iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Los Angeles Review of Books @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

"Hauntings' will have you wondering: If you should ever come across an Alice Oke or a Renee Good, will you believe her? Will she laugh? Will she live?" Diana Bellonby reviews Vernon Lee’s "Hauntings": lareviewofbooks.org/article/vernon-…

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Michael Lucey @michaellucey.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

The latest issue of Representations contains a lovely tribute to Natalie Zemon Davis by French historian Denis Crouzet, along with a bouquet of fine articles on Vernon Lee, Wordsworth, Donne, and poetic apostrophe and slavery in Ancient Rome. online.ucpress.edu/representati...

online.ucpress.edu

Representations | University of California Press

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Victorian Web @victorianweb.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Delighted to have some new work on Vernon Lee (Violet Paget), thanks to Rita Severi --more to come! victorianweb.org/victorian/au...

Pencil portrait of Vernon Lee by her friend, John Singer Sargent, dressed in boater-type hat and jacket, of ambiguous appearance with a certain laid-back charm

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JSTOR @jstor.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

This #PrideMonth, explore how queer writers helped shape the way we understand music history. 🏳️‍🌈 "Imagining Musical Pasts" (@livunipress.bsky.social) looks at queer writings on opera & symphonic music from 1880–1935. It's open access as part of our Path to Open program. Read: bit.ly/4eorKe2

Book cover for Imagining Musical Pasts: The Queer Literary Musicology of Vernon Lee, Rosa Newmarch, and Edward Prime-Stevenson by Kristin M. Franseen. The cover features an impressionistic painting of an orchestra performance viewed from the audience, with musicians, music stands, and dramatic movement rendered in blurred brushstrokes. In the foreground, audience members sit in theater seats while a conductor stands before the orchestra. The title appears in large cream-colored text against a dark, atmospheric background with shades of purple, blue, red, and black.

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Modern Humanities Research Association @themhra.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

'A Tiger-Cat, As Uncanny As She Is Intelligent' Barbara Burns speaks to Colton Valentine, whose book 'Vernon Lee’s Cosmopolitan Prose: A Translated Selection' is published this summer in the MHRA Jewelled Tortoise series. Read the interview here 👉 www.mhra.org.uk/news/2026/08...

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International Vernon Lee Society (IVLS) @vernonleesociety.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Coming soon: Selected Letters of Vernon Lee, 1856–1935 Volume IV: 1897–1904, edited by Sophie Geoffroy and Amanda Gagel. Pre-order from 31 August ✒️✉️ www.routledge.com/Selected-Let...

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Duke University Press @dukepress.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Save 30% on #NewBook "The Future of Totality," edited by Nicholas Brown, Maria Elisa Cevasco, Fabio Akcelrud Durão & @roberttally.bsky.social, in which scholars consider Fredric Jameson’s vast body of work.

Cover of The Future of Totality: Fredric Jameson and the Prospects of Critical Theory edited by Nicholas Brown, Cevasco, Maria Elisa, Fabio Akcelrud Durão, and Tally Jr., Robert T.. The cover is a solid grey teal with a photograph of Fredric Jameson standing at a lectern in front of a chalkboard that says ‘IDEOLOGY’. The title is written in a white serif font. The subtitle is below in a mint green. The editors’ names are below in a white sans serif.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

'The use of large language models...has increased dramatically in US research funding proposals since 2023 and has led to less original and more generic ideas that often replicate prior projects, new analysis finds.' That's not touching the sides of what unregulated AI will do to democracy... 1/2

timeshighereducation.com

Large language models reduce originality of research proposals

Surge in generative AI use in US federal grant proposals reducing diversity and narrowing the scope of ideas, finds study

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Rachel Sylvester @rachelsylvester.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

New Scandinavian wings at Wandsworth and Pentonville jails have seen a 45% fall in assaults, 57% drop in self harm and halving of staff absence rates - fascinating results from trial into a more rehabilitative approach to prisons observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

observer.co.uk

‘Scandi wings’ offering pianos, pool and tea parties coul...

A unit in London’s Wandsworth prison has been transformed using methods from Sweden and Norway that prioritise rehabilitation over retribution

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

We’re launching a major new programme on Humanity, Climate and Nature. We wish to commission discussion papers from researchers/policymakers/practitioners to provide fresh insight into these themes. We’ll pay £2,500 for around 4000 words. Apply by 16 Sept www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/internationa...

Call for Discussion Papers: Humanity, Climate & Nature
This call sets out the requirements for short discussion papers to be produced as part of a series that will generate fresh insights and innovative thinking to help develop the new Humanity, Climate & Nature Programme's initial work and activity.

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Sarah Brouillette @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

The introduction to my book is now available online, thanks @dukepress.bsky.social 🫶 The official pub date is in October www.dukeupress.edu/content-mach....

tinyurl.com

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Dr Jen Baker @jendeavour.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

If you or anyone you know is less familiar with #Gaskell's #Gothic works and would like a bit of an Introduction, you/they may be interested in a ticket to my talk for Elizabeth Gaskell House Weds 16th September 7-8pm (BST) Do join us! 👻🏚️ elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk/events/eliza...

elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk

Online Talk – Elizabeth Gaskell’s Gothic Fiction: An Introduction » elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk

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Carsten Timmermann @ctimmermann.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

This chapter by Ian Hacking has stood the test of time. Worth revisiting at a time when we doubt the reality of long COVID, fight culture wars over gender identity, and get exercised over the question if neurodivergence is becoming more common.

First page of Making up People by Ian Hacking.

Cover of the volume in which the chapter was published, Reconstructing Individualism (1986)

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Suman Seth is Mortal & Measuring @alltoosuman.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

So delighted to have a physical copy of this. Thanks so much @hsmurphy.bsky.social !!!!

Front cover of the latest supplementary volume of Past and Present, edited by Hannah Murphy. Titled ‘Medicine, Race, and Slavery in the Transatlantic World, 1600-1850.’

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Joanna Wyld @joannawyld.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

I wrote about Bach's Cello Suites for Alisa Weilerstein's recital at this year's Edinburgh International Festival. I particularly enjoyed revisiting the story of Pablo Casals finding a copy of the pieces in a charity shop and reigniting their popularity. Do have a read www.eif.co.uk/news-and-blo...

eif.co.uk

Get to Know Bach’s Cello Suites: from Obscurity to Eternity | Edinburgh International Festival

Re-discovering the Bach Cello Suites in a Charity Shop? Read on to discover the history of one of the greatest composers of all time, and what to listen fo

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Fraser Riddell @fraserriddell.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Fredric Jameson foresaw all: “Interpretation is not an isolated act, but takes place on a Homeric battlefield, on which a host of interpretative options are either openly on implicitly in conflict“ (The Political Unconscious, 1981)

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Clive Lewis MP @labourlewis.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

1/4 A growing number of higher education institutions are using dirty tactics to undermine staff pension rights, pay and working conditions.

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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 29/07/2026

On our Close Readings subscription podcast: @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social on 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘥𝘺𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘺 (Homer’s version). Apple – lrb.me/odysseyapple Spotify – lrb.me/odysseyspotify Website – lrb.me/odysseyweb Get 50% off a 12-month Close Readings subscription with code SUMMER50: lrb.me/atasummer50

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Martin Paul Eve @eve.gd · 28/07/2026

If you get there quickly, you can get a free PDF of this new book, on an important subject: Berens, Kathi Inman, and Rachel Noorda, How Gen Z Discover and Consume Books, Elements in Publishing and Book Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2026), doi.org/10.1017/9781...

doi.org

How Gen Z Discover and Consume Books

Cambridge Core - Printing and Publishing History - How Gen Z Discover and Consume Books

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John Garrison Marks @johngmarks.com · 27/07/2026

In 2018 I read about universities, libraries, and humanities councils in New England convening veterans to discuss The Odyssey to help them make sense of their own experiences and was blown away by what a good idea it was. Funding the humanities = good. www.concordmonitor.com/2018/03/14/h...

concordmonitor.com

‘Homer can help you’: War veterans use ancient epics to cope - Concord Monitor

The trials of Odysseus are really not that different from the struggles of those learning to readjust after wars of today, modern veterans are finding.A small group of military veterans has been meeti...

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

I wrote this the other day arguing AI means the humanities become even more important in an age where AI can solve questions that are defined and data rich, leaving the wicked issues where we can’t even agree on the nature of the problem… www.ft.com/content/fbde...

Given AI's exponentially growing ability to solve well-defined, data-rich problems, it is plausible that employers will place more of a premium on the skills the humanities offer, such as critical and creative thinking.
Anthropic's co-founder Daniela Amodei recently said: "I actually think studying the humanities is going to be more important than ever... this idea that there are things that make us uniquely human - understanding ourselves, understanding history, understanding what makes us tick
- I think that will always be really, really important."

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Great to see the Guardian champion the SHAPE (Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) subjects, but this piece gives impression that they are expensive, whereas many are 'cheap to teach' subjects subsidising more expensive subjects, mainly in STEM and medicine. The crisis demands better understanding.

theguardian.com

The Guardian view on humanities cuts in universities: academic departments are more than cost centres | Editorial

Editorial: Literature, the arts and social sciences must not be sacrificed as higher education funding is squeezed

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Matthew L Reznicek @drreznicek.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Hey #C18 folks, there's a new Consortium for the History of Science and Medicine working group on Science Studies in the Long Eighteenth-Century. You should make sure you join here www.chstm.org/group/scienc...

chstm.org

Science Studies and the Long Eighteenth Century | Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine

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Fraser Riddell @fraserriddell.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Funded PhD Project in Medical Humanities at Aix-Marseille University: 'Solace and Cancer: Unwriting the Metaphor of Illness', with focus on contemporary English literature. (B2-level French required). Further details available from Prof. Nicolas Boileau (nicolas.boileau [at] uni-amu.fr)

This PhD proposal therefore invites applicants with a solid knowledge of Anglophone
literature and philosophy, and possibly knowledge in health and social sciences, to
work for three years on the question of solace in the experience of cancer through
narrative both in the LERMA (Laboratoire d’études et de recherche sur le monde
anglophone) and at the IPC in Marseilles. Under the supervision of Nicolas Pierre
Boileau, the PhD candidate will examine varied contemporary accounts such as Julian
Barnes’s, Jon McGregor’s, Philip Roth’s, John McGahern’s, or John Banville’s, to
name a few, in order to address the question of solace in the experience of cancer through modes of indirect elaboration, and the unwriting of metaphors as emancipation
towards greater understandings of the singularity of experience. Some of these works
are novels, others memoirs, but all testify to the indirect treatment of their author’s
illness and their struggle towards undoing the metaphor of cancer, once thought as an
insidious, self-inflicted disease linked with the repression of the self or some spiritual
ordeal to be overcome. Reading and analytical workshops, co-supervised by Nicolas
Boileau and the PhD candidate, set up over the course of the three-year programme,
will enable patients, relatives and staff to engage with the question of solace.
The project situates itself at the interface of a theoretical addition to the existent work
on these questions and a burgeoning methodology (akin to narrative medicine) of
prompting indirect accounts as modes of access to coherent and cohesive narratives,
reinforcing the qualitative analysis that will contribute to the overall project underway
at IPC, in Marseilles, France.

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Adam Rutherford @adamrutherford.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

I've signed and sent a letter - from authors, broadcasters, journalists, artists, scholars and performers - to express our deep concern at @exeter.ac.uk’s troubling plans to make mass redundancies within the Humanities Dept @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social. I would love it if you read and shared widely.

Dear Vice Chancellor, Provost, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Executive Dean for the Faculty of Humanities,
Arts and Social Sciences and Chair of Council (cc Director of Human Resources and Chief Financial
Officer)
We write, as authors, broadcasters, journalists, artists, publishers, academics and performers in the public
sphere, to express our deep concern at the University of Exeter’s plans to make redundancies within the
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS). The cuts come at a point when Exeter is not in
deficit, and they are not distributed equally across the university. With 114 of the proposed 153 FTE
academic redundancies falling within HASS, the University is dismantling areas of established excellence
and international renown in a Russell Group University whose reputation is known to be outstanding in the
Humanities. Several of the disciplines subject to the proposed cuts, including Classics and Ancient History,
English and Creative Writing, History, and Theology and Religion are among the UK’s strongest according
to league tables, the Research Excellence Framework (REF), the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF),
and other recognised indicators, including QS World Rankings.
The extent of the proposed cuts is both shocking and misguided. Exeter is seeking to make up to 20
academics redundant in English and Creative Writing, out of a headcount of 62. In Languages and Visual
Culture upwards of 17 colleagues will be made redundant, decimating subjects including Art History and
Visual Culture, French, German, Italian, Hispanic Studies, Russian and Chinese. 5 posts will go or have
gone in Classics and Ancient History (2 academics have already left), out of a staff body of 20. In Theology
and Religion up to 5 academics will be made redundant out of a group of 13. In History over 17 colleagues
will be made redundant, out of a staff body of 53. In the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies staff are
facing a headcount reduction of almost a third (6FTE out …

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Scott Lyall @scottlyall.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

The latest edition of SCOTTISH LITERARY REVIEW, published by @asls.org.uk and edited by me and @rhonabrown.bsky.social, is now available @projectmuse.bsky.social. Essays on Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark, Anne Grant, and Robert Fergusson. Check it out: muse.jhu.edu/issue/57136

muse.jhu.edu

Project MUSE - Scottish Literary Review-Volume 18, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2026

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Fraser Riddell @fraserriddell.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Our University sector is one of the UK’s great success stories: sparking creativity and imagination; driving regional investment; attracting students from around the world. Why is this Labour government starving it of the resources it needs to flourish?

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Count Binface @countbinface.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

On my way, Clacton.

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Matthew L Reznicek @drreznicek.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Who could have seen this coming? Besides every liberal arts faculty member in the country, I mean.

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Matthew L Reznicek @drreznicek.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Job klaxon: we’re hiring a one-year position in the History of 19th and/or 20th century Western medicine broadly construed, with capacity for teaching courses related to women/gender and health history and the history of technology and medicine. hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/374...

hr.myu.umn.edu

Careers

This position is based on campus. Per UMN policy, work may be done remotely when appropriate and approved by your manager. All UMN employees are expected to follow applicable public health and safety procedures.

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Fraser Riddell @fraserriddell.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Please sign this letter in support of my brilliant colleagues at Exeter, whose jobs are under threat. Scholars there have led the way in developing research in queer studies, Victorian studies and medical humanities. Their loss would be catastrophic blow to the intellectual richness of our field.

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Fraser Riddell @fraserriddell.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Looking for discussion of “the novel with a purpose“, particularly in Britain in the 1890s. Any suggestions for useful recent scholarship? (I need to track down Amanda Claybaugh‘s 2007 book…)

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Durham Institute for Medical Humanities @durhamimh.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Next up in our interview series with the new cohort of In Practice Research Fellows is Sam Slatcher! Sam @samslatcher.bsky.social is a freelance creative practitioner and researcher working at the intersection of arts, community and wellbeing. Hear from Sam 👇️

medhumsplatform.org

Introducing Sam Slatcher: New Medical Humanities in Practice Research Fellow

An interview with Sam Slatcher, who joins us as a Medical Humanities in Practice Fellow.

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Durham Institute for Medical Humanities @durhamimh.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

💡 Discover our MA in Medical Humanities! Have you ever wondered how your previous studies in the arts, humanities or social sciences could be expanded, enriched and applied to pressing issues of health and wellness in our world? 🧵

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Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · 26/06/2026

This is remarkable.

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Durham Institute for Medical Humanities @durhamimh.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

💡 Discover our MA in Medical Humanities! A reminder of our upcoming sessions to find out more: 🔶 In-person Open Day, Sat 27 June - drop-in session 2.50–3.50pm (BST) durhamuni.eventsair.com/2026-postgra... 🔷 Online info session, Fri 3 July 3-3.50pm (BST) www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ma-in-medi...

durhamuni.eventsair.com

Book Your Place - 2026 Postgraduate Open Day (Summer)

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Fraser Riddell @fraserriddell.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Delays on the East Coast main line this morning due to swans (!) on the railway near Morpeth 🦢 🚂 Going to by one of those days, isn’t it?

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Matthew L Reznicek @drreznicek.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

This, right here, is why MDs should stop doing literary criticism without learning some fuckin basics: "There remains, however, very little representation of physical health problems in literary fiction." pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Clinical realism: a new literary genre and a potential tool for encouraging empathy in medical students

Empathy has been re-discovered as a desirable quality in doctors. A number of approaches using the medical humanities have been advocated to teach empathy to medical students. This paper describes a n...

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