Oliver Moxham 🎙️🗾🏛️

A Poster advertising public libraries Painting: Harvey Dunn. 1923.
#Libraries #Art

Bit of #BlueSkyWriting this fine July Friday

"Wont To Do"

So I thought I'd write a poem,
But that won't get me knowledge,
And that won't get me a degree,
But that won't get me money,
And that won't get me a degree,
But that won't get me knowledge,
So I thought I'd write a poem.

#poem #poetry

Excellent article from David Wengrow. Given how much the far right and white supremacists have co-opted history and prehistory, as well as "race science", this should be required reading for anyone interested in how we combat fascism seeping its vile way into perceptions of the archaeological past.

All good, thanks! Just finishing the third year of my PhD and nearly a quarter into my first thesis draft. Had some interesting insights into transnational nationalism on Google Maps reviews you might be interested in! Hope you're weathering the changes at UEA well?

r/AskHistorians Join the conversation

Hey there #Skystorians! Looking for more great people to populate your feed? Eager for more history in your social media timeline? Don’t forget to check out the AskHistorians Starter Pack! A collection featuring the mods, flairs, friends & contributors that make up the community!

- De Boeck et al. (2022) for how easily online anonymity can be deanonymised
- Van Dijck et al. (2025) Governing the Digital Society
- Ström (2020) for the disproportionate power in private hands of the Big Five and the financial motives behind seemingly 'neutral' platforms

Hope that helps!

As someone who regularly works in Japan, I can guarantee only a tiny fraction of archaeological texts are available in English, or even available online for remote translation! Second language courses should be broadly available for all postgrads to bridge this gap imo

Photograph of fire damaged buildings and a burnt boat partially sunk in the water, at Underfall Yard, Bristol.

Sign up now for this free webinar on heritage crime and maritime heritage. Monday 30 June 12-2pm. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/heritage-c... #MaritimeHistory #MaritimeArchaeology

The second point here nails why generative so-called AI cannot replace human translation. Cheapskate publishers are trying to, even so, offering skilled translators copy edit rates to 'tidy up' machine translation which ends up as more work than starting from scratch. Readers, please reject this.

I was there last autumn, just after they finally fixed their online systems. All working fine now!

Dr Megan Kelleher was an excellent chair, offering stimulating discussion in the Q&A. Many thanks to Megan Hamilton et al. for coordinating such a successful conference!
7/7

I was also delighted to have Emma Donington Kiey as a co-panellist, who I remember teaching about heritage on the MA in Interdisciplinary Japanese Studies at the Sainsbury Institute! Her work on 'monpe', Japanese women's trousers which became commonplace in wartime, shows much promise.
6/7

On my panel, I was joined by Abigail Winslow who discussed her work on the challenges of accurately representing the historical experience of air raid shelter displays. I shared with her my own experiences of air raid shelters in Japan and remarked on their potential for intercultural war memory
5/7

I highlighted how dissonant interpretations varied domestically and internationally, as well as how shared consonant themes are facilitated by mindful translation practice. I discuss this in two articles coming out next year 👀 check my ORCiD page on my profile for updates!
4/7

My presentation discussed public war memory in Japan today, covering the contradictory narratives of museums like the Yushukan and the Kyoto Museum for World Peace. I pressed upon the value of relatively new data sources like Google Maps reviews in revealing the public reception of discourse
3/7

I was expecting to be the sole representative of the Japanese/East Asian side of the conflict, but was pleasantly surprised by senior historians calling for greater representation of the Asia-Pacific side of the conflict, especially from European scholars.
2/7

After having recently debated with fellow Cambridge Heritage Research Centre PhDs about the need for historians and heritage experts to work together, I had the great pleasure of attending and presenting at King's College London's 'Second World War 80 Years On' conference.
1/7

Colston’s Toppling Five Years On Eleanor Callaghan examines how Bristol's local authorities and museum curators turned a controversial monument into an opportunity for inclusive public history.

The toppling of Colston's statue was a pivotal moment in public discourse on British colonialism. Eleanor's article is an excellent and inspiring story of how dissonant heritage can be recontextualised to better reflect public sentiment today.

www.historyworkshop.org.uk/museums-arch...

Anyone else think this is a strange choice of approach to public engagement? I can think of plenty of other ways to commemorate this event for the whole community without involving descent

The other explores the differing significances of imperialism and violence for these language communities at Japanese war museums. To be (hopefully) published in 2026!

It's been a productive month - two journal articles finished and submitted for review! One discusses how semiotic markers of war, e.g. the Nanjing Massacre, elicit different responses from different language communities based on their prior knowledge.

‘In Our Blood’: Archaeology and ‘Indigeneity’ in the British National Party’s Magazine Identity This paper presents the first diachronic analysis of the appropriation of archaeological themes in British far-right politics, focusing on the British National Party’s publication Identity from 200...

Out this morning & Open Access! 📢 My new article in Public Archaeology on the entanglement of archaeology, the far right and ancient genetic studies, using the British National Party as a case study: ‘In Our Blood’: Archaeology and ‘Indigeneity’ in the British National Party’s Magazine Identity'

Very excited to take my research methodology to the intranational level, looking at imperial Japanese heritage sites in Korea and what they mean to locals today. Read more below!

I’m giving a talk about my work on the use of archaeological themes and misuse of ancient DNA evidence by the far right on 12th June, please join us! The event is free, online & part of ARFA, an important resistance to extremist appropriation of the past

Come and Inspect Yorkshire!

Archaeologists Resisting Far-Right Appropriation Countering the far-right co-option of archaeology and heritage

Hello! We are Archaeologists Resisting Far-Right Appropriation (ARFA for short). You can learn more about us at our website here: archaeologistsrfa.wordpress.com

Watch this space for blog posts, events, and commentary on the co-option and misuse of heritage in the near future.

A table titled 'The Chosen and the Unchosen'. Column 1 is 'God Chooses', 2 is 'And Leaves to Satan', 3 is 'With the Consequence of'. Row 1: Human Species; Animals, Plants Nature; Speciesism, Ecocide. Row 2: Men; Women; Sexism, Witch-burning. Row 3: His People; The others; Nationalism, Imperialism. Row 4: Whites; Colored; Racism, Colonialism. Row 4: Upper Classes; Lower Classes; 'Classism', Exploitation. Row 5: True Believers; Heretics, Pagans; 'Meritism', Inquisition.

Currently doing some reading on #peace/ #violence studies for an upcoming article, and I can't get over this table from Johan Galtung's paper on cultural violence (1990). Cuts through a lot of hostile online rhetoric today.

Which row do you encounter most often?

How it feels getting an article published after #Reviewer2 is done with you

It was great to be back in #Norwich with @sisjac.bsky.social last week to present at their Interdisciplinary Japanese Studies Students' Conference.

I shared my work on unpacking dissonance at conflict heritage sites at an engaging WWII reconciliation workshop along with Prof Ben Raffield.

Aaron Swartz, patron saint of the open-access internet, gets immortalized in SF Hundreds gathered at the Internet Archive for the unveiling of a statue honoring the late programmer, who's been embraced as a tech hero.

On Aaron Swartz: “He stood for freedom of access to information, especially for scientific research — things the public had already paid for.” - Lisa Rein, co-founder of @creativecommons.bsky.social

sfstandard.com/2025/02/08/a...