Joanne Begiato

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🤏 Have you ever noticed what politicians do with their hands when they want to appear sincere, authoritative or persuasive? Read the latest blog post from @jbhist.bsky.social and @medhistoryman.bsky.social to explore the long history of hands in politics: www.thevictorianhand.uk/gallery/the-...

@jbhist.bsky.social and I wrote a blog post about some research we did for an upcoming publication on emotional gestures in rhe political realm. Check it out on our website!

Check out our latest blog post!

🎞️ We are delighted that Manual, the first film by our project filmmaker Lily Ford, is available to watch! Blending Victorian self-help culture with contemporary digital media, the film explores ideas of labour, self-improvement, class, gender and creativity through the hand. youtu.be/LhDyk5G02BY

This looks very interesting: Railways: 200 Years that Transformed Britain 21 November Exploring how railways reshaped population, society, culture, law & everyday experience; nice to see @medhistoryman.bsky.social & @jbhist.bsky.social involved! midlandrailwaysociety.org.uk/railways-200...

Simon Marginson in today's @timeshighered.bsky.social : "The wheels are now rapidly falling off the 2012 funding system" in England. Treasury displays "no signs of awareness or concern about the devastation of the nation's capacity in higher education". What would a wheeled UKHE bus look like? 1/7

Wolverhampton 'is currently in the middle of a restructure and redundancy process, having last year announced plans to close its Telford campus, as well as proposing to close numerous English courses earlier this year.' 1/3

Our rapid disillusionment with political leaders is treated by much of the media as some kind of pathology. But what I see is these leaders backtracking on their promises, dashing people's hopes and serving the ultra-rich ahead of the rest of the population. Why wouldn't we be disillusioned?

It's just magical seeing QUEER ORIGINS in bookshops, especially the iconic Gay's the Word.✨ I've just signed some copies there — nab one while you can (there are also some soon-to-be-collector's-item bookmarks)! #books #booksky #bookshop #newreads #histsci #histsex #queerhistory 🌈📚🦋🗃️

No-one should doubt that Anglosphere universities face a very powerful, well-concerted and resourceful attack across the board. This comes at UK universities' moment of maximum weakness - when a string of institutions are teetering on the edge. inews.co.uk/news/educati...

'A June report by UK IT body Jisc and the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC) warned that pressure for universities to adopt AI has “outpaced clarity about what responsible action looks like in practice”. ' 1/2

Two thirds of articles about the wildfires didn't mention climate change. Once again parts of our media are failing at the most basic part of their job - reporting the truth. uk.themedialeader.com/two-thirds-o...

'Now people are asking aloud: why is Burnham ignoring what is in front of his face – the devastating impact of climate breakdown on the country and its citizens?' A Ukrainian comedian stood up to Putin, in the face of all the odds. Can the PM stand up to climate collapse?

Could we please have a hefty cross party group of MPs urging the 2 most relevant Secretaries of State (at DfE and BIST) to intervene in the car crash that is higher education and research funding and policy, as joined-at-the-hip in universities? We're all in this together.

I enjoyed this. ordinaryabundance.com

Universities... I've just been sent to the edge today by all this stupid reporting about A-Level results day like everything's fine and dandy. Those 18yos are heading into a proper storm. It's hot, I'm hot, none of us can do anything about it anyway. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

'languages are often unavailable to students in schools and colleges before they make their subject choices at university. Limited opportunities have suppressed demand. But interest in languages is not limited, and it is important not to forget the joy and vitality of languages too.'

Really? Is that it? If this is all that’s come from COBR, it’s pitifully inadequate. As crisis deepens, it beggars belief that there aren’t eg plans to increase resources for the fire service, support for farmers, max workplace temperature, funded community cool spaces & obvs ban on new fossil fuels

A fire now the size of 140 football pitches Drought in half of England & all of Wales Heat alerts across the country. Already 3000 dead from the heat. The crisis is here. We can see it, we can smell the smoke. We cannot sit by while government sit on their hands. www.lbc.co.uk/article/new-...

There's been a real failure on the part of progressive leaders this summer to link the weather and Net Zero in the public mind. Most people get it, but the consensus is crumbling and it would be useful to reinforce it.

📢PROJECT UPDATE📢 You may have seen the news that the University of Exeter, home of the wills project, has placed 500 academics at risk of redundancy. The project leader Prof. Jane Whittle & project co-investigator Dr Laura Sangha are both at risk, alongside almost all of the History department. 1/

My column on how capital becomes a death cult. Faced with a choice between profit and human life, the radical right chooses profit. Then it tries to persuade us that mass death is what we want. It's the new phase of climate denial: accept your fate, earthlings. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

'Ben Johnson, co-director of...Science Works and a former government science adviser, told Research Professional News the government must understand how and where the sector is contracting or risk losing pockets of research capability.' That horse is already exiting the stable. 1/3

Great to see Osterley House, National Trust engage again with the long legacy of the East India Company and its material cultures in Hounslow. Exciting to see another exhibition on this theme: Journeys: Wedding Shawls, Baghs and Phulkaris from the Karun Thakar Collection, open until 1 November. 1/4

💖 all animals deserve freedom 🌿❤️🩷🧡💛💚💙🩵💜🤎🤍🌿

Not to make light of a difficult to diagnose allergy. But given that climate survivals demands that humans eat much less red meat, this may also be read as 'nudge' from nature.

NEW on Wonkhe: International students are often treated as financial assets rather than pedagogic partners. Sumeya Loonat sets out four lenses for moving beyond the deficit model buff.ly/jnPFPMD

This should be self evident but clearly isn’t. From @lewisgoodall.com

I'm not only incredibly sad about this, I'm also profoundly angry; mostly with the government & sector leadership who allowed this to happen, but also with colleagues who rejected the idea that lifting the cap would make this inevitable and told me that I had no right to stop students 'trading up'.

Thinking through the unedifying, un-evidence-based rush to an undefined, apparently unmodelled paradigm of 'specialisation, what's being lost/threatened? Herts History was an excellent example of performing to a top standard in REF, but also much more than that. Questions to think with include: 1/4

In late 2023, the Society spent a day with Hertfordshire’s historians. We saw the quality, creativity and distinctiveness of teaching, research and engagement. We were told by a (now departed) senior manager that History was ‘a portfolio the university will guard very carefully’. bit.ly/4hLediN

NEW on Wonkhe: Universities UK’s Future Universities strategy aims to tackle public apathy towards universities. Sally Mapstone explains why that means doing more than “telling better stories” buff.ly/PglwhMi

The 'stinging rebuke' is open access here. You don't need to be an historian to applaud it. #Skystorians 2/2

we’re all signing petitions to save other people’s department until we’re the ones organising the petition and then we’re back to signing other people’s petitions please sign & share to save humanities at hertfordshire

Higher education in the UK just got much lower. How much lower will it sink before your MP notices and speaks out?

University of Hertfordshire closes a swathe of Humanities courses, accelerating the sweeping tide against Human-centred disciples in the UK. Because understanding humans is so yesterday today. With such happy consequences, as we see when we look around us.

✍️ Our Public Engagement Fellow, rosscmrn.bsky.social, sheds light on the origins of our project in the latest Bulletin of The Royal College of Surgeons of England! Read the full article here: publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/full/10....

Next workshop at The Quilters' Guild coming up soon!

Rachel Feldberg shares how the discovery of a young women's diary revealing an interest in science, culture, and sociability in York sparked collaborative research, a conference, and a book that brings Jane Ewbank’s world to light. #18thC #BookSky #skystorians Read the blog > buff.ly/ATgu3WP

BBC News - Iris Murdoch's lost poems to be read at Oxford Brookes festival - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

May I interest you in £10k for humanities or social science research? Our small grants scheme is open. Apply by 3rd June. We allocate through partial randomisation - awarding randomly between all applications that meet our quality threshold www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

ONE WEEK REMAINING: Small Grant Scheme📣 Offering #grants up to £10,000 GBP for organisations that want to increase public access and engagement with maritime history and/or their collections. Apply🔗👉 hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/get-involved...

Working on the history of hair? Or just found a hairy case study you would like to explore? We are looking forward to it! Please answer our CfP on „Global Histories of Hair, c. 1500-2026“ and join us in Lucerne this October! #skystorians #earlymodern

Some sad news to report, I'm afraid... Jeff Grant, the director of legendary public information film Lonely Water, died on 13 March. He fought to include the film's horror elements, and they proved so successful that it opened the door to the shocking PIFs that we know and love. (1/2)

Every part of the lily plant is deadly to cats - even drinking water that lilies were sitting in can kill them. Other popular spring flowers like tulips and daffodils can also make them very sick, but there are plenty of beautiful and safe alternatives.

Sharing on behalf of @newcastleuni the Call for Papers for their upcoming conference “Caring Communities: Rethinking Care, Class, and Kinship, 1800-Present”, taking place at Newcastle University on Thursday 3 and Friday 4 of September 2026.