Laura Swift

@supitslois.bsky.social

Call for Applications: Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop, 2025 History Workshop is advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships in 2025, open to early career historians.

Are you an early-career historian interested in radical, public and digital history?

We are currently looking for two part-time, paid Editorial Fellows to join History Workshop.

Deadline is at midnight on 15th August. See below for more details!

www.historyworkshop....

This is centrism posing as radical utopianism: Let's redeem the university! Let's redeem our institutions! Let's redeem the state! I say: Let it all burn. May our gardens not be small and tended, but a flourishing sanctuary of invasive species, weeds, brain-eating fungi, ecosystem pirates, unleashed across the world.

works.hcommons.org/records/jg2a...

I wrote something for The Sunday Times's style section about how men have been undressing for over a hundred years. And how they should go further and show a little cleavage.

Link in the next post.

what a staggeringly strange thing to say out loud

NEW on Wonkhe: The lessons of decades of research into assessment and feedback haven’t tracked across into the practice of peer review. Madeleine Pownall wonders why not buff.ly/D7hmHQP

The good news: I'm alive. The bad news: I'm in England.

Helsinki goes a full year without a traffic death A city traffic engineer credits the success to lower speed limits and smarter design.

Helsinki hasn't had a traffic fatality in a year: "Helsinki's current traffic safety strategy, covering 2022–2026, is nearing completion. It has focused on improving safety for children, youth, pedestrians and cyclists with safer crosswalks and smarter intersection design."

All famines are man-made, all famines are political. Historians of empire and humanitarianism have known this forever. Gaza is not starving, Gaza is being starved, by Israel, and this starvation is enabled by our government and by every other government that does not step in to force food and aid.

I'm seeing an uptick in journal editors inquiring about @openlibhums.bsky.social and scholar-led, non-profit diamond #OpenAccess as a direct result of the Trump administration's crackdown on EDI and academic freedom. If we want research integrity, we need an independent academic publishing sector.

Revealed: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication As Harvard’s feud with Trump escalated, so did tensions over an ‘education and Palestine’ issue of a prestigious journal. Scholars blame the ‘Palestine exception’ to academic freedom

This is so much more grave of a violation of academic freedom than a few Oberlin students protesting a speaker. And yet the “Free Press” crew will be completely silent about it. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

The entrance sign at the University of Sussex

A pile of badges in the HR office saying things like "trans ally" and "my pronouns are..."

BEWARE SEAGULL ATTACKS warning sign

a terrifying wax sculpture of Virginia Woolf

I work here now!

there's toxic human sludge and then there's Tony Blair helping out in the Middle East

I know where I stand. I stand with Palestine Action.

A Palestine Action solidarity march in central Manchester

Author Statement on the Right to Freedom of Speech Author Statement on the Right to Freedom of Speech 27 June 2025 Sign the statement here. We are writers, editors, publishers and organisations who care about freedom of expression. Between us we ho...

I've signed this open letter for writers and publishing workers against the proscription of Palestine Action and so should you: docs.google.com/document/u/0...

reminder that today is the last day to respond to the EHRC consultation on its updated Code of Practice around the Supreme Court ruling on 'biological sex'. You can respond in as much/little detail as you want and there are loads of helpful prompts here: transactual.org.uk/equality-act...

But it’s crazy to see the people who have argued that content-neutral free speech is actually a Very Important Freedom, who are now spitting with indignant fury at Bob Vylan. (It’s v hard to see how his chants would be illegal under current British speech laws so… what are you actually advocating?)

my hope is that AI can empower the Dumbest, Least talented slobs i know to replace everything i ever loved with One Million Years of Content

Bob Vylan forever 🇵🇸

I love this piece for all that it makes clear about why people turn out to campaign for someone who does not bend in the face of onslaught from the right. And for showing why Palestine lies at the heart of Mamdani’s victory

You can repair a plane. You can replace a broken window. But you can’t bring back the dead.

We must defend the right to protest.

Solidarity with Palestine Action 🇵🇸

“yeah no I’m fully aware that we’re at the climate change point of no return but the computer that always tells me I’m right is very very thirsty” 🥺

People who abstained from voting to decriminalise abortion:
-Wes Streeting (health secretary)
-Bridget Phillipson (women and equalities minister)
-Rosie Duffield (top feminist and woman defender)

‘When I asked Stacy Schiff… about the notion of consulting A.I. on how to structure a piece of writing, she replied, “To turn to A.I. for structure seems less like a cheat than a deprivation, like enlisting someone to eat your hot fudge sundae for you.”’ 💯💯💯

Say no to the supreme court Manchester Trans Liberation Assembly Saturday 14th June 2.30PM Convention Centre Windmill St, M2 3GX Supported by: UoM Trans Association, Diesel Dyke Club, Disabled People Against Cuts, We Demand Change, Manchester Trades Union Council, UTAW, Unison, UCU & Unite

Manchester Trans Liberation Assembly are holding another protest in Manchester against the Supreme Court ruling on the Equality Act, and the response from the EHRC, this Saturday (the 14th) at 2:30pm outside the convention centre on Windmill Street

MIT Press adds Goldsmiths Press books to Direct to Open The Direct to Open partnership with Goldsmiths Press broadens access to boundary-pushing scholarship.

We are thrilled to announce that Goldsmiths Press has partnered with @mitpress.bsky.social's Direct to Open platform!

This partnership expands global access to our titles, through sustainable open access publishing.

For more details, check out the link below -

mitpress.mit.edu/mit-press-ad...

Job vacancy: Commissioning Editor / Senior Commissioning Editor (Maternity cover) Liverpool University Press is hiring a Commissioning Editor or Senior Commissioning Editor (dependent on experience) for a one-year maternity leave cover starting from 1st August 2025. The successf…

We're hiring a Commissioning Editor / Senior Commissioning Editor (dependent on experience) for a one-year maternity cover. The full job description and details about applying are at the link below. Applications close on Monday 30th June.
bit.ly/JobVacSCE #PublishingJobs #JobsInPublishing

01. About Copim Compass | Compass Copim Compass is an online information hub developed by Copim's Open Book Futures project (2023-2026...

Welcome to #CopimCompass 🧭 your ‘guide of guides’ to #OAbook publishing!

Whether you’re a publisher, librarian or author, there’s something for you 🫵 🧵

🔗 buff.ly/OFhuQKR

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Hot pink chairs and benches stacked up in a protest with protesters hiding behind them as law enforcement fires upon the barricades with rubber bullets and tear gas

RIOS rios.imagines RIOS rios.imagines Images of the bright pink Civic furniture line that we designed for@grandpark_la "The Park for Everyone," being used by LA protesters stopped us in our tracks. These pieces were designed to move, adapt, welcome, connect - and now protect. We stand in solidarity with our city during moments of civic expression in support of unjust treatment, and we are reminded of why we design: for our community, diversity, and a sense of belonging. Photo by: David Ryder-AFP/Getty Images

Everyone saw Grand Park's hot pink benches being stacked into a barricade on Sunday. What an exceptional statement from RIOS, the benches' designers instagram.com/rios.imagines

"These pieces were designed to move, adapt, welcome, connect — and now protect"