iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Daniel Moser @dmoser.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Pollution levels in London after 10 years of advancing sustainable transport.

164115633175

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Chloe Fairbanks @fairbanc.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

📢 Excited to announce this Call for Papers for 'Imagining Diﬀerence in Early Modern London', a conference exploring how EM Londoners experienced and negotiated forms of diﬀerence.

25650

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.

1289135

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Omelas already exists: no need to build it or choose it. We already live here –in the narrow, foul, dark prison we let our ignorance, fear, and hatred build for us and keep us in, here in the splendid, beautiful city of life...

07525

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Sometimes in a library I imagine each book as years of an author’s life such that you are standing amidst uncounted hours of effort and concentration like some oasis of meaningful time.

331354

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

'I have a real concern that when you are only measuring employability at a very early stage in someone’s life you are missing the growth and the success that take place after that.' - Evelyn Welch (Vice Chancellor at Bristol University) www.theguardian.com/education/20...

theguardian.com

Florence Welch’s mother says cuts to arts and humanities ‘absolutely tragic’

Exclusive: Prof Evelyn Welch, vice-chancellor of Bristol University, believes her daughter’s success shows value of arts education

1146

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

will pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

why does writing good hurt bad

1385

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

it’s amazing how often the solution to endlessly multiplying pedagogical problems turns out to be restoring an actual pedagogical relationship between instructors and students

623678

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Hester L-J @starcrossed2018.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Starveling: I am the Man in the Moon please listen #MoonMad www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo... David Hobbs as Starveling as Moonshine in the 1999 @the-rsc.bsky.social Dream, dir. Michael Boyd, des. Tom Piper. Lovely persistent Moonshine, with his wee dog. (Have never seen a real dog - Crab 2.0?!)

A photograph of a character in ha ply. A man wearing white Elizabethan-style breeches and doublet, with a little ruff and a skull cap. He is standing in the middle of a blue-lit stage, speaking. In his left hand he is holding up a broomstick with a blue balloon, lit from within, tied to the handle. In his right hand he is holding the red leash of a stuffed toy dog on wheels. He looks very earnest.

181

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

To be a historian is to speak ill of the dead and the rest of you should take more history classes and join us.

155188824440

Dr J. E. Nicholson @justjenerally.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

When will I learn that the sit-and-trawl-through-then-digitally-request-items process in an archive should Not be attempted after 5pm? Not today, apparently. In this section of the catalogue, only, I'm two pages down, with seven to go.

100

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Becoming versed in the laws of physics or the experience of reading Great Expectations is not something that shows up on a resume or that meets some mechanical learning objective, it is the generous sharing of the confused wonder our cultures have painstakingly cultivated over time.

1408

Dr J. E. Nicholson @justjenerally.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I ran out of my travelling Vegemite (yes, an essential) and so bought some Marmite to keep me going. Not having had the latter for perhaps two decades, I'm delighted to discover that this essentially astral-projects me back to my specific childhood like of both but for different reasons.

110

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 06/07/2026

Everyone knows about the Renaissance book wheel, but I only today learned about the Holloway Reading Stand & Dictionary Holder, patented in the late 19th century by an Ohio company We used to be a proper country archive.org/details/holl...

1419665

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Will Tattersdill @tattersdill.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

If I were the King of Universities (which, heaven forbid), I would place this finding at the exact centre of every single policy decision from teaching to research to estates to capital investment. At every level in every process, the question would be: are we as humane as education demands we be?

Screenshot from a Higher Education Policy Institute report. The key sentence is: "students are used to and want human teaching, human feedback, and human connection."

211848

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Dr Kathleen Neal @kbneal.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

It's not that a Humanities education turns all its graduates into good people, it's that it arms good people with the skills and knowledge they need to understand and advocate for themselves, others, and society.

546096

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

@Shamlet @shamlet.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

I see, as in a map, the end of all. Richard III, 2.4.59

nytimes.com

‘Who Should I Vote for?’ Voters Turn to A.I. Before Casting Their Ballots

041

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Lauri Donahue @lauridonahue.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

futurism.com/future-socie... lol

As one New York financier told Financial Times journalist Gillian Tett, new hires who were seen as “AI natives” are turning out to have alarmingly shallow ideas. So much so, the anonymous finance worker admitted, that his firm now actively avoids seeking out AI-literate STEM graduates, and opts to comb through humanities students instead.

178105252958

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 04/07/2026

This morning I watched from here a helicopter skirting like a damaged insect the Empire State Building, that jumbo size dentist’s drill… —Norman MacCaig, “Hotel Room, 12th Floor” from THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009) #FourthofJuly #America250 #poetry birlinn.co.uk/product/the-...

Hotel Room, 12th Floor
by Norman MacCaig

This morning I watched from here
a helicopter skirting like a damaged insect
the Empire State Building, that
jumbo size dentist’s drill, and landing
on the roof of the PanAm skyscraper.
But now midnight has come in
from foreign places. Its uncivilised darkness
is shot at by a million lit windows, all
ups and acrosses
But midnight is not
so easily defeated. I lie in bed, between
a radio and a television set, and hear
the wildest of warwhoops continually ululating through
the glittering canyons and gulches –
police cars and ambulances racing
to the broken bones, the harsh screaming
from coldwater flats, the blood
glazed on sidewalks.

The frontier is never
somewhere else. And no stockades
can keep the midnight out.

0224

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Alice Wickenden @awickenden.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I agree with all the takes about an attack on the humanities being an attack on critical thinking, &c. It’s also about joy, though. ‘Why bother studying that’ is always also a sneer at — why do you think you should get to do something you enjoy? Grow up and be miserable all the time!

7553169

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Dr Naomi Scott @drnaomiscott.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

A lot of media coverage of the ‘AI’ reading of the Herculaneum scrolls really fails to understand what’s happened here. There’s no language processing happening, the AI/ML is not trained on a corpus of texts or language. It can detect ink to see shapes. HUMAN EXPERTS are then transcribing the text.

A screenshot from here: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-02-07-inside-herculaneum-scroll-seen-first-time-almost-2000-years

It explains that the machine learning involves only the detection of ink

382498944

Dr J. E. Nicholson @justjenerally.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Currently awaiting the long SYD-LHR flight (via Singapore). I’ll be writing & in some archives in London & Oxford before heading to #WSC2026. I’m delighted to be contributing to the Perfect Bodies [& proto-utopias] seminar, & keen to catch up with Marlovians, too... #fairverona #WSCverona

240

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Dr Kathleen Neal @kbneal.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Outstanding description of AI prose from Orwell here: "It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug."

172

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Human’s dream of machine composition. 1912.

1103

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Sasha Costanza-Chock @schock.cc · 19/06/2026

The most dangerous thing about AI is not that the machines might one day think. It is that we are being trained, by men with enormous financial gains riding on our acquiescence, to stop thinking for ourselves.

3728501100

Dr J. E. Nicholson @justjenerally.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Chuffed to rediscover the podcast episode I was in with @thatshakespeare.bsky.social during lockdown throes, right before having to put research on pause for a while re: hiring freezes and so forth. It turns out it's available to hear on YouTube. Different versions of this will be in the new book!

youtube.com

Ep 121: Shakespeare's French with Jennifer Nicholson

YouTube video by That Shakespeare Life

000

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Pretending that education is just job training and that it should be stripped of all non-utilitarian elements is one of the worst ideas in the history of ideas. Acting like it's some kind of axiom we should be using to orient ourselves at the moment is disastrously wrong-headed.

9703212

Dr J. E. Nicholson @justjenerally.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

This looks familiar… (I wrote a chapter in this! Hard to believe it was around 6 years ago.)

010

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

2653161

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

@Shamlet @shamlet.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

If I have the power of indoctrination that some claim I do, that students are swayed utterly by my every word, why is it that I have to say "put a poem's title in QUOTATION MARKS and either UNDERLINE or ITALICIZE the title of a full-length work" over and over and over and

0132

Dr J. E. Nicholson @justjenerally.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Recently I was delighted to have my bundle of postcards from said artist arrive in the mail. Wonderful images accompany a wonderful backstory and a thankfully reunited cat with family.

000

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

‘Fear is my name, and I am Death’s messenger and the reminder of Death; and I have come before him to warn you of his coming.’ Killer description of Hell in this!

063

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Teachinge young people how to deeplye engage wyth literature and poetrye and playes and novels ys teachinge them how to access an olde and goode and powerful system for sharinge messages yn tymes of emergencye. Readinge literature ys key to the ongoing struggle for a bettir and more just worlde.

529674

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Damon Beres @damonberes.com · 29/05/2026

“Working on AI text, as an editor, is like trying to operate on a body whose skin, muscles, veins, bones, and organs are all compromised. There’s nothing to leave intact, nowhere to begin.”

theatlantic.com

The Biggest Tell That Something Was Written By AI

Looks closely and you’ll see that everything is equally off.

07736

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

THREAD. A while ago my parents' cat Bridget went missing. As the worrying weeks dragged on my dad devised a way to distract himself: he began to paint Bridget's adventures, imagining her travelling through time & inhabiting art's most iconic scenes. What he produced (& how quickly) was phenomenal...

The Girl With The Cat Earring, featuring my mum and dad's cat Bridget.

Bridget Hangs Out With The Hunters In The Snow

601710591

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

@Shamlet @shamlet.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

To move students from following directions to thinking, from completing assignments to writing, from templates and scaffolds to independence, from guidance to freedom

082

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Whether or not you have been to the Kederminster Library at Langley Marish (now in the suburbs of Slough), do share this one abd consider visiting. It’s utterly spectacular and worth a long journey. langleymarish.com/stmary/keder... - hats off for them for seeing that is open to be visited.

05816

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Laura Estill @lauraestill.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Arthur's friend Buster has a King Lear lunchbox and I have.... questions

A cartoon bunny, Buster, carries an orange lunch box that says King Lear and has a man with a crown on it, his hand extended.

I am not conveying how cartoonish this is. It's a kid's book.

1204

Dr J. E. Nicholson @justjenerally.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Can confirm this place is delightful! I went there last July and am determined to get back these one of these days. Don’t miss the statue of Hodge the cat in the courtyard outside, or the Ole Cheshire Cheese around the corner, either…

042

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Kate Ozment @grubstreetwomen.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

The longer I spend in digital humanities, the more I am obsessively drawn to analog technologies and convinced we must actively and intently teach them or the digital world loses its color, texture, and depth.

315833

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Poets always be like

In the brain, objects seen and imagined follow the same neural path
New evidence finds that sight and imagination rely on the same neurons and use the same neural code.

1388

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Liam J. Liburd @liamliburd.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

I'm sorry - Bernard WHAT?!

3306

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Catherine Clarke @cathamclarke.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

#Medieval (15th-century) anchorhold - a cell for an anchorite or hermit - in St Andrew's Church, Grinton (Swaledale).

The chancel of the church in the sunlight

13511

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Rachit Dubey @rachitdubey.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

🚨New preprint and our results are rather concerning.. We find the "boiling frog" equivalent of AI use. Using large-scale RCTs, we provide *casual* evidence that AI assistance reduces persistence and hurts independent performance. And these effects emerge after just 10–15 minutes of AI use! 1/

261533684

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Dr Liam Sims @liamsims.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

An #owl perched atop a toppled urn with a Greek inscription - the motto of the Renaissance humanist Lodovico Castelvetro - meaning ‘I have judged’. In his edition of Aristotle’s Poetics, printed at Vienna in 1570. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social since 1715 & now L.11.31.

0164

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Working the morning shift as a scholar in 1540, a browser tab and a word document opened on two screens, other needed texts opened and handy, an overfull mail account nearby, and a hot beverage in reach to make for the best working condition. Bonus: wearing a thinking hat. #academicchatter

A man sitting at a working desk, in 1540 setting, with a drinking cup, a few books, a writing desk with paper sheets, and lots of more details.

17647194

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

Amy @lolennui.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

books: the rectangle that can’t send you push notifications. Try: books.

294034861

Reposted by Dr J. E. Nicholson

BCP Minus Context @bcpminuscontext.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

In Easter Season, add Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

05021