick Van Dyke!