@peteradkins.bsky.social
Lecturer in Modernism at University of Edinburgh | Author of 'The Modernist Anthropocene' and editor of 'Virginia Woolf and the Anthropocene' | Judge of James Tait Black Prize in Fiction | Views here not necessarily those of my employer etc etc | He/him
In June 1937 Nancy Cunard, on behalf of various left-wing thinkers, asked 'writers and poets' to state where they stood on the Spanish Civil War. Although the focus was on Spain, the question was framed in terms of anti-fascist internationalism and commitment: 'ironic detachment will no longer do'.
Our annual Susan Manning Lecture is an exciting one this year. Cedric Tolliver will be speaking on African-American spy novels. Book here: llc.ed.ac.uk/english-lite... @uoe-llc.bsky.social
& of course in my excitemenet I misspell the title of the novel. 😑
I have been re-reading The Lonely Londoner for the first time in a decade ahead of teaching it and struck by how smog seeps into the bodies, labour, even the food of Selvon's characters and today discover this article from Saba Pakdel just published by @mmodernity.bsky.social!
Call for Editors!
The 'Critical Insights in American Studies' series from Edinburgh University Press is seeking a new co-editor.
Apply before 18:00, 13th March.
@edinburghup.bsky.social @emilysharp.bsky.social
I posted some thoughts on Virginia Woolf and Henry David Thoreau on my new blog: www.peteradkins.net/blog-1/virgi...
Sending solidarity!
These were the highlights from lots of rope, shredded plastic, lollipop sticks (so many), bottle tops, bottles, poo bags, food wrappers, polystyrene and insulation.
Beach clean finds. A corroded PCB likely from a phone with barnacles forming, a pre-2005 Smarties lid and a lamb castration ring that reminded me of my childhood on a farm.
Calves aren’t cargo. However, Brittany Ferries is still cruelly exporting unweaned calves from Ireland to France - despite acknowledging that this breaches EU law.
#BanLiveExports
We're hiring! 📣
SGSAH is recruiting an EDI Associate Director (0.2FTE, Secondment) for a 2‑year term starting May 2026. Open to colleagues across SGSAH’s 17 member institutions.
🗓 Apply by 9th March 2026
📄 Full details: www.sgsah.ac.uk/about/news/h...
They are getting desperate, which is hopefully... a good sign?
Last two days to fill this out. I've just done it. It took me about 20 minutes.
As Amnesty International put it, "the most significant assessment made of responses to Government consultations is often about little more than how many people agreed or disagreed with what is proposed."
🚨History Job: Assistant Professor in Early Modern British History (Permanent) 🗃️
Come work with us at Warwick! You will join a group of excellent early-modernists and one of the nicest bunches of historians around!
👇👇👇
@uni-of-warwick.bsky.social
warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/lang-en-G...
DREAM job: two-years of full-time research on Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness and its various histories www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQI985/r...
Applications are now open for this year's Summer University at Aarhus University, where my popular course "Animal Matters: Transforming Perspectives Through Human-Animal Studies" is part of the programme.
Check it out and SHARE!
international.au.dk/education/ad...
W. F. Harvey was born in Leeds and, from memory, I'm sure some of his stories are set in the moors.
The UK government is proposing radical and punitive changes to settlement rules. This is settlement, not citizenship. The consultation is open until 12 February; please respond to it and oppose these evil proposals. Amnesty have a good guide: www.amnesty.org.uk/resources/gu...
📢Call for Papers: Yuck?: Historical Approaches to Unwanted Nonhuman Life 🐀 @northernenvhistory.bsky.social
Deadline: 31 January 2026
Further details: tinyurl.com/ynwua3em
Have you completed a PhD in the last 10 years? Applications are open for our Postdoctoral Visiting Fellowship in Sustainability and Environment. Funding covers an £8000 bursary for part-time (0.5) research over 8 months, plus travel expenses. Apply by Monday 9 February. link.bl.uk/VisitingFellowship
Not always a petitions person, but this one seems sensible.
We are now accepting proposals from scholars interested in applying for the EU's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships program in 2026. This is a great program for early career (<8 yrs from PhD) scholars to be with @greenhouseuis.net for 2 years on own project.
www.uis.no/en/research/...
(Although I do wish I was there in the room in Vienna...)
Starting Friday by tuning into the second day of the excellent Early Petropoetics conference. Papers from @tobahjoy.bsky.social on Shell's collaboration with British artists and Bettina Egger on petropoetics in early comic strips.
Imagine this... and then realising that it doesn't even fund the HE system properly anyway. One of the worst Public Policy Disasters in decades. Willetts and Osborne have obvs dined out on it and gone on to great success tho. That's Britain, always failing upwards! 🇬🇧
Missing from the coverage of redundancies at Edinburgh: this was done in such a haphazard, uncoordinated way, there are now core teams who have gone from 5 people to 1 with no change in workload or pressure and huge loss in knowledge of institutional process. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2576321...
Some professional news: I'm now hiring two postdocs to be part of the research project I'm leading on global republicanism and the making of democratic cultures in the early 19th century. If you know someone for whom this may be relevant, don't hesitate to let them know.
www.au.dk/om/stillinge...
Final call! 🔔 Register to attend New Work in Modernist Studies 15 by 5pm this evening - we have an exciting array of papers covering identities, ecologies, readerships, travel, gossip and silence. Sign up here: forms.gle/BjALZ5Ukapzu...
Full programme here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Rob Reiner: I'm going to make a coming of age drama, a fantasy adventure story, a romantic comedy, a psychological horror and then a courtroom drama.
Us: Across your entire career?
Reiner: In a 6 year period.
Us: That sounds-
Reiner: -Each one will be arguably the best movie in that genre.