Hugh Hammond

So sick of hearing "You're biased" used as a social, economic or political argument. I blame the school curriculum - we had to do a load of nonsense in history & science GCSEs about "identifying bias" in a way that left people utterly helpless at dealing with structure, ideology or epistemology.

This after *checks the next page* UCU members voted to reject a pay offer and go on strike.

Truly, UCU Commons have simply too sophisticated an understanding of democracy for a stupid ECR like me to follow.

I see the UCU democracy defenders from UCU Commons have logged on to *checks notes* to suggest using anti-TU laws to undermine a democratic vote.

I also wanted to suggest “Can The Monster Speak?” by Paul Precaido and maybe his earlier book Testo Junkie (published under their dead name), although I haven’t read the latter but have heard good things!

Thanks for the list! A hot take on my part but I wonder if Bodies That Matter is a better Butler choice than Gender Trouble? Mostly because I think the intro is a killer summary of the big ideas in GT and covers a big critique of GT (the perceived lack of engagement with materiality).

Huh. Wonder if the higher ups at UCU will still consider a twitter livestream just as effective against employers as actually committing to strike action after experiencing it first hand. In any case, solidarity with @uniteucu.bsky.social, shameful that you’ve been forced into this position.

My work has conceptually, politically, and theoretically moved far away from Judith Butler, but I will never abandon the practice I learnt from them of "explaining your argument in a big block of rhetorical questions that gradually redefine the terms under discussion".

This was particularly difficult with games studies, where there are only a handful of major journals and a short history. Google Scholar was basically useless for keeping up or seeing what everyone was reading.

As a ECR, BlueSky’s starter packs have been amazing for plugging into academic conversations. So often I’ve felt completely lost at sea when trying to map the key questions and concepts being discussed in a research field. Now, I feel like I have a way of understanding the direction of travel.

I’m not yet published, but am working on it. Can I be added?

Panicked and re-recorded a lecture I gave to students because I messed up explaining Althusser to my students and now, having slept, I listened to the first version and realised it was fine… lesson learned: don’t lecture on 2 hours sleep.

Had an amazing time at @histmat.bsky.social, and was exciting to present my research to some actual Marxists for once. So much to think about, and in desperate need of a rest, but the capitalist grind requires I now write a lecture on Disco Elysium.