Congrats!

This week we are celebrating our new collection of essays and creative work I co-edited with Renisa Mawani and Mikki Stelder, grown from seeds planted during our time at UBC back in 2020. thanks to our wonderful contributors a nd series editor May Joseph. Order a library copy today 🪸 🌊 📖 🐳 🦀

Thinking about Oceans as archives has been deeply rewarding for me, a historian trained to work in traditional colonial archives, collections of written texts collide compiled by agents of empire. I invite you to ponder the archival ocean with us.

Low success rate in early career grants ‘deeply disappointing’ - Research Professional News “Decay continues” as Australian Research Council’s Decra scheme announces 13.1 per cent success rate

Here's a report from Jenny Sinclair @jsresearchpro.bsky.social on the low success rate for DECRAs this week, driven by high demand and low Government funding for early career researchers in Australia.

[Free article in @resprofnews.bsky.social]

the horror

Screenshot of Guardian Live headline with a picture of former Science Minister, Ed Husic, looking a bit flabbergasted. Headline is black text on white background and says that those in Treasury and Finance need to see scientific research as an investment, not a cost.

He’s not wrong, the former Science Minister*

*In the same Party as the current one!

(From Guardian Australia “live”)

CSIRO needs urgent support CSIRO is under attack. Sign the petition calling on the Albanese Government to act now to secure the future of CSIRO’s world-leading science and research.

Please sign. This stupid decision needs reversing

actionnetwork.org/petitions/cs...

Check my new essay "The deepest South: Slavery in Latin America, on a huge scale, was different from that in the United States. Why don’t we know this history?" just published in @aeon.co Many thanks to historian Sam Haselby, who beautifully edited it #slaveryarchive aeon.co/essays/way-d...

SPOILER. Proof pages of my review of The Heretic of Cacheu by Toby Green to be published in Slavery & Abolition. Curious about the book? Join Toby, @elotroalex.bsky.social and myself at the #Slaveryarchive book club this SAT 2:00 PM EST to discuss the book. Register ⬇️ us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World – Penn Press Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World offers a new interpretation of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippine islands. Drawing on the rich archiv...

Congratulations to @thehistoriann.bsky.social, whose book PIRACY AND THE MAKING OF THE SPANISH PACIFIC WORLD has won the Bolton-Johnson Prize for best book in English on Latin American history, granted by @clahistorians.bsky.social!

bit.ly/3KGDV9M

As Chair of the 2025 @clahistorians.bsky.social
Bolton-Johnson Prize I congratulate historians Brooke Larson & @thehistoriann.bsky.social CO-WINNERS with The Lettered Indian and Piracy & the Making of the Spanish Pacific World. Was a pleasure to work with jurors Jonathan Ablard & Kaysha Corinealdi

With appropriate nails!

If you're a writer that's currently thinking "What am I doing with my life? How did I get here?" just know that Peter Benchley partly wrote the novel JAWS in a converted chicken coop at his in-laws' house.

A silver lining

So happy that Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World made the shortlist for the NSW’s History Awards. My book is in great company - huge honour.
www.sl.nsw.gov.au/awards/nsw-h...

:)

It wouldn’t be livable if it was taxed.

Pacific powers: Imperial competition and cooperation in Micronesia

I’m recruiting a PhD student to work with me in Melbourne on the history of empire in Micronesia and the Pacific.

We are offering a full scholarship, Australian and international students can apply. More info here, please reach out if you are interested

www.acu.edu.au/research-and...

Grateful for Prof Ponce Vázquez’s review of my book in The Americas.

📢 Just announced! The programme & booking is now live for our Annual Conference 2025.

🗓️ Join us online & free on 4–5 Sept for Hidden in Plain Sight: Women in Archives, Libraries, Museums & Personal Collections.

🔗 womenshistorynetwork.org/the-womens-h...
#WHN2025 #WomensHistory #Archives #Heritage

“Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost.”

— A. Whitney Griswold

Folds: If we’ve been told our whole lives that we can’t spend money on the arts because they’re not important—then why was taking over the Kennedy Center and the arts the first thing they did?

It is extremely important. It’s the bedrock of self-expression.

join us next week at Melbourne Uni!

Hey, who's up for a #RemoteRetreatAUS ??? I need to get some writing DONE, and I need my peeps! Paging my regulars:
@kbneal.bsky.social @thehistoriann.bsky.social
@nikolasorr.bsky.social @justjenerally.bsky.social
@nonsequitania.bsky.social @mlcseah.bsky.social

Next week!

Opinion | Why DOGE Slashed the National Endowment for the Humanities Eliminating federal funding for the humanities saves next to no money, but it will cost the American people something precious.

“Eliminating federal funding for the humanities saves next to no money, but it will cost … something precious: one of the few federal institutions whose whole purpose is to foster community and thoughtful discussion across the polarities that increasingly divide … us” www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/o...

Every historian’s dream is to find an archival treasure

Looking forward to discussing pirates and the Spanish Empire in the Pacific at this hybrid event in Hong Kong next week. I’ll be joining online.

Slavery in the Philippines may have influenced Australian history Slavery and practices of unfree labour changed the political economy and culture of the Philippines—and may have influenced Australia.

In 2022, historian Dr Kristie Flannery @thehistoriann.bsky.social received a Humanities Travelling Fellowship to access rare documents in Spain and the Philippines.

Her research considers the influence of slavery, and the wider Spanish empire, on the Asia-Pacific region today: bit.ly/4kSyRN7

Thanks for listening :)