iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 16h

I get double the fun because Stuart is also a surname

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 16/10/2026

There are some curse tablets from Eining too - so frustrating that the provenance of the dolls is unknown!

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Peopling The Past @peoplingthepast.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This week on the #PeoplingBlog we begin our countdown to Halloween! In this continuing series we are exploring the scary things in Homer’s (and sometimes Nolan’s!) Odyssey. To kick things off, Daniel Ogden explores Book 11 —the Nekyia or the ‘Book of the Dead’: peoplingthepast.com/2026/09/25/b...

A dark scene of an ancient ruinous landscape, surrounding by text that reads "The Odyssey: Necromancy, Seers and the Underworld".

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

We make wild pilgrimage. Approach feral churches in green communion, feel the rub of primitive ritual against our bones. Our faith is fierce, our faith is in the land. We are not summoned by bells, but by a congregation of spirits abiding at the edge of memory. – #DAKilroy, 1982

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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Interviewer: can you explain this gap in your CV? Academic: the Recession Interviewer: and this one? Academic: COVID Interviewer: and this one? Academic: mass state funding cuts Interviewer: and this one? Academic: admin trying to replace my field with chatbots Interviewer: and this one?

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

30,000 job losses in one of the few sectors we are still genuinely world-leading, and zero national conversation beyond tuition fees and loans. UK Higher Ed is sinking and apparently no-one has noticed.

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Decorated my daughter's bedroom today and was daydreaming about starting a painting business. I would call it Fabulous Pictor.

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Decorated my daughter's bedroom today and was daydreaming about starting a painting business. I would call it Fabulous Pictor.

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Sure it's nice, but I bet you can't paint it all in one day

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Even as a Brit I felt some of that! Alex and Henry getting the wave of public support in connection to the 2020 campaign was bittersweet given the reality of that year. Not just Trump but Covid and BLM too.

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I'm not normally into romance lit, but I got 'Red, White and Royal Blue' for my birthday and it surprised me how much it affected me. Seeing this post was like a penny dropping. It's so liberating to read about joyful, beautiful queer love when the real world looks like... y'know...

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Rev. Dr. Liz Gloyn @lizgloyn.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

SO EXCITED to share this CFP for Binning The Classics? Discard Studies and Classical Antiquity, a one day conference on 23rd June 27 I'm co-organising with @rhiannone.bsky.social. Deadline for abstracts is 16th January 2027. If you have thoughts about ephemera, junk, debris and waste, share them!

lizgloyn.wordpress.com

CFP: Binning the Classics? Discard Studies and Classical Antiquity

Very glad to share this CFP for a conference I’m organising with my fab colleague Rhiannon Easterbrook under the auspices of the Centre for the Reception of Greece and Rome. Conference date: …

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This. And while we're on the subject I'll repeat my plea to permanent academics that they update their own pages. Writing job apps that fit a department profile is so much easier if you know what other people are *currently* working on.

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Émilie Oléron Evans @bringyourownsun.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

'[Students] generally do not want history departments to normalise or require high levels of AI use.'

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Tempting, if only for the shocked faces in a conference audience.

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Months go by, but then a day comes along when I remember that the hilarious, smutty, puerile webcomic Oglaf exists. Today is one of those days. Today is a good day.

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

From tonight's Hookland talk on Re-enchantment as Resistance at @treadwells-books.bsky.social. 'Folklore is often the wild frontier of belief, the place where wonder may still live. Here be Woodwoses, here be Harrowhounds, the ghosts which whisper wisdom.' #FolkloreThursday

Folklore can ignite enchantment within us. Enchantment that fuels our imaginations. Enchantment that shifts our consciousness, allows us to envisage new and better worlds. It begins the process of manifesting the changes we desire. Re-enchanted, the world is full of new, feral possibilities. Re-enchanted our imagination is an accessible superpower.

The stories we intentionally absorb, the stories we select to tell ourselves, they allow us to live in the world differently. They allow us to make and remake the world differently.

Folklore is often the wild frontier of belief, the place where wonder may still live. Here be Woodwoses, here be Harrowhounds, the ghosts which whisper wisdom. We need this space. We ache for the sublime. For re-enchantment is an assertion of wonder and the numinosity of our relationships with landscape. Re-enchantment is an assertion of our collective ability to both imagine and experience better worlds. As a refusal of despair, as a lensing of hope. In re-enchantment we stop dreaming of inevitable apocalypse and find the permissive space to tell stories of hope.

Re-enchantment is personal metamorphosis. The space in which we grow glowing red eyes to patrol our communities against this long night of authoritarian pisspuffinry. The space in which we develop iron-hard fur, immune to the curses reductionist racists, misogynists, homophobes and AI cultists throw at us. Re-enchantment as the permissive circle where we can voyage into ourselves and find the marvels and bravery we need to deal with this age of violent bruising. This is why I walk the territory of folklore. Wear my witch-cloak of swan feathers, hold hag stone to my eye. This is why I created Hookland as a home for stories, a community for Fully-grown Changelings.

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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

England is a made up thing. It has no basis in the ineluctable laws of nature. Its extent is defined by Edward II getting his arse handed to him. Athelstan conquering York. The Welsh of Cumbria were incorporated, the Welsh of Gwynedd were not. It is a political idea, an aspiration - not taxonomy.

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

As if we needed another reason to hate LLMs - they are killing Perseus 😭

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

It remains true that if the Russians went home tomorrow, the drone strikes would stop, no Ukrainian would follow them over the border and the war would be over. They can just *go home* and be at peace. The war persists because Putin wants it to.

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The hardest thing about getting a stack of books for your birthday is deciding which one to read first!

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Dr Kate Cook @katexe.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I think what's happening at universities is appalling. But I also think that if some academics paid more attention to their temp colleagues it would not be so surprising. At 3 separate institutions I've been made redundant while new hires were got to cover teaching I'd been doing - 1 perm, 2 temp.

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

What's the point of a Classics degree if you can't make wanky posts in Latin?

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Just when you think you're starting to like someone, they go and use 'action' as a verb. Ick.

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 10/09/2026

Here is a snapshot of how devastating it is to be a precariously employed academic in the UK right now: I feel SO LUCKY that I have a part-time teaching-only position for this year, that I have been shortlisted for jobs (though I made slightly under 1/4 of the applications I made three years ago...

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Exeter UCU @exeterucu.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

The University of Exeter has confirmed that it won’t proceed with compulsory redundancies “at this time”. This means colleagues do not need to complete the pro forma, and there will be no selection process.

photo of Nicole Kidman looking incredibly joyful and free after her divorce from Tom Cruise was finalised

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Shit - typing out the Alt Text I figured out the numbers. They're the year I saw each band at Reading Festival - I used to do Festival specials!

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Going through a drawer after we moved I found an old notepad. This is a playlist from when I did student radio as an undergrad c.2009. Absolute bangers

Handwritten list of songs:
Gogol Bordello - Not a Crime
Muse - Knights [of Cydonia]
Maximo Park - Apply Some [Pressure]
Metallica - One
Los Campesinos! - You Me Dancing
Bullet for my Valentine - Scream Aim [Fire]
Less than Jake - Metalheads
Arcade Fire
Bombay Bicycle Club
[Flogging] Molly - Left of the Flag
NFG - My Friends Over Yoy
Kaiser [Chiefs] - OMG

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

The spine of this book made it look like it was about the facial hair of great thinkers. A bit disappointed now tbh.

The spine of a book that says 'Philosophy Beards.'

The front page of a book saying 'Andrew Beards, Philosophy: The Quest for Truth and Meaning.'

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Alex Prichard @profalexp.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

A thread on the dispute at Exeter Uni. #ucu #defendexeteruni @ucu.org.uk On 15 June HR called Exeter UCU into a confidential meeting and informed us they would be putting over 500 colleagues at risk of redundancy and expected to loose around 200 staff. The number of c.150 you’ll have seen is FTE.

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Patrick Andelic @pkandelic.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Me, getting ready for the 2026-27 academic year:

Screencap from the MERL video below showing Ollie Douglas seated in a seminar room with his arms spread wide. Caption: “This seminar room is bussing.”

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Also laughing at the whole of North West England coloured dark blue because I spent 2 years living in Salford

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Apparently I am missing a lot of the Celtic fringe whereidlive.com/t/uk-live

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Dr Stuart McKie @bigfridge224.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Anyone out there still playing Pokemon Go? Recently picked it up again and I need new friends! Add me: 753818721881

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Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

In the Renaissance people theorized, since the Aeneid is great, if you wrote poems made only of words & phrases from the Aeneid rearranged they should be great too, since a great source regurgitated should yield greatness. They produced NOTHING we still read. Thinking about that a lot lately.

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Jess O'Thomson @jessothomson.co.uk · 15/08/2026

We are writing to the Prime Minister, and the Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, calling for an immediate public inquiry into the British press, following the tragic death of Jason Arday. Sign here 👇

goodlaw.social

Jason Arday Letter | Good Law Project

Commission an immediate public inquiry into how to ensure a responsible press given its contribution to Dr Arday’s tragic death.

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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

At one point in The Silmarillion Sauron gets his shit absolutely rocked by a big dog and my long held opinion would be that the movies would be better if Frodo had failed and the armies of the free peoples were about to fall and then a big angry dog comes out and just bites the fuck out of Sauron

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Big Ben @bigbenclock.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

BONG

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