iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Philip Schwyzer

Kat Abughazaleh @katmabu.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Fucking brownshirts

Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Lizzy, there are no words. You achieved so much here, helped so many people in so many ways, and you will be so deeply missed.

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Today in #ShaxEpitaphs news: "HE WAS A MAN, TAKE HIM AS IS" On the grave (I kid you not) of a used car salesman.

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Alex Prichard @profalexp.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

A thread on the dispute at Exeter Uni. #ucu #defendexeteruni @ucu.org.uk On 15 June HR called Exeter UCU into a confidential meeting and informed us they would be putting over 500 colleagues at risk of redundancy and expected to loose around 200 staff. The number of c.150 you’ll have seen is FTE.

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Jason Scott-Warren @jes1003.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

apocalypse means revelation

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Please read and read again this stunning reflection on what’s happening at Exeter — and on the personal cost (for far too many and for far too long) of struggling to uphold the humanities within a system bent on grinding them down and squeezing them out. #DefendExeterUni

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

New on the Shakespearean Graves blog, @lizzywilliamson.bsky.social writes about shared commemorative language and the value of the humanities -- under threat at the University of Exeter and so many institutions worldwide. #ShaxEpitaphs #DefendExeterUni shaxepitaphs.exeter.ac.uk/2026/07/15/j...

One of the reasons I am continually drawn to this project is that it is concerned with one of the most basic, shared human drives – that of memorialising and of memory, where in moments of acute individual pain and grief we reach for shared words, a common register, and whether we adapt those words or not they become individualised in their use. It is this movement between individual and communal expression that gets to the heart of what it is to be this social animal. I look at a chart of those inscriptions appearing 1,000 or more times and I don’t see uniformity, I see community. To remember this, and not just see numbers and spreadsheets, we desperately need to support the humanities – and each human who works within them.

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Can't resist posting another example of a wildly decontextualised Shakespearean epitaph. 'My soul is in the sky' is fairly common on air force graves. Technically quoting Bottom, but in context maybe reaching for something more like '...put out my hand and touched the face of God'. #ShaxEpitaphs

Headstone (name not shown) of a US Air Force officer (d. 2002), with the epitaph 'MY SOUL IS IN | THE SKY'

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Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Nearly 30,000 signatures. Almost as if pretending nobody cares about what your cuts inflicting on #UKHE is backfiring a little, @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social ? Time for a different strategy and actually act on the responsibility you have?

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged in secret, a master ring, to control all others.

A new painting of Donald Trump in the White House, showing him gazing toward a sharply pointed mountain peak. (Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/03/us/politics/trump-takes-stock-of-other-presidencies-shedding-light-on-his-own.html)

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

The eyes don’t follow you; they precede you

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Struggling to parse this. Exeter is celebrating its overall global ranking to 136th, comprised (it reports) of 151st (Natural Sciences), 131st (Life Sciences & Medicine) and 76th (Arts & Humanities) while announcing plans to make 25% of Arts & Humanities staff redundant. Does this compute?

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Greg Jenner (Historian) @gregjenner.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

The value of the humanities is more than just what people are willing to pay for it — it can’t just be a business decision. The arts and humanities are fundamental to the flourishing of our society; knowledge gathering, critical thinking, and creativity should be defended as sacred things

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Katherine Harloe @katherineharloe.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

In March 2026 the University of Exeter was boasting of its top 100 QS World Rankings status for arts and humanities. Now it is devastating the same areas with drastic cuts. Something is seriously wrong. Solidarity to all the excellent colleagues affected by this. news.exeter.ac.uk/university/e...

news.exeter.ac.uk

Exeter records sweeping successes in QS World Rankings by Subject

The University of Exeter has recorded sweeping success in the latest prestigious international ranking, reflecting its strong teaching and research excellence. Exeter has recorded significant, double-...

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Lizzy Williamson @lizzywilliamson.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

We are against these unjustified, cruel and ideologically founded attacks on our University. Exeter is not in financial deficit and the 153 job losses are overwhelmingly directed at the humanities and social sciences. Please sign, share and shout #DefendExeterUni: www.change.org/p/stop-redun...

change.org

Sign the Petition

Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter

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Dr Philippa Earle @uncouthswain.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Petition to stop redundancies at the University of Exeter: c.org/Fgf2bPfGJC

c.org

Sign the Petition

Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter

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Douglas Natusch @douglasnatusch.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

www.change.org/p/stop-redun... please consider signing this petition to stop redundancies at the University of Exeter

change.org

Sign the Petition

Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I'm not here to tell you this isn't a travesty, only to say the mixed metaphor is bringing me uncanny levels of joy. Bill Pulte, a Bulldog for Trump, Prepares to Take Reins at Spy Agency www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/u...

nytimes.com

Bill Pulte, a Bulldog for Trump, Prepares to Take Reins at Spy Agency

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

That’s the kind of news I like to see when I open this app. Good luck with what remains!

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Read them? I haven’t even taught them.

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Has anyone traced how/why “Though she be but little she is fierce” exploded as a meme about 10 years ago? I remember it being all over signs and shirts at the Women’s Marches in 2017. And now, inevitably, on gravestones too…

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Olga Prokopis @olgaphoos.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept— As ’twere in scorn of eyes—reflecting gems, That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by. #RichardIII 1.4.28-32 #ShakespeareSunday

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Not where you might go looking for epitaphic speech -- but then, she is mourning the end of something #ShaxEpitaphs

Base of a gravestone for husband and wife, with Helena's speech, 'So we grew together, / Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, / But yet a union in partition, / Two lovely berries moulded on one stem, So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart. / M. N. III ii'

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

I feel like I'm in my peak King John era, and really want to see a live performance of the play while the mood lasts. Is anyone aware of productions planned in the UK this year?

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Looked it up, and now I have a new word / concept to throw into the mix when asking students to consider Horatio’s weirder-than-it-seems line: “I knew your father. These hands are not more like.” Thanks!

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

William Dodd's 'The Beauties of Shakespeare' looks like a heavy-hitter, at least into the early 20th c. Brief extracts with thematic headings like 'GLORY' and 'LOVERS PARTING' make it easy to dip into for epitaphic inspiration.

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

I agree! Examples like this don't so much 'quote' Shakespeare as resituate his language in a new 'script'. A one-line play in which the deceased is the speaker.... (Another amazing lift from Bottom, given a whole new meaning on a grave: 'When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer.')

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

I HAVE HAD A DREAM, PAST THE WIT OF MAN TO SAY WHAT DREAM IT WAS. A M N D, ACT IV – SC. I The playwright John van Druten (1901-1957), born in London, buried in California.

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

More popular in obituaries (because less misanthropic): 'Timon hath made his everlasting mansion / Upon the beached verge of the salt flood...' Daniel Webster got that one, and Daniel O'Connell too.

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Helen Vendler hears it too, which is good enough for me. (Though it must be admitted that this theory finds more support among Shakespeareans than among Yeatsians!)

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Well, according to M. C. Bradbrook (and others), that misanthrope was W. B. Yeats! 'I cannot but think that the great epitaph of Yeats, as he lies by the shore at Drumcliffe, owes something to Timon's epitaph: "Pass, and stay not here thy gait..." "Horseman, pass by".'

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

'O, TWO SUCH SILVER CURRENTS, WHEN THEY JOIN, DO GLORIFY THE BANKS THAT BOUND THEM IN' [King John, 2.1.459-60] On the grave of the novelist and playwright Lucy Clifford (d. 1929) and her husband William, who predeceased her by 50 years. ('Join' perhaps gestures to that long-delayed reunion?)

Headstone in Highgate Cemetery, with inscription:
WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD
BORN MAY 4TH 1845
DIED MARCH 3RD 1879
I WAS NOT, AND WAS CONCEIVED.
I LOVED AND DID A LITTLE WORK.
I AM NOT AND GRIEVE NOT.
AND
LUCY, HIS WIFE
DIED APRIL 21ST 1929
----------------
'O, TWO SUCH SILVER CURRENTS, WHEN THEY JOIN,
DO GLORIFY THE BANKS THAT BOUND THEM IN'

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

As of this morning, we've added Taming of the Shrew and Love's Labour's Lost to the list of plays that have furnished quotations for epitaphs and obituaries. AND THAT COMPLETES THE SET! Name a play, any play, I'll give you an epitaph. #ShaxEpitaphs

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Nick Kristof @nickkristof.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Yes, I know we're all focused on Iran. But the slaughter in Sudan continues, and this excellent piece in The @guardian recounts the mass atrocities that unfolded in El Fasher, Darfur, enabled by our pals in the UAE -- as world leaders looked away. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

theguardian.com

Heroism, horror and the ‘pits of hell’: inside the last days of El Fasher

Over two days in October 2025, up to 10,000 people are believed to have been massacred; a further 40,000 civillians from the Sudanese city are still unaccounted for. This is the story of what happened

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

“A cat came one day down into the dungeon unto him, and as it were offered herself unto him. He was glad of her, laid her in his bosom to warm him, and by making much of her won her love. After this she would come every day unto him divers times and, when she could get one, bring him a pigeon…” 🐈😻

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becimay @becimay.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

It’s happened 🩷🩵

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Amy Lidster @amylidster.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Are you a PG student or ECR interested in presenting at our conference ‘Clio Reframed: Women Writing History, 1500-1750’ in June? Bursaries to help with expenses are generously funded by @srsrensoc.bsky.social, so please send us your abstract by 14 March! clioreframed.hcommons.org/call-for-pap...

clioreframed.hcommons.org

Call for Papers

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

The latest #ShaxEpitaphs project update is available now. Featuring this interesting elegy for George Washington, blending passages from Henry VI Part 1 and Hamlet. 'WASHINGTON -- Is Dead.' Read all about it in The New Hampshire Gazette, 1 January 1800! shaxepitaphs.exeter.ac.uk/2026/02/26/f...

Image of poem printed in a newspaper, entitled 'IMITATION OF SHAKESPEARE. WASHINGTON - IS DEAD.' The poem reads:

HUNG be the Heavens with black, yield day to night!
Comets, importing change of times & states,
Brandish your crystal tresses through the sky:
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars,
That have consented to Our Father’s death.
Virtue he had, deserving to command:
His brandish’d sword did blind men with its beams,
His arms spread wider than an Eagle’s wings: –
What should I say? His deeds exceed all speech,
We ne‘er shall look upon his like again.

The first nine lines are adapted from the opening scene of Henry VI, Part 1, while the final line is adapted from Hamlet.

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Will Tullett @willtullett.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

We are advertising 4 jobs at York for historians (1 year medieval, 2 years modern Britain and public history, 3 years modern China, and open ended modern Middle Eastern) features.york.ac.uk/history-jobs/

features.york.ac.uk

York History Department - Academic Jobs

Uncover the past to define the future. We are seeking research-led historians to join our world-class, collaborative community. Discover career-defining opportunities within one of the UK’s most disti...

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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

In terms of the brother of a living king, I think (despite the heroically dysfunctional Georgians who came close) it was George, Duke of Clarence, sent to the Tower by Edward IV in the 1470s.

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Bad run of days for George, Duke of Clarence. Yesterday, the 548th anniversary of his death in the Tower of London (reputedly in a barrel of wine). Today, loses the coveted title of 'last brother of a reigning monarch to get himself arrested.'* Hope things will start looking up for George.

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

In future, any and all exam questions I compose will begin with “Whence”

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

In 2019 the cathedral renamed their Learning Centre 'The Susanna Barford Room', paying honour to her memorial. But all they seem to know about her is that she was one of many Barford children, most of whom also died young. The author of the verses is unknown!

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