Helen Dallas

BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen has confirmed that the entire Al Jazeera team in Gaza City has been killed.

Congratulations Caroline! 💖

Okay. You all ready for a feel-good thread?

Because one literally fell out of the sky for us last week and it's only fair we share this heartwarming tale with you.

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Open letter from UK university staff: Request for biometric deferral and safe evacuation of incoming Palestinian students and scholars from Gaza to UK Universities More than 40 students currently trapped in Gaza with full scholarships to UK Universities are asking for a safe route to come and study. We, the academic community hoping to welcome these scholars, ca...

An open letter has been launched today (27/7/25) for members of the UK academic community (academics and other university staff) to sign, to press the UK Home Office to facilitate safe passage out of Gaza for 40+ students with offers for UK universities.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

People in #Gaza, including UNRWA colleagues, are fainting due to severe hunger. They are being starved.

Meanwhile, just a few kilometers away from Gaza supermarkets and shops are loaded with food and other goods.

Lift the siege.

Allow UNRWA to bring in food and medicines.

You know, I'm a "knowledge worker", and one of the big reasons for me doing the job I do is that I want to *tear down* the boundaries and share knowledge with people who don't have it. LLMs *reinforce* those boundaries, which is why I loathe them.

The West Africa Squadron Memorial: An Exercise in Virtue Signalling and Denial Alan Lester* In recent months the Daily Mail and right wing groups have mounted a clamour for a new memorial to be built in Portsmouth. In principle, the proposal seems reasonable, since it is to c…

3/4 For those interested in the details of what Eltis actually said about the cost of antislavery patrols and how it has been misused the details are here: alanlester.co.uk/blog/the-wes...

Indigenous Historical Practices Delve into Indigenous history with our History Workshop series, highlighting complex systems of historical knowledge and their significance.

How can we better approach the histories of Indigenous peoples?

Mary Katherine Newman introduces a new History Workshop series which will introduce a range of scholars, educators, and activists and the ways in which they examine Indigenous histories.

www.historyworkshop....

Close to TWO THOUSAND academics and educators say TRANS RIGHTS NOW.

(Sorry if you've seen this (and the historians' letter!) too many times. The lack of an algorithm means we have to keep reposting it to catch people, and this really matters.)

Shakespeare did not leave his wife Anne in Stratford, letter fragment suggests Professor says text shows Hathaway lived with playwright in London, upending the established idea of an unhappy marriage

'a leading Shakespeare expert [Matthew Steggle, Bristol] has analysed a fragment of a 17th-century letter that appears to cast dramatic new light on their relationship, overturning the idea that the couple never lived together in London.' 1/2

We stand in solidarity with trans women and the trans community and we will always be a space that recognises the importance of trans history.

Read on for a selection from our archive 🧵 1/8

This. Protect trans kids. Protect trans rights. Gender is a spectrum. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary people exist. Inter-sex & DSD people exist. Gender-non-conforming people exist. Transphobia is anti-feminist. Laws are often wrong and unjust. We must fight for a fairer future.

YouTube video by Chris Bundock The Tryal

I don't know if I have enough of an audience here for an announcement, but the wonderful production of Joanna Baillie's The Tryal that I was in at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds is available to watch online! youtu.be/E3ksanlDElU?...

just imagine working at microsofft and thinking “let’s spend billions, steal a load of intellectual property, and destroy the planet to make an interface to write bad essays” rather than “let’s update MS Word so users can comment on footnotes”

Oscar-winning Palestinian director attacked by Israeli settlers and arrested No Other Land’s Hamdan Ballal attacked by armed settlers in West Bank and handed to Israeli military, witnesses say

Hamdan Ballal, one of the directors of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, has been assaulted & injured by settlers at his home in the West Bank & arrested by the IDF.
No trace of him since.
The vengeance is clear.
Do not let Hamdan disappear.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

Calling all fans of my work both organisational and research-based:

On Tuesday 4 March we're hosting our translated drama scratch night in collaboration with @oxfordcct.bsky.social! Come along to Trinity College's Beer Cellar at 7:30pm for an evening of short extracts of theatre translated into English from French, Italian, and Finnish 🎭

I'm a big fan of the reading of An Instance of the Fingerpost by Gareth Armstrong, Roger May, David McAlister, & Christopher Oxford, and I think the multiple testimonials style means it works as an audiobook. Dominic West's performance in Remains of the Day is also great

In Loving Memory Of Andrew Dallas (1998-2016). Wh In Loving Memory Of Andrew Dallas (1998-2016). Wh

I had no idea this wesite existed, and feel so intensely moved. Thank you kind stranger who uploaded this.
openbenches.org/bench/21597

Thank you so much! I thought this from the website, but wanted to check with actual audience, thank you!

Illustration of daffodils on dark background.

Daffodils, Mary Delaney, 1776.

The Art of Variation

On Sunday 23 February, the amazing Elinor Frey and Accademia de’ Dissonanti are coming to Oxford to perform a vivid program of eighteenth-century music and improvisation: The Art of Variation. Holywell Music Room, 7:30pm, free entry and no registration required! www.music.ox.ac.uk/event/25-02-...

Job alert! College Teaching Officer in English at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

The @frenchhistory.bsky.social is recruiting another associate editor to join our team, with a preference for an 18th c or revolution specialist.
The journal team are a wonderful intellectual community behind loads of recent exciting initiatives 🗃️ frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/associate-ed...

Drama on 3 - Saint Joan of the Anthropocene - BBC Sounds Linda Marshall Griffiths' contemporary re-imagining of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan.

One of the things I love about #DramaOn3 is the way it can offer us both familiar and unfamiliar versions of the same play. On Sunday night we had 'Saint Joan of the Anthropocene': www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... (1/2)

Stop Trump’s Palestinian land grab Email your MP today and ask them to stand in solidarity with Palestinians against Trump’s threats and Israel’s military attacks.

Email your MP to stand against genocide in Gaza!

Also note the postscript claiming a coffee-seller can show you Young's packer!

Going to come back to this when I have a moment around my actual work, because I want to add another story!

N.B. The Tatler, written by Richard Steele, was a journal of gossip, often made up by Steele himself. So it's v possible Young didn't exist / the story here is likely exaggerated for effect. BUT such gossip does speak to real trans and gnc lives hidden behind the sensationalist stories+ rumours 🌈