Kathleen Commons

Starmer v Starmer: why is the former human rights lawyer so cautious about defending human rights? The long read: Given his career as a human rights barrister, it was hoped Keir Starmer would be the PM to restore the UK’s commitment to international law. The reality tells a different story

Good morning, I've written a piece about the prime minister. I spoke to several dozen sources, including government insiders, former legal colleagues and campaigners to ask: what happened to Keir Starmer the heroic human rights lawyer? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Institute of Historical Research The Institute of Historical Research is the UK's national centre for history

(If you're a UK based historian, or just History-curious, and don't know about the IHR, you are missing a treat). Over 50 fortnightly seminars (most also available online) during the academic year, and much more. Visit the Institute and its library if you're in London. And it's free. 2/2

Ah, so glad the seminar is resonating with so many people. Please just contact me with any questions/requests for further information

Oh no! I'll get it corrected straight away, I'm so sorry

IHR Migration and Mobility Seminar mailing list Sign up here to be kept informed about the IHR Migration and Mobility Seminar

The mailing list is now open - sign up to be kept informed of forthcoming seminars: forms.gle/dV4x5C5nr9nk...

IHR Migration and Mobility Seminar mailing list Sign up here to be kept informed about the IHR Migration and Mobility Seminar

There is now! Please also feel free to DM me with any questions - I didn't expect such an enthusiastic response right out of the gate: forms.gle/dV4x5C5nr9nk...

@onslies.bsky.social @profpanayi.bsky.social @julietatkinson.bsky.social @bengidley.bsky.social @selenadaly.bsky.social @marcloureiro.bsky.social @historysunny.bsky.social @endeeekay.bsky.social

Migration and Mobility History The IHR Migration and Mobility seminar provides a space for historians and scholars from other disciplines to come together to discuss migration and mobility in history.

Really pleased and proud to announce a new @ihr.bsky.social seminar - Migration and Mobility History. We want to cover migration across time and space and speak with colleagues across disciplines. If you're interested in attending/presenting, get in touch: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

This is an amazing resource: as the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill makes its way through parliament, with a whole section criminalising offering material support or information to "illegal" migrants, this work has never been more important (and depressing)

Quite unnerving to relive my PhD viva when listening to In Our Time this morning: both of my examiners were guests!

(I am very excited to read what I am sure will be an absolute banger of a book/set of articles)

Congratulations!!! 🎉🎉

Placing migrants and (citizenlike) subjects in dialogue helps us to move beyond the (unhelpful) binary of subject/citizen to understand the rights-bearing subject and its corollary, the rightsless migrant as key to understanding early modern English citizenship (and those excluded from it)

Delighted to be speaking at the Cambridge Political Thought and Intellectual History Grad Conference tomorrow. I'll be looking at early modern (legal) citizenship in England. Can we discern a citizenlike status more clearly if we incorporate the status and experience of migrants? (I think yes)

‘It’s not quite what I had in mind entering my eighth decade’: the London librarian of Lesbos Rather than retiring to Greece, 71-year-old Ruth Miller created ‘a sanctuary of hope and healing’ in a refugee camp

Beautiful, by Diane Taylor www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Wow. Getting a PhD really does open doors!

Thesis corrections really bringing home how often I use the word "however"

The Cambridge Graduate Conference in Political Thought and Intellectual History will take place on 24 June 2025 at 9am.

To register, please click this link: ptih-graduate-conference.eventbrite.co.uk

Visit our website for more details: www.polthought.cam.ac.uk/future-event...

Squeezing the last pips from grad studentship to present on citizenship and migrants in early modern England at the Cambridge Political Thought and Intellectual History conference - registration open for some banging papers (hopefully including mine): www.hist.cam.ac.uk/ptih-graduat...

Dr Commons! (with minor corrections)

Daniel Trilling · Is this fascism? As the historian Ian Kershaw says, trying to define fascism is ‘like trying to nail jelly to a wall’, yet for all...

New piece: been working on this for the best part of a year. But really it's trying to draw on everything I've seen and thought about since I first started reporting on far right politics in the late 2000s. Online now and in tomorrow's LRB.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Migrants, Violence, and Discrimination in Early Modern Holland Abstract. This study examines the experiences of migrants in early modern Dutch cities, focusing on violence and indications of social tensions in criminal

Fascinating article by the amazing Samantha Sint Nicolaas and colleagues about migrant crime and discrimination in the courts of early modern Holland: academic.oup.com/jsh/article-...

This Monday! I'll be talking about how migrants seeking protection creatively use paperwork to make moral claims to rights - in Britain today and 16thC England. Does a lack of rights limit the impact of paperwork? And how can we use of paperwork recentre migrants in histories of protection?

Encountering the global in early modern Germany: microhistories of mobility, materiality, and belonging Published in Immigrants & Minorities: Historical Studies in Ethnicity, Migration and Diaspora (Ahead of Print, 2025)

If you're interested in migration & mobility in early modern Germany (& the potential & limits of global history) read 'Encountering the global in early modern Germany'! Glad to have reviewed it for Immigrants and Minorities: tinyurl.com/34w5dnjw @philiphahn.bsky.social @duerrbortolotti.bsky.social

Daniel Trilling · Short Cuts: Labour’s Immigration Policy Having ruled out any large-scale redistribution of wealth, Labour should be putting its changes to workers’ rights,...

Think this holds up fairly well so far...

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Come by for this Raph Sam event on archives - organised by @onslies.bsky.social and featuring an all star cast!

Life for the displaced in Calais – in pictures Photographer Ozan Acıdere documents the plight of migrants as French authorities impose hostile policies on them – while trying to attract more tourists to the coastal city

"This is not just a personal tragedy, it is an humanitarian catastrophe that is being repeated day after day."
Ahmed Alhashimi
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Thank you - it's not my blog site but I'll let the editor know

Lawyers using Calvin's Case to argue against birthright citizenship suggest that it proves migrants had to be "in amity" for their customers often to acquire birthright citizenship. This blog shows that in 17thC England children with parents "out of amity" were considered English

Spoiler: migrants were subject to legal disabilities but there was no such thing as an "illegal" immigrant.