iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Sophie Coulombeau @sophiecoulombeau.bsky.social · 12h

This is just horrific. I have gained so much from listening to, and being involved in, Freethinking. Why are we trashing everything that is good and nonstupid?

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 17h

A terrible decision. Serious arts and humanities programming has almost entirely disappeared from TV and is now being reduced on Radio 4.

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

One thing I find endlessly funny about the rise of AI is that it has revealed that there is a large number of people who believe that the reason they wrote essays at school or university is their teachers were desperately waiting for them to provide a definite answer to “Lear: what’s up with him?”

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Dr. Sabrina Mittermeier @smittermeier.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Me: hi I need this book Library catalogue: here it is Me: it’s not tho it says I can download up to 49 pages…? Library catalogue: try this Me: that’s a review of it Library catalogue: Try this? Me: yeah that’s also a review Library catalogue: this? Me: …

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Dale Townshend @dalegothic96.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

An exciting Gothic conference that I'm co-organising with Strawberry Hill House and a few other organisations, to be held at Strawberry Hill next June. Please circulate the CFP far and wide: www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/gothic-confe...

strawberryhillhouse.org.uk

Gothic Conference 2027 - Strawberry Hill House & Garden

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

'seven women...have told the Guardian they are survivors of domestic abuse carried out by key figures in the anti-immigration street patrol movement. All have chosen to come forward to make the public aware of the patterns of violence behind this new form of activism.'

theguardian.com

‘Bully in every way’: domestic abuse survivors say ex-partners behind far-right UK street patrols

Seven women share their stories to make people aware of patterns of violence behind anti-immigration street patrol movement

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

(My wife was trying to keep a low profile as maybe the only American in the audience. She did confirm to me in the interval that all the rodeo stuff was accurate)

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Brilliant show by Rich Hall in Southsea tonight. I was the guy he referred to as "Paisley" when walking through the aisle. Also nice to see a show and be home within five minutes of walking.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I was thinking the other day about how the concept of the well read or cultured person has disappeared in the last 30 years. Fortunately, the Tech Bros are about to revive that concept by demonstrating what happens when you have no cultural interests.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

And a script by Martin Amis... what next? Julian Barnes' *Alien*?

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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Great news: the School has sacked a third of its academic but we've acquired 2 new interim managers on top of the extra permanent ones. Fine work all round.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

*Man and Wife* is an odd one for me - the first third is like a farce episode of *Frasier*, and it picks up again in the final third, but the middle strangely drags for Collins.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Today's teaching: a lecture on Book X of Plato's *Republic* and a seminar on "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."

static.klipy.com

Simpsons Dr Zeus Falls and Rolls

ALT: Simpsons Dr Zeus Falls and Rolls

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

There have been two *Moonstones* in my lifetime and a *Woman in White*, but the rest of Collins' work appears to be a mystery to TV producers.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Rereading Wilkie Collins' *The Law and the Lady*, and as always I'm amazed there's been no adaptation of it (or of Collins' work more generally) instead of yet another Jane Austen.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

*Peep Show* should be much higher on this list, but I suspect it's simply too British to translate overseas. I have to admit that I've never fully grasped the reaction to *Fleabag.* Is it because she talks to the camera? Did Lovejoy die in vain?

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Aidan McGlynn @aidanmcglynn.bsky.social · 14/02/2024

- 'I love Bertrand Russell.' - 'Yeah, so do I.' - 'What's your favourite Bertrand Russell book?' - 'Tough one. I think I'd have to say 'Bertrand Russell's Best'.'

A picture of Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge, wearing a black bomber jacket and in the middle of answering a question.

A screenshot of the Routledge page for the book 'Bertrand Russell's Best'.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This is how the AI hype works: make an eyecatching but obviously rubbish claim at the top ("AI can feel pain") so that a sneakier claim can get through unnoticed ("oh, AI only *acts* that way and is therefore capable of acting").

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I rarely post photos of myself because, well, but I was going through some old documents and this one is a worthy exception. It gets additional points for being taken by @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social at Britain's most haunted house (one of them).

It's me, looking sideways in a timbered room, viewed through a circular aperture like a Victorianist James Bond.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Ooh, and the way that the email at the top when you open Outlook gets marked as 'read', even if it isn't. Oh, and the inability of the search function to find anything. Oh, and emails within a discussion chain constantly showing as unread, even when they're not. And the constant bleeping.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Received my Routledge royalties statement, and it seems that the eBook version of *Purity and Contamination in Late Victorian Detective Fiction* has paid for about three pub visits this year.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Much of the tech bro attack on humanities education is based on the AI bubble requiring people to not recognise misuses of figurative language. A bot isn't an 'agent', as it has no agency; it can't 'hallucinate' because there is no subject to do the hallucinating; there's no 'intelligence' in AI.

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

We must be allowed to break laws with impunity so we can birth the machine god before others, and if we can’t steal and hack and crime, then the inevitable machine god won’t have the values we want and you’ll be sorry. Sounds insane, but that’s a prevalent, influential, respected ethos today.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

An overlooked issue in the humanities higher education crisis is that you get spammed by jobs. ac. uk continually asking you to revise your search criteria because there have been no new posts in the last three months.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

In fact, Microsoft products have really become shoddy in the last few years. Earlier this week I was conducting a PhD supervision meeting discussing a Word document in Sharepoint, and trying to find a particular reference. The word search function insisted the word wasn't in the document (it was).

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Wondering how many hours are wasted globally by Microsoft Outlook's search function simply not working.

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Dr Cinzia Yates 🇮🇲🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @manxinwales.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I kind of get it that after the 80s (just all of it really) and all the stuff with kettling etc. that Police will behave differently in different situations. I can absolutely see why they might focus on deescalation in these scenarios or avoid 'battles' like Orgreave or the Bean Field.

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I bet you a million pounds that it doesn’t.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Anyway, it's wild that two of the top news stories today are "Racist mob marches through Gosport" and "Rare first edition of *To Kill a Mockingbird* found."

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Another south coast riot last night, with only six arrests in Gosport (after the racist mob ironically got angrier after finding out there weren't any migrants around). It does feel as if this kind of behaviour is being tolerated.

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Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Much as we love bookshops, they need more than love to keep going. A bookshop can be the centre of a whole community. Bookshops support authors; organize events. A thriving bookshop teaches the next generation that literacy matters. So don't just love your bookshop: actually buy books there.

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Robert Rubsam @robrubsam.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

My friend who works in education always says that we want education to solve all our society's problems, when we should see those problems as something we must solve in order to have good education

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

You want to see Walter, the Exeter College cat, sitting just beside where Inspector Morse keels over? Course you do!

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Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Ditto 30,000 roles in universities in the past three years.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is on the BBC News homepage, and I wish journalists would consider their own role in determining which parties get attention, instead of thinking of media attention as some kind of mute fact of nature, like rocks.

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Kristof Smeyers @kristofsmeyers.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

6-year fully funded research and teaching assistant job at University of Ghent in the fields of English literature/cultural theory, history/translation history, linguistics, language acquisition, communication. Own projects are welcome! Details: jobs.ugent.be/job/Ghent-As...

jobs.ugent.be

Assistant English

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Next year I'll be adding Louise Hegarty's *Fair Play* to the Crime Writing module. I read it this summer, which was slightly too late to incorporate it this time.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

My undergraduate module on Crime Writing starts today. Poe! Wilkie Collins! Arthur Conan Doyle! Agatha Christie! Jacques Derrida! Percival Everett!

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Gosh, it's almost as if students go to university to learn about subjects they're interested in.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Had a great time teaching my Agatha Christie course for the Duke/University of North Carolina programme at Oxford @lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk. We also discuss the packaging of Christie, including this personal favourite

A 1980s edition of *Poirot's Early Cases* where the cover is a ventriloquist dummy's face grafted on to the body of a wasp. It's either a huge wasp or a tiny dummy. In any case, this was the edition my school library had. Decades later, I wondered "did I dream that?"

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Yesterday I saw a group photo including me, and as always I'm reminded of how bad I am at smiling. I always end up looking like about four different Mark Gatiss characters from the League of Gentlemen.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Yes, but I have one (1) vaguely acceptable and recent photo of myself, and you've already seen it next to this post.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Have also just noticed that Blackwell's have the following (lack of) safety warnings on the book description page. I'll try harder for the next book, Blackwell's.

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Christopher Pittard @christopherpittard.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

*Literary Illusions* is out in paperback now, but I've noticed that Blackwell's have £5 off at the moment, reducing the price to £14.99. That's almost a normal book price! blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

blackwells.co.uk

Literary Illusions

Explores the dialogue between Victorian literature and one of the nineteenth century's most popular modes of performance: conjuring.

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