Dr Rachel White

Dr Rachel White

@renaissancerach.bsky.social

Career Development Fellow in Early Modern Literature at Durham University Out now: Elizabethan Occult Poetics: Exploring Practice and Knowledge in English Poetry https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/9781836244783

202 Followers 224 Following 20 Posts Joined Jun 2025
9 hours ago
The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales – The new way to learn about old books

Plese repost & share! *THE OPEN ACCESS COMPANION TO THE CANTERBURY TALES*, a free, scholar-produced onlyne resource for teachinge and learninge *The Canterbury Tales* at the universitye level: opencanterburytales.lsusites.org

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6 days ago
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Another @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social picket line @northumbriauni.bsky.social yesterday. We're loud and proud in our fight for pay and pensions justice! @ucu.org.uk @chionwurah.bsky.social @chroniclelive.co.uk @timeshighered.bsky.social @bylinesnetwork.co.uk

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1 week ago
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Durham University staff start industrial action in workload row Durham University says the action, which could last for six months, is

It's ASOS time, everyone! We regularly hear from colleagues that they're working, to use a technical term, "silly hours"; way beyond what could be considered reasonable. It wasn't our first choice to end that via action short of strike, but it was clear SOMETHING needed to be done, so here we are.

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1 week ago
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Durham University staff start industrial action in workload row Durham University says the action, which could last for six months, is

Reading the news today & came across this. To be CRYSTAL CLEAR, @ducu.bsky.social has REPEATEDLY raised workload problems to management and offered potential solutions for negotiation. In EVERY instance, management has refused to negotiate. “No” is not negotiation. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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1 week ago
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Durham University staff start industrial action in workload row Durham University says the action, which could last for six months, is

Solidarity with colleagues at Durham

Durham University staff start industrial action in workload row - BBC News share.google/dFdh9caLfjIN...

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1 week ago

✊✊👉@ucunorthumbria.bsky.social are back on strike next week, all week. No-one wants to be, and no-one is asking for more than keeping what we have. For our communities, colleagues, and students, we will never accept the pay and pension injustice planned by management at @northumbriauni.bsky.social

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1 week ago

No-one wants to go on strike, and no-one ever does it just for themselves. @jimdickinson.bsky.social @moneyontheleft.bsky.social @ukhenews.bsky.social @ucea.bsky.social @andylong6.bsky.social @georgeclarke.bsky.social

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2 weeks ago

Folk thynke that innovacioun yn academia will come from technologye. It will come ynstead from settinge asyde olde assumptions and hierarchies and givinge people more chances to trulye and radicallye thynke wyth each othir wyth no specific outcome yn mynde.

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3 weeks ago
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Whose uni? Our uni! @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk We are united, loud, and proud. We will never accept bosses @northumbriauni.bsky.social stealing our pay and pensions, demoralising and demeaning staff and students. We are always ready to talk, listen, and negotiate. Let's fix this!

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3 weeks ago
Replacing the flowers on St Valentine’s head
The purported skull of St Valentine is displayed in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome, where it is crowned with flowers.

A reliquary is a fine eternity;
plush interior, gilt frame,
glass window, south facing,
the rent paid in prayers and
miracles granted.

This saint, if that’s who he is,
wears a crown of flowers.
Daisies, pansies, stems thick
and green, turning yellow,
brown, dissolving into slime.

Unlike stories no flowers
last forever. Bone is an
uncommon vase, the aura of
sainthood no fertiliser.

These flowers are replaced
when required, their blaze
not yet extinguished. Petals
unaware — for now, at least —
that they, like the saint, are dead.

"Unlike stories no flowers
last forever. Bone is an
uncommon vase, the aura of
sainthood no fertiliser."

- from 'The Vanishing Song'

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3 weeks ago
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Women, Gender and Sexuality in Premodern Literature and Culture Welcome to Cambridge Core

Delighted to be series editor for Cambridge Elements in Women, Gender and Sexuality in Premodern Literature and Culture. If you have something cool and interesting you’d like to work with us on please get in touch (micrograph 20-30k)

www.cambridge.org/core/publica...

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1 month ago

Caleb makes some really useful points here - the feeling that we need a new approach to workload in Durham is even more widespread than the raw ballot numbers suggest. We need to hear more from our employer than "We responded fully to [your] claims".

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1 month ago
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I was very pleased to find that my copy of The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Authorship had arrived when I got home today! I find myself in very good company, and I'm looking forward to reading more. @loughnrv.bsky.social and Will Sharpe were great editors to work with 😊

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1 month ago

Results are in regarding our local ballot.

63.3% of voters are prepared to take IA consisting of a strike action, and 75.6% are prepared to take ASOS. Return rate was 53.1%, comfortably clear of the Tory anti-trade union minimum.

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1 month ago
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In Our Time - Henry IV Part 1 - BBC Sounds Shakespeare's powerful exploration of power and succession with Hotspur, Hal and Falstaff.

Thrilled for my colleague, Laurence Publicover, and his appearance on In Our Time today, joined by the brilliant @oldfortunatus.bsky.social and @lucycmunro.bsky.social - what a trio! Have worked on H4 quite a bit and still learned lots! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

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1 month ago
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In Our Time - Henry IV Part 1 - BBC Sounds Shakespeare's powerful exploration of power and succession with Hotspur, Hal and Falstaff.

In which @oldfortunatus.bsky.social, Laurence Publicover and I did a thing... www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

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1 month ago

This is the strangers' case / and this your mountainish inhumanity

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1 month ago
UCU Counter-Proposals 2026

@ucunorthumbria.bsky.social has developed reasonable, comprehensive, and constructive counter-proposals to help resolve the dispute @northumbriauni.bsky.social regarding pay and pensions in good faith. You can see them here: www.ucu-unn.org.uk/news/319-ucu....

What do you think?

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1 month ago
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Dr Alistair Brown from our Department of English Studies uses VR & gaming make classic literature immersive, accessible & future-focused. He is helping English Studies thrive in the digital age. Find out more 👉 www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

#DUinspire #DUSpotlightOn

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1 month ago
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Donate to Support University of Sheffield striking staff!, organized by Mark Pendleton I'm the branch treasurer for the University of Sheffield University and… Mark Pendleton needs your support for Support University of Sheffield striking staff!

www.gofundme.com/f/heubvb-sup...

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1 month ago

Dear UKHEI Managers

Stop spending money on things

Start investing in people - students, employees - other than yourselves

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1 month ago
The Franciscans in Medieval Bury St Edmunds

I just spoke to the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History in an online talk about the Franciscans in Bury St Edmunds, and the Suffolk Records Society currently has an INSANE offer where you can buy my £60 book on the Bury Franciscans for *£10* 😯 suffolkrecordssociety.com/publications...

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1 month ago

Tech wythout wisdom ys dystopia

For a bettir future we need poetrye, creativitye, historical studye, love of languages, dreames, dialogues, new storyes, & intellectual curiositye.

We must fund & expand higher educacioun yn HEART:

H umanityes
E thiques
A rtes
R hetorique & the crafte of
T eaching

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1 month ago
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And it begins! Post your ballots ASAP, #ducu members!

Our workloads are rising & our jobs security isn’t.

We deserve better from management than just “no” to our reasonable requests and suggestions.

@ducu.bsky.social
@ucu.org.uk

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1 month ago

Very happy to see this volume finally out. Anyone opening it will immediately appreciate the enormous amount of work involved -- should be the definitive edition of these difficult but fascinating poems for many years to come.

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2 months ago
Lecturer in Medieval Studies (2313) - Birkbeck, University of London Birkbeck

Job klaxon: for a medievalist working across English and history cis7.bbk.ac.uk/vacancy/lect...

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2 months ago
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Management at @northumbriauni.bsky.social say they want to 'do different things' to fund their strategy. Whodathunk that mean freezing staff pay? @ucu.org.uk @strathclydeucu.bsky.social @sheffielducu.bsky.social @danhollandnews.bsky.social

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2 months ago

A shout-out for this excellent collection edited by @johannawinant.bsky.social and @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social including essays by Robert Stagg of @nvshakespeare.bsky.social and @noreenmasud.bsky.social

#CloseReading

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2 months ago
Bookes are like Cheese, that is neuer well seasoned to euery mans tast; for one will say it is too salt, another wil say it is too fresh, a thirde will say it is to tart, another thinkes it to be too milde; one will haue it too hard, another too soft, another too tough, another too brittle, it neuer pleaseth euery mans tast; no more do Bookes.

Barnabe Rich explaining that "bookes are like cheese"

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2 months ago

Excellent and empoweringe educacioun will nevir be "efficient" yn the waye that a businesse doth stryve to be "efficient." It ys the heighte of knavery to use one standarde to measure everye human activitye. Businesses are ther to make profits. Educacioun ys ther to make the future.

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