melissa nolas

Never too late! Thank you very much for responding Kara. I’ll add them to the online gallery with a link / redirect to your website. I’ll drop you an email when it’s up. Have a lovely weekend x

So was Goldsmiths the financially ‘failing institution’ Frances Corner declared it to be when she took up her post in April 2019? In 2019-20 there were signs of some overspending on building, and a rather over-ambitious intake target, against which money had been spent. But two independent auditors, including KPMG in 2020, concluded that Goldsmiths’ operations had been cash generative, that the College had run surpluses until 2019 and had grown so-called ‘market share’ despite competition from the Russell Group since 2010. In three months, Frances Corner had gone from being the leader of a robust and thriving institution to one she continues to think of and respond to as a failure.

Declaring financial crisis (against all evidence to the contrary) in order to justify ideological cuts to staffing and resources is always a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy, isn't it?

On the legacy of Frances Corner at Goldsmiths -- and on her agency: goldsmithsucu.org/2021/10/10/f...

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Frances Corner: A ‘Glass Cliff’ of her own? - Goldsmiths University and College Union Guest post by “Feminists Uncut” Frances Corner was appointed the new Warden (Vice Chancellor) of Goldsmiths in 2019, and in a matter of months declared a financial crisis and a ...

My (perverse) pleasure! There has to be some (gallows) humour in being made redundant by a self-declared feminist who’s fallen off her own ‘glass cliff’…

goldsmithsucu.org/2021/10/10/f...

Former HEI leader plotting her next career move; self-awareness no longer deemed a key leadership skill.

In her own words, posted 2 days ago on LinkedIn. Apparently, self-awareness is no longer a key leadership skill, nevermind anything else (the article it links to is pure PR bumf, you could have some good fun with). Enjoy.

Institutional affiliation should not be a requirement for doing research - Impact of Social Sciences Universities espouse a universalist approach to creating research-based knowledge. Helen Kara & Petra Boynton argue, from the outside these claims are hollow.

With yet another university hosted event closed to 'non academics' (aka those not employed by a university)* I'm just going to leave this piece by @drhelenkara.bsky.social and myself here blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

* yes I know it's utter nonsense and academics/researchers exist outside unis

Open Access Week 2025 (20–26 Oct) asks: Who owns our knowledge? This theme invites reflection on how knowledge is accessed, created, and shared, and how communities can reclaim control. Events can be hosted anytime, and materials are available to adapt locally. More info: edu.nl/vccet #OAWeek

Many aspects of academia normalise abusive practices.

Like putting people through stressful situations, encouraging pile ons and put downs, all to be mitigated by alcohol.

When we ask 'who does this bring in? who does it leave out? who might it help? who might it harm?' so much becomes clear.

I guess the same. My biggest disappointment was when such dynamics were reproduced by (senior) women, I worked in departments that were more women than men typically. At that point it stopped being about gender—whatever the origin—and 100% about hierarchy. Hideous workplaces (for the most part).

Smarmy politeness is such a good description of it!

On the plus side, it made me dedicate my entire career in the academy to creating safe spaces and to model and practice feedback that is inclusive and reflexive, to work w/ a hermeneutics of faith, and practise with as much generosity as possible.

Fascinating description. Yes, it was a game in my experience too: a blood sport. Some of us—who didn’t enjoy it—used to call it ‘who let the dogs out (who? who?)’ and I would bet good money that nobody in those PhD seminars or departmental seminars had a critical understanding of this ritual.

What goes around comes around and everyone gets what they deserve. I’ll be raising a glass to Karma this evening.

www.gold.ac.uk/news/2025/vc...

Yes, absolutely. My email address is melissa dot nolas at proton dot me and website melissanolas.com thank you!

I can point / link all this to your website. Let me know! Thank you x

These are beautiful! I am writing a book on women’s experiences of fibroids and looking at representations of fibroids in art (amongst other places). May I add these to the collection? By collection I mean examples and use in ppt presentations and also I will be making a section on my website?

I’m sorry to hear this. I hope you’ve had treatment since posting. It’s such a miserable experience. I’m writing a book about it as there is so little info and stories out there. The medical characterisation as benign needs to change give the trouble fibroids can give!

I can point / link all this to your website. Let me know! Thank you x

These are beautiful! I am writing a book on women’s experiences of fibroids and looking at representations of fibroids in art (amongst other places). May I add these to the collection? By collection I mean examples and use in ppt presentations and also I will be making a section on my website?

Really excited—& a bit nervous—but mostly looking forward to meeting up w Verónica Policarpo & Jussara Rowland in person—finally—& thank them both for their really kind invite and interest in my work! Jussara & I will also be co-facilitating a workshop on the Friday which will be fun!

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How do you follow a #fibroid and other more-than-human actors?

In two weeks from today I will be in Lisbon giving a keynote on my current research / writing project on
#fibroids #womensreproductivehealth #multimodality

Play #1 a mid-monthly note on happenings

A little mid-monthly note about things I’ve been up to & things I’m planning to do as I venture forward as an independent multidisciplinary researcher, writer & photographer. Lots of things going on and I look forward to sharing more about in the coming months!

open.substack.com/pub/melissan...

This is such an astute observation. I hadn’t put the two together. Certainly this resonates with my own experience.

100% shocking news and responses…

All of this! 100% I love the dictionary and thesaurus as a repository of sedimented meanings! We use language in such an unconscious way—which can sometimes be violent—and I love getting lost in etymologies.

"It suggests that developing a commons-based, scholar-led publishing landscape through [presses] managed by working academics cld offer a productive counterpoint to marketised systems of open access + subscription publishing [—] a counter-hegemonic project based on mutual reliance and care"

‘You just have to learn to play the game’: survival, resentment and resignation in women academics’ narratives of precarity This paper discusses precarious academic labour and its implications for gender and interrelated inequalities, drawing on narrative interviews with temporarily employed UK women academics. It ident...

"The academic career is framed as a privileged but high-risk venture that ppl knowingly choose to embark on so they must endure the consequences or find a way to cope, thus obscuring deliberate adoption of biz models that [deprioritize] investment in staff + render large sections of the workforce 🗑️"

*that earlier one should have read

‘… research on gender and publication *during the pandemic* is only the tip of the iceberg here.’

100%

Past issues experiments in multimodal ethnography

You are correct and I—with colleagues—did this: entanglementsjournal.wordpress.com the archive is here. It was a struggle to get indexed bc of our explicit political choice not to reproduce structures from existing systems that aren’t working as well as they should & can be damaging (peer review).