Uta Staiger

'One doesn't always have to speak' - Hannah Arendt

Today is the official release date for my new book, First Among Equals: Visions of Equality before Egalitarianism. It explores how and why “equality” became, rather suddenly, a basis on which ordinary men and women could make political demands in early modern England. Please, check it out!

Another electoral up-set in Germany, what to make it of it as Europe enters a super election year in 2027? Wrote some of my insights from below up in an op-ed for @euobserver.com Citing research with my brilliant co-authors @aalrababah.bsky.social & Rachel Myrick euobserver.com/238663/germa...

Very proud of this piece with @tommasopavone.bsky.social, now out at JOP, where we use the empirical setting of Slovakia - an eroding democracy with a recent experience of backsliding - to gauge the potential of the past to affect present-day attitudes: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

'Several branches of the University and College Union (UCU) have come together to form a coalition against the cuts happening across the higher education sector, saying that a lack of action from the central union is “making people lose hope”.'

And in both cases by strongly opposing rather than adapting to (and thus normalising) core tenets of the far right.

🇩🇪💶🇵🇱 Extremely important voice from my friend Philipp on the urgent need for Germany to, even symbolically, compensate the Polish (as in: Polish citizens, regardless of ethnicity) victims of WW2. Their numbers are dwindling, and the far right on both sides of the Oder is exploiting the issue.

Apropos of current university redundancies and current interest in preserving freedom of speech at universities, it's worth asking whether staff at any English universities who are being made "voluntarily" redundant are also being required to sign non-disclosure agreements.

I spoke, as Chair of @soclablaw.bsky.social, at the Oxford Union last night against the motion “This House believes that the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights”, alongside a trio of talented students. Supporting the motion were Suella Braverman, Lord Lilley, and Martin Howe KC.

My HL debate on a written constitution was televised on BBC Parliament and can be seen here (starting at 16:11:30) parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/.... Full transcript here hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2026-1....

On delaying or deluding climate policy this is now established practice - the EPP voting with the far-right in the EU Parliament. I would also no longer qualify this as 'breaching the cordon sanitaire' as it happens at almost every EU Parliament plenary voting session now at least once:

EU set to delay push for cheaper UK university fees for bloc’s students ft.trib.al/apS9Lpg

🚨🚨This is really quite alarming #AfD points though highly unlikely to be the winning game in #Brussels. www.politico.eu/article/afd-...

Buchstrafen, Buchzerstörung, und brennende Autoren. Eine Vorlesung von mir zur dunklen Seite der Buchgeschichte ist als Podcast bei @lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de verfügbar: lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/augsburger_h...

I shall be starting a debate in the Chamber on Thursday 22 October on proposals for a written constitution – a pet project of our current PM. The House of Lords library has prepared this useful introduction. lordslibrary.parliament.uk/debate-on-pr...

UK government looks set to be invited to be part of "Made in Europe" - the proposal to include an opt-in for any other countries that were part of EU single market on Jan 1st 2020 (!) - if it is willing to align with EU tariffs on Chinese EVs www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

Law and Literature latest.

Zu Foucaults Geburtstag nochmal dies:

One could argue that US actions towards Ukraine are a testing ground for a wider strategic agenda within the Trump administration that has the potential to end intelligence and military cooperation with the EU, UK and other European partners.

We still recall the outcry when the possibility of de-funding UKICE was first floated a few years ago. Obvs everyone recognises that research funds are limited & need to cover diverse needs. But again today: the loss of UKICE will be felt significantly: they've done a huge service to UK politics.

This.

"By hacking away at the learned language of academic defence in which I was trained." -Anne Carson, interview, The White Review (July 2017)

Philippe Sands wins the peace prize of German Publishers and delivers a truly important speech, calling out silence in the face of international crimes. Impartially. Including where Germany fails to do so. Thank you, Philippe. youtu.be/xgFnhdYAH8E?...

Huge kudos to @anandmenon.bsky.social and the team for their remarkable work over these turbulent years.

I enjoyed talking to David about the history of transhumanism (the first of four episodes)

Anne Carson! A scholar and poet and dramatist and essayist and allround exceptional mind: the very best of choices. I was hooked when first reading Eros the Bittersweet, and haven’t stopped.Beautiful.

On rejoining the EU Support: 55% Oppose: 34% ... but on the conditions of single currency and Schengen membership Support: 35% Oppose: 43% via YouGov, Jun 2026 britainelects.substack.com/p/is-rejoin-...

It’s a mark of the corruption of our whole way of thinking about the world that trying to meet a planetary emergency is routinely described as “ideological”, while continuing to accelerate it is presented as “pragmatic” and “economic”.

Three years without Kate. Could you visit me in dreams? That would cheer me. Sweet to see friends in the night, however short the time. -Anne Carson, from Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides #everynightapoem #fragment

🚨 Check out the new courses we've just launched to accompany our Philosophers and Great Essays series! For anyone wanting to go deeper into some of what we cover. Completely free for anyone to use. And more to come. Do please spread the word! www.ppfideas.com/courses

Delighted we could do our bit to make this fabulous thing happen. Don't miss!

It's never too late to return that overdue library book... 😊

FT asking the big questions here - could Anthropic maintain its growth trajectory if AI destroys humanity? www.ft.com/content/96d0...

Latest - and possibly final - numbers out of Mecklenburg Vorpommern now a true catastrophe for the CDU which looks like it won’t make it into the regional parliament at all

And the winner of the biennial book prize is 🥁 🥁 🥁 Chloe Ireton and her book Slavery and Freedom in Black Thought in the Early Spanish Atlantic! 🎉 Congratulations @chloeireton.bsky.social!! Find authors’ videos and our judges’ comments for all shortlisted books here: rensoc.org.uk/srs-book-pri...

That's the spirit.

In more #AcademicFreedom news…

Oxford’s Centre for Democratic Resilience, in partnership with @buceriuslaw.bsky.social and @verfassungsblog.de, has launched the Higher Education and Democratic Resilience Programme. Find out more: https://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/higher-education-and-democratic-resilience-programme

Please join us for a presentation of 'Inner Zone: The Untold Violence of Retribution in Besieged Sarajevo' (@pennpress.bsky.social), the new book by Jelena Golubović. 🗓️ 14 October at 11am 📍 UCL SSEES www.ucl.ac.uk/arts-humanit...

Friend shared this video of a man unveiling the library he hid when he fled Damascus in 2011. It’s incredible

Thread worth reading just for the relayed intensity of it.

Discussion included that fundamental issue: do we leave higher education to the market, and if we do, what happens. There was wide consensus that the market has failed and that if we do not find shared means if intervening, the future of universities is bleak, not least for social opportunity.

Report outlines worsening trends in repression of academics in 22 countries and documents 382 attacks on scholars, students, and institutions in 59 countries/territories www.scholarsatrisk.org/resources/fr...

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This was such - in the Arendtian sense - FUN.

Kindly disagree on this one. In my view, you could go quite far legally with an Associate Agreement based on Art. 217 TFEU. Still requires unanimous support from member states and political will to go far, but in my view not treaty change or referenda.

In today's news: Canada wants to join the EU, and an English village wants to leave the UK. Welcome to 21st century politics.

Your regular reminder: If the Russians stop fighting, the war ends. If the Ukrainians stop fighting, their land will be occupied, their leaders will be killed, their history and language will be erased, their children will be kidnapped to serve Russia.