Uta Staiger

Every year it's a privilege to teach this BA module, on EU Politics & Policy in Practice, delivered largely through a 3-day visit to Brussels.

Site-specific, practice-led, and such an opportunity to learn more about (and with) our students, their career plans & ambitions.

James Wolcott · What you can get away with: Updike Reconsidered Betwixt and between is a strange place for any major writer to be more than a decade and a half after their death, and...

"books that he knew would be orphaned on release" – verwaiste Bücher, was für eine gute Formulierung in diesem Review Essay über John Updike als Briefschreiber: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

📣 @ucl.ac.uk academics: 10 days to go until registration closes for the Cornell–UCL virtual networking workshop on democracy research.

EPP targeting S&D-led Spain is also not new, see derailed Ribera hearing. But turning RoL protection partisan by naming Spain and not e.g. EPP-led Greece, ranked 89th on RSF press freedom index (even HU ranks 68th) & 48th on WJP rule of law index, does RoL no service: www.eppgroup.eu/newsroom/rul...

Mark Rothko canvas, red on red

Happy year of the fire horse

[Mark Rothko, Red on Red, 1969]

“Literature is built on tenderness toward any being other than ourselves.”

When teaching in the Arts & Humanities couldn't be more topical...

My short commentary on the instrument of a 'multi-speed Europe' gaining traction again.

The starting point is impatience: In a world in flux, the EU can’t afford endless vetoes and lowest-common-denominator outcomes. Expect more coalitions of willing states to emerge.

To have heard of this here… Pete was many things, but above all he was just such a mensch. He will be really missed.

« Il faut renouer avec la lutte pour les Lumières » : la leçon inaugurale de la philosophe Lea Ypi au Collège de France TRIBUNE. Jeudi 12 février, la professeure invitée par le Collège de France à la chaire « L’invention de l’Europe par les langues et les cultures » proposait de répondre à la déraison qui s’est emparée...

Excerpts from my inaugural lecture at the College de France last week.

Very useful analysis here for those who are pro universities, setting out the areas which lead to less public/political support for HE. Worth considering how the sector will strategically respond to its critics (even if it thinks some of their views are misplaced)

My book about Britain ends with a memory.
Of the first time I ever worked at Broadcasting House as a guest commentator, what that meant to me, and what the BBC means for 🇬🇧’s place in the world.
The idea that the World Service could end is awful, and frankly embarrassing for the British Government.

Rubios Rede ist nur im Ton charmanter als die von Vance vor einem Jahr. Ihr ausdrückliches Programm ist ein neuer Imperialismus im Zeichen von white supremacy. Mehr hier von Stephan Detjen 🎧👇🏾

🇵🇱⚖️I promised a banger on the rule-of-law crisis in Poland, so... here it is. A group of PiS MPs have lodged a case with the Constitutional Tribunal, asking it to find the rules of electing the judges of the same Tribunal, introduced in 2016 by a PiS majority, to be unconstitutional. 1/

If research excellence is linked to research specialisation, why don't more specialist universities routinely outcompete more generalist ones in global league tables?

And should UK HEIs intent to climb the rankings think twice before mothballing their Arts & Humanities?

Asking for a friend. 1/5

2026 UCL History Roundtable on ‘Commemorations, Memory, and the Many Pasts' As UCL marks its 2026 Bicentenary, the History Department invites colleagues, students, alumni and history fans to a roundtable with UCL historians on Commemorations, Memory, and the Many Pasts.

As UCL marks its 2026 Bicentenary, we invite colleagues, students, alumni and history enthusiasts to a special roundtable on Commemorations, Memory, and the Many Pasts 💬

📅 05 March 2026
⏰ 18:00–20:30
📍 All welcome

👉 Book your free place: shorturl.at/3pDEC 👈

Happy birthday, UCL.

Uncharacteristically mild wording from Ian but unerringly accurate as always.

V interesting.

Asked about its selfhood/narrative/neurons Claude foregrounds simulation; wonders if "there’s no thinking happening beneath or beyond the narrative patterns, just increasingly sophisticated reproduction of narrative form."

Recognizes it has no metacognitive access.

And:

Sharing a Victor Hugo shaped entry on our European Literary Map of London.

www.europeanliterarylondon.org/feature/3902...

Cover der Erstausgabe von Woolfs Roman Mrs Dalloway, Schwarz Gelber Druck, ein Fenster mit Blumen darunter.

GuMi, heute starten wir etwas später, weil ich heute Morgen dem @deutschlandfunk.de.web.brid.gy ein Interview zu #VirginiaWoolf und ihrer Rolle in der literarischen #Moderne gegeben habe.

How do Europeans in five major countries see the ECHR? | YouGov Poles are consistently the most positive towards the ECHR, French tend to be most negative

People in France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland see the ECHR’s positive impact on security co-operation and their day-to-day lives as far outweighing its impact on their country’s ability to deport illegal migrants👇

🔗 yougov.co.uk/internationa... via @yougov.co.uk

Like finding a long-lost friend - the @europeanlitlondon.bsky.social European Literary Map of London popping up at the @uclalumni.bsky.social event in Brussels during our @ucl-global.bsky.social trip. Thanks to the UK Mission lending it to us again!

I’m an Ambassador for this brilliant charity, Bookbanks, giving away books with food parcels at food banks. There are two part-time jobs going for Regional Leads in London and East Anglia.

Link below.

Please share far and wide :)

For the FES, I wrote a short brief about how mainstream party strategies have fueled far-right success. They move toward more anti-immigration positions to win voters back. This does not work, but shifts public opinion to the right. Parties then react to shifts in public opinion. A vicious cycle.

Elif Shafak Delivers The National Humanities Lecture The award-winning novelist and storyteller Elif Shafak has delivered The 2026 National Humanities Lecture at Senate House.

Thank you to Elif Shafak and those who joined us last night in person and online for The National Humanities Lecture.

Drawing on literature, history and her own experience as a writer and storyteller, Shafak made an impassioned case for the humanities. Watch here www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

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Ian McKellen performs “The Strangers’ Case” speech from “Sir Thomas More” on Colbert.

A graphic of three architectural elements – a Roman arch, a Gothic arch, and a Modern apartment building – each next to a related style of type spelling the words “ho, ho, ho”.

Aldo Novarese, diagram accompanying his article, “Eurostile, a Synthetic Expression of Our Times” in Pagina, International Magazine of Graphic Design, No. 4, January 1964.⁠
⁠
#LetterformArchive #AldoNovarese #Eurostile #TypeDesign #Architecture #InformationDesign #ModernArchitecture #HoHoHo

Big Tech: A Human Rights Perspective This UCL200 event, organised by the Institute for Human Rights, explores how digital technologies intersect with human rights to shape a fair and inclusive society.

Much looking forward to welcoming the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, at UCL Laws @laws.ucl.ac.uk

He will give the Institute for Human Rights Annual Lecture on the topic: 'Big Tech: A Human Rights Perspective'.

Join us on 18 March at 1.45pm.

www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/...