John Sabapathy

Some suggested reading on William the Conqueror and the Normans ahead of the BBC drama later this summer. #medievalsky

Featuring the indomitable @tyguson.bsky.social with her prize-winning essay on why the monks of Fécamp were instrumental in William the Conqueror’s cross-Channel invasion 👏

1-year post at Kent

I was lucky enough to hear these appreciations of Jinty's articles at King's. I remember her once talking about how some people write articles, others give lecture sets, others write monographs. She loved the article form, as is demonstrated by those chosen from an enormous range over a huge period.

Walking Tour: Migration and the City of London Where better to discover the richness of Britain’s migration histories, than the City of London - where hundreds of stories, over thousands of years demonstrate that migration is woven into the fabric...

Looking for summer activities in London and keen to learn more about its history through migration? The Migration Museum Walking Tour: Migration and the City of London can be booked for up to 20 people. Duration approx 90 mins. And you'll be helping the team build Britain's missing museum too. 1/2

🤣

No surprises, but possibly my top 5?

- The best realist novel of the nineteenth century, that is Braudel's Mediterranean?
- Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou?
- Anything by Mike Davis, but esp. Ecology of Fear?
- Richard White's Organic Machine – amazing
- Bathsheba Demuth's Floating Coast

A roundtable on the future of environmental history as a subfield from early career scholars (with a small contribution from me). What is the place of scale? Of interdisciplinarity?

Thanks especially to @hibbertsalex.bsky.social for organising and editing.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Sigourney Weaver standing happily with the Alien queen

*me and my book project

This was amazing at the BFI last night: ! Trintignant, Kinski, Corbucci…and SO BLEAK AN ENDING. Nostalgic overwhelm for the replays of the original Alex Cox Moviedrome intros too.

'Outlining how the scheme was developing in practical terms, Vallance said there was a missions board made up of various government figures, including ministers, which was defining the biggest problems the country faces. “That then gets turned into a question that is an R&D question,” he said.' 1/3

"We turn now to our legal correspondent, live at the scene..."

👇enormously helpful + includes super alt-text too!

A very powerful essay by Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov, arguing that:
a) Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and
b) denying this threatens to "undermine everything that Holocaust scholarship and commemoration have stood for."

Do read the whole thing www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/o...

Ce matin dans @liberation.fr 🤩

Universities in England at risk of long-term decline, says British Academy Outgoing president Dame Julia Black calls on ministers to overhaul their ‘confused’ approach to higher education

No punches pulled in great @financialtimes.com interview with @britishacademy.bsky.social President Julia Black (gift link).

'There is nobody within government looking at the university system as a whole & thinking, ‘What do we want this to achieve, both for students but also for the country?’

How to Get AI Out of Your Google Search Results • The Revelator Three simple keystrokes will deliver search results that consume less energy and water — and probably contain better information.

Good piece by John Platt at The Revelator about flensing AI from searches. How and why. therevelator.org/how-to-get-a...

I had mistakenly thought the point of a uni marketing team was to create demand for & sell a product, not to be the arbiters of what we teach based on whether it’s a “money-spinning easy sell”. I was very wrong.

Fantastic colleagues across many periods, regions & specialisms @uclhistory.bsky.social who could mentor you or your students. Do get in touch if you've questions.

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

Modern British History maternity leave cover (7 months in first instance) teaching position, predominantly 20th century, UCL History Dept. Starts 1 October 2025. Friendly department with excellent students and great library resources. PhD required. Deadline 24 July.

Book cover text: Studies in Regional and Local History Volume 23. Landscapes and Producers in Medieval England - Essays Presented to Rosamond Faith. Edited by Richard Purkiss and Hannah Boston. Book cover image: three figures moving with scythes, two working and one resting, from BL Cotton MS Tiberius B. V, Part 1, f. 6v.

Finally able to share: A Festschrift in honour of the one and only Ros Faith. Twelve essays on peasants and rural society in the 7th-14th centuries, edited by @hannah-boston.bsky.social and me, coming later this year with UHerts Press.
www.herts.ac.uk/uhpress/book...

Home page of the Medieval Libraries of Great Britain project beta website.

POSTDOC OPPORTUNITY!

@bodleianlibraries.bsky.social are advertising a full-time 6-month postdoc position to work with Andrew Dunning on redeveloping the Medieval Libraries of Great Britain project as a sustainable, open-access digital resource for manuscript studies.

🖊️ Apply by 14 July

I'm really sorry to hear that @medievalrevolt.bsky.social. He was a great and deep-thinking historian. He was also kind and generous to me at an important point in my career when there was no especial need to be.

Erle Ellis And An International Team Of Researchers Propose A New Way To Motivate International Action Toward A Better Future For The Living World - UMBC: University Of Maryland, Baltimore County Erle Ellis collaborated to develop the Nature Relationship Index (NRI) which measures what countries are doing correctly to protect the environment.

UMBC's @erleellis.bsky.social has collaborated with a team of researchers across six continents to develop the Nature Relationship Index (NRI). The NRI will be the first standardized global metric that measures the quality of a nation’s relationships with nature. umbc.edu/stories/natu...

Parue dans @lemonde.fr www.lemonde.fr/disparitions...

Look forward to it!

25 ways to mark midsummer Celebrate the solstice with star-studded pieces

Looking forward to celebrating midsummer appropriately.

Congratulations!

You can listen to a great discussion with @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social we ran a while back @anthropoceneucl.bsky.social here.

Now that’s a list.