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Society for the Study of the Past

@socstudyofthepast.bsky.social
434 followers 128 following 22 posts

The Society for the Study of the Past is a new subject organisation that believes solidarity with the oppressed, liberation of the occupied and a more just future are core concerns of the historian. 🍉 Join us! ⬇️ societyforthestudyofthepast.com

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Reposted by Society for the Study of the Past
Palestine News @palestinenews.smitsky.nl · 28/09/2026
New Google Earth Images Reveal Massive Israeli Destruction Across Rafah | Safa News Agency - English Edition #palestine #safa
en.safa.news
New Google Earth Images Reveal Massive Israeli Destruction Across Rafah | Safa News Agency - English Edition
SAFA – Newly updated Google Earth satellite imagery has revealed the staggering scale of destruction across Rafah, with vast sections of the southern Gaza city lying in ruins following Israeli militar
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Shaily Patel @vox-magica.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
another day, another scholar who writes about power but who can’t apply their keen power analytic to their treatment of real marginalized peoples. shame.
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(Mar)Chella Ward @luxmea.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The literature scholar Refaat Al Areer would have been 47 today, if he had not been murdered by genocidal Israel. I think about his expo marker every day - it’s the best image I have for the kind of scholar I would like to be. ✊🏻🇵🇸
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Palestine Legal @palestinelegal.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
As Galo's advisor, Robin D.G. Kelley, said, “If Galo prevails, and he will, it will be a win for the entire student movement fighting for a free Palestine.”
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Citizen.Coping @propcazhpm.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Anyone re/reading Brontë's "Jane Eyre", I HIGHLY RECOMMEND also reading "Salvage: Readings from the Wreck" by Dionne Brand. #Lit The 3rd chapter takes a critical look at it in relation to Jean Rhys's "Wide Sargasso Sea". "It is, above all, a novel about submission. Confinement and submission."
thenation.com
How the Western Literary Canon Made the World Worse
A talk with Dionne Brand about her recent book, Salvage, which looks at how the classic texts of Anglo-American fiction helped abet the crimes of capitalism, colonialism, and more.
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(Mar)Chella Ward @luxmea.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I’m pretty sure that if nothing else it will be the yellowest book of 2027 🤭💛 www.plutobooks.com/product/clas...
plutobooks.com
Classicism - Pluto Press
History is written by the victors. But what happens when the story they tell is a lie?
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Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
“Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the crime of crimes that obligates states to intervene, has taken the lives of large numbers of Palestinian scholars.” A new archive honors the lives of the scholars, researchers, and teachers murdered in the Gaza genocide. www.publicbooks.org/remember-the...
publicbooks.org
Remember Them: Palestine Scholars Murdered in the Gaza Genocide - Public Books
“In Palestine, some 87,000 students have suffered a near total disruption of their studies for the duration of the genocide, and more than 1200 have been killed. Upwards of 200 academic staff have…
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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The latest Pasts Imperfect is out! @caeliambulator.bsky.social discusses Hormuz & his new book on Indian Ocean Trade ⛵. Then, ancient mosaics enshrining pets, Aristotle in the antebellum South, medieval Denia, a new dinosaur in Brazil, ancient world journals from @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social & more!
pasts-imperfect.ghost.io
Pasts Imperfect (9.10.26)
This week, ancient historian Jeremy Simmons discusses Rome, India, and his new book on ancient Indian Ocean trade networks. Then, new mosaics may honor two beloved ancient pets, a new book on Aristotl...
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Ordinary Notes @hystericalblkns.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I'm going to keep posting this by @blacklikewho.bsky.social because i think its analyses are right on. It is urgent and brilliant. canadiandimension.com/articles/vie...
canadiandimension.com
The university is the crisis
The crisis of the university is its inability to be honest about the nature of its self-induced crisis. Its leaders or senior managers often share the perspectives of those who wish the university to ...
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(Mar)Chella Ward @luxmea.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Quick reminder that instead of giving your time and expertise to these institutions we could be building something like @socstudyofthepast.bsky.social that stands unequivocally on the side of the occupied and the oppressed. ✊🏻🇵🇸
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Stacy Fahrenthold @sfahrenthold.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
The American Historical Association hired a lobbying firm to help silence member advocacy on Palestine. In this essay, Adam Rzepka covers @historians.org's relationship w/ Thorn Run Partners, its deep ethical conflicts, & the advocacy crisis AHA has thrust upon us. www.chronicle.com/article/a-sc...
chronicle.com
Opinion | A Scholarly Association’s Secret Washington Playbook
Did the American Historical Association ask a corporate lobbying firm for advice on how to silence its members?
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Nate O @nateo.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Plagiarism is only one part of a much broader scope of academic misconduct, and ‘race realism’ is itself a form of academic misconduct: using academia to launder long-discredited and empirically refuted white supremacist propaganda. It is disseminating pernicious lies into broader society
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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Virginia Woolf discourse, Odyssey debates, Gandalf protestes -- it ys almoost as yf bookes are reallye ymportant.
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Ordinary Notes @hystericalblkns.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
newyorker.com
How Far Will the Trump Administration Go to Deport Mahmoud Khalil?
Khalil protested Israel as a student at Columbia. Now he’s on the verge of being kicked out of the country.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Plenty to reflect about re: the Arday affair, but I'm going to repeat this one thing. The playbook the right used here is effective even though it's not especially sophisticated, as it relies on the audience to do the dirty work. I've been calling it "Trojan horse propaganda", let's go with that. 1/
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S Pahwa @sonipahwa.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Great article by @durba.bsky.social on anticipatory compliance and complicity at elite universities that have no financial reasons for such obsequiousness. muse.jhu.edu/pub/434/arti...
muse.jhu.edu
Project MUSE -- Verification required!
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Ordinary Notes @hystericalblkns.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
leilacancode.github.io/everythinggo...
leilacancode.github.io
Everything Good About Jason Arday
First-hand accounts from people who knew him. Collected by his students.
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Ordinary Notes @hystericalblkns.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Yes. They hounded him to death. Days and days of breathless undoing. Damn them all.
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sam³⁰⁰⁰ @samgavin.com · 04/08/2026
This is brutal -- it took me a week to get through it -- but it's important.
thekeymagazine.com
“Everything Is Legitimate”: How Israel Uses Rape as a Tool of Genocide
The rape of Palestinian detainees is so commonplace that it’s no longer hidden. It’s filmed, joked about, and celebrated in parliament. This is no mistake; it’s core to Israel’s colonial project.
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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Pasts Imperfect is back! This week, @jbrya.bsky.social discusses Zora Neale Hurston's 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙃𝙚𝙧𝙤𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙂𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩. Then, the mass grave at Phaleron (Attica) confirms a local population; UNESCO protects Sebastia; geoglyphs in the Amazon; ancient world journals by @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social & more!
pasts-imperfect.ghost.io
Pasts Imperfect (8.13.26)
This week, classicist Jermaine Bryant discusses Zora Neale Hurston's posthumously published The Life of Herod the Great. Then, a new study of the mass grave at Phaleron (Attica) confirms a local popul...
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Dr. Chance Bonar @chancebonar.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Proofs day forمدرسة غزة للبلاغة والفلسفة : مختارات من كتابات روادها في آواخر العصور القديمة! (The Arabic translation of A Workshop of Eloquence: A Collection of Gazan Literature from Late Antiquity)
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Dr Alex Fitzpatrick @animalarchaeology.com · 12/08/2026
🏺With the solar eclipse in the news here in the UK, it’s probably worth noting that we have archaeological evidence of eclipses. Like this cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia circa 900-600 BCE forecasting a solar eclipse. Now at the Hearst Museum of Anthropology. 📜 n2t.net/ark:/21549/h...
A clay tablet with a fragmentary astrological text forecasting the dire consequences of a solar eclipse.
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Everyday Orientalism @eorientalism.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
🎙️ From EOPodcast's Ep5: Beverly Bain on how Black and Indigenous academics "find ourselves knotted in this institutional capture" that is "meant to locate us and isolate us". Full episode on streaming platforms, Spreaker and our YT: www.youtube.com/shorts/hW29Q...
youtube.com
Black and Indigenous academics "find ourselves knotted in this institutional capture" - Beverly Bain
YouTube video by Everyday Orientalism
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Dr. Divya (🔔 logged out) @divyampersaud.com · 12/08/2026
I’m a planetary scientist & science communicator and I will do scicomm on here about the eclipse IF you share my pinned and drop a dollar for any one of the appeals listed there. AMA: ngl.link/divyamper + I will also post and share moon facts 🩶
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Hannah Čulík-Baird @opietasanimi.com · 06/08/2026
run don’t walk to read my UCLA colleague Kelly Nguyen’s new book!! academic.oup.com/book/63209
academic.oup.com
Critical Classicality in Vietnam and the Diaspora
Abstract. This is the first book to study Vietnamese classicisms. Drawing on decolonial theory, critical refugee studies, and queer of color critique, Nguy
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Sparrows for Palestine @sparrows4palestine.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
🚨🐦🔎NEW: Princeton hires archaeologist who digs next to Israeli torture camp. Megiddo is the site of one of the largest torture camps for Palestinians; the dig is right next to the prison: open.substack.com/pub/sparrows...
open.substack.com
Princeton hires archaeologist who digs next to Israeli torture camp
Megiddo is the site of one of the largest torture camps for Palestinians; the dig is right next to the prison
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folukeifejola @folukeifejola.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
"There is no humane colonialism. There is no democratic colonialism There is no non-exploitative colonialism." - Samora Machel, Mozambican military commander, politician, revolutionary... President (1933-1986)
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Zeteo @zeteo.com · 04/08/2026
"He made me Odysseus… I'll take it." Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed reacts to a Republican AI attack ad depicting him, Zohran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as communists inside the Trojan Horse. Subscribe to zeteo.com for more.
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Independent Historians Network (UK) @indyhistnetwork.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
UK history is at a crisis point in academia. More & more people are going freelance on a part time basis, or as a whole new form of employment. IHN is creating support network for all historians who work independently. We aim to bring people together, promote your work, and be a hub of information.
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Joel @sentantiq.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
"If Odysseus’ voluntary exile and final sailing into the setting sun is the actual ending of his tale, Nolan’s movie can be read as an apologetics for the violence that the U.S. and its allies have meted out upon the world since 9/11." blnreview.de/en/ausgaben/...
blnreview.de
Joel Christensen · Sunset of the West
With its emphasis on craft and a PR campaign tailored to the genius of its director, Christopher Nolan’s “Odyssey” wants to save cinema from the fangs of AI. But for all its visual magnificence, the f...
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ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly @arablit.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
On the New Platform, ‘Palestine is Everywhere’ Editors of the anthology Palestine is Everywhere -- Skye Arundhati Thomas, Edwin Nasr, and Gloria Habsburg -- recently launched a new "Palestine is Everywhere" platform to… arablit.org/2026/07/28/on-the-new-p…
arablit.org
On the New Platform, ‘Palestine is Everywhere’
Editors of the anthology Palestine is Everywhere -- Skye Arundhati Thomas, Edwin Nasr, and Gloria Habsburg -- recently launched a new "Palestine is Everywhere" platform to host a series of monthly commissions, "creating an ongoing space to support and amplify the work of artists, writers, and practitioners from Palestine and the wider region." You can explore the platform here:
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Dr. Divya (🔔 logged out) @divyampersaud.com · 02/08/2026
Palestinian student facing state violence. Extreme cruelty from every direction. Needs us to be able to eat. 1101/1334 by literally now. It took all month to get here! But please don’t break the bank. It takes all of us: chuffed.org/project/ahmedf
An artistic graphic, the background a colorful abstract painting. The text is in three artistic fonts. Title: Ahmed is facing state violence. Subtitle: help him survive. Link: chuffed.org/project/ahmedf.
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Seth L. Sanders @nabalkattu.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Film criticism aside, Emily Wilson's review of the Odyssey concerned me because it misrepresents Late Bronze Age history and reinforces an old Eurocentric pattern of dismissing the experiences--and reality--of ancient peoples other than the Greeks.
Nolan’s other major addition to Homer’s narrative is the repeated reference to threats to ‘our civilisation’ from ‘the sea peoples’ – a now debunked 19th-century theory about maritime tribes who were thought to have attacked Egypt around 1200 BCE and to have also been responsible for the roughly coeval collapse of Mycenaean Greek culture. ‘Our civilisation is under attack,’ Penelope wails. Odysseus comforts her by saying that ‘Bronze Age civilisation’, including literacy, will rise again from the ashes. The current consensus, as Nolan clearly knows, is that there was no such thing as ‘the sea peoples’, and that the Greek-speaking world’s shift away from the more centralised, literate palace culture of the Mycenaeans in the 11th century BCE towards the fragmented social formations of the early Greek Iron Age was caused by a range of factors, including climate change, earthquakes and internal unrest. Nolan uses these competing historical theories to create a characteristic narrative twist about the identity of ‘the sea peoples’, which I will not spoil, though you can probably guess it.
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#StupidSuez @diplomatofnight.com · 23/07/2026
We have an updated link below and would greatly appreciate if you took a few minutes to tell your Congress members to demand Sama's freedom. She is a Palestinian American citizen and a student, who is being unjustly and illegally held in Israeli military prison.
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dr. thrasher, an american writer in ex(archia)(xile) @thrasherxy.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
“The AAUP stands in solidarity with Steven Thrasher, the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg Chair of Social Justice in Reporting at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, who last week filed a lawsuit against Northwestern and against partisan government actors” www.aaup.org/news/northwe...
aaup.org
Northwestern University’s Campaign against Free Expression
The AAUP stands in solidarity with Steven Thrasher, the inaugural Daniel H.
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Max Berger @maxberger.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
“Why did they use these enormous movie stars in the marketing campaign” asks a guy who believes in his own racial superiority.
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Dr. Chance Bonar @chancebonar.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
This chapter will be a bit of a follow-up to my OE piece on Eusebius’s Palestinianness, digging more into how he narrated local trauma to craft a shared Palestinian ID & encouraged his readers elsewhere to care about Palestinian Christian suffering everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2025/05/20/t...
everydayorientalism.wordpress.com
The Father of Church History was Palestinian – #EOPalestine 21
by Chance Bonar Eusebius Pamphilius, bishop of Caesarea Maritima (modern Qesarya/قِيسارْيَة, Israel), is a fixture in the study of ancient Christianity. Living from the 260s to 339 CE and spending …
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(Mar)Chella Ward @luxmea.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Bored of Western supremacy’s obsession with Homer’s Odyssey? Here’s my guide to five ancient epics you could read instead. 🏺
The 5 epics are: 1) Gilgamesh 2) The epic of Hi’aka 3) the Shanameh 4) The epic of Sundiata 5) the Mahabharata
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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, of this special Homer issue! Resident Homer sage @sentantiq.bsky.social weighs in, Yoandy Cabrera has a list of Hispanic reimaginings of The Odyssey, saving Chaco Canyon, Mayan ruins reveal an ancient astronomer, new ancient world journals via @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social & more 👁️‍🗨️
pasts-imperfect.ghost.io
Pasts Imperfect (7.16.26)
μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, of this special Homer issue to prepare you to head to the theaters to see The Odyssey this week. Our resident Homer sage, Joel Christensen, discusses his new book, Why Odysseus?: Su...
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Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
“Odysseus’s spirit of seduction endures not only in verse, and its reception on the big screen, but in the personae of our leaders.” New at PB: Pasquale Toscano on the alike-ness of Trump and Odysseus.
publicbooks.org
The Ableism of Kings, the Fury of Trump - Public Books
I usually flinch from swashbuckling claims, but let me make this one at least: No hero from ancient myth feels as human as Odysseus. No one as relatable
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Los Angeles Review of Books @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
"My field of scholarship had become a legal and criminal minefield." Arabic Literature professor Huda Fakhreddine on seeing herself unfortunately reflected in "Law and Order": lareviewofbooks.org/article/law-ord…
A screenshot of a woman testifying in Law and Order
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Joseph Howley @illdottore.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
I’m too tired to write this up but I got these screenshots together for a private chat and thought I’d just leave them here and you can work it out yourself. last one is from Wilson, I love that translation and this choice in particular
Tumblr post “did the name Odysseus already exist”Yes there was a Greek word that his name seems to relate toThe word even appears in bk 5 of the odysseyAnd Wilson does a really clever job with it
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Dan Hicks @profdanhicks.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
👀 www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusi...
middleeasteye.net
Exclusive: MPs demand investigation into British Museum’s 'erasure' of Palestine
Call for independent inquiry cites 'deeply troubling' MEE investigation, which revealed changes followed months of lobbying by pro-Israel activists
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BDS movement @bdsmovement.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
To mark 21 years of BDS here is just a sampling of the remarkable BDS impacts achieved in the first half of 2026 — proof that organizing strategically and acting collectively can bring us closer to ending Israel's genocide and dismantling its regime of settler-colonial apartheid. loom.ly/Uby_XbY
loom.ly
The power of BDS: Our impact so far in 2026
Organizing strategically and acting collectively brings us closer to ending complicity in Israel's genocide and apartheid.
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Dr. Divya (🔔 logged out) @divyampersaud.com · 04/07/2026
We accepted the phrase “all the universities in Gaza are destroyed” without lifting a finger for Palestinian students. Change that. Help a kid resume his education. He’s so eager to support his family with a remote job. 377/635. Make it monthly to keep them housed, too. tiny.cc/SerajSmile
A graphic titled “Help a student smile again” in pixelated font. The text reads: “Seraj has a chance to continue his studies after two years without education. We have a small goal so he can finish this semester and submit  his final project.” Below is a 90s PC style pixelated gray button with an old-timey pixelated white pointer hovering over it, with the text tiny.cc/SerajSmile in black text. At the top of the graphic is a browser bar in red and green. To the side is a pixel art illustration of a student in a hoodie and jeans wearing headphones and a backpack.
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(Mar)Chella Ward @luxmea.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Brilliant journalism here from @middleeasteye-rss.bsky.social: www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/ex... I hate to say I told you so but I told you so. Many, many times and in the face of enormous criticism. It was historical accuracy, it was audience testing… as I said all along: it was Zionism.
middleeasteye.net
Exclusive: British Museum made false claims about its removal of ‘Palestine’ from displays
Internal emails reveal changes resulted directly from complaints by pro-Israel activists, with the museum and its director subsequently misleading prominent critics
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Dr Susan Greaney @suegreaney.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Petition against the job losses here: c.org/ddjtYXzdQQ
change.org
Sign the Petition
Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter
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Ben Phillips @benphillips1989.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
A statement from Exeter UCU branch @ucu.org.uk - please share far and wide.
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Dr. Chance Bonar @chancebonar.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Honored to be invited by the Pontifical Mission for Palestine & Dar al-Kalima University to speak at their conference, "Christianity in Palestine during the Early Islamic Period (638–1099 AD)," hybridly held in Bethlehem this November.
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Parti des Indigènes de la République @partiindigenes.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
#PhotoDuJour
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