Maria Damkjær

World chess just placed restrictions on both trans women and trans men The International Chess Federation will stop allowing transgender women to participate in women's tournaments. The group said changing genders has a "significant impact" on a player's status.

All you need to know about transphobes/terfs/gender critical people is that they think trans people have an unfair advantage in chess.

The Sally Mitchell Dissertation Prize – RSVP The Sally Mitchell Dissertation Prize is awarded annually to the best Ph.D. dissertation, defended in the previous calendar year, that explores the British periodical press of the long nineteenth cent...

Grateful to share that my PhD dissertation project was awarded the 2025 Sally Mitchell Prize from @rs4vp.org Just back from their conference in Chicago, where I learned so much, presented some of my own work, and most magically, met several of the folks whose work has influenced me most-a real joy.

Amazing - congratulations! You’ve created something wonderful, and this is SO well-deserved 🎉

i want to find a good book about the history of newspapers in the early 20th century — evolving styles of journalism, ballyhoo, muckraking, influence of syndication and radio, consolidation of ownership, etc. any recs?

Post from "The Rundown" July 18 at 5:30 PM · DuckDuckGo has introduced a new feature allowing users to filter out AI-generated images from search results, addressing growing concerns over synthetic content overwhelming authentic visuals online. The filter can be activated through a dropdown in the Images tab, search settings, or by using a dedicated AI-free domain: noai.duckduckgo.com. The system relies on curated blocklists, including uBlockOrigin’s Huge AI Blocklist, to detect and suppress AI-generated imagery. While not perfect, it significantly reduces synthetic content visibility. This move sets DuckDuckGo apart from competitors like Google and Bing by giving users direct control over their exposure to AI-generated material. Source: TechCrunch

DuckDuckGo has added a feature to filter out AI images from search results.

Honestly my best cinema experience of all time. In Palads, of all places

Watching Troy in the cinema and when Paris (Orlando Bloom) offers Helen to hunt rabbits for her in an eventual exile, the entire audience descended into helpless laughter, which was revived every time Bloom reappeared on the screen

This is why they want you to use it for everything. If they can’t start charging you soon, they are going to lose a colossal amount of money.

I’d like to introduce yall to Rosner’s Law of Double Garnish:

Every savory dish is made better by not one but TWO finishing elements added just before serving: one brightening (green herbs, lemon zest/juice, pickled onion), one deepening (cheese, nuts/seeds, toasty breadcrumbs, oil drizzle)

Here is a thing I learned during my many temporary contracts and no-tenure-track positions in German academia: don't guarantee to submit texts. Submit only when you have had the time and feel well. No worries, no struggle. But start guaranteeing to submit texts when you have a permament position.

Oh shit, reader 1 and reader 2 are the same person?!?!

Sign the Petition Stop Mass Redundancies at Lancaster University – Hold Senior Management Accountable

Hello UK friends - please, please could you sign this petition against the job cuts at my place of work - 1 in 4 us will be out of a job by August next year if we don't stop the cuts. And once you've signed it, please share. We need your help! www.change.org/p/stop-mass-...

Experts say a twice-yearly injection that offers 100% protection against HIV is 'stunning' A study shows that a twice-yearly shot was 100% effective in preventing new HIV infections in women in Africa.

That this disease went from an incurable 100% death sentence to something preventable in the space of my lifetime is stunning to me. Compare to early modern Europe, where smallpox and plague were endemic for generations.

Below, a discussion of the test results. I truly never thought I'd see this.

Baxter the dog sits alert on a garden bench; part fox, part meerkat.

Baxter the dog curls up on a garden bench looking every bit like a fox

I think I may actually have bought a fox, and the seller just painted it black like in a Pepe le Peu cartoon.

🤣🤣🤣“the developers in question expected the AI tools would lead to a 24% reduction in the time needed for their assigned tasks. Even after completing those tasks, the developers believed that the AI tools had made them 20% faster . . .

the AI-aided tasks ended up being completed 19% slower . . .”

Frankly disappointing that the future tech we are promised is “Microsoft Teams in your car” and “things you write or create will be stolen without credit”

Journalists covering the aid air drops say they have been warned by Israel not to film Gaza from the air or the air drops will stop. (Do they not want us to see the scale of the damage?)

“International journalists have not been allowed inside Gaza.”

Three copies of Critical Neurodiversity Studies: Divergent Textualities in Literature and Culture edited by Jenny Bergenmar, Louise Creechan, and Anna Stenning with a colourful abstract cover

HUGE DAY

My editor copies of 'Critical Neurodiversity Studies: Divergent Textualities in Literature and Culture' arrived!! I'm so excited for this to be out in the world (officially 7th Aug)

The volume asks 'what would a neurodivergent framework for literary studies look like'?

From Wikipedia: Lehrer's performance is sampled in the track "Dope Peddler" by U.S. rapper 2 Chainz on his 2012 album Based on a T.R.U. Story. In 2013, Lehrer said he was "very proud" to have his 60-year-old song sampled. His response to the request to use the song was "As sole copyright owner of 'The Old Dope Peddler', I grant you motherfuckers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?".

I love this so much:

In principle, a clear-cut case for an internationally-led humanitarian military intervention would be if a country had rounded up a minority population, systematically deprived them of food, and was refusing to allow in any aid. In that hypothetical situation, everyone would agree it was necessary.

Three persons dressed identically in blue caps, sunglasses, striped shirts, yellow printed Bermuda shorts, crew socks, and red converse. They all carry tall wooden staffs and wear long white costume beards and mustaches

These three Merlins-returning-from-Bermuda-in-the-20th-century-in-Disney’s-The-Sword-in-the-Stone were absolutely crushing it at the Maine Renaissance Faire today

Scotland

I keep buying books! I bought 6 books in Oxford this week. Someone will have to deal with them eventually I guess 🤷🏼‍♀️

I have thrown out more books in my life than a medium-sized library, since my mum has had multiple book clearouts, my dad was a book hoarder, and I have moved countries quite a few times. Now I put them in the student café at Uni of Copenhagen

I am in this picture and I have NO REGRETS

No joke, the Piet Hein translations have always astonished me - translating comic verse is incredibly hard

Today at #BAVS2025 I accepted the BAVS Rosemary Mitchell Prize for a Second Monograph and got to speak about my book, Fiction on the Page in Nineteenth-Century Magazines. Thank you to @drmarylshannon.bsky.social (whose own book was highly commended) for taking these pictures ❤️

She’s a star! 🤩