Berthold Schoene

Blown over (!) by HELM. (Porter’s is next.) I love this Prize which rediscovers the novel afresh every year.

I “migrated” to this slightly offshore country 35 years ago today — one day before German Reunification, which I watched on TV in a bedsit on Glasgow’s Great Western Road. I remember my mouth being sore from speaking English all day 😂

With anonymised marking, any meaningful pedagogical engagement or intervention went out of the window. Frustrating for tutors who can no longer delight in a student’s learning as they mark their work & a sad loss for students who are deprived of the personal touch they so clearly continue to crave.

The Death of the Student Essay—and the Future of Cognition One professor's reflections on the end of an era, as AI tools such as ChatGPT have murdered the student essay (RIP). Here's why that threatens the future of human cognition—and how to save ourselves.

With classes underway, I’ve switched from essays to exams. But with the death of the student essay (RIP, slain by ChatGPT), there’s a larger human tragedy: an erosion of critical cognition and the creation of two sharply divided classes of people: those who learn how to think and those who don’t:

Marnie, optimising summer’s long goodbye

Laureate's block I'm appalled to see newspapers use my name as 'widely-tipped' for a job I'd never seek. Swans come in Domestic, Mute, and Tame and no swan-upper's going to nick my beak

'A poet's death fills other poets with dread.' Harrison was on roaring form here.
www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/feb/...

Cookie politics

Never read anything by Pym before: is this what’s meant by “middle brow”?!

We’ve renamed the house in honour of these two blue wonders 🤩🥰❤️

How kind of you to say so — much appreciated, thank you! 🤩

Thank you for engaging with my work at all! It’s refreshing to hear it’s been of some use. ANITA AND ME is a cracker!

Androdecentrism in the Anthropocene: Weirding Masculinities in the Work of Max Porter, Martin Macinnes, and Matt Hill In an era marked by ecological collapse and accelerated technological transformation, the human subject, and especially the masculine subject, can no longer be imagined as sovereign, stable, or aut...

See also Androdecentrism in the Anthropocene: Weirding Masculinities in the Work of Max Porter, Martin Macinnes, and Matt Hill: Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol 0, No 0 - Get Access www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... by @angelariviz.bsky.social

Wrote about this over 25 years ago & it continues to be one of my absolute favourite Bildungsroman novels journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Mount Fuji, on arrival

Author Nicola Barker: Podcast Episode · The New Statesman: politics and culture · 30/08/2025 · 38m

'If you're experimenting with things, you're always writing against the culture'

Goldsmiths Prize 2017 winner Nicola Barker talks to @tanjilrashid.bsky.social about piecing the novel back together again after H(A)PPY, and much else . . .

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...

Whixall (May 2020)

"Can I read you some of my poetry?"

A screenshot of the ANTI-EXTINCTION syllabus cover page with a dodo representing extinct beings. The text reads: "Though extinction is a natural phenomenon, human activity has hastened species loss in recent centuries. What factors led to the loss of the dodo, the passenger pigeon, and thylacine? What brought the American bison and California condor back from the brink of extinction? What are the promises and perils of de-extinction projects that aim to recreate dire wolves and woolly mammoths? These case studies (among others!) offer critical context for understanding ongoing biodiversity and social justice crises. Organized around questions of multispecies justice, with an emphasis on the significance of stories, this course invites students to consider what kind of existence they want for themselves and for other beings amidst the Sixth Mass Extinction."

In the spirit of syllabus season, here’s a link to an extinction studies course of the #envhist #envhum variety. From the dodo to dire wolves...Please borrow, adapt, share!

drive.google.com/file/d/1SzKp...

cc: @dollyjorgensen.bsky.social!

Vetch — what an odd and ugly name for a very beautiful flower!

TonyInterruptor by Nicola Barker review – satire that sees right through you This brilliantly over-the-top comedy about an unworldly heckler explores art and authenticity – being tripped up by it is part of the fun

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a... “A rollercoaster kind of excess” — hugely looking forward to this when it comes out next week. About time too: it’s been a while since the last Nicola Barker novel!

Androdecentrism in the Anthropocene: Weirding Masculinities in the Work of Max Porter, Martin Macinnes, and Matt Hill In an era marked by ecological collapse and accelerated technological transformation, the human subject, and especially the masculine subject, can no longer be imagined as sovereign, stable, or aut...

A radical new take by @angelariviz.bsky.social on “the green man” and British men’s writing in the Anthropocene, envisioning futures “in which masculinities may rot, sprout, and become otherwise” doi.org/10.1080/0011...

Bid to secure spot for glacier in Icelandic presidential race heats up Idea Angela Rawlings had a decade ago for Snæfellsjökull has snowballed into a full-blown campaign with a team of 50 people

a decade ago poet Angela Rawlings had an idea: Snæfellsjökull glacier for president of Iceland. now that idea has snowballed into a full-blown campaign with a team of 50 people www.theguardian.com/world/2024/a...

Aberffraw Beach at dawn

Interesting — like you, I’ve started to appeal to the uniqueness of their personal learning experience, which I’m asking them to spell out: what was it like for them reading a particular text? How did it impact them? What did they learn from class discussions? Etc.

Ted Hughes in a letter to his son: “Behind the most efficient seeming adult exterior, the whole world of the person's childhood is being carefully held like a glass of water bulging above the brim.”

These bullet points sound wholly AI-generated to me: smarmy, condescending, “always helpful”, and blissfully contradictory. German has a word for this unmistakable tone; it’s “scheißfreundlich”.

The Death of the Student Essay—and the Future of Cognition One professor's reflections on the end of an era, as AI tools such as ChatGPT have murdered the student essay (RIP). Here's why that threatens the future of human cognition—and how to save ourselves.

After the latest round of grading papers, I wrote about AI, ChatGPT, the death of the student essay, and what it means for the future of human cognition.

University gen AI training is presented as addressing a deficit in us. Staff and students need to be taught how to use it ethically and responsibly. But the problem is with the technology itself. It’s inherently unethical and irresponsible: extractive, imperialistic, delusional, and unsustainable.

𝐄𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐀𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝. New resource! We have just launched out new #EnvHist map as a contribution to connecting scholar across the globe. It is a work in progress and will be expanded. www.iceho.org/eh-around-th... We hope you will find it useful!