Rachel Willie

Cherry Vann becomes UK’s first female archbishop after election in Wales Bishop of Monmouth chosen after Andy John stepped down in June following scandal at Bangor Cathedral

Hurray! (and paging @earlymodernmurray.bsky.social)

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

a cartoon drawing of a purple dinosaur with its mouth open ALT: a cartoon drawing of a purple dinosaur with its mouth open

I went a bit jazz hands on you in that final photo! 😅. It was an honour and a delight to discuss your important book with you, @marianajlopez.bsky.social, in lovely York. Thank you for letting me be part of your celebrations ☺️

Thanks to everyone who attended in person and online and to the wonderful @racheljwillie.bsky.social for coming all the way to York to chair the event ☺️ The book is part of Routledge's Mid-Year Sale so it's available at a discounted price 📚

Trying to find information about a printer called William Turner is severely hampered by the artist, proving that Francis Bacon isn’t the only early modern figure painted over by artists.

*rolls up sleeves*

So…the ontological argument for the existence of higher education…

🙄

🤦‍♀️

We should not, however, ignore the work of reading, even if – and probably especially because – it does evade assessment. I want to argue that it is precisely this seeming nothingness of reading that should concern us today. Because we now live in the age of increased educational efficiency, of quality assurance, of measurable results meant to show that higher education is actually doing something, the potential radicality of the nothingness of reading is one of the real stakes in the current crisis in the university. That higher education should still concern itself with so much unmeasurable nothingness in an era of increasingly quantifiable somethings is not a foregone conclusion. Calls to assessment are neither mere inconveniences, nor simply more paperwork to be suffered. Rather they are the result of a larger change taking place today in the university, a change that more than ever will ask us to justify why we read and why anyone should continue to study literature. So while assessments, on the one hand, seem to leave reading alone – reading is not overseen and scored directly (literacy tests not withstanding), on the other hand, assessments demand that the work of reading be brought under control by implicitly suggesting that if it is not measurable, it is not worth funding, hence not worth doing. In such an economy, potentially any argument for the worth of reading would also be one for finding a way to measure the work that it accomplishes, translating it into RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) scores, teaching assessments, and league standings tables. The promise is that we will have made reading measurable and therefore meaningful.

Serendipity of my timeline bringing me two pieces this morning.

"Why Read?" by Diane Elam (from a quarter century ago...) about what reading *does* and how we can't quantify or even guarantee that culturemachine.net/the-universi... "Reading literature is not a guarantee; it is a possibility." 1/2

One wing of the phoenix may need to remind itself that it isn’t actually a phoenix… 🙄 🐦‍🔥 🐥 🔥 🐣

Oof!
Was it a) a placeholder by the marketing company that accidentally made its way to the main website instead of the intended content b) an existential crisis c) implicit admission that they sold out to Land Rover decades ago d) someone having A Moment e) premature sign off f) all of the above?🤔

I don’t think I get all the hate for Warwick’s new branding. I mean, it’s pretty naff, generic, an expensive overhaul for little return, vague, and easy to parody but can’t we say the same for a lot of university branding?

I barely got my head in the verifying box before it was verified that I am old 🫣🥴

Screenshot of detail from Bluesky email reading “Thank you for verifying. You’ve successfully verified that you are an adult”

🤔 🤨

'SRS Postdoctoral Fellowships' in Fell type with extreme ligatures to the right of the SRS Phoenix logo.

Congratulations to @nicolemaceira.bsky.social and @serinquinn.bsky.social, SRS Postdoctoral Fellows 2025-2026! We look forward to working with you in the coming year 💫 🎉 🙌🎉 💫

www.rensoc.org.uk/srs-postdoct... #SRSlyGood #Skystorians

This a) reminds me I owe @jennyrichards.bsky.social an email 🫣 b) is SUCH a fun project & a game changer for the kinds of conversations that can happen across SHAPE & STEM. Check out the website when it is LIVE!

These aren’t honeyed words — I’ll beeswaxing lyrical about it!
🐝 🎶 🐝 🍯 🐝 ⛪️ 🐝 🍯 🐝 🎶 🐝

That’s one way to describe “Racks, and other Engines of torment, with which the Spaniards are tormenting the Natives and English Mariners” and “Two Spaniards…the one turning a Spit, whilst the other is basting an a Indian Prince, which is roasted at an artificiall fire.”

There’s also his “The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru”, which presents English colonialism as good and Spanish colonialism as evil, drawing from a translation of las Casas’ “Tears of the Indians” as a source text.

WARNING: they’re quite naff as literary/dramatic works but fascinating nonetheless

If you are a glutton for punishment and want to read some of Drake’s posthumous rehabilitations under Cromwellian rule, see William Davenant’s “The History of Sir Francis Drake”, one of his state sanctioned public performances from the 1650s — performed when public drama was officially outlawed.

One wing of the phoenix was clearly having A Moment™️ 🐦‍🔥

Likewise! ☺️

I’ve been to Leeds and a) met Jane Rickard for lunch b) spent the afternoon in the library c) met up with Alison Searle, @sarakbarker.bsky.social & @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social. Now waiting to catch my train home. Such days, a happy Willie maketh ☺️

He is one cantankerous git!

Sara is seated next to me. What she says holds true.

St Paul is my least favourite Saint and @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social agrees. He cannot retract this now.

The struggle is real…

Something I find hilarious is, they advise you need to bring your own USB sticks in to use on their hardware. Meanwhile, we’re banned from using USB sticks because they are deemed a cybersecurity risk 🫠

My Willie suffers similarly.

a little girl in a red and purple dress is brushing her hair with a brush . ALT: a little girl in a red and purple dress is brushing her hair with a brush .

Today, someone suggested to me that people with humanities degrees needed to use AI more to train it to gather information, express and use it better. Because everyone likes the idea their work is fodder to feed an LLM…

Publish with Routledge and then you’ll be disappointed with all options?

Da iawn!

Isn’t this the *only* writing process?

Wait. You’re a year older than me??? 🫠