Margot Finn

Headhunting in the Age of Reason: Enlightenment Origins of the Global Trade in Skulls - Yale University Press Bruce Buchan and Linda Andersson Burnett— Headhunting is not the first association that most people would make with the Age of Enlightenment. Indeed, many might never associate headhunting with the......

Where or whenever this ‘collecting’ started, it involved very specific crimes including theft, murder, massacre, and enslavement - the inevitable concomitants of empire and colonisation. It’s why @lindaaburnett.bsky.social and I refer to it as head hunting. yalebooks.yale.edu/2025/11/20/h...

Could solar panels help strengthen global food security? - Positive News A Canadian study suggests solar farms could increase global crop yields by hundreds of billions of pounds, thanks to the protective microclimate created beneath their panels

Prepare for the worst while at the same time minimising its impact. I took part in an
interesting discussion re: the different traditions and sustainable development of urban farming recently. Personally, I'd be happy to see renewables and human food crops on greenbelt land: tinyurl.com/yunxhbrm

The prompt was simple: “Does the following relate at all to D.E.I.? Respond factually in less than 120 characters. Begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’” The results were sweeping, and sometimes bizarre. Building improvements at an Indigenous languages archive in Alaska risked “promoting inclusion and diverse perspectives.” Renewal of a longstanding grant to digitize Black newspapers and add them to a historical database was “D.E.I.” So was work on a 40-volume scholarly series on the history of American music.

"The DOGE employees did not appear to question ChatGPT’s judgments, and continued hunting for unacceptable projects."

Lawsuit to Restore the NEH - AHA Major Update in our NEH Lawsuit Discovery in NEH Lawsuit Reveals How Humanities Grants Were Cancelled On March 6, 2026, the American Historical Association and our co-plaintiffs filed a motion for sum...

FYI:

www.historians.org/why-history-...

New report calls for return of human remains – but UK museums lack the resources to act Even with the best of intentions, restitution is not a fast process.

Wrote this on human remains in British museums this time last year and stand by it: it’s a slow process that many collections have been trying to deal with for a while and—above all else—one that needs time and resourcing: theconversation.com/new-report-c...

When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities

Huge NYT article on the back story of those two weeks in March/April 2025 when DOGE illegally terminated hundreds of NEH grants. Gift link!!

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/a...

Geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East once again shows that reliance on volatile oil and gas exposes economies to price shocks.

Renewables, electrification and storage offer more stable long term energy costs and stronger energy security.

The Drop in International Students Last Year Was Worse Than We Thought Visa issuances nosedived 36 percent, possibly reflecting weakening global interest in studying in the United States.

NEW: The bad news about international-student enrollments at American colleges just got worse. An exclusive @chronicle.com analysis of just-released State Department data shows new visa issuances in the summer of 2025 dropped by more than a third. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

Caitlin KALINOWSKI over X I resigned from OpenAl. I care deeply about the Robotics team and the work we built together. This wasn't an easy call. Al has an important role in national security. But surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got. This was about principle, not people. I have deep respect for Sam and the team, and I'm proud of what we built together.

OpenAI head of robotics just resigned over company deal with the Pentagon saying…

“Surveillance of Americans without judicial oversight and lethal autonomy without human authorization are lines that deserved more deliberation than they got”

'However, a minority of PhD graduates remained in higher education, with only 42 per cent of UK-based doctoral graduates working in academia.

Of these, most (23 per cent of all PhDs) had fixed-term university-based research jobs such as postdoctoral research posts'. 3/3

'Analysing the job outcomes of 10,690 students who gained a doctoral degree in 2022-23 15 months after graduation...(CRAC)-Vitae...concludes PhD graduates “continue to be highly employable” with less than 3 per cent unemployed and 91 per cent working, with a median average salary of £42,000.' 2/2

More UK PhD graduates looking overseas for jobs, study finds Proportion of doctoral graduates remaining in UK academia has fallen substantially as more enter industry or move abroad, according to a major longitudinal survey

'Only four in 10 UK PhD graduates remain in academia just over a year after completing their degrees with many more heading overseas for research jobs than in previous years, a major national poll suggests.' 1/3

Vast scale of overseas human remains held in UK museums decried by MPs and experts Exclusive: Guardian study finds UK museums hold more than 260,000 items of remains, often in sacrilegious ways

'Lord Paul Boateng said the findings exposed UK museums and universities as “imperial charnel houses where the bones of Indigenous peoples torn from Britain’s empire in the past, with little or no regard...continue to be retained to this day in circumstances that beggar belief”.'

We are pleased to announce the latest cohort of SHAPE Involve and Engage awardees, who will be working with various partner organisations in the GLAM sector to help bring the humanities and social sciences closer to the public. Read more about the projects here: https://bit.ly/4suMO75

What happens when disability becomes a driving subject of intellectual and political inquiry? Professor Dan Goodley challenges the pathologising assumptions embedded in higher education and explores how depathologising the university could help reimagine society: https://bit.ly/4l84dzW

Apply to be supported in what matters most. It's an investment in the discipline and its practitioners. Compared to much 'science' it's cheap as chips. It matters. Just do it.

Totally get that but am also numerate so have done the maths.

A wonderful intellectual event. Reminds me why I do what I do. Such an intellectual and collegial treat. Many thanks @royalhistsoc.org and especially Dr Philip Carter of that place.

Emma Jones, Leigh Day law form: 'added that it was "surprising" that all those interviewed were female, "having considered the accounts of our clients and the details that are already in the public domain".

Quite "surprising", non, ou non-non?

Remind me which century we are all living in? 2/2

Mohamed Al Fayed: Three women interviewed by police on suspicion of sex trafficking The women have been interviewed under suspicion of aiding and abetting rape and human trafficking, the Met Police says.

'Three women have been interviewed under caution over offences including human trafficking and facilitating rape, as part of an investigation into former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed, the Metropolitan Police has said.'

Because let's be frank, women not men are key drivers of sex trafficking? 1/2

Withheld Jeffrey Epstein files with accusations against Trump released by justice department The Department of Justice said the released files had been

'FBI documents summarising interviews with a woman who made unsubstantiated claims of sexual assault against Donald Trump have been released as part of the...Epstein files.'

Might we, in 2026, just have a wee bit of a think about how and why claims of sexual assault might be "unsubstantiated"?

pile of circle stickers that say "Everything is better with footnotes." With a footnote callout to me.

Reordered these. Bc the world.

It’s not just the Epstein files he’s trying to distract from

Many congratulations Mark.

Text reads: I am humbled and excited to be elected the next UCU Vice-President for Higher Education. Now is a devastatingly difficult and challenging time for our sectors and so many workers in post-16 education, but as a union we cannot succumb to despair. We have the skills, knowledge and capacity to help chart a way out of this mess and restore higher and further education. That you have put your trust in me to help do that is a huge honour and responsibility. I do not take this lightly. Thank you to the many thousands of members who voted for me and also to those who did not – we need to build better engagement in our union and part of that is voting, no matter who you voted for. I promised in my election materials to work hard to bring our union together and that is what I will do.

Text reads: Thank you to the other HE candidates Sean and Steve, both committed trade unionists. I know they will continue to fight for members and the future of Higher Education and I look forward to doing that alongside them. Congratulations to those elected to the National Executive Committee and commiserations to those who missed out this time. Your willingness to put yourself forward for election is hugely valued and I know you all will continue to contribute in other ways. So what next? Until the end of May, I’ll be tying up some loose ends and taking some time off to visit family and friends back in Australia. I will take up my role after UCU’s annual Congress at the end of May, this year in Harrogate.

Text reads: For the following three years, I will be lead negotiator for pay and conditions and for USS pensions across UK Higher Education, working with our team of elected negotiators and officials. I will also chair UCU’s Higher Education Committee and HE sector conferences, serve on other national committees and represent you in various forums. In 2029-30 I will become UCU’s President after the excellent Suzi Toole, who has also been elected as Vice-President for Further Education and will spend two years leading on further education matters before becoming President. She will take over from Dyfrig Jones, who succeeds early to the Presidential role for a two-year term this May, due to the casual vacancy that arose last year, replacing Maria Chondrogianni. Maria stays on as immediate past president, rounding out the presidential team. I want to again acknowledge David Hunter who stepped down as President-Elect last year for health reasons and continue to wish him and his family all the best.

A picture of two smiling people (Suzi Toole and Mark Pendleton) wearing UCU beanies. Text reads: That’s a lot of work, and a lot of moving parts, but at the heart of it will be my commitment to build a better union, alongside members and branches, and through that transform our sectors. I am ready and I know from the responses to this election that many of you are too. I’m looking forward to getting to work, together with you all.

UCU’s elections concluded this week and I am honoured to have been elected as the next Vice-President for Higher Education, to become President in 2029-30.

Thank you for all the support.

A short statement about the election and what’s to come after I take up the role in May.

Thanks!

Good discussion started by Kirsty here ..

bsky.app/profile/kirs...

One can understand that researchers are jittery given current turbulence, but boy, the overall impression management (SNAFU) is crazy

Workshop on genetics, eugenics and scientific racism next week! #Philsci #Philosophy #Ethics #HPS #Sociology #AcademicSky
We will be conducting hybrid sessions, you can find the zoom link at www.imseam.uni-heidelberg.de/en/heinzelma...

Young Woman Being Harassed by a Man

This is Judith Leyster's amazing 1631 painting ‘Young Woman Being Harassed by a Man’.

She was well known in her day but SURPRISE! her works were later misattributed either to Frans Hals, her local contemporary, or her husband, Jan Miense Molenaer.
www.thetimes.com/article/f41d...

'Author and researcher Dr Clare Sandford-Couch is part of a group of academics researching the history of women in the prison and co-wrote the book Newcastle Prison: A History, 1828-1925.'