Reposted by Ben MechenMarta Zboralska @martazb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026One of the few places you could study Eastern European/Slavonic languages & cultures in the UK. I remember being encouraged to study Poland for my PhD because diversity of research is important. But it has affected my career prospects in the opposite way; I wish I had pursued an Anglophone topic. 1122
Reposted by Ben MechenCaitríona Beaumont @caitbeaumont.bsky.social · 05/10/2026📣 Reminder: 📍Online 📆 Weds 7 October, 2026 ⏰ 5.30pm -7pm 🎟️ Free! but register below to get the Zoom link @cont-brit-hist.bsky.social @ihr.bsky.social @carorusterholz.bsky.social @jcrangle.bsky.social @helenglew.bsky.social 068
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 06/10/2026This Wednesday, online. Please sign up to hear Caroline’s paper! 032
Reposted by Ben MechenLSE Library @lselibrary.bsky.social · 24/09/2026You can read digitised issues of She (1970-1973), Mukti (1983-1987), and more in the South Asian Heritage collection on LSE Digital Library: digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/... @lsesouthasia.bsky.social #TheWomen'sLibraryat100digital.library.lse.ac.ukCollections - LSE Digital LibraryExplore our digital collections through curated selections of material according to themes, type or source of material. 0167
Reposted by Ben Mechenlewisryder.bsky.social @lewisryder.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Proud of this one - my new article in The Historical Journal is out on first view. It's a historiographical review of the literature on British colonial spoils, or 'loot'. 185
Reposted by Ben MechenTeresa Doherty @dohertyta.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Delighted that the archive catalogue for the Radical Nurses Group has been released #HistNursing @rcnhistory.bsky.social @ukahn.bsky.social @womenshistnet.bsky.social rcn.epexio.com/records/C405rcn.epexio.comPapers of the Radical Nurses GroupPapers of the Radical Nurses Group. This collection contains: Large, folded page of notes with the heading: “Nurses – Politicians Puppets?” c.1985. Note from “Sue” to “Marie” regarding a borrow… 294
Reposted by Ben MechenSaima Nasar @saimanasar.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Please join us in celebrating the Centre for Black Humanities’ tenth anniversary. CBH is holding a two-day symposium titled ‘Collectivity, Community, Collaboration’. Our keynote will be Professor Christina Sharpe. Cfp below. Please spread the word! 12119
Reposted by Ben MechenBen Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026This is looking like a welcome report Fonagy is able to draw upon a long career in clinical work, as well as deep familiarity with psy traditions - esp. object relations - to argue (obviously, necessarily) that the external conditions for young ppl’s happiness and self-worth are currently NOT GOOD 182
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 21/09/2026This is looking like a welcome report Fonagy is able to draw upon a long career in clinical work, as well as deep familiarity with psy traditions - esp. object relations - to argue (obviously, necessarily) that the external conditions for young ppl’s happiness and self-worth are currently NOT GOOD 182
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026They were certainly asking the big and still relevant questions in the 40s-50s! In nearby territory this week reading Wilfred Bion (recentish obsession) for clues about how he was thinking about “thinking” (as indelibly human and interpersonal) in the first era of AI and cybernetics 010
Reposted by Ben MechenPast and Present @pastpresentsoc.bsky.social · 16/09/2026On advance access: "Bodies, Tides, Timber, and the Global History of London’s Docks, 1860–1928" by Simeon Koole (@uobrishistory.bsky.social) and @benmechen.bsky.social (@uclhistory.bsky.social) #OpenAccess doi.org/10.1093/past...doi.orgBodies, Tides, Timber, and the Global History of London’s Docks, 1860–1928*Abstract. This article examines changes in the bodies and environment of labourers carrying timber imported into London’s docks in the 1860s to the 1920s t 031
Reposted by Ben MechenMarta Zboralska @martazb.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Non-digitised sources? Original approaches? Interdisciplinarity? Non-anglophone topics? Do not compute!! 011
Reposted by Ben MechenBen Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 16/09/2026And just produce proposals that sound like what’s already in its training data, meaning the “usual suspect” projects and CVs will be the ones that float to the top. 112
Reposted by Ben MechenMarta Zboralska @martazb.bsky.social · 16/09/2026I guess that’s the inevitable outcome of a system that requires people to write funding applications to get money for research — just produce whatever Computer will like. 142
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 16/09/2026And just produce proposals that sound like what’s already in its training data, meaning the “usual suspect” projects and CVs will be the ones that float to the top. 112
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Obviously an outrage. But also an unsurprising gambit by SMTs when Labour’s message since 2024 has been “cut your own costs before you come knocking at our door” 072
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026programme.openhouse.org.uk/listings/1615 Segal houses in Honor Oak if you’ve not seen them before. An article-length project I’ve picked up and dropped several times, but which I’d love to finish one day!programme.openhouse.org.ukWalter Segal Self-build HousesA close of 13 self-built houses. Each is unique, built using methods developed by Walter Segal, who led the project in the mid 1980s. Houses have been extended and renovated. Sustainable features incl... 121
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Shameless self-plug (sorry!!!) but our open access collection Masculinities in Modern Britain: A History for the Present (MUP, 2024) is pitched at students and has a synoptic conceptual/historiographical intro, lots of great research chapters, and interviews/shorter pieces w/ ppl in the field 120
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026I should say here that the BL are looking for EOIs from academics who might come on board as supervisors for projects like this one 032
Reposted by Ben MechenAlice Marples @alicemarples.bsky.social · 08/09/2026See below for collaborative project outlines inviting UK PhD supervisor proposals - deadline is 27 Nov 2026. Happy to answer any queries and please do repost/pass on to all interested parties! 016
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Some fascinating Collaborative Doctoral Awards on offer here at the BL, including a great history of sexuality/book history/library history project relating to the Rund Collection of 19th/20thC erotic books and ephemera www.bl.uk/services/res...bl.ukCollaborative Doctoral Landscape AwardsFully-funded and jointly supervised studentships across four developing research areas. 33942
Reposted by Ben MechenChris Millard @chrismillard83.bsky.social · 09/09/2026this is perhaps the most useful thing that LLMs and GenAI have done: to provoke people into articulating (over again) that even the 'hardest' of 'hard sciences' are human endeavours, with human meaning, and concerned with human understanding of the significance of the world we all inhabit 2474144
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026“These systems will soon be able to revolutionise any field overnight” Hmm. The first whistleblower these companies actually care about will be the one who admits that claims like this are ludicrous 080
Reposted by Ben MechenBen Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026All very interesting and the responses definitely ring true with my own perception of what was happening in classes and in assessments in 2025-26, e.g. rising student anxieties, paired w/ extensive use of AI for certain tasks but only rarely as aa straightforward essay-mill 111
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026But I think the responses are concerning with many students now relying on AI for the hardest parts of "process" work, if not the final "product": bibliography, getting to grips with difficult readings + concepts, working out what the "ideas" are, developing essay structures, talking to tutors... 050
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026All very interesting and the responses definitely ring true with my own perception of what was happening in classes and in assessments in 2025-26, e.g. rising student anxieties, paired w/ extensive use of AI for certain tasks but only rarely as aa straightforward essay-mill 111
Reposted by Ben MechenBen Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Can't work out if this (investing machines with agency/god-like powers/consciousness/rights) is all part of the plan [mwa-ha-ha] or if it's a kind of techgnosis-psychosis produced by too many Silicon Valley guys microdosing for too many years 121
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Can't work out if this (investing machines with agency/god-like powers/consciousness/rights) is all part of the plan [mwa-ha-ha] or if it's a kind of techgnosis-psychosis produced by too many Silicon Valley guys microdosing for too many years 121
Reposted by Ben MechenMarta Zboralska @martazb.bsky.social · 08/09/2026It seems to me like the whole idea of “alignment” is trying to turn the fact that LLMs are error machines into supposed “agency”. 252
Reposted by Ben MechenJohn Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Thinking about what I see as a contradiction lately. I think it's pretty clear that AI has advanced quite a lot in terms of its capabilities and reliability since the arrival of Chat GPT, and yet, despite this, I, personally, still have very little use for it. If Google search hadn't shit the bed... 6557
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 06/09/2026I did have a look and although we subscribe to UKPO at UCL it’s some kind of weird sub where we only have access through it to a few 1930s fascist newspapers, not everything they have (including Daily Worker) 100
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 06/09/2026I teach with it every year and Bill Schwarz’s The White Man’s World is ever more prescient on the bizarre psychic structures formed through the the white experience of decolonisation in Africa global.oup.com/academic/pro...global.oup.com 152
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Have you seen This City is Ours? Flew a bit under the radar imo. Quite a compelling gangster drama set in contemporary Liverpool. 110
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Even if Orr now gets bounced out of the Faculty of Divinity (a good thing), “The Moorings” will surely continue as an intellectual base, recruiting ground and social centre for Christian nationalism. It’s barnacled onto the wider Cambridge scene now. Whether Orr has a post or not won’t really matter 020
Ben Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026😅 summertime procrastination taken to new and darker extremes 120
Reposted by Ben MechenBen Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 26/08/20262. His real goal at Cambridge and within Reform is to create an intellectual, institutional and political architecture for the rechristianisation of society on his own theologically conservative terms 3. In this effort, he has the financial and political backing of figures like Thiel and Vance 141
Reposted by Ben MechenBen Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 26/08/2026What did I conclude from this? Nothing we didn’t know already I guess. 1. His highly simplistic “stop the boats”, nationalistic kind of stuff on daytime TV and YouTube is knowingly cynical and probably mostly to increase his profile on the Right 121
Reposted by Ben MechenBen Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Anyway, all very scholastic, twisting and turning through various philosophical/theological reference points, from Aquinas to Heidegger to Rawls. But eventually arriving at an antimodernist restatement of classical Christian theism. 121
Reposted by Ben MechenBen Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 26/08/2026I read a couple of James Orr’s academic articles yesterday. One was a recovery of Edith Stein’s phenomenology of eternity. The other was an investigation of how one might philosophically ground “basic equality”, concluding that a notion of God’s love is sufficient. 141
Reposted by Ben MechenBen Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Not surprising, I guess, that in a university renowned for its dining clubs, decentralised power structures, taps-on-the-shoulder and tolerance of charismatic dons that Orr has been able to turn his private home into a parallel institution without anyone really blinking an eye 042
Reposted by Ben MechenBen Mechen @benmechen.bsky.social · 03/09/2026The ideal supervisor relationship imo: - meets with u every 6 wks - replies to yr emails - reads chapters when u send them - recommends books - writes u a reference - doesn’t want to be yr dad (/mum) - doesn’t know yr home address - doesn’t have printed rugby shirts www.ft.com/content/c2d0...ft.comJames Orr and the gospel of the new British rightReform’s policy head is a Cambridge theologian with an enviable contact book and a belief in ‘faith, family and flag’ 031