emma short

YouTube video by Novara Media LIVE: Global Sumud Flotilla Approaches Gaza

‼️IMPORTANT‼️ LIVESTREAM from the Gaza flotilla as they near Gaza. This is now the most vulnerable time for these brave folks. We need as many eyes on them as possible. Please watch/stream when you can & spread this far & wide. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCAN...

This is great work. But this article in particular should be raising eyebrows and a LOT of questions

www.thenerve.news/p/tony-blair...

LOCAL AI ZONES: what's at stake?2025-09-26T08:05:27.412Z <<The Government’s announcement that Blyth in Northumberland and Cobalt Park in North Tyneside will become designated AI Growth Zones has prompted debate about the trade-offs we need to consider. Durh...

Last week, a new North East AI Growth Zone was announced, with new data centres at Blyth & Cobalt. But what is at stake for resources & the environment? Prof Karen Lai (@karenpylai.bsky.social) of Durham University explains the issue in a guest blog. www.climateactionnewcastle.com/post/ai-grow...

It’s gone so quickly from ‘boat people’ to all immigrants. So quickly from ‘I don’t mind if they come here legally and pay taxes’ to ‘actually it’s anyone foreign’. We are living in the ‘first they came for’ poem. All to give the population a scapegoat so the super rich can hoard yet more wealth.

Consider the Snail — The Dial “In writing about snails, I wanted to write about slowness and strangeness, solitude and death, hibernation and estivation.”

I have a new translation up at @thedialmag.bsky.social, Lauren Bastide's Courir l'escargot, which we're calling Consider the Snail. I loved this book & was so happy to get to translate some excerpts from it, about slowness, failure, grief, alterity, cycles, & goo www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

Behind the doors of asylum hotels - what I found when I went inside A BBC reporter goes into four hotels and speaks to asylum seekers and staff about what daily life is like.

this is heartbreaking reading the shit we make these people put up with and the square root of fuck all we give them and at no point will the BBC reflect on how their own reporting helped create the unbelievably hostile environment they have to endure

jesus christ.

'"You can’t have hobbyist research that’s unfunded going on in institutions. We can’t afford it.”'

Such a badly formulated phrasing of the issues, so open to so many misinterpretations. If this is the level of thinking about research among sector leaders and policy-makers, be very afraid.

this is a great piece, in particular the point on students using AI to summarise critical material. as Fitzgerald so astutely observes,
“There’s a joy in comprehension, that moment of understanding something new. AI robs them of that.”

Academics are under unrelenting pressure to accept the narrative of the inevitability of #generativeAI & to embrace it in teaching & learning. We resist - because it is ecologically destructive, ethically corrupt, & because it undermines the thinking abilities that make us both human & intelligent.

what a wonderful tribute. please share this cfp for a special issue dedicated to our brilliant late colleague, simon j. james.

Retail giant closes all UK stores in tax protest over Gaza Cosmetics retail giant Lush has closed all of its UK stores in protest at Israel’s actions in Palestine ...

Brilliant leadership from Lush
Buy their stuff - it’s against genocide.

They have also support many excellent refugee projects I’ve been involved with over the years

And @scotnational.bsky.social for covering tenaciously.

These actions work as they build

www.thenational.scot/news/2543703...

Be ready to be shocked and offended at university, students told Guidance has been published by the Office for Students on new free speech rules coming into force this year.

Seriously, with the whole university system on the brink, this is what the OfS and the BBC focus on? A dereliction of duty.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

YouTube video by The Daily Show Carole Cadwalladr - Broligarchs, AI, and a Techno-Authoritarian Surveillance State | The Daily Show

Jon Stewart is a legend & the way this show is trying to explain to a mainstream audience the gravity what is happening in the US is amazing. It was both thrilling & terrifying to be part of it. Thank you @TheDailyShow 👏

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG7C...

Please sign and share widely - Liverpool Hope is one of *the* centres for cultural Disability Studies research. This threat is a threat to the field itself and to its important commitment to challenging societal prejudices and advocating for social justice through cultural analysis.

Photographer Fatima Hassona killed ahead of Cannes documentary debut The Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassona, killed along with ten family members in an Israeli air strike on her home in northern Gaza, is the star of a documentary due to be screened at the Cannes film festival next month.

"In an earlier post, she wrote: "As for the inevitable death, if I die, I want a loud death, I don't want me in a breaking news story, nor in a number with a group, I want a death that is heard by the world, a trace that lasts forever, and immortal images that neither time nor place can bury."

again and again and yet again the privileged’s fantasies of oppression take precedence over the marginalised’s real, daily, violent oppression

ChatGPT action dolls: What are the concerns? As online users create Barbie-like dolls of themselves, experts urge caution over AI's energy and data use.

'Professor Gina Neff of Queen Mary University London told the BBC ChatGPT is "burning through energy" and the data centres used to power it consume more electricity in a year than 117 countries.'
Tech bros are sociopathic exintinction events aided by demented power-needy govs
bbc.com/news/article...

joining the vast ranks of people whose work has been pirated by LibGen, and then potentially used by Meta to build its AI. my book, journal articles, book chapters all listed..doesn't feel great, i have to say.

A Decade of Crisis The UK's universities are in crisis. Dave Hitchcock on how the sector became 'broken' and why it must be understood as an interdependent system.

UK universities are in crisis.

Dave Hitchcock (@davehitchcock.bsky.social) on how the sector became 'broken' and why it must be approached as an interdependent system.

www.historyworkshop....

It’s incredible that US academia is being eviscerated by hard-right ideologues while here in the UK our supposedly liberal government does nothing to save our world-leading universities from financial ruin. The vandalism is somehow even worse in the UK because it’s so shabby and unnecessary

The crisis in British higher education is acute + painful right now. If you are in it you already know this, but for those who are not I want to share what is going on. As strikes start at Newcastle Uni + others will doubtless follow, now is a time for solidarity + resistance

This is a venn diagram showing how 69 Trump actions map onto domains covering: undermining democratic institutions; suppressing dissent and media; dismantling social protections; attacking science and education; destabilising the global order. A table version is available here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LZN7QnbSyFfUZJG8Sn1MWpK0VnfBtb0OSyZ1jxP3xBk/edit?usp=sharing

🧵"So this is how liberty dies..."

Trump’s first 3 weeks have been a relentless flood of actions. It's incredibly hard to keep up.

I’ve gone through 69 actions & mapped out the pattern - showing how they fall within 5 broad domains consistent with authoritarian states 1/9

The Guardian view on campus cuts: academics pay a high price for Westminster’s mistakes | Editorial Editorial: The government should not stand aloof as a crisis unfolds in our universities. A new settlement is needed

“A new settlement is desperately needed – one that properly restores a sector that delivers a public good to the public realm. And which enables a sense of professional vocation, for those who work within it, to be renewed.” #EduSky
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Universities are state infrastructure and a source of national power - both its preservation and protection. They are also expressive of the public's identity and wishes. They should not be trashed just on some transient whims that people won't even remember in a few decades.

• Skills and learning. Universities in the UK play a crucial role in equipping graduates with high level skills. The UK is facing a shortage of 11 million graduates by 2035, when 88% of new jobs will be at graduate level. • Opportunity. The expansion of the higher education sector has afforded more people the opportunity to realise their ambitions, with 33% of the disadvantaged students progressing to university. • Economic growth. Higher education makes £130 billion contribution to the UK economy, supporting over 700,000 jobs in regions across the UK. R&D is one of the long-term Registered Charity No. 233176 sources of UK competitive advantage and growth and every £1 invested in university research and innovation returns £10 for the UK economy. Soft power. Over 50 world leaders received higher education in the UK and by educating large numbers of international students we develop our relationships around the world.

In light of the major cutbacks at universities - especially in the arts, humanities and social sciences - we have written to the Chancellor to make the case for investing in research and higher education through the Spending Review
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/56...

We Can Make an Impact. SAVE CARDIFF UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ENGLISH, COMMUNICATION AND PHILOSOPHY

A petition in support of the School of English, Communication, and Philosophy at Cardiff, who are being threatened with job cuts that would be devastating for staff, students, and the university

Petition: Help Cardiff University to keep their Modern Languages degree courses Cardiff University's Executive Board proposes to cut all Modern Languages degrees. Losing Modern Language provision at Cardiff will severely impact student recruitment, student life and degree possibi...

Please sign this petition on the Welsh government website in relation to Cardiff University's proposal to end modern language degrees: petitions.senedd.wales/petitions/24...

If 1000 job losses were announced in one day for another industry, it would make the top headlines. This one is going to take people by surprise with huge impacts on other sectors, cities, regions, life plans...