Gail Marshall

Maintenance grants only for priority courses ‘deeply concerning’ Using financial incentives to influence student choice risk undermining Labour’s widening access goals, critics fear

“Prioritising a narrow set of disciplines could mean we lose talented arts, humanities and social sciences graduates who help drive innovation and tackle huge societal challenges. Student choice is vital.” bit.ly/3KAReIQ

#EnglishCreates @univeng.bsky.social @englishassociation.bsky.social

The History of English Studies in Britain: a Symposium

📚Join us on 30 Oct 2025 at Senate House for The History of English Studies in Britain symposium
🎤 Speakers include Carole Atherton, Gail Marshall, Ronan McDonald, Christopher Stray, Stuart Jones, & Stefan Collini
Free (booking required)👉 tinyurl.com/43z9mxnc
#EnglishStudies #Humanities #Literature

The Ronald Blythe Fellowship is John Clare Society's new scheme awarding a PhD student focusing on Clare a £1000 bursary to support their work.
Please pass on - &/or contact me or Honorary Secretary of the Society, Karen Lakey, for further information:
johnclaresociety.wordpress.com/contact-us/

I’ve documented protests for decades. The asylum hotel protests I’ve photographed have all been very small. When I first turned up at the Newcastle protest, and asked the police where the protesters were, they pointed to one man and said he’s over there.

It’s deeply ingrained. I’m just finishing a book about 1859 and the same exceptionalist attitudes are on full display there too

BBC Today is reporting that “at least 94” data centres will be built in the next 5 years in the U.K.
How can we possibly justify doing that when we can’t get a full electric car charging network built, & the power infrastructure is insufficient to connect new wind farms, never mind water shortages

At the risk of sounding like a character from the ‘Fast Show’ - isn’t this brilliant? A brilliant novel sure to be brilliantly illustrated by the brilliant @rickardsisters.com This is just, well, brilliant!

Did AI write this??

Yes, all of them, plus first parts of Tennyson’s Idylls, Mrs Beeton, and The Woman in White

I’m finishing a book on 1859 and was reading your account of the voting reform efforts that year

@robertsaunders.bsky.social I was just reading your excellent book on the 1867 Reform Act. It was really helpful. Thank you!

Footballer Héctor Bellerín’s reading list

I just signed this petition calling for better cooperation with the EU on the environment. Will you add your name, too? www.europeanmovement.co.uk/uk-eu-enviro...

#EnglishCreates English, History, all the arts and humanities subjects are critical for all of our futures universityenglish.ac.uk/englishcreat...

Decades of mechanistic talk about university degrees as if they were bundles of 'skills' and 'prep' are about to be proved completely wrong (obviously). Want to get a real boost? Do History or English.

Huge thanks to Helen Smith wordsmith.bsky.social for an excellent English: Shared Futures conference. It was inspiring, exciting, and fun, and especially moving to hear so many friends and colleagues speaking about why and how English matters to them

Boys and English: Why are young men turning away from our subject? Explore trends, root causes, and solutions alongside the contributors to the English Association's Spring Newsletter

Excited to chair an online discussion this Thursday, hosted by @englishassociation.bsky.social, on why boys in the GCSE / A level system (not so much in Scotland) are drifting away from study of English.
Featuring some brilliant speakers from across our subject:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/boys-and-e...

@drclaireocall.bsky.social is the keynote speaker at this ‘Violence, Health, and the Health Humanities’ workshop @uniofreading.bsky.social’s Centre for Health Humanities. It’s tomorrow 1-5pm @sophiefranklin.bsky.social

We're really sorry to hear of the death of our dear colleague Professor Simon James.
From 2016-19, Simon was PI on the Arts Council England and Durham University collaboration, the Durham Commission on Creativity which investigated the benefits of creativity for young people.

He was a well-known scholar of the late-19th century, publishing especially influentially on Wells and Gissing. Simon was one-time editor of The Wellsian journal, and edited Vile Bodies for OUP’s landmark Collected Works of Evelyn Waugh.

Above all, Simon was the essence of generosity, an engaging and wonderful speaker, the person you’d be delighted to see at any conference or seminar, a rich and very present presence.
University English sends its condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.

Our future may depend on the humanities For Peter Sutoris, the humanities hold the key to understanding and responding to the many civilisational crises we face

"the antidote to our overlapping crises is not just better data or smarter technologies—it is expansive imagination. And that imagination is cultivated not in labs or spreadsheets, but through the critical, creative, and interpretive work of the humanities." wonkhe.com/blogs/our-fu...

More impact stories from #EnglishCreates including this project based in www.reading.ac.uk/english-lite... building local pride and championing working-class writers
More great work at: www.reading.ac.uk/english-lite...

Championing Scots, influencing public policy, and working with communities and creatives

How English at www.aber.ac.uk/en/english/ is helping the NHS #EnglishCreates

More great impact from www.aber.ac.uk/en/english/
bringing literature and literary opportunities to new groups

And yet more: creative writing colleagues at www.aber.ac.uk/en/english/ help patients with long covid. More evidence that English can help to create a better, healthier world #EnglishCreates

Really looking forward to reading this

See you there!