Callan Davies

The HE Ballot failed, now what? If you’re reading this it is because today the UCU’s 2025 national ballot over pay and conditions in universities has failed. The last time…

Unfortunately the HE 2025 ballot failed at 39% turnout. I have written about why and about what desperately needs to change in UCU's national structures off the back of this result. Some HEC members need to chi up and understand their role in all this, and how disconnected they are from members.

Looking forward!

Welcome on board!

Sign. Motto.

Watching Othello: Anatomy of a Poster Watching, seeing, and looking at Theatre Royal Haymarket's Othello and its production poster

Very much enjoyed Theatre Royal Haymarket’s Othello last night. But rather than a review this short post talks about ita fantastic production poster.

Home - Yale University Press London Welcome to the Yale University Press London home page: explore our books, meet our authors, find out about our publishing mission.

If any bibliophiles out there fancy bankrupting themselves, Yale University Press has a half-price sale this month. yalebooks.co.uk

The other problem with this is that research is a type of spread bet/lottery. You do lots of it and hope some of it pans out. If we had a perfect way of selecting which small bits of science and scholarship we "need", we'd have solved the funding problem. But we don't know this.

British Academy Conferences funding for UK-based researchers An exceptional opportunity for UK-based scholars to run a landmark event featuring leading-edge research as part of the British Academy’s events programme.

Want to hold a major academic conference in the humanities and social sciences? We offer up to £20k (and sometimes £25k) for a conference on any topic to be held between April 27/March 28. Apply by 29 Jan 2026.
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.

On Shakespeare and Not Shakespeare New writing about Shakespearean culture (and beyond), arising from new research projects...

I started a Substack!

Regular essays & short introductions to all things Tudor & Shakespearean culture & entertainment + sharing findings from the archives and more!

Please do consider subscribing for #Shakespeare #earlymodern #theatre #heritage content.

open.substack.com/pub/shakespe...

Publications by Non-Tenure-Track Historians Since we began publishing in 2019, Contingent has published end-of-year lists of books and articles by non-tenure-track historians released in the past calendar year. To submit something for inclusion...

Haven't received as many contributions as usual for this year's lists--could be many things, but one aspect is surely that our ability to get this in front of people is much diminished. If you know folks whose stuff should be on here, please suggest it! contingentmagazine.org/yearly-pub-l...

The Royal Historical Society has published a very helpful guide to its various membership categories, including the Fellowship. If you're engaged in History study, research or teaching (including in public history, journalism & GLAM) & keen to support the discipline, do have a look. #Skystorians

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Beginning in earnest from next year, with a wider-than-academic readership in mind… This is my “soft launch” post with an eye to current and ongoing projects and some hopes for the blog.

On Shakespeare and Not Shakespeare New writing about Shakespearean culture (and beyond), arising from new research projects...

I started a Substack!

Regular essays & short introductions to all things Tudor & Shakespearean culture & entertainment + sharing findings from the archives and more!

Please do consider subscribing for #Shakespeare #earlymodern #theatre #heritage content.

open.substack.com/pub/shakespe...

This sounds super, Tracey! Sad to be missing it (off to see Othello at Haymarket!); hope it's a blast (or appropriately pageant-ly pyrotechnic)

Ah lovely--congratulations!

Coq au vin with baby onions braised and caramelised in some homemade pheasant stock, on a serving platter for our Sunday comfort food.

This is such sad news to hear; what a brilliant and generous scholar and a lovely person.

The perfect pre-weekend arrival

Shakespeare in the Kitchen Audiences and scholars alike have long remarked that Shakespeare’s poems and plays record the pleasures and perils of the table. Shakespeare in the Kitchen asks what Shakespeare’s works can tell us ab...

It’s all happening: Shakespeare in the Kitchen is slated for publication in April 2026 🍽️📗🎉 www.routledge.com/Shakespeare-...

Indeed!

Pickled quinces (from my mum’s garden) to be ready for the Christmas table

I mean, it takes a pack of utterly stupid people to see a truly massive export industry that is so world class that hundreds of thousands of people are willing to pay tens of thousands to have it, and then to destroy that industry because there people are "forriners".

Six weeks since the PM said Britain faced a choice between decency or division and our bad, obviously, for not understanding that he was in fact Team Division

Depressing as a historian to learn about Labour's dystopian new immigration policy. This morning I'm reading about Norwich's emergence as prosperous city in late C16th thanks to refugee population fleeing war in Flanders, transforming cloth industry. By 1580s 4,000 or 1/3 of residents were 'alien'.

Just wilful performative cruelty that is entirely out of step with the majority of British people.

How many Labour MPs got into politics in order to vote for stealing jewellery off of people seeking refuge from war and persecution?

A post by Zarah Sultana of 'Your Party', that uses a generated image with the words 'Your Party, County Durham Launch', surrounded by nine simple, flat images of images in silhouette with single colour backgrounds, presumably intended to represent Durham, four of which are a man with a weirdly long pick-axe, one is a building, two are gantries of some kind – for a coal mine? – and one is some kind of floating lamp. I will expand on this in the thread.

Okay, I can't let this one go. I live in Ireland, not the UK, but the use of this image by a supposedly socialist party is so stupid and offensive, I'm going to get stuck in.

Let me explain to you why any experienced illustrator/designer could have stopped you making so many miserable mistakes. 1/

Please read this: it’s a joy

The latest threat to UK modern languages is yet another faux pas Nottingham and Leicester are taking a swing at language departments. But those proposing closures have taken their eye off the ball, say four linguists

'After vigorous and partially successful attempts to save modern languages degrees at Cardiff...and the University of Aberdeen in the past two years, linguists are now called upon to point out the equally obvious folly of cutting modern languages at the universities of Nottingham and Leicester.' 1/3