David Pearson

Here’s my Spotify Wrapped 🎵✨

It's official: 400 redundancies and a campus closure. At-risk staff will get a letter next week. Absolutely no serious consideration of any of the union's counterproposals.

Please share widely.

Won’t somebody please think of Britain’s poor £2m homeowners? Oh, wait – everyone already is | Jonathan Liew Contrast the furious reaction to Rachel Reeves’s ‘mansion tax’ to the response offered to those living with real housing injustice: indifference, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is good stuff. I love the opening sentence.

Breaking even a 'challenge' for the University of Aberdeen New principal Prof Peter Edwards says there needs to be a

'He told BBC Scotland News he hoped redundancies could be avoided, but said there needed to be a "fundamental look" at the current funding model for universities.'

He's right of course about the funding model, for Scotland, the other UK nations and the UK.

But surely VCs should say more. 1/2

Librarians are the single most under-used resource on campus. When was the last time you talked to yours? They can support not only your research but your teaching too.

✊ Fist (Yantra the Sacred Ink Series), Cedric Arnold (Thailand, 2010)
Detail of sacred yantra tattoos — symbols of protection & strength found across Southeast Asia.
See it in #GiftedExhibition, on view at SOAS Gallery until 13 Dec.
#SOASGallery #SOASCollections

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📣 Our departmental research seminar continues continues tomorrow:

Our own Naomi Leite will be speaking about
'Doubt, Dissonance and Divided Selves in the "Rational" West'

📅 3 December, 3–5pm
📍 Main Building, RB01 | In-person & hybrid

Join online at this link: soas-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/9374936443...

Behind the story: Amrit Sufi on how writing enabled her to share her culture As part of our “Behind the Story” challenge fundraising campaign, we feature Amrit Sufi from India, who shares why working on a particular story was important. Please consider donating to keep GV strong.

Behind the story: Amrit Sufi on how writing enabled her to share her culture

"Amrit Sufi, who speaks the Angika language of India’s eastern state of Bihar, said that it is not used in schools and is rarely written down, which is accelerating its downfall. Some people are also ashamed to speak it, seeing it as inferior to dominant languages such as Hindi."

How citizen archivists in South Asia confront the online marginalization of oral cultures and languages Recording of Bisukallu song. Image via Wikipedia by Santhosh Notagar99. CC0. What can an O Bele folk song from the Tulu community in southern India tell us about how farmers wou…

How citizen archivists in South Asia confront the online marginalization of oral cultures and languages by Amrit Sufi

diff.wikimedia.org/2025/11/27/h...

Is language the same as intelligence? The AI industry desperately needs it to be The AI boom is based on a fundamental mistake.

Large language mistake by @benjaminjriley.bsky.social -
Cutting-edge research shows language is not the same as intelligence. The entire AI bubble is built on ignoring it.

www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

📣 Join us for a screening of Berke Baş’s 'Hold Still' and a discussion with the director and scholars.
The discussion marks the public launch of Archives of Solidarity, an AHRC-funded project at SOAS.
📅 3 Dec, 5–8pm
📍 RG01, SOAS Main Building
Details & registration: www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/...

Great book launch at the Marx Memorial Library yesterday for Henry Dee’s ‘Militant Migrants: Clements Kadalie, the ICU and the Mass Movement of Black Workers in Southern Africa’. Dee pictured right; beside him is Dr Wayne Dooling of SOAS, who kindly acted as discussant sslh.org.uk/2025/11/04/m...

TODAY at 5PM
Join SOAS Centre for Palestine Studies' in-depth conversation with Lana Tatour about her co-edited book, Race and the Question of Palestine (2025)

Event info & registration: www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/...

📚Read the book: soas.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1482762...

A huge tree arches its bare tendrils across a country lane in an attempt to open itself up to the world in the most naked and emotionally vulnerable way possible.

Spring, summer and autumn are the party seasons for trees but winter is when you really get to know them as people.

The Doctor is right and correct

WEEKEND READING: Three reasons why the TEF will collapse under the weight of OfS  and DfE expectations - HEPI This blog was kindly authored by Paul Ashwin, Professor of Higher Education, Lancaster University. The Office for Students (OfS) and the Department of Education (DfE) have big plans to make the TEF mu...

'TEF uses programme level metrics to make judgements about institutional quality. It is both conceptual and methodological nonsense to attempt to scale-up judgements of quality from the programme to the institutional level in this way'. 1/3

Fabulous

This is nuts - "at least 52 per cent of internet content was machine-generated by May this year"

Will AI eat itself?

Your occasional reminder that @bookshop.org is open for all of your Christmas book shopping needs. Every sale supports independent bookstores, the books arrive beautifully packaged, and they even have gift wrapping options.
Buy some great books and stop paying for Jeff's botox
uk.bookshop.org?next=t

Informative, illuminating and full of love for the genre - @gautambhatia88.bsky.social is always on point when he talks about SF. Must read essay about the history of SF in India, most of which I didn’t know about. Can’t wait to check out the many recommendations!!!

Since today will be awash with dire UK university news, here's something positive. Have finally gotten around to reading the @acadsocsciences.bsky.social /ESRC Progressing Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) in the Social Sciences report and associated resources. Really excellent. 1/2

Collections Management Librarian - Games Workshop Jobs About the Job Games Workshop has an exciting new role for a Collections Management Librarian to join our Archiving team, where you will be responsible for

oh man, literally my professional life and my hobby are colliding! Interesting library job at Games Workshop!
jobs.games-workshop.com/search-and-a...

Universities are in crisis, and I don’t think it’s helpful to phrase that as “exiting the market”. They’re not mid-range shoe shops, these are educational pillars in society

Which UK regional economies are most reliant on international students? - HEPI Join HEPI for a webinar on Thursday 11 December 2025 from 10am to 11am to discuss how universities can strengthen the student voice in governance to mark the launch of our upcoming report, Rethinking ...

'The economic impact of international students in the UK surged from £31.3 billion in 2018/19 to £41.9 billion by 2021/22. On average, every parliamentary constituency in Britain benefits by £58 million.' 1/3

Welcome to our three-part series on book rebinding, where Library of Congress advanced book conservation interns Brittany and Devon will take you through all the steps of rebinding a book from the Library's Thomas Jefferson Library Collection. Stay tuned for parts two and three!

A beautiful tale about trees and stories by @pengshepherd.bsky.social . Take a look! 😁📚🌳

Cory Doctorow @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy, dannah boyd @zephoria.bsky.social, and ‪Lee Vinsel‬ ‪@leev.bsky.social‬ in a room together, is it Christmas already..?

People who dismiss e-books or audiobooks as being somehow less worthy or less meaningful than physical books are missing the point of books. Books are not ink and paper, just as human beings are not defined by their physicality. Books are connections; emotions; ideas; just like their creators.

I have been WAITING for a journalist to write this story.

I specialize in manuscripts produced in England between 1300 and 1500. If this had occurred in the midst of writing my dissertation or first book, it would have exploded my career.