Rhiannon Garth Jones

I have put together a handout- it discusses the differences in HS vs uni readings, the impact that has, and suggestions for students doing readings

Feel free to use and circulate to any first years :)

#highered #higheducation #history #medievalhistory #teaching #academia #transitionpedagogy

Yeah I've never lived somewhere long enough for this problem to appear, a dust-free silver lining?

Sending so much love to you and yours

🥹🥹🥹 Oh Khododad, that's wonderful news! I've been thinking of your family in Tehran every day of this hell.

Would 100% read a dissertation studying every Chotiner victim and specifically their pre- and post-interview delusions.

There's so much to be depressed about right now, particularly if you are connected to or focused on the Middle East.

This podcast with @rachelschine.bsky.social, talking about her recent monograph on race in medieval Islam, gave me joy.

music.youtube.com/podcast/M_PM...

The academic and publishing landscapes have changed a lot since we started this magazine. We've stuck to the same principles we started with:

History is for everyone.

Every way of doing history is worthwhile.

Historians should be paid for their work.

screenshotted excerpt from the interview linked in the post the question, written in bold, is: "What did the CDC’s definition of AIDS look like at this point, and how did it systematically exclude women like the ones Terry was representing?" Screenshot includes the first two paragraphs of Aziza's answer, which starts as follows: At the time, the CDC defined AIDS through symptom lists tailored to the so-called “four Hs”: homosexuals, Haitians, heroin users, and hemophiliacs. Gynecological conditions were excluded. As a result, many women whose HIV had progressed to AIDS—often through invasive cervical cancer or recurrent pelvic inflammatory disease—were unable to work but did not qualify for benefits. Instead they would have to file for disability benefits. But the disability assessment process was so slow that some women were approved only after they had died. Terry realized the problem wasn’t just bureaucratic delay—it was the definition of the disease itself. At the same time, activists within ACT UP, particularly Maxine Wolfe and the Women’s Caucus, were recognizing that women were being systematically ignored in the epidemic. Terry’s legal advocacy and ACT UP’s activism converged in a coordinated push to force the CDC to revise its definition of AIDS.

this answer from @azizaahmed.bsky.social in an interview about her book, Risk and Resistance: How Feminists Transformed the Law and Science of AIDS, just blew my mind

lpeproject.org/blog/how-fem...

‘It was very challenging’: the exhibition memorialising Black trans deaths across the US Artist Sage Ni’Ja Whitson found an unusual way to remember those who were killed or died by suicide between 2018 and 2025

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

I have still not recovered from seeing this yesterday, everything about it is so fucked

One of best friends recommended it to me - I probably wouldn't have picked it for myself, I think? But I definitely enjoyed it so I am glad she did!

Right?! I lack the imagination to have dreamt of any of it but it was such a dream!

Ahhhh I really enjoyed Uprooted, keep meaning to get it for my mum

A rainbow plaque (a blue circle ringed by rainbow colours) commemorating Burnley library's historic role in LGBT+ rights. The text reads: "The Campaign for Homosexual Equality held its first public meeting in this library - a milestone in the ongoing struggle for LGBT+ rights. 30 July 1971"

A blurry photo (sorry, I was excited but rushing!) of an information board outside the library entitled "¡No Pasarán!", detailing the history of the anti-fascist movement during the Spanish Civil War.

Just did a book talk at my childhood library, which was obv amazing for me personally (in the room where the children's library was aka where I spent all my time!) but also reinforced my unwavering belief in the roles libraries can have in revolution - these two plaques are outside the building 💪🏻

(I love Denmark but jokes about the fear of flavour there are valid)

They have sumac in *Danish* supermarkets, which is how you know it's a pretty common spice at this point

As a leftist, non-monarchist, pro-Palestine, neo-Marxist historian & Iranian with experience of living around the world & participating in Green movement politics, I want to tell you that if you consider the IRI an ally in the global anti-imperialist movement, you need to to update your knowledge!

I was born in an Iranian prison. My parents were held in their jails. My uncles lie in their mass graves. Nothing you can tell me about the crimes of the Iranian regime that I haven't lived in blood and bone. That doesn't mean I want my people bombed, maimed, killed, their homes in ruins. If your vision of liberation comes only through the destruction of innocent lives, then it's not freedom you're after. Sahar Delijani, Iranian author

I am pro Iranian people. I stand with them against their own government’s repression AND against the imperial violence in the form of bombs dropped from the sky from Israel & the US who have already killed hundreds.

I support neither imperialism or dictatorship.

Sahar Delijani said it best:

Sending so much love and strength, Leila.

At least 148 dead after reported strike on school, Iran says Iran has blamed the US and Israel for the strike; the US is looking into reports of the incident, while the IDF says it is

The mass murder of civilians in Gaza, the brazen attacks on hospitals and schools, without any accountability has created a new kind of warfare that should terrify and enrage all of us.

Every child lost is someone’s whole world. Every life lost matters www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"The Islamists oppose women getting an education," I mutter, as I aim my missile at the girls school

Tbf they are correct...

The Iranian regime is an autocratic one that has devastated lives at home and abroad. Its people deserve so much better.

So much better does not come through illegal strikes involving a genocidal actor that drag multiple countries into conflict and kill more civilians.

Ha! I didn't realise either but hi there 🥰

Yeah, they're a great combo

Yeah, he is very very high up the list of my favourite to listen to

Aatif Nawaz called that so well, I had about a zillion emotions by the end

I indulged in incredibly dramatic sporting contests, which both ended in anti-climactic misery, thus having achieved nothing but feeling something else for 3 hours. Which I suppose was something.

Thinking of you and your loved ones. This is so awful.

In 2026, colleges must teach students that this is not the end of the world. We must teach hope. Current undergraduates can barely remember a time before the threats of climate change and authoritarianism loomed to catastrophic scale. Since 2010, the future depicted in TV, books, and games has been dystopian or apocalyptic, so for our current students the end of the world feels more familiar and realistic than a future with hope. Now we are asking them to choose majors and life paths when the desirability, indeed the very existence, of whole sectors of employment are in question, due to the overwhelming promises of LLMs and machine learning. As young people hear daily that vocation after vocation may vanish into automation’s maw, and that democracy, liberty, land, sea, and sky are all in jeopardy, despair is growing. Despair is very emotionally tempting. It means freedom from the responsibility to shape the future. This is a terrifying turning point, but many generations before us have faced such turning points, and met them. We can offer our students perspective. Only a few dozen institutions on Earth are more than 900 years old, and the vast majority are universities. The university system is not a house of straw to buckle in this storm: We are the rocks that have sheltered the knowledge, hope, and truth through tumults which have toppled kingdoms while classrooms endured. We can endure this, and be a guiding light through it, but only by recentering, by teaching citizens, not workers; power, not PowerPoint; aspiration, not apocalypse. Despair is how we lose. The classroom is where we battle it. All other battles flow from here. Ada Palmer is an associate professor of history at the University of Chicago.

This, from Ada Palmer as part of The Chronicle's survey of 11 scholars on the future of higher ed, is what I needed to end the week.