Basket of peaches with walnuts, knife and a glass of wine, oil on canvas, painted in 1768 by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779), French painter of tranquil, luminous still-life & genre scenes, admired by Manet, Cézanne, Matisse and Proust.
Musée du Louvre
#BookHistory mutuals, pls do your magic. A student in my seminar is looking for sources on fingerprints in books. Other than Darnton's reference to inky fingerprints left on the plates of the Encyclopedie, & Folger blog posts by @wynkenhimself.bsky.social, I'm short of ideas. Do you have any? THX!
Savour the irony here. For a year the Trump administration have browbeaten Zelensky as a loser with no cards. Now they turn to him for anti-drone defences. Perhaps they will now recognise that Ukraine is a valuable, battle-hardened ally.
Vice Chancellor at the University of Birmingham Adam Tickell warns about a "national catastrophe" unfolding as universities close modern languages courses.
Institutional mergeers may protect our "national cultural assets".
Read the article here:
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
In celebration of World Book Day, here’s a poem called ‘Book Group’.
The traditional Bodleian Oath, which every reader is required to read aloud on seeking admission to the Bodleian Libraries 📚
#WorldBookDay
📷 | @bodleian.ox.ac.uk
There is a “national catastrophe” unfolding as universities close modern languages courses and important “cultural assets” across the humanities more broadly are lost “by stealth”.
Coverage of Adam Tickell’s remarks at our conference yesterday
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
Nineteenth-centuryists (#C19th) - I'm looking for novels in the first half of the century where the rural English poor are racialized as "savage", "dark" etc. I know English rural examples from journalism/non-fiction, and fiction about the urban and "Celtic" poor, but fictional examples useful!
For Y12 State school pupils interested in Languages and Linguistics, there is a taster session on 22 April at @ox.ac.uk at Lady Margaret Hall bookshelf.mml.ox.ac.uk/2026/03/04/m...
‘We remain deeply concerned that universities will be unable to absorb the cost of the levy’s
introduction. The loss of cross-subsidy for domestic teaching & research will harm
universities’ ability to deliver their core functions’
Our response to the levy
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/60...
Brilliant recycling of the decor!
Campaign from @tessadunlop.bsky.social for the introduction of Romanian GCSE.
In the 2021 census in response to the question of what their "main" language was, the second most-listed language in London was Romanian (after English obviously), with 159,000 speakers
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Ah yes, or how about this *Salumeria* in Piacenza...
And the decision to teach a foreign language is an act of commitment, generosity and mediation."
"The decision to learn a foreign language is to me an act of friendship. It is indeed a holding out of the hand. It’s not just a route to negotiation. It’s also to get to know you better, to draw closer to you and your culture, your social manners and your way of thinking... 1/2
I have just read Adam Thirlwell's brilliant The Future Future (recommended by Marina Warner)
Cremona yesterday
Come work with me! We are recruiting for a Head of Comms and Marketing to help us communicate the work of @britishacademy.bsky.social and the power of the humanities and social sciences in making sense of our changing world
app.loxo.co/job/MzM2MzQt...
A piece from the archives @theguardian.com which is a wonderful read in more ways than one.
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
1 à 2 bourses de début de thèse sont mises au concours par le Programme doctoral de littérature de Bâle.
dslw.philhist.unibas.ch/en/doctoral-...
"A Decade of Dangerous Women"
Friday 6 March, 13:00 at IASH & online
Join us to celebrate 10 years of the Dangerous Women Project, and to hear about women who dared throughout history! #IWD2026
Register free at decadeofdangerouswomen.eventbrite.co.uk or online via Teams (link on Eventbrite).
Job opening : Professor in English linguistics (open-rank) @unibas.ch – come and join us !
jobs.unibas.ch/offene-stell...
Le discours du Secrétaire d’État américain à Munich était plus aimable dans le ton que celui de JD. Vance l’an dernier mais peu différent sur le fond.
Il est donc clair que nous, Européens, devons gagner en puissance et en autonomie, dans la fidélité à nos valeurs. Résolument.
I'm not sure I could ever forgive this government if it allows the BBC World Service to die
If you are in or near Aberdeen, this is an exhibition featuring ten important Scottish modernist paintings. It draws on research we have funded, & celebrates both the 50th anniversary of the collection as well as the 200th anniversary of @royalscottishacad.bsky.social
www.abdn.ac.uk/collections/...
18TH CENTURY BRITISH HISTORY PHD LIGHTNING TALKS CFP
Are you at the start of your PhD? Want to tell an eager and engaged audience about it in 5 mins? We want to hear the best PGR research about 18th Britain at our #LightningTalks event 29 April 2026.
Please see the poster for further information!
Exactly. This is not a lot of money. And once destroyed you don’t get to rebuild it.
BBC's Arabic radio service in Lebanon closed after 85 years as part of a £28.5m savings drive. 'Just months later, in October 2023, the Russian state-owned Sputnik news agency took over the frequency. Its news bulletin opened with “This is Moscow”, replacing the previous “This is London” intro.' 🙄
