John Levin

With coffee rings on each page!

General question: what sort of infrastructure would people like to see for individual historians sharing materials?

#History 🗃️

What infrastructure would you like to see for sharing materials?

Got this simply because it was published by Rixdorf, and was greatly impressed, by the work, the edition and the translation.

New bibliographic resource:

Links to the Journals of the Houses of Commons and Lords of Ireland, to 1800.

Plus where to find the parliamentary debates, circa 1776 - 1797.

anterotesis.com/wordpress/hi...

#History #IrishHistory 🗃️

Caribbean LGBTQ+ activists celebrate as court strikes down colonial-era laws ‘Stride in the right direction’ as Eastern Caribbean supreme court rules St Lucia’s laws on gay sex unconstitutional

Some good news:

Caribbean LGBTQ+ activists celebrate as court strikes down colonial-era laws

‘Stride in the right direction’ as Eastern Caribbean supreme court rules St Lucia’s laws on gay sex unconstitutional

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

#LegalHistory #LGBTHistory

#OTD 1st August 1834, the act 3 & 4 William 4 c.73, 'for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies' came into force, turning the enslaved into apprentices and compensating the slave-owners.

statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta...

#LegalHistory #EnslavedHistory

"Instead of reviewing all the submissions, AI will determine whether people’s stories will be heard."

It might seem to be beside the point, but what this entails - what AI machine they are using, how they are prompting it - absolutely needs to be disclosed.

#AI #Transphobia

2nd announcement for the Third International Congress on the History of Prisons and Punitive Institutions

📢 Hello everyone! The 2nd announcement for the Third International Congress on the History of Prisons and Punitive Institutions is now available (in Spanish, Euskera, English, and Portuguese). It includes the programme, guidelines for submitting papers, and more info👇 www.unavarra.es/congreso-his...

Update: no one can identify a single person as belonging to a group that The Times says has 130 academic staff.

Totally unnamed and likely fictitious academics being quoted by the Daily Express, The Times, the BBC & the Times Higher.

Brand New from Past Tense:
“Green Beneath the Skies”

How Rioting Saved Hackney Downs

In 1875, common land at Hackney Downs, East London was fenced off for development.

Rioting, sabotage & campaigning saved the open space

Buy online here:
pasttensehistories.bigcartel.com/product/gree...

GitHub - ihr-digital/Agas-map: Agas Map of London, circa 1562 Agas Map of London, circa 1562. Contribute to ihr-digital/Agas-map development by creating an account on GitHub.

New release from British History Online:

A high resolution tif of the Agas Woodcut Map of London, circa 1562.

Licensed as Creative Commons Zero and available to download from our Github Repository:

github.com/ihr-digital/...

#History #DigitalHistory #London #Map

Full league table of university repression here:
si4j.org/universityre...

Announcing: The UK University Repression League Table 2025 For the last two years, UK universities have attacked students for advocacy for Palestine, including censorship, restrictive speech policies, and the suppression of dissenting voices. These disgusting...

'The Social Innovators for Justice has released the UK University Repression League Table, ranking universities according to their attacks on students, with suspensions, monitoring and investment in genocide' A worthy initiative. @anilsghost.bsky.social
updates.techforpalestine.org/announcing-t...

UKRI renews contract with Researchfish - Research Professional News Science department had previously urged funder to consider alternative options on impact tracking

UKRI renews contract with Researchfish, despite the government last year urging the funder to consider alternatives to the impact-tracking service.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

Just codswallop!

A reminder of the #ResearchFish scandal:

"Researchfish accused of ‘intimidating’ academics"

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...

'In February 2024, in response to an independent review of research bureaucracy, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology urged UKRI to consider alternative options on the collection of research impact data, “including no longer using Researchfish, from 2025 onwards”.' 1/3

Screen shot of a 1957 film, the Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays, featuring puppets of Dickens, Poe and Dostoevsky, sat around a table looking at books, with Poe’s raven on the back of his chair.

Proof at last! Dostoevsky really did meet Dickens! And Edgar Allan Poe as well! H/t @anterotesis.bsky.social

www.openculture.com/2025/03/pupp...

This is a genuinely mental thing for someone who thinks he understands history to say

New (to me at least) #EnslavedHistory website:

Locating Slavery's Legacies

The Locating Slavery's Legacies database locates and documents these remnants of slavery’s legacies, yielding insight into their influence on American higher education.

locatinglegacies.org/s/hub/page/h...

#History 🗃️

Anatomy of a Painting: William Hogarth's March of the Guards to Finchley The nuggets of London history lurking on canvas.

This painting by Hogarth is set where, today, Euston Road meets Tottenham Court Road. It's full of intriguing details, which we dig into in today's Time Machine article londonist.substack.com/p/anatomy-of...

Another highlight of today at the @ihr.bsky.social #London #SummerSchool: my colleague John Levin, Editor of @bho.bsky.social, giving a brilliant lunchtime talk on debtors' prisons and sanctuaries in early modern London.

"Schools should not teach about"

is beyond absurd, more the epitomy of today's hypocritical bigotry.

Something I want to do more in 2026 is to actively encourage more people to organize grassroots public history projects where they live. Instead of wringing our hands re the Fed attacks on Black studies, women's studies, LGBTQ studies etc we can just teach at the community level intergenerationally.

As in the UK.

100 unis with job cutting programs:
qmucu.org/qmul-transfo...
and the Govt happy to see it happen.

And then makes a song and dance about one steelworks.

#HigherEd

London is Over, Finished, and Washed Up
By Professor Matt Goodwhinge

From the new Private Eye, out now.

Keir Starmer's Government Says Elon Musk's X AI Chatbot Endorsing Hitler Is a 'Matter for the Company' The Prime Minister's spokesman dismisses calls to leave the social media platform, despite its official 'Grok' bot posting a series of antisemitic comments

Keir Starmer’s Government says Elon Musk’s X AI Chatbot endorsing Hitler is a ‘matter for the company’

The Prime Minister’s spokesman dismisses calls to leave the social media platform, despite its official ‘Grok’ bot posting a series of antisemitic comments

bylinetimes.com/2025/07/09/k...

Coming in November, more #WalterSerner in translation, from @twistedspoon.bsky.social, who have also published his 'Last Loosening':

www.twistedspoon.com/last-looseni...

#dada

For more on Black Mary and her Well, see the excellent Grub Street Project:

www.grubstreetproject.net/places/90234/

#History #BlackHistory #LondonHistory 🗃️