Saw one just a second ago, then refreshed and saw your post. First time though.

A lecture theatre. Photo by crystal710 on Pixabay.

A reminder that the closing date for applications to the MHRA conference grant fund is 27 April 📆

The grant is for conferences/colloquia the field of medieval & modern European languages and literatures, including English, in the UK or Ireland.

Details here:
www.mhra.org.uk/funding/

Please share!

I love that contracts can still include 'rebellion' as an act of force majeure

This copy also features a phenomenal bookplate:

Decorated initial designed by Aubrey Beardsley, in an edition of Ernest Dowson's 'The Pierrot of the Minute' (L. Smithers, 1897)
Wish we had a whole alphabet of these!
#bookdesign #typography

What’s wrong with knowledge being on a bookshelf? 🤔

‘Even people who had university degrees used phrases like “navel-gazing”, “ivory tower” or “academic waffle”… This was linked to a perception that knowledge gained through PhDs was often not shared or made accessible… and could be “left in a drawer”, “on a bookshelf” or “behind a paywall”’

Outside academia, people aren’t well informed about PhD research – and that’s a problem There’s low public awareness of how research is funded.

‘Outside academia, people aren’t well informed about PhD research – and that’s a problem’
theconversation.com/outside-acad...

Peer review is the factory floor. Admins treat publications like finished goods but starve the production line. Result: declining quality, garbage in hiring metrics. I've seen it in acquisitions—metrics without process verification kill decisions.

Academic administrators need to understand this as a matter of urgency. No field of study can survive without peer review. HE admins rely on publications to make their hiring & promotion decisions for them, yet won't provide time for the peer review that makes those publications possible.

The isolated figure of Captain America is seen in an apocalyptic landscape facing up to Thanos and an enormous army of authors as he prepares to ask them to cut their discursive footnotes

Candid footage captured of me preparing to ask authors to cut their discursive footnotes
#editing

Fair. I don't think I ever used the edit function (though nice to know it was there just in case), but it was most useful to see a list of previous announcements.

Why do designers of online journal submission platforms seem incapable of writing automated review reminders that aren't inappropriately aggressive? Don't they know how little time academics have for peer review these days? It's almost like they don't know what they're doing.... 🤔

Incredible and fascinating!

Is the Easter break a good or bad time to go to the BL, would you say? In terms of busyness. I’m thinking more academics but fewer students? Or is it to be avoided?

A collection of ornamental dashes with insane designs

Book design really lost its mind in the 19th century

(Type specimen from 1830)
#typography

@srsrensoc.bsky.social what happened to the SRS website? I used to be able to see all past announcements I've submitted, but I can't find how to do that any more. Is there a way?

The front cover of the MHRA edition of Thomas Mann's later stories

Publishing in May: a brand new translation of Thomas Mann's last short stories 📘

Available now for review – journals are welcome to get in touch

Details here:
www.mhra.org.uk/publications...

The front cover of Modern Language Review, volume 121, Part 2, April 2026

🔈 The latest issue of the Modern Language Review is out!

👉 www.mhra.org.uk/publications...

Articles on Marlowe, Balzac, Dadaism, and more, plus the usual book reviews 📚

Access via @projectmuse.bsky.social 👉 muse.jhu.edu/issue/56632

The Diamond Head riff kicks in...

Feel free to email us or DM me 🙂

Found another one! Jessy of Sturgeon?

A very easy step the Secretary of State could make is to shut down the use of consultancies in #UKHE. It leaks SO MUCH money out of the (public) sector to for-profit firms, is creating a truly dangerous monoculture, and is so seemingly obscure none outside the sector will be pissed off.

Trivia question: what do Katherine Parr, Francis Bacon, Simon Forman, Anne Askew, John Donne, Robert Dudley, John Milton, Thomas Wyatt, Lady Anne Blount, and James VI & I all have in common?

#earlymodern

Die Leiden des jungen Werther, Doves Press, 1911

#bookdesign #typography

Just read the gross phrase 'according to multiple people familiar' in the FT 🤢

Just gave myself a huge fright because I thought I’d missed a major step in the publication process (because it was ages ago and I couldn’t remember it being done). But I hadn’t, phew. Always gotta write down what you’ve done as well as what’s still to do! 😳

The Psalms in English 1530–1633 - Edited by Hannibal Hamlin Modern Humanities Research Association - The Psalms in English 1530–1633 - Edited by Hannibal Hamlin

I'm sure I wrote to you about our early modern Psalms volume back when it came out -- not all that recent now, but still very much in the review window, if you're interested!
www.mhra.org.uk/publications...

I’d assume any use of a Google product is fair game for AI isn’t it? Given their history and usual profound concern for user privacy, plus the fact that they’re an AI developer themselves

I didn't know, or had forgotten, that MHRA books are available to purchase from Walmart. Not in the stores, obviously... Still though. Nice to know I guess.