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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 2h

What am I missing here? He's letting them use AI for their essays, but then giving each student a 45-minute (!) oral exam, presumably to ensure that they have actually done the work themselves. So, they... can't actually use AI in any meaningful way then?? www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think. (Gift Article)

If I do not treat writing as essential for achieving thought, it is not clear why I should force my students to.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 21h

I would generally never comment on someone's bereavement, but a grief-laden fantasia of "the union" as fulfillment of the absent patriarch's reproductive dream is both bizarre and telling IMO.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I'll tell you a thing you should never do and it's look at your panopto stats

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I only realised now, while prepping notes for students, that Kurt Danziger died last month. Danziger was not only one of the most influential historians of psychology but also an anti-Apartheid activist and, before that, a child refugee from Nazism. A great loss. humanities.uct.ac.za/department-p...

humanities.uct.ac.za

Obituary: Kurt Danziger (1926-2026)

The Department of Psychology at the University of Cape Town mourns the passing of Professor Kurt Danziger, who died on August 11, 2026 at the age of 100.

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Niamh NicGhabhann Coleman @niamhroisin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Disgraceful to hear the dignified people of Garvaghy Road described as a ‘mob’ - they are standing up for themselves as a community and I am sure would prefer to be getting on with their lives.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"Ireland shouldn't be making a fuss about genocide" says a member of a legislature that literally genocided Ireland 👍

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This is niche, but as an ex-product of the Westmeath/Offaly border, I think you could write a *pretty good* esoteric history of Ireland since 1950, focusing only on happenings at The Well hotel and bar, Moate, Co. Westmeath. bsky.app/profile/iris...

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I would genuinely rather die than ever find out what "choosin texas" refers to.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Andy Burnham's Labour yet to find a fascist march it couldn't enthusiastically get behind tbf.

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Susan Lanigan @susanlanigan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The problem with John Self’s post is that he reviews fiction for the Irish Times and that can have a real effect on an author’s career. So when he equates the Garvaghy Road protestors against unionist supremacy with anti-immigrant fash, that’s a real problem for authors writing about these topics.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Genuinely must be exhausting being the dcu nepo baby, having to constantly rummage around in Ireland's emptiest head, painstakingly assembling individual syllables into a loose, moron-friendly simulacrum of comprehension/analysis.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

"obviously a challenging situation today" this gobshite is so out of his depth jfc

PM Andy Burnham appeals for 'calm on all sides'
The prime minister has just been speaking on the BBC about the parade, calling for calm to prevail.

“I know it’s a tense situation. We do appeal for calm on all sides,” he told Laura Kuenssberg on her politics show.

“There have been big gains made in Northern Ireland, and we don’t want to see things go backwards.

“So, obviously, a challenging situation today, but it’s very important that we work to bring calm.”

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Great to hear that dublin's best band, U2, will play outside dublin's best cafe, bewley's. What a day for the dublin lads, enjoying all their favourite things at once.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The shock I got when radio 4 announced "Paul Gilroy" was coming on to talk about man city [it was a different one]

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I actuallylike this article by Susan Pedersen, but this bit where a professorship at Columbia is imagined as a kind of hardship post is, even for the LRB, extremely LRB.

When I left more than two decades later, after fifteen years on the faculty and a few in administration, I missed so much about it: its heterodox but harmonious architecture, the Kabuki theatre of its faculty govern-ance, the many doors it opened, the wealth it oozed and the fact that, when things didn't work, the person you called didn't drily say, 'Welcome to Columbia,' but: 'I can take care of that for you, Professor Pedersen.' I never regretted leaving though, not just because I found Columbia's edgy students and argumentative faculty suited me, but still more because, in New York, no one cares that you're an Ivy League professor; you're just another resident of a crumbl-ing and glorious city. This is a great check on self-regard, and I found it unimaginably freeing.

I was left, though, with a healthy respect for Harvard's cultural power and, when I

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Would it be anything if we all just agreed that the new york times is a terrible newspaper, with awful opinions about everything, and then just collectively moved the fuck on??

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Literallly every day a government minister walks up to a microphone and says "no we can't fix anything but have you considered living under the sea"

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Some of the lads from the english department heard you made a light, passing reference to intertextuality in your sociology paper and want to talk about it

a poto of gilla band, four unhappy-looking white men in early middle age, dressed in various tones of black and beige

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Anyway, as much as we may mock, this is the wholly forseeable end-point of a system where universities are (a) deliberately starved of resources; (b) deliberately bereft of public mission and vocation; (c) deliberately placed in the hands of an intellecually/morally bankrupt management class.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I don't care how old it makes me sound, I need someone to sit me down and gently explain what tf men under 25 are doing to their hair and why.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

would obvs rather eat my own face than wade into US "transplant" discourse *however* it may be helpful for those of us in places with deep histories of xenophobia to remind that anti-migrant sentiment very often comes from the left, indeed often earnestly understands itself as a demand for justice.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Someone get this man off vinted before real damage is done

.e wearing a venue cool blue and navy patterned sleeveless v-neck sweater with a white shirt and green tie

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

More than 16% for the AfD in Berlin, is it.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Got the 8.5% whiskey-infused anniversary Murphy's, lads [they're only allowed to sell in half pints because Irish people]

A hand holding a half pint glass of stout over a wooden table.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Listen, someone's going to have to take the hit and do an "expensive petrol is good actually" thread for the Americans.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Lots of weird affects on this weird site obviously, but the performatively childlike love of books is right up there IMO. I find it actually offensive, if not downright injurious, to any meaningful idea of a literary culture.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

It really does like the collective dreaming on the website "x" - where everyone is now busily preparing for the coming war - has reached a point of urgent intervention

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

"Pope is gifted massive green orb" um yeah it's called the earth? It was given to him by god?

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Felicity Callard @felicitycallard.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Yet more planned destruction “The biggest casualty by far is the university's School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC), which is losing a total of 48 programmes”

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I'm sorry, I know we all love this guy, but this is extremely Cork City Council coded.

A post by Mamdani showing a green roof on a bus stop: Could new bus shelter roofs help New Yorkers stay cool in extreme heat?

We're testing a few in Brownsville to find out: a green roof covered with native plants, and reflective roofs covered with low-cost, heat-resilient film.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I do wonder if the people convinced "AI" can only be a good thing for universities think it's just a weird coincidence that "AI" is also the favoured tool of the planet's biggest fuckheads as they gleefully hollow out the public sphere.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Editor's covering email: 🥰😍🫶🤟🤟 Editor's editorial letter: 🫠😐🔫💀💀

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Anyway, 6yo came home from school asking if I knew who Donald Trump was, and if I thought there was any risk of him coming to earth to kill people.

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Stephen Roddy @stephenroddy.bandcamp.com · 16/09/2026

So... This is selling out far quicker than expected. I would recommend jumping in if you're jumping in.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The @radhumslab.bsky.social are pleased to announce 'Against Automation: Resisting AI Futures in Teaching and Research,' November 20th, @ucc.ie. With Dan McQuillan, Patrick Brodie, Masoumeh Mansouri, and Jennie Stephens. Tickets at: www.eventbrite.com/e/against-au...

A poster announcing Against Automation: Resisting AI Futures in Teaching and Research, November 20th, @ucc.ie. With Dan McQuillan, Patrick Brodie, Masoumeh Mansouri, and Jennie Stephens. Cacsss seminar room, 10am - 3pm

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I think I could become a real single issue crank on is when Met Éireann says there is a 0 - ZERO! - percent chance of rain, it really should not, in fact, be raining quite steadily.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

It's banal but the use of "inevitable" by the "research on research institute" is a performative of course It becomes inevitable because people close to centre of power keep saying it's inevitable.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

"I am not complicit" is surely the first memorable line that gobshite ever wrote.

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

God between us and the condescension of the English left

A post by Dave andress that quote tweets Mary mcauliffe's post on the crap new Irish citizenship proposals and says "hello and welcome to the fundamental logic of the nation state"

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Once again sharing my "marry a chef" life hack [beef tartare with crostini and a sous-vide egg]

A grey pate work crostini on the left and a disk of raw beef with an egg yolk on top

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Laura McAtackney @lauramca.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Really looking forward to this event with Stephen coming from Trinity and Dr Brian Ngwenya from Maynooth to talk with us about ‘Disrupting Historical Amnesia’. It’s open to anyone interested at the Shtepps, HUB Building at UCC (Fri 18 Sept, 2-4pm).

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Chris Millard @chrismillard83.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

if you’ve ever wondered why historians are very reluctant to talk about how their own experiences / backgrounds relate to their writing, i wrote a book about some who have tried, and how we all can be more self-conscious & analytical about it. i used myself as a case study. it is free to download!

taylorfrancis.com

The Politics of Personal Experience | Writing a History of Munchausen

How should a historian with personal experience of their topics write about them? Exploring the author’s own experiences with Munchausen Syndrome and Munchausen

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Catherine Connolly, standing, talking down to Donald trump, who is seated with a massive book in front of him

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