Thanks for this. so humane.

J. H. Prynne wrote a guide to reading works of literature for Cambridge students. This was the postscript:

It's proving very difficult to explain what this work has meant to me over the years. A kind of rewiring that matches the total rearrangement Tom describes, yes. Powerful, contradictory reactions, attraction & repulsion, awe & exasperation. It's inexhaustible & completely exhausting. Goodbye Jeremy.

I do wonder about the effects of Prynne's homosocial vanguard. There was a lot of proprietorial edginess and emulation as territorial pissing and I fear we might see some of that now. What kind of reading/writing did it forestall? It was a brutal scene to be in/around but still, I got to know you!

Lovely thoughts, @malkintrash.eurosky.social. and so spot on. I read The Holy City at Sophie's wedding years ago and seeing that (& Against Hurt) doing the rounds today was very moving. I sometimes wonder if the problem with JHP was his entourage of (as you say) cocky boyz2menz.

So long, J. H. Prynne (24 June 1936 – 22 April 2026). Oh, what an intent to name and delineate the things of the world with something like prudence, futile, names being such monsters of uncertainty. . . Out of _The White Stones_ (1969):

Jeremy Prynne, prankster poet The famously obscure poetry of JH Prynne glitters with aphorisms and jokes

Very sorry to hear that the poet J.H. Prynne has died, at the age of 89. Here, from 10 years ago, is my attempt to describe the man and the work

Broke my undergraduate heart and blew my undergraduate mind.

Against Hurt Endowed with so much suffering, they should be / and that they are so—the pain in the head which applies to me and the clouds low over the horizon: soon it will be dark We love the brief night, for its quick passing, the relative ease as we slide into comfort and the trees grow and grow. I can hear every smallest growth the expanse is grinding with it, out on the flats beyond, down by the sodium street-lights, in the head: pain, the hurt to these who are all companions. Serenity is their slender means. There is not much time left. I love them all, severally and in the largest honour that there is. Now and with the least hurt, this is for you.

their slender means

J.H. Prynne, ‘Against Hurt’

80 million people globally claim Irish ancestry – why the release of 1926 Irish census records is so momentus Plus, tips for your own census search once it’s released.

In advance of tomorrow's release here is a short piece on the historical Irish censuses based on my past and ongoing research #spéirgorm theconversation.com/80-million-p...

Good luck to Mammy Barr and everyone else running the #connemarathon tomorrow. Hoping for fine weather and the wind at your back. Then back to #Galway for food and pints. would love to be there (but not running!).

ICE Arrests 85-Year-Old French Widow Who Married Her G.I. Sweetheart

Not only did the sons probably call ICE on her, the day after her husband died they took their dad's cars, leaving her housebound. Then they rerouted mail, causing her to miss a visa appointment & the utilities to be turned off. Tony and Gary Ross are going to hell.
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/u...

Ouverture au public, dès demain, d'une grande exposition organisée à l'occasion des 400 ans de la naissance de la marquise de Sevigné au @museecarnavalet.bsky.social !

One book in three weeks? At some universities that would be a triumph With undergraduates viewing education as a transaction and AI offering helpful summaries, reading is dying out on UK campuses, says Agnieszka Piotrowska

'The post-92 universities, the former polytechnics, the institutions that serve the majority of UK students, are experiencing something qualitatively different from what Oxford and Cambridge are experiencing.' 1/3

The American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (@asecsoffice.bsky.social) Conference starts today! Visit our virtual exhibit and use code 10ASECS26 for 40% off through May 1st!

www.upress.virginia.edu/exhibits/ASE...

Spring has announced itself with a burst of hayfever. I'm hiding from the pollen reading an excellent graduate chapter on Mary Wollstonecraft. Sad to be missing #ASECS2026 but hope colleagues & friends have an absolute blast. See you all in 2027. @asecsoffice.bsky.social

The @bars.bsky.social Conference programme at Birmingham has been announced and we're all getting ridiculously excited about the panels and papers. As @drbeard79.bsky.social said, "So many people! So many friends!" Organisers have done a great job.

Cambridge English Faculty ranked 1st in the world for the study of English We are delighted that the English Faculty has been recognised as world-leading for the study of Anglophone Literature in the latest QS rankings. It is testimony to the excellent work...

Cambridge English Faculty ranked 1st in the world for the study of English

We are delighted that the English Faculty has been recognised as world-leading for the study of Anglophone Literature in the latest QS rankings. It is testimony to...

Race, Violence, and Form, co-edited with a writer of the most beautiful sentences, @cookiegoth.bsky.social, is out now. For more about the volume, see our blog post up at Liverpool UP blog:

Standards have fallen, the discourse used to be "stop reading Hunger Games and read Dostoevsky you philistines" and now it's "please for the love of God read the Hunger Games, read Divergent, read anything, just stop watching subway surfer videos with weirdly-racist AI commentary for five minutes."

You Are Who I Love by Aracelis Girmay You Are Who I Love   You, selling roses out of a silver grocery cart   You, in the park, feeding the pigeons You cheering for the bees   You...

You Are Who I Love by Aracelis Girmay
www.divasofverse.com/2021/10/you-...

New Kyla Scanlon on belief markets!

Excellent take on the financial nihilism that drives people to influencers. Plentiful Raymond Williams quotes 😄😄: it’s also the structure Lauren Berlant called “cruel optimism,” but with graphs and charts

#JesusCollegeCambridge's Dr Micheal Edwards in @theguardian.com: 'Edwards says Pepys’ clerk, William Hewer, indexed and organised the correspondence in way that preserved Pepys’ innocence while the enslaved child’s history was “erased”.' More here www.cam.ac.uk/stories/pepy...

Thanks to Prof. Simon Rennie for a fascinating talk on Jacob Bronowski's poetry @intellforum.bsky.social this evening. Deft and resonant modernist verse that I'm looking forward to reading in print. Came home & watched Bronowski's 1972 interview: v. moving to see his humilty youtu.be/DFgnGUL78MU?...

Gaffarzade Fountain (Gaffarzade Çeşmesi), İzmir (1805) Location & Background: The Gaffarzade Fountain (also called Çakaloğlu Hanı Çeşmesi) is a historic Ottoman public fountain and sebil located beside the entrance of Çakaloğlu Inn in the Halimağa Bazaar area of Konak, İzmir, Türkiye. It dates to Hijri 1220 / AD 1805–1806 and was commissioned by a benefactor named Gaffarzade Hacı Ahmet. It likely stood originally near the now‑lost Abdülgaffarzade Mosque before being moved to the inn’s wall. Architectural Features: The fountain is made of marble, with richly carved panels and floral and vase motifs typical of Ottoman ornamentation. It has a three‑arched fountain niche (şadırvan) that once provided water, now partly deformed and below ground level. Above the niche is the marble inscription (kitabe), written in Thuluth calligraphy. Featuring the Names of the Seven Sleepers: Yemliha, Meksellina, Misleena, Mernush, Debernush, Shazenush, Kefeshtatayush, and their dog Kitmir.

🏛️ Marble Inscription of the Gaffarzade Fountain, İzmir, 1805 (Featuring the Names of the Seven Sleepers: Yemliha, Meksellina, Misleena, Mernush, Debernush, Shazenush, Kefeshtatayush, and their dog Kitmir)

UN issues new climate warning as El Niño looms The Earth's climate is further out of balance than at any time in recorded history, the UN's weather agency says.

This should be the top news everywhere... #r4today

The Earth's climate is further out of balance than at any time in recorded history, the UN's weather agency has warned.

One of our guest speakers in 1L Legal Writing told us “it’ll never be done, it’ll just be due,” and that’s the vibe I’m bringing to this Con Crim Pro midterm (due today; def not done)

Smiling man in glasses wearing academic regalia, featuring green and yellow robes, standing in front of dark wooden bookshelves.

Today at its Stated General Meeting, the Members of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) elected Daniel Carey MRIA as the Academy’s 59th President, taking office with immediate effect. Read more:

www.ria.ie/2026/03/16/r...

@universityofgalway.bsky.social

A mural commemorating the Battle of Cable Street on the wall of Tower Hamlets Town Hall.

Bloody woke nonsense.

Jürgen Habermas, philosophe allemand, intellectuel combatif et esprit encyclopédique, est mort à l’âge de 96 ans Ce théoricien, qui n’hésitait pas à intervenir dans le débat public, fut un des premiers à harmoniser la tradition analytique anglo-saxonne, axée sur la logique et la langue, et la tradition continentale, centrée sur les idées.

Jürgen Habermas, philosophe allemand, intellectuel combatif et esprit encyclopédique, est mort à l’âge de 96 ans