Tom Smith 🏳️‍🌈

And another petition, sadly 😪
You might be aware that the Department of Languages & Intercultural Studies (LINCS) at Heriot-Watt University is under threat.

More information and to sign the petition: heriotwatt.web.ucu.org.uk/2026/02/05/s...

Book sale klaxon 🚨 Including my own book, but lots of other great titles in their film paperbacks @berghahnbooks.bsky.social

This is very very well written and meticulously researched. Well worth reading (and available open access).

No wonder the kids didn't fall for that one - everyone knows the plural is bananata... 🙄

It's out!🍾
I am delighted to announce the publication of our "Germany's History Wars. Contesting Memory and Identity Today"
It is Open Access!
👇 You can download it here for free.

www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Electricity prices jump after Trump rejects disaster aid for Michigan utilities The president denied the state’s request for federal aid to rebuild power lines after a fierce ice storm last March, a move that could force thousands of rural electricity customers to pay the entire ...

Interesting reporting on the damage the Republicans are wreaking in my own home turf in Trump country. The piece for the most part surprisingly humane (if you get past sneering descriptions by East Coast journalist who obviously didn't see the beauty of the place..)

www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

Sharepic: Schwarzer Hintergrund, ein schwarz-weißes Bild vom Gedenken an die rassistischen Brandanschläge von Mölln 1992. Text: Wir gedenken Bahide Arslan, Yeliz Arslan und Ayşe Yılmaz.

Wir gedenken heute Bahide Arslan, Yeliz Arslan und Ayşe Yılmaz. Sie wurden vor 33 Jahren, in der Nacht vom 22. auf den 23. November 1992, bei den rassistischen Brandanschlägen von #Mölln ermordet. Weitere Mitglieder der Familie wurden zum Teil schwer verletzt.
#KeinVergessen

Germany never even made it as far as "bad apples" theories, so dunno why I bother, but this is wild: "Diese Erklärung hinterfragt allerdings nicht, inwieweit Strukturen und der Corpsgeist in Polizei, Bundeswehr und anderen staatlichen Behörden rechte Einstellungen begünstigen" 👀

In response to recent news of the University of Nottingham's devastating plan to cut modern languages degrees, the AGS President (@pdavies.bsky.social) has sent a joint letter of protest to the UoN VC and the Chair of University Council on behalf of the AGS, W+IGS and the GLA.

Link to the letter 👇

The latest threat to UK modern languages is yet another faux pas Nottingham and Leicester are taking a swing at language departments. But those proposing closures have taken their eye off the ball, say four linguists

"Nottingham and Leicester are taking a swing at language departments. But those proposing closures have taken their eye off the ball" Languages graduates are in high demand and have a lot to offer the economy and society www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/late...

Sign the Petition Stop the removal of Modern Languages courses at the University of Nottingham!

Modern Languages students at the University of Nottingham have started a petition to save languages degrees. Please sign and share www.change.org/p/stop-the-r...

Busy @ducuuo.bsky.social picket lines on day two of their week long strike to save jobs and oppose compulsory redundancies #SaveHE #SaveDundeeUni #NoCompulsoryRedundancies

Read about the traditional ‘Altar de muertos’ in the foyer of Buchanan Building, commemorating the Day of the Dead, largely celebrated in Spanish-speaking countries, especially in Mexico, 2 Nov. The Altar will be displayed from until 5 Nov: www.st-andrews.ac.uk/modern-langu...

May Ayim’s Cosmopolitanism from Below in Europe May Ayim was key to the Black German civil rights movement in the 1980s and 1990s. But how did her work across borders exemplify cosmopolitanism from below? Tiffany N. Florvil explores the life and ne...

May Ayim was key to the Black German civil rights movement. But what about her creative, feminist anti-racist work across Europe?

How did this exemplify 'cosmopolitanism from below'? Prof. Tiffany N. Florvil on Ayim's life and vision:
🧵5/5

www.historyworkshop.org.uk/feminism/may...

Au­to­r*in zur Stadtbild-Debatte: Der böse Traum vom gereinigten Deutschland Woran will Bundeskanzler Merz eigentlich das irregulär Migrantische erkennen? Seine Äußerungen zum deutschen Stadtbild sind menschenverachtend.

"Für Jüdinnen und Juden kann es aus der Geschichte nur eine Lehre geben: Die Einteilung in jene, die aus dem #Stadtbild entfernt gehören, und in jene, die in das Stadtbild passen und deshalb verschont bleiben, ist nicht hinnehmbar"

~ Sasha Marianna Salzmann @taz.de

Image of author Antje Rávik Strubel and the abstract pink cover their 2021 novel "Blaue Frau" (Blue Woman)

Image of author Sascha Salzmann and their 2017 novel "Ausser sich" (Outside/Beside oneself)

@brangwenstone.bsky.social and I are giving a talk next week in the Aus German Studies seminar online at 3.30pm AEDT - "Bad Feelings to Utopian Promises: Non-Binary Dissociative
Poetics in Strubel’s Blaue Frau and Salzmann’s Außer sich" - trans studies/German lit, DM for a zoom link

Photo of Prof Natasha Kelly

Happy to announce that a recording of the "President's Guest" event at the AGS 2025 conference in Oxford last month is now available to stream on the AGS website.

The event saw writer, academic, artist & activist Prof Natasha A. Kelly in conversation with Dr Kirstin Gwyer.

Link below👇

Decolonial Travel Guide Tanzania Willkommen zu deiner dekolonialen Lernreise durch Tansania / Karibu safari yako ya kujifunza ya decolonial

Gunzert House, Bismarck Rock, Old Boma, Lugalo, Serengeti & Co.: Ein dekolonialer Reiseführer für Tanzania - dreisprachig, fundiert recherchiert und von Amani Abeid großartig illustriert! Als kostenfreier pdf-Download hier: decolonial-travel-guide-tanzania.com

In case anyone with a UK passport is watching Farage thinking "what he's saying won't apply to me", pay attention to what the far right is proposing in Germany, because where do you think British fascists are getting their ideas from?

Yeah that's horrid and I'm so sorry. I'm afraid even in the 2000s I remember some similar dynamics in my own SU. I fear some of these dynamics at universities may not have changed much...

Oh gosh, I hadn't heard about that, how awful. I also didn't know it was part of the university - let along voting at DUSU! Now many of the buildings have that creepy feel of abandoned halls of residence right next to Pugin chapels...

This is a brilliant exhibition of some amazing contemporary art inspired by Lafcadio Hearn - and if you haven't explored Ushaw College (I hadn't) it's a very cool site. Lots of good Victoriana. Congrats to Fraser (@durhamimh.bsky.social), Claire, Steven, Kieran and the Kwaidan exhibition team!

I have had both colleagues and students dismiss my work as my "hobby and interest". To translate for anyone for whom it isn't obvious: it's because I'm queer and my research is queer. And that is called homophobia.

I've said it before but it's been a while: Fuck UUK.

All very much deserved and sometimes it's good when others say nice things - the world needs more of that! 🥰

Go! Ushaw is also an amazing site just outside Durham, a former seminary where Hearn was at school in the 1860s, before he made a name as a writer in the US and Japan.

Room with vaulted Victorian wood ceiling with a brown display case in the foreground with the Kwaidan exhibition title image and Ushaw College logo, filled with books. In the distance, blue display boards are showing a series of prints and paintings stretching back into the long gallery.

Went to the launch of Kwaidan, an exhibition of prints by Irish and Japanese artists inspired by Lafcadio Hearn's ghost stories. Curated by Claire Marsland at Ushaw College, brought to Durham by Fraser Riddell @durham-university.bsky.social and conceived by Stephen Lawlor and Kieran Owens.

Congrats, this is amazing!! As for the text, show me the lies 🤷🏻‍♂️

Screenshot: „Die Jury für den Kurt-Tucholsky-Preis 2025 hat die eingegangenen Vorschläge gesichtet und sich auf folgende alphabetisch geordnete Shortlist für die Preisvergabe 2025 verständigt: • Aras, Maryam (Infos z.B. hier). • Frohmann, Christiane (Infos z.B. hier) • Mahmod, Miedya (Infos z.B. hier) • Präkels, Manja (Infos z.B. hier) • Thomas, Ruth-Maria (Infos z.B. hier)“

A genuine joy to share our shortlist for the Kurt-Tucholsky-Preis 2025. Congratulations to Maryam Aras, Christiane Frohmann, Miedya Mahmod, Manja Präkels, and Ruth-Maria Thomas! tucholsky-gesellschaft.de/kurt-tuchols...

#Berlin Wir feiern trotzdem! 🥳

Morgen (Samstag, 23.08) ab 14:00Uhr am Hausvogteiplatz

Kommt zahlreich! 🫶🏾

#AntonWilhelmAmoStraße
#Amofest

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