iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 14h

Treated myself to a postcard of one of Meg Hyland’s amazing Women of 1000 AD, Princess Olith! Meg is a wonderful artist and i find this image so atmospheric @womenof1000.bsky.social Read all about her here womenof1000ad.weebly.com/princess-oli...

Artwork by Meg Hyland, Women of 1000 AD project, Princess Olith

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 15h

Absolutely delighted that my copy of @brianlibby.bsky.social’s book has arrived! Looking forward to learning all about Portland, Oregon!

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 15h

This is SO COOL!!!! 🤩 Super proud of @guildmedmak.bsky.social co-founder Eleanor! 🐺👏✨

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 21h

Thanks to an insta pal for recommending Pop Up Studio jewellery 😂 Excited to add these brooches into the rotation this term 🐉🔥🪡🧵

Dragon brooch that says ‘burn it all down’ and sewing machine brooch that says ‘voila, bitches’

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I absolutely loved @joannamillerauthor.bsky.social’s THE EIGHTS! The perfect novel ahead of the new term at Oxford 💖 And got me thinking ahead to our 50th anniversary of Women students at Univ in 2029! ✨

Blurb of The Eights by Joanna Miller, a novel about the first women who could officially take degrees at Oxford in 1920

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Katherine Weikert @kateweikert.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Hwaet! Winchester is advertising for a 0.5FTE, open-ended contract in English Lit (pre-1800). Deadline 14 October for applications. Please share this with anyone who might be interested! www.winchester.ac.uk/About-Us/Wor...

winchester.ac.uk

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Victoria Spires @victoriaspires.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Ready ... Set...Go!

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Dr Grace Khuri @gracekhuri.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This kind of historical #WorldWarI research with a mythic spin was an outgrowth of my doctoral thesis project findings (relating to #Tolkien and his mythology -- the earliest version of the #Silmarillion). Tolkien worked in a mythically-minded culture, even during #WorldWarI.

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Chris Millard @chrismillard83.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

the number of ethical, privacy-based, and practical problems with feeding grant applications into LLMs for triage without human confirmation is dizzying “a machine can never be held accountable, so a machine must never make a decision” has never been more apt

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Prof Sunny Singh @profsunnysingh.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Short 🧵 After a bookish fundraiser yesterday, a lovely young Palestinian poet from Gaza asked an unexpected question: “why do you teach?” My answer: “to build the future.” To build a different, better, just future from what the Empire allows us.

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John Stott @jpsastro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky

I am writing to let you know that, unfortunately, your application was not successful.

Review process

As part of the initial triage of the 179 proposals submitted to this call, each was assessed using an AI-based review. Every proposal was read independently by several different AI models against the same seven criteria used to shape this call (including cyber security relevance, research quality and novelty, importance of the problem addressed, feasibility of the project plan, likely outputs and impact, value for money, and responsible research practice), with each model asked to give a score and a written justification with supporting quotations from the text. To guard against any one model's idiosyncrasies, we also ran a second, independent process in which different AI models debated the merits and weaknesses of each proposal before reaching a judgement, again against the same criteria. Scores from both processes were combined to produce an overall ranking.

This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review. Projects selected for funding were drawn from those that progressed to the full human review stage. We recognise that AI-assisted assessment is a new and evolving part of the review process, and we are continuing to evaluate how well it aligns with the judgements of human reviewers on this call. We will soon produce a document detailing our method, so that others can build upon it and improve it.

Feedback on your application

Your application was not selected to progress beyond the AI triage stage. To provide transparency on the outcome of this assessment, we are sharing below the scores (out of 5) from each of the two AI review processes described above, together with the mean score across the two processes.

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MwahahahahahadScientist @mads100tist.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is it. This is what everyone is enabling by humoring genAI: you spend months writing something that took you years to get at, for an opaque algorithm that a few control to spit a number and cut you off right there and then. This is what we're up against 🧪

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The Guild of Medievalist Makers @guildmedmak.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

🍂NEW AUTUMN/WINTER TERMCARD❄️ We are delighted to share our programme of Making Space sessions and workshops taking place between October and January! Want to join the Guild but not yet a member? Fill out the simple form on our website👉https://www.guildmedmak.com/join-the-guild

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I’d be there with bells on!! Not least as a long term Quo fan! About ten years ago I saw The Manfreds too- bloody good! (I’m seeing a brilliant Quo cover band in Witney in November- Break the Rules, they’re really great! 🎸🤘)

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Rachel Moss @menysnoweballes.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

We have had some BRILLIANT abstracts but we do have space for more, so we're extending the deadline to the end of Monday - you only need to pop in a short abstract, & if you're UK-based we can help a bit with travel expenses. Come talk with us about a vital topic!

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Hester L-J @starcrossed2018.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

#ProdigalPrince my new #SlowShakespeare blog, reading 1 Henry IV every day, around 10 lines at a time, starts TOMORROW, 1 October! Here's one of my favourite Hals (and actors): Geoffrey Streatfeild @the-rsc.bsky.social 2007-8, with David Warner as Falstaff.

A photograph of a play in performance. An older man with luxuriant white hair and beard is looking past the camera, holding up both his hands. He's wearing a crumpled white shirt and a reddish-brown leather jerkin, undone and unkempt, over an ample belly, with a jaunty red scarf. Sitting behind him, feet up on a bed, is a younger man with slicked down blond hair, wearing cream trousers tucked into black boots, a messy white shirt and cream jerkin. And quite a lot of eyeliner.

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Deborah @deborahzafer.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Happiness Raymond Carver 🖤

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Dr Ella Hawkins @ellamchawk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Elizabethan playhouses were supplied by a network of tailors, merchants & craftswomen. Their names survive in records, but little is known about their lives. I’m working on new research that brings the stories of these makers & traders centre stage. Here is the project in biscuit (cookie) form. 🍪

A photograph of eight rectangular biscuits (cookies) arranged in two rows on a square white plate. The plate is framed on all sides by a trailing vine pattern in green with pops of red. The biscuits are mostly in shades of ivory, cream, yellow, and grey, with a burst of vivid red and blue in one corner of the arrangement. Moving across the top row of biscuits from left to right, the designs include: neat lines of handwritten names in an early modern parish register; a section of a hand-drawn map from 1561 featuring St Paul’s Cathedral, with street names like ‘Carter Lane’ visible in a tiny spiky font; an extract of text from a funerary monument printed in an early modern book, ending ‘So transitory is our glory’; a section of embroidery from a funeral pall featuring metallic silver armour, crossed gold keys, and two hands holding up a crown. The biscuit designs on the bottom row include: horses prancing past shopfronts on Cheapside in the mid-sixteenth century; a receipt written in early modern secretary hand, which is difficult to read; a portrait of a stern-looking women dressed in a ruff, pearls, and sober dark clothing; swirling calligraphy and dense secretary hand featuring on a will dating from 1638.

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I reviewed @profdarryljones.bsky.social's new biography of M. R. James. Long-awaited by fans, and surely the most important book about MRJ yet to appear this century: drfrancisyoung.com/2026/09/28/r... 📚👻📜

drfrancisyoung.com

Review: ‘For the Dead Remember: The Life of M. R. James’ by Darryl Jones

Darryl Jones, For the Dead Remember: The Life of M. R. James (Oxford University Press, 2026), 437pp. M. R. James did not make it easy for anyone to write his biography. He introduced this difficult…

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

New term card for the Guild just dropped!!!

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Fabulous! I have an essay on angels in The Book of Margery Kempe forthcoming in a festschrift soon 👼🪽 Medieval angelology is so fascinating!

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Oh my goodness YES- teaching students that they do NOT need AI, I couldn’t agree more and will be doing precisely that this coming term!

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

SO excited about the forthcoming essays that we have coming out in this special issue!!! 😄 They make a brilliant case for reading, writing, & living *creatively* in the humanities 🥳

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Lovely evening welcoming former #UnivTeamEnglish students back to college! Such a pleasure to hear about what they’ve been getting up to since leaving, & that despite the challenges of the pandemic, they have fond memories of their time with us!

White chocolate brownie pudding at the Univ Gaudy

Laura Varnam with former English students

Laura Varnam with former English student in the Master’s Garden at University College

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Jodi McAlister @jodimca.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I taught my first years with the five steps from this book this semester, and it worked fantastically. It took some time to build up their confidence in taking what they'd noticed and using it to construct an argument, but they got stronger at it every week.

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Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The problem isn't rogue #AI models, it's *negligent companies*. If a biomedical firm put their product in public water supply because they wanted to test it 'in the real world', they'd be treated as criminal at corporate & individual level. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

theguardian.com

OpenAI halts training of latest models as reports mount of AI agents going rogue

Decision follows disclosures that OpenAI agents searching government websites had acted in unexpected ways

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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Lev Grossman, the wrytere of *The Magicians* and *The Bright Sword,* on traunslatinge *Sir Gawain and the Green Knighte*

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I cannot recommend this book highly enough- CLOSE READING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, ed Sinykin & Winant. It’s inspiring me for the term ahead! Eng Lit tutors, what are your favourite ways of teaching close reading in a university context?

Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century book, ed Dan Sinykin & Johanna Winant

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Thoroughly enjoyed Oxford International Opera’s new production of Puccini’s TOSCA at the New Theatre last night. Sir Bryn Terfel was mesmerisingly malevolent as Baron Scarpia! 🫣👌✨

Cast and orchestra of Puccini’s Tosca at the New Theatre, Oxford

Sir Bryn Terfel as Scarpia, Carmen Giannattasio as Tosca and
Saimir Pirgu as Cavaradossi

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The Guild of Medievalist Makers @guildmedmak.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Did you miss the recent Gender and Medieval Studies 2027 conference on the theme of Gender and Creativity? Don't worry, @drlauravarnam.bsky.social has written a blog post all about it! It was fantastic to see so many Guild members represented at this fantastic conference. Read below👇

guildmedmak.com

The Guild at the Gender & Creativity conference in Oxford — The Guild of Medievalist Makers

The Guild of Medievalist Makers at the GMS Conference in Oxford, September 2026.

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Niamh NicGhabhann Coleman @niamhroisin.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Beautiful, thoughtful, and sane and very worth your time in a world that seems to have lost its reason

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The @guildmedmak.bsky.social were delighted to sponsor the Exhibition & Creative Showcase at #GMS2026 🤩 You can find out more about our founders’ & members’ contributions in our NEW blog (Wives of Bath artwork by @hellomizk.bsky.social) www.guildmedmak.com/blog/the-gui...

guildmedmak.com

The Guild at the Gender & Creativity conference in Oxford — The Guild of Medievalist Makers

The Guild of Medievalist Makers at the GMS Conference in Oxford, September 2026.

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Another thing that can tackle disinformation is critical thinking, of the sort humanities students are trained in. Oh look, here's my post about it from yesterday: manyheadedmonster.com/2026/09/22/a...

manyheadedmonster.com

A plea for critical thinking humans in our world of extremes

Laura Sangha A companion piece to: What is history for? Or: Doing history/thinking historically The train to Totnes this weekend was full of late holiday makers heading for Cornwall. They were grat…

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I highly recommend Paul de Zulueta’s LAST NIGHT I DREAMT: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE DU MAURIERS. It’s beautifully written, very insightful, and full of little gems! ✨ I can’t wait to interview Paul at our (sold out! 😳) event at Cheltenham Literary Festival next month!

Paul de Zulueta’s Last Night I Dreamt: A Personal History of the Du Mauriers, and a china replica of the du Mauriers’ first home in Fowey, Ferryside,

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

For Earth 🌍 , Wind 🌪️, and Fire 🔥 Day—we never forget the 21st night of September—here is a depiction of the Four Elements in a manuscript from Bruges, 1470-1480, fr. 137, fol. 1r. (© BnF) : « Dieu Créateur et Ovide avec l’œuf » @labnf.bsky.social. See: journals.openedition.org/crmh/13890?l...

manuscrit fr. 137, fol. 1r.

(© BnF) : « Dieu Créateur et Ovide avec l’œuf »

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MAMO Conference 2027 @themamoconf.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Just over a week left to submit abstracts for MAMO 2027!

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

My personal Monsoon Season ended in SPECTACULAR style when I saw Jinkx for the second time in Oh, Mary! and then… MET HER!!!! 🤩 I still can’t quite believe it! She’s a total superstar & a lovely person, and it made my day, indeed, MY LIFE ✨❤️‍🔥🥳😯

Oh, Mary! advert at the Trafalgar Theatre

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Ooh congrats, James! Look forward to reading!

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

This looks amazing! Congrats, Cath!

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Delighted that the first essay in CREATING THE MEDIEVAL NOW, a special issue of Public Humanities, ed by me & Eleanor Barraclough, is now available! Check out @thecelticist.bsky.social brilliant essay ‘De Ira’ & bookmark this page for further essays this autumn! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Special issue of Public Humanities journal on Creating the Medieval with artwork by Kristen Haas Curtis

Abstract for Creating the Medieval Now special issue: essays by medievalists who are also creative practitioners on how their practice operates as their mode of scholarship.

Abstract for Elizabeth Boyle’s essay De Ira

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Mark H @blackhole.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Snippets from an interview with Alfred Hitchcock in the January, 1963 issue of Movie. The interviewer spots an early clue in Psycho to Norman Bates’ secret. Hitchcock already anticipating that movies should be watched repeatedly! And how he’d been trying to do the ‘Vertigo zoom’ since Rebecca!

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