Archaeologists Find Iliad “Catalog of Ships” Papyrus Inside Egyptian Mummy - Arkeonews Archaeologists in Egypt’s Oxyrhynchus have discovered a Roman-era tomb containing mummies with golden tongues and a rare papyrus

This is just so cool. A Roman-era mummy recently excavated in Egypt contained a fragment of papyrus with a section of the Iliad.

Exciting news! 🎙️ The Ukraine Shelf is back with two fantastic guests: Luke Harding and Myroslav Laiuk. Coming very soon to your favourite podcast platforms and UIL’s YouTube channel. Until then, dive back into our previous episodes! 🎧

IAS Reflections Symposium: Celebrating the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies A one-day symposium that will celebrate the wealth of highly innovative, interdisciplinary research that has been generated within the auspices of the IAS over the last ten years.

Our last big hurrah before we're shut down.
We hope you can join us (free lunch!)
28 April 2026, 9am-5pm
www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...

New university free speech complaints system to come into force this year Universities could face fines of £500,000 or 2% of their income if they are found to have failed to protect free speech.

Unfortunately, the Labour government does not only empower authoritarian and populist narratives in the area of immigration. With a new system to guarantee "free speech" at universities, they legitimize a favorite talking point and gateway drug of the far right.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Abstract The fracture between citizens and elites on European integration remains understudied, most notably when it comes to specific issues. One of these issues, particularly salient in the aftermath of Brexit, is holding further European Union exit referendums across the Union. While regularly floated by (Eurosceptic) parties for electoral purposes, it remains unclear to what extent parties and citizens agree to actually hold European Union exit referendums. We examine the relationship between party and citizen stances on this issue in 10 European Union member states, leveraging original cross-country survey data and expert survey data on parties’ positions, both collected in 2019. The results show that parties tend to be more against holding a European Union exit referendum than their voters, less so the more extreme parties. Moreover, higher media saliency correlates with greater party–voter congruence, and the issue is more polarised among the electorate than at the party level.

Do parties & voters agree on EU exit referendums? @acgoldberg.bsky.social & @alessandronai.bsky.social examine 10 countries, showing parties are more opposed than voters, with gaps narrowing as issue salience rises. Read OPEN ACCESS: buff.ly/eUxRCV1

@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social #EuropeanPolitics

A turning point for Hungary? A SSEESing roundtable on the results and implications of the parliamentary elections

Tonight - roundtable @uclssees.bsky.social analysing the results & potential impacts of last week's Hungarian elections, drawing on a range of academic and policy expertise. In person and virtual.

Chaired by @sherrillstroschein.bsky.social of @uclspp.bsky.social

www.ucl.ac.uk/arts-humanit...

May her memory be a blessing

If you or your students research any aspect of British, Irish or British colonial/imperial history (Roman empire to today) and need a tool that will never hallucinate sources, check out the BBIH. It develops research skills rather than repressing them. Instit. & indiv. subscriptions available.

We may be late to celebrate this - but this is still excellent news.

The book can be purchased or downloaded @uclpress.bsky.social:

uclpress.co.uk/book/ucl-at-...

Finance leaders warn over Mythos as UK banks prepare to use powerful Anthropic AI tool Release of new Claude model, so far limited to US firms, will expand to British institutions in coming days

Lagarde:

“I don’t think there is a governance framework that is there to actually mind those things. We need to work on that.”

Encapsulates the full dilemma. No other critical tech has leapfrogged its own regulation quite so blatantly/quickly.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

The myth of STEM only growth holds back the UK - LSE Impact The view that STEM subjects on their own drive growth is misguided and presents a lopsided view of the value of the social sciences and humanities.

“to believe that *only* STEM drives progress and economic growth reflects […] a remarkable degree of ignorance about how the world really works”

Brilliant on the importance of social sciences & humanities (while not uncritical of them) by UCL‘s Geoff Mulgan.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

Charlie Chaplin was born 137 years ago today, on April 16th, 1889

beautiful

On 25 April, the choir of St Mary Magdalen Oxford (including me) will be singing and livestreaming the complete choral music of Thomas Tallis in 12 hours, culminating in his stunning, 40-part motet "Spem in Alium".

Here's a little taster: "If Ye Love Me", plus a rare window into the Mags wardrobe.

Important point. Tusk is still struggling after many years.
But still, it is a huge victory for Magyar, Hungary and for Europe.

Orban called Magyar to congratulate Magyar - and admitted defeat to his supporters. It's over. Peter Magyar and his Tisza Party wins with such an overwhelming victory that he has two-thirds of the seats in the parliament and can undo Orban's autocratic legalism!

Now Tisza projected at 138 seats against 54 of Orban’s Fidesz. If these numbers are confirmed, this is a larger victory than Orbàn’s 2010 landslide, which allowed him to change the 🇭🇺Constitution and start backsliding towards an illiberal democracy. A historic day.

Orbán declared defeat

Jane Bolin shown at her home in New York after she was sworn in as a family court judge on July 22, 1939. Photo credit: Associated Press.

#ResistanceRoots

Jane Bolin was born on this day in 1908 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Her career was one of firsts for Black women, including the first to graduate from Yale Law School and the first to become a judge. Throughout her career, she championed civil rights and worked for systemic reform. /1

The Picnic: An Escape to Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain by Matthew Longo review – a break for the border The US academic has written a thoughtful and vividly realised account of the extraordinary chain of events around a summer party in Hungary that precipitated the end of Soviet power in central Europe

The Picnic by Matthew Longo, which won the Orwell Prize, 2024, is a fascinating study of Hungary at a moment of hope in 1989, with glimpses of the emergence of a younger democratic Viktor Orban & reflections on how the battle for memory+history in Hungary shifted
www.theguardian.com/books/2024/j...

It’s not uncommon in Europe to attend a university that is older than 600-700 years. Challenge is to keep teaching quality and quality of graduates high now that we are sending about 40% of students (rather than a tiny share of society back in the day) to university.

Mo Mowlam and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement - The History of Parliament 25 years ago this month the basis for peace in Northern Ireland – the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement – was signed after years of painstaking negotiations.

On 10 April 1998, the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement was signed, a major development in the Northern Ireland peace process. One of the crucial figures in the agreement was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam.

Read Dr Emma Peplow's article for more on Mowlam's impact.

Wirklich ein spannendes Interview (Erdöl, Rimbaud, KI, Humor).

Die Ausstellung übrigens sehr zu empfehlen!

🇵🇱⚖️Meanwhile, in the Polish rule of law crisis: every enjoyer of this story is now following the nerve-wracking saga of six elected judges of the Constitutional Tribunal as they apparently managed to enter the Tribunal's building after swearing an oath not in front of the President.

Polish London! In images rather than words. But we are delighted to discover a kindred soul.

We only feature one Polish-language entry at present. Can anyone suggest others?

#Polish #EuropeanLiteraryLondon

The variety of German bees before the Industrial Revolution (187, top) vs after the introduction of pesticides (43, bottom), DHM

It is a beautiful book, intellectually *and* haptically! More so still in the citric context you pictured it in…

Gutes Gedächtnis hat aber auch Nachteile.

The iambic pentameter does not imitate a heartbeat

Florida bans sociology from core curriculum at state universities For years, Republican lawmakers and education leaders have argued that sociology — especially high-enrollment introductory courses — has been overtaken by progressive ideology

Zum Stand der Wissenschaftsfreiheit: wenn ihr nicht lehrt, was wir euch aufgeschrieben haben, dann drehen wir euch den Saft ab.

www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...