Ellie Byrne

Pile of books including many Ali Smith novels and a variety of contemporary literary works.

Today’s task. Finish the intro to the Ali Smith essay collection. Need to stop reading and get writing!

Please share!
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Our conference " #NeoHistorical #Fiction @ 2025. #PrizedTemporalities & Contested Progress"
is happening /2-4 June @temporal-communities.de
☝️
@freieuniversitaet.bsky.social
#AcademicSky #AcademicChatter #AcademicConference
#EnglishStudies #LiteraryStudies #CulturalStudies #FUBerlin

Accenture, employer of thousands in Ireland, abandons diversity measures after Trump orders The global company, which has its headquarters in Dublin, is reacting to executive orders signed by Trump

‘Accenture, employer of thousands in Ireland, abandons diversity measures after Trump orders’ So it’s now clear that commitments of global companies to inclusion & equality was conditional-they drop the gender/pink washing so easily. It’s always about profit & patriarchal power!! jrnl.ie/6616454

The banner image for this journal special issue shows an oil painting of trees, blue sky, and a meadow.

Hiya BlueSky! We've got a cracking special issue on Ali Smith which features an interview with Ali Smith, published in December 2024: c21.openlibhums.org/issue/901/in.... Check it out, if you haven't already had a chance! #AcademicSky #BookSky #Literature #OpenAccess @bacls.bsky.social

Head of Collections, Teaching and Research:John Rylands Library

www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

The John Rylands Library is looking for a new Head of Collections. Please do share widely. I'd like a good boss 😁 @historyhannahb.bsky.social @janeydonald.bsky.social @bronterre1.bsky.social

Ali Smith’s Playful Dystopia The author discusses why she has a dumbphone, how to “meet reverses boldly,” and her new novel, “Gliff.”

“How does anyone do anything if they’ve lost their bearings, and their bearings are in the machine?”

—in an interview with Anna Russell in the @newyorker.com, Ali Smith discusses why she has a dumbphone, how to “meet reverses boldly,” & her new novel, GLIFF
www.newyorker.com/culture/drin...

That Promethean Spark - The Bottle Imp In some ways the most real and rooted people whom Sandy knew were Miss Gaunt and the Kerr sisters who made no evasions about their belief that God had planned for practically everybody before they wer...

THAT PROMETHEAN SPARK
The Bottle Imp special issue

Muriel Spark was born #OTD, 1 Feb, 1918

“With a writing career that included biography, criticism, drama and short fiction as well as novels, Muriel Spark was never one to do things by halves…”

A 🎂 🧵…
1/9
www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2017/11/that...

YouTube video by Fobzu (Friends of Birzeit University) Our Universities Live On: Testimonials of Hope from Gaza

I have been appalled & disgusted by the silence of academic colleauges on the genocide in Gaza (but not surprised). So I expect little from them. For everyone else who cares about knowledge, humanity & truth, this is an powerful film on the scholasticide perpetrated by Israel youtu.be/G5MmIDc1LXE

The South Asian Literary Association's virtual conference is this weekend. Keynotes are open to the public: Gurminder Bhambra Friday, and Tahmima Anam and Mirza Waheed Saturday. (Zoom links at the link below)

My own panel is Friday morning 9:15 ET.
southasianliteraryassociation.org/2025-confere...

Part 1 of CFP/poster for ‘Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes’. Find full details of CFP here: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/hostileenvironments-hospitablepraxes/#

Part 2 of CFP/poster for ‘Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes’. Find full details of CFP here: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/hostileenvironments-hospitablepraxes/#

I’m organising a conference: 'Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes: Literary and Cultural Responses to Racial and Migratory Politics' at the University of Kent, 23-24 June 2025.

Keynote presenters: Leah Cowan and Agnes Woolley.

#hostileenvironment #migration #refugeestudies

I still recall the first line that rushed from my head to the page: “The people choose their poets exactly as they please.” Legions of people chose, lauded and loved Nikki, flocking to her readings & standing in long lines for her to sign their 📚. Rest in Peace our dear Nikki.💕

Poet Nikki Giovanni on Age, Identity, and the Passing of Time In her new collection "A Good Cry," the author and educator goes deep on love and letting go.

Full interview is here:

www.shondaland.com/inspire/book...

The women gather because it is not unusual to seek comfort in our hours of stress.
A man must be buried.
It is not unusual that the old bury the young though it is an abomination.

RIP 🕯️
Nikki Giovanni (1943-2024)

Contingent Book & Article Lists Archives - CONTINGENT

We're glad you liked our 2024 book list. We've done one every year we've been publishing. It's a lot of work done by contingent historians, work that's often not rewarded professionally even as people in the profession consume it. See all of our book and article lists here. 🗃️

@bacls.bsky.social has just launched the CfP for the next BACLS-WHN conference (10-12th June 2025, University of Stirling)!

Find it here forms.gle/Jmx4BBpdB7L3... and send abstracts by Friday 24th January 2025. #lit #C21Lit

YouTube video by chunkymark Turner Prize 2024 Jasleen Kaur

❤️‍🔥 Jasleen Kaur, on winning the Turner Prize:

“I’ve been wondering why artists are required to dream up liberation in the gallery but when that dream meets life we are shut down”

youtu.be/6RoLMAf37qY

The Many Confrontations of Jean Rhys In her life and in her writing, the author of post-colonial works such as “Wide Sargasso Sea” met adversity—inflicted and self-inflicted—with an unflinching eye.

Jean Rhys worked on “Wide Sargasso Sea,” her 5th and final novel, in her 60's & 70's while in precarious health and devotedly coaxed by two editors, Diana Athill + Francis Wyndham.

Published in 1966, it became a key text in feminist and post-colonial #Lit.

free link: archive.ph/2022.07.06-0...

‘Something About Living’: In Conversation with Lena Khalaf Tuffaha Palestine Square

Congratulations @lenakt.bsky.social on the National Book Award for Poetry 💫

Read Lena in conversation w Anna Rajagopal on Something about Living in @palestinestudies.bsky.social here:

www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1656...

Past Continuous — Workshops 4 Gaza Step 1: Donate to Othman here (suggested donation $60 USD). Step 2: Register for “Past Continuous” here . In this workshop led by award-winning poet Lena Tuffaha, participants will rea...

5. On Dec. 7, we present "Past Continuous: Reading Darwish in a Time of Genocide" with Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, winner of the National Book Award in Poetry (2024). She will lead a discussion of Mahmoud Dawish's Memory for Forgetfulness. www.workshops4gaza.com/calendar/pas...

A Poetry Reading for Gaza II — Workshops 4 Gaza Step 1: Donate to Sameer Project here (suggested donation $25 USD). Step 2: Register for “A Poetry Reading for Gaza II” here . Join Workshops4Gaza for our second online poetry reading...

4. On Dec. 5 we will have "A Poetry Reading for Gaza II," featuring Indigenous poetic geniuses Natalie Diaz, Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. This follows our first online poetry reading, which was held in October. www.workshops4gaza.com/calendar/a-p...

Follow the Water — Workshops 4 Gaza This writing workshop invites participants to pay attention to the watersheds where they live & to connect the local flows of life-giving water with a love & care for the planet that keeps us ...

2. Also on Dec. 1 is "Follow the Water: A Writing Workshop" with Rita Wong, author of many original works, and co-editor of the anthology Downstream: Reimagining Water (2017). Participants will think about what waters around teach us when we listen to them? www.workshops4gaza.com/calendar/fol...

Gaza Kitchen: A Cooking Workshop — Workshops 4 Gaza Step 1: Donate to Laila’s family here (suggested donation $60 USD). Step 2: Register for “Gaza Kitchen: A Cooking Workshop” here . In this workshop with renowned author and speaker L...

1. Dec. 1 is "Gaza Kitchen: A Cooking Workshop" with Laila El Haddad, a Palestinian-American author and speaker from Gaza, who will teach ppl to make Rummaniya, a vegetarian stew popular in the sw of Palestine. She was on "Parts Unknown" with Bourdain in 2013. www.workshops4gaza.com/calendar/gaz...

To our new followers: we've been organizing for Palestinian families in Gaza since July of this year. We are closing in on 2,000 workshop participants (since we started keeping track). Can you help us achieve our goal this long weekend of 100 new sign-ups? We have 12 workshops and 1 trans. consult ⬇️

Love him or loathe him, Elon Musk is a champion of efficiency and could save the US government a fortune The richest man in the world knows how to make savings.

This article shamefully normalises an ultraright corporate takeover of the US government. It's particularly distateful given Musk's targeting of named federal employees, exposing them to harassment or worse. I'm appalled to see it in @uk.theconversation.com.

theconversation.com/love-him-or-...

Contemporaries - Post45 Post45 seeks to reinvigorate the erstwhile convention of academic critics not only describing past traditions but also actively intervening in current tastes. It provides a forum for writers to conver...

This Friday the 29th, we bring you “Samuel R. Delany’s Improbably Communities,” on the author’s sex-worlds & the politics of (often) public sex in his essays and novels. Ed. by Blake Stricklin; ft. work by @kirinwgrene, Rebekah Sheldon, Y Howard, and Christopher Breu!

post45.org/contemporari...

Are you a historian working on race, ethnicity and migration? Come join us as Chancellor's Fellow/Lythe Lecturer--this is an exciting new post (1 of 3) enabled by the Lythe Bequest* made to Humanities at Univ. of Strathclyde. #historians #skystorians
strathvacancies.engageats.co.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Thank you so much for this. I’m trying to find 3000 Nights for a BA class as it has just left Netflix. Have you come across it anywhere else?

How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world | Carole Cadwalladr In the wake of Trump’s unnerving appointees, the investigative journalist and veteran of the libel court offers pointers on coping in an age of surveillance

NEW: The great Trump-Musk crackdown is coming. And it will hit hard & fast. Journalists will be first. But everyone else is next.

I urge you to read my 20 lessons in How to Survive the Broligarchy, inspired by & featuring the great @timothysnyder.bsky.social
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www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Quote from Hannah Arendt: Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those of crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty. From The Origins of Totalitarianism.

Really feeling this post from Tim Morton’s Instagram today.