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Rasmus Birk

@rasmusbirk.bsky.social
560 followers 1.2K following 913 posts

Associate Professor in Psychology @ Aalborg University. I use qualitative methods to study mental health, focusing especially on the social, cultural and spatial contexts of experience. www.rasmusbirk.org

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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Not enough of a fuss is made about Jean Baudrillard and Gary Gygax sharing a birthday (niche post)
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Just do a lottery instead at this point. The work hours gone into unfunded research could have carried out the research!
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It is ASTOUNDING that this apparently needs saying.
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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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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 24/09/2026
Every line of this article is just completely stunning
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The fact that *Jacob Rees-Mogg* of all people holds on to - and is willing to publicly defend! - a quite inclusive and fluid notion of nationality is quite something to behold. Has anyone in or near the UK Labour party done anything remotely similar to this?
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
me, when I try to make jokes during lectures:
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Micah G. Allen @micahgallen.com · 22/09/2026
So… we just found out that GPT sol can complete a complex online behavioral/cognitive study producing nearly indistinguishable behavior and subjective reports… right as we are about to launch. Is this doomsday for online cognitive testing?
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Can I shock you? I don’t think writing these applications is a good use of 21000 people’s time
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Instead of doing ‘Anton Jäger should write more clearly’-discourse, let me just recommend this excellent review in the LRB on his book: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
William Davies · Easy to Join, Easy to Leave: Politics on Speed
This is what distinguishes hyperpolitics from the mass democracy of the mid-20th century. Symbolic political gestures...
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The UK university sector is mired in absolute madness
Graduates would also receive a new “universal lifetime entitlement to careers support both while they are at university and throughout their career”, says the plan published on 9 September.
Every undergraduate would also be entitled to access artificial intelligence (AI) tools, the roadmap states, while every course should have a lecturer who is an “AI trailblazer” so that “graduates have the skills to be AI pioneers in the workplace”.
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Simon Columbus @simoncolumbus.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
A lot of this research is really bad. One of these effects people just *want* to be true, so researchers can get away with shoddy crosssectional analyses and handwaving.
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Nearly 5000 researchers applied for an ERC starting grand in the last round. Just over 400 (less than 9%) were successful. Many people applying are spending up to 12 months working seriously on their application. This is absolutely crazy. erc.europa.eu/news-events/...
erc.europa.eu
ERC Starting Grants: €705 million to back Europe's next generation of researchers
The European Research Council (ERC) has today announced the winners of its latest Starting Grant competition. The funding, worth €705 million in total, will go to 421 early-career researchers across E...
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Conservatively say that the average applicant spends six months of their allotted research time working on their application. Collectively, more than 2000 years of research time has gone into unsuccessful applications in this round alone.
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 27/08/2026
Psychological Science special issue call 📣 Ever had your research denigrated bc it's "only descriptive", "what's the mechanism though?" and "but what are the theoretical implications?" Now has come your time to shine. Send your best descriptive work! www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...
Psychological Science invites submissions that advance psychological science through careful description of psychological phenomena. Psychological research often focuses on explaining and predicting phenomena before we have a sufficiently detailed understanding of them. It can be difficult to build strong theories on incomplete empirical foundations of the phenomena themselves. Careful descriptive research helps establish shared empirical reference points developed around well-characterized phenomena. As such, descriptive research contributes to psychological science both by improving our understanding of the phenomena themselves and by providing a stronger foundation for future theory-building, explanation, and prediction.

We are interested in manuscripts that:

Deepen our understanding of psychological phenomena, including what they look like, how they vary, and how they unfold;
Draw on a variety of sources of evidence and methods, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches; research conducted in naturalistic settings; intensive, longitudinal, or small-sample designs; and open or large-scale datasets; 
Provide necessary context for interpreting what is being described, including who is represented in the data, the settings and circumstances in which phenomena occur, and the broader social contexts in which they are situated; and/or
Make a substantive contribution to psychological science through the quality, depth, or significance of the description provided.
The deadline for submitting regular manuscripts is April 15, 2027. Registered Reports will also be considered. The deadline for submitting Stage 1 Registered Reports is November 15, 2026. Authors should indicate in the “Comments to Editor” box during submission that the manuscript is intended for the “Descriptive Research in Psychological Science” special issue.
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Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
‘Ironic’ (or something) that the country can host a Summer of Academic Freedom and Meritocracy Battle Of Ideas focused on the employment of two men, while at least 5000 academics are getting dismissed on the instructions of Chief Finance Officers
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Samantha Asumadu @samanthaasumadu.substack.com · 23/08/2026
A scathing thread about @nathancofnas.bsky.social's intellectual deficiencies started four months ago by Pieter Beck, a history of science senior postdoc @ Ghent University, 'Cofnas has been called an unoriginal thinker before.'
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Worth reading the thread that led up to this.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
“It’s impossible that Jason Arday could have got his post without DEI,” say people about an industry which can find 200 academics willing to sign a letter in support of David Miller and another 200 academics willing to support Nathan Cofnas.
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Cofnas had a Leverhulme early career fellowship "I called the Leverlhulme Trust this morning, and was surprised that this was, apparently, the first inquiry they had had about Nathan Cofnas" - Afua Hirsch afuahirsch.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-...
afuahirsch.substack.com
A Tale of Two Racists
and the forever war against black bodies
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
(At the margins, we have to really care about someone's own capacity to do excellent research. But with the sheer material and cultural resources of the Ivy League or Oxbridge, this is much less an issue).
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
(I definitely think people not only underestimate how many chancers there are in academia but also that you're much more likely to find obviously underqualified people in places like Oxford and Cambridge, where tiny elite networks are used to having the power to decide what reality is).
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
This is a very common and telling objection to claims around ‘social construction’ and I think it is time we retire the term ‘social construct’ which brings much more confusion than clarity.
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maybe: leif weatherby @leifw.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Language Machines is out today, can be ordered from @uminnpress.bsky.social www.upress.umn.edu/978151791932... - gathering a few parergonal writings below 1/
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Den Mamdani/Nyrup crossover du ikke vidste, du havde brug for
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Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
'What is diagnosis For?' - Nikolas Rose, 2013 nikolasrose.com/wp-content/u...
nikolasrose.com
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
<literally thousands of social and historical studies precisely explaning a phenomenon> Psychiatrists: no one understands this phenomenon 🤷 www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
theguardian.com
Rising number of people seeking ADHD diagnosis without treatment, say experts
Psychiatrists in Channel 4 documentary argue it is more a ‘social construct’ than a medical condition
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Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
The "major public interest" claim, which is being used here to justify the hysterical RW moral panic, presumably rests on an assumption that one individual appointment was somehow typical of university hiring. As I have pointed out, this is a ridiculous claim, initially pushed by a full-ass racist.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 14/08/2026
This is the coverage of Arday **just in the Telegraph** in the UK. This is only the first four pages of results, just in one outlet.
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Jason Arday found dead
2 hours ago — Mr Arday was found •unresponsive• at an address in Battersea. south London. on Froy
afternoon. He was uter pronounced dead at the scene. A Read rnore
Jason Arday says he was an illiterate, mute child. His .
6 hours ago — Jason Arday says he was an i&erate. mute child. Cambridge's youngest-ever black
professor in 2023. Arday attended from the age of four to 11
r— mm-WI 3
A PhD is no longer a sign of brilliance — take it from Dr Arday
1 day aeo — Juon Arday resigns from the Unwersity of Cambrdge after The Telegraph reports he had
falseb• claimed to have pubåshed a book
We are all Jason Arday now
S days ago — Jason Arday resons from the University of Cambridge after The Telegraph reports he had
falsew cGimed to have published a book Aug 7.2028. Read more
Cambridge professor claimed he was on Seven Up..
2 Aug 2026 — He was not bom until 1985. Prof Arday is at the centre of a row about academk
plagiarism after The Tekgragh that he had been accused
The Jason Arday 'memoir' that now appears to be more .
7 days ago — Instead of tales of triumph over adversity. the now-fomer Cambridge professors
autob"qraphy is a case study in self-rnythobgising,
Arday failed to mention 'months-long coma' in autobiography
8 days ago — Jason Arday toz publishers he was k•ft a three-month coma fohwhg a car gash. but
never wrote about the ordeal his memoirs_
Jason Arday is living proof that you reap what you sow
6 Aug 2028 — The Cambridge professor feed plagiarism alegations and made fantastical clä'ns about
his life. so what did he expect woUz happen? Read rmre
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Arday 'accused student of Miite privilege' after she
4 days ago — Forrner Cambrdge professor alleged* htplied that Roehamptm student was racist after
cornplaint about essay SOOre.
Jason Arday is rnerely a symptom of the Leffs corruption
Aug 2026 — Lab-curs on school standards is on the same toxic assumptions that created his
academic career.
Cambridge hired Arday after 'listening to black stu…
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Richard Carr @richardcarr.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
This 1-2 (from when the plagiarism story first broke) really struck/still strikes me. The schoolyard bullying that followed an unusual (though, re plagiarism, not unique) story was appalling. Criticism of his practice was clearly fair, but it tipped over into something else - particularly on X.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Basic contention is academia used to be about inquiry, and not just a finishing school for elites as it is nowadays. But my impression is academia has always been to a large extent a finishing school for elites and by historical standards there's an unusually high emphasis on intellectual merit now?
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Nvidie @dervine7.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
if there’s one thing every autistic person with a hyperfixation loves it’s constant and vituperative debate
But a Cambridge that truly gave priority to the pursuit of truth over the pursuit of status would look very different from the Cambridge of today. It would be a lot smaller, welcoming only the most gifted minority of students and academics. It would be full of obsessive oddballs, many of whom struggled with eye contact, let alone glad-handing. It would be an arena of constant debate, sometimes offensive and vituperative. A lot of visitors would feel excluded and alienated by a status hierarchy assessed solely on intellectual skill. To the extent that Newton could feel comfortable anywhere, he would feel comfortable in such a place.
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
AI as an addictive cognitive ‘scaffold’ is really not theorized properly, yet. You’d think all the posthumanists and 4E cognition people would be all over this!
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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Axios writer: I melted my brain with AI. Not only can I no longer read, but I don't even understand the purpose of reading anymore. Here's how you can also do this. www.axios.com/2026/08/11/r...
Axios: AI has become my reading buddy as I've plowed through my summer book list, helping me keep track of plots and characters, unpack themes, and make sense of wordy, old prose.

Why it matters: The way many of us actually read books — a few pages before bed, a chapter at the beach, another on a plane — makes it easy to lose the thread. AI can help you pick it back up without starting over.
📖 I really got into using AI while reading James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans." The text was far too dense for casual vacation reading. My first prompt asked:

"I'd like a guide as I read The Last of the Mohicans who can help me understand what I've read and where the story is, without giving spoilers or getting ahead of my progress. Can you do this, chapter by chapter?"
The robot agreed: "Cooper's sentences are long and his diction is archaic."
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Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Just a disaster from every angle. Shame on Cambridge - the damage they have done to every black student in their care and who was thinking of applying to them. And, beyond that, to the academic credentials of black students more generally. Awful on all counts. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Cambridge academics reject university’s attempt to end row over Jason Arday
Group calls for ‘thorough and transparent investigation’ of hiring of professor who resigned after his claims came under scrutiny
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Hanna Kienzler @hannakienzler.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
The unleashed racism in (social) media over the Arday case is horrendous. It has nothing to do with the case itself. Rather the latter is abused to voice white supremacist ideologies without filter and with self-righteousness. It is dangerous. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Cambridge academics reject university’s attempt to end row over Jason Arday
Group calls for ‘thorough and transparent investigation’ of hiring of professor who resigned after his claims came under scrutiny
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
I can’t believe Patti Smith could be *this* wrong
A glowing Patti Smith endorsement on the back of a horrendously bad book, ‘Lazar’
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Sarah Osment @smosment.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
this is the future of education we're headed toward—governesses for the 1%, AI slop for the rest
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
"Arday was treated [by Cambridge] not as a scholar but as a mascot, one who was particularly expedient for an institution that had been regularly embarrassed by its historic record on race." Really good piece by Jason Okundaye. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
The takedown of Jason Arday has overjoyed the right, and must be a wake-up call for the left | Jason Okundaye
The Cambridge academic has rightly now resigned. But that won’t end the targeting of senior black figures or the lazy way institutions promote faux equality, says Guardian columnist Jason Okundaye
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
A hill I will die on is that it makes no sense for big disciplinary conferences to have a theme. Either you exclude loads of people pointlessly (because they don't work on 'utopias' or whatever) or people awkwardly shove the keyword into whatever they actually work on, or they just ignore it.
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
New research topic for sociologists with interests in science and/or gender just dropped:
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Is this infrastructural violence for non-England fans?
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Graeber, 2018
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
There are reasonable debates to be had about AI and higher education (and education more generally) but it is absolutely clear to me that exams are useless if are not in person/oral. Take home exams are not viable anymore, unfortunately
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Imagine the unending headlines if this were Biden
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Wake up, a new form of neoliberalism just dropped
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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
the first page  of Szasz's 1963 paper on transference
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Rasmus Birk @rasmusbirk.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
it’s amazing that this website is free
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
At a certain point, I do think it's unfair that I have to read the opinions of Americans.
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