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Roger Luckhurst

@theprofrog.bsky.social
1.4K followers 1.7K following 780 posts

academic/freelance writer, on Gothic, Horror film, Science Fiction. Latest: Graveyards: A History of Living with the Dead (2025). Next 2 books: a taxonomy of the undead and a biography of H P Lovecraft

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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 7h
Christ, what will happen if Xi finds out that H P Lovecraft was a bit racist?
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 8h
Topics Kemi BadEnoch might well up about in her conference speech: - no bail for RNLI boat-slashing Danny Tommo - lower number of heat exhaustion deaths than hoped for this summer - more legal routes for asylum claims from refugees from war zones - Grant Shapps's face pressed up against conf window
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This weekend I'm giving a 30-minute talk just on the wink to the camera, the final shot in Hitchcock's Family Plot (and the final shot of Hitchcock's final film). Loads of stuff on looks really great!
macguffin.media
HitchCon '26 | Hitchcockian Wizardry: Myth, Magic & the Macabre — MacGuffin Media
HitchCon ’26 International Alfred Hitchcock Film Conference returns online October 3–4, 2026. Hosted by MacGuffin Media, the conference explores Alfred Hitchcock’s classic films, cinematic legacy and ...
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
JFC
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I lost interest in this community event when it turned out that the ‘free face painting’ only applied to yourself, you couldnt just go up to council officials and add whiskers or turn them into orcas
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Reposted by Roger Luckhurst
Mark Bould @markbould.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Delighted to discover belatedly that earlier this year the American Analog Set put out an EP of even longer, even dronier versions of songs from their 2005 disbanding album Set Free.
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
6.33am I woke up from a horrible nightmare which involved time running backwards. The next time I looked at the clock, though, it was 3.20am which completely freaked me out. News headlines when I finally fully woke up all seem to be from the racist 1970s, so this all seems to track.
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ok which of you bastards put acid in my tea?
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The first thing you see on the new Quick Student Guide on AI and Academic Integrity document is an option to ‘get an AI summary of this PDF’
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I believe the correct technical term for this is: fucked
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Another attempt at vocational qualifications, a noble and ongoing struggle since the origins of state education in the 19thC and one where any hoped for equality of academic/vocational strands can only ever be really solved by abolishing the class system.
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I find Boris Johnson’s post-political career quite bewildering
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
On this form I must write a detailed report of the meeting, and then underneath, just below, where you always forget it, is the question 'Did this meeting take place?' which requires a yes/no answer but I want a dialogue box so I can put 'do meetings ever, really, *take place* as such, though?'
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Is this backed up with a pledge that each pensioner will get a gift of a couple of million from a cryptoloon so that they can buy as many Ferraris as they like?
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I don't know about you, but we now get a daily 'workflow reminder' which essentially reads 'Workflow diagnosis: you seem quite constipated and we will be issuing an enema order within the next 48 hours.'
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
“We’ll turn now to the thoughts of Chief Political Correspondent Chris Mason — although it may be just the sounds a balloon makes if you rib it up and down on your jumper, you decide”
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I reviewed Miéville’s extraordinary, intimidating novel The Rouse here:
lareviewofbooks.org
Decolonizing the Dead | Los Angeles Review of Books
China Miéville’s first solo novel in over a decade is part Lovecraft, part le Carré—and quintessentially weird.
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Will Reform UK have done enough background checks on their new leader in Wales?
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Lots of talk of growth ahead of the Budget, as if it were a baroque puzzle. Our problem is basic. It's that we no longer support the things which facilitate growth: Europe, immigration, higher education, tax simplification, policy stability. These are all choices and could stop making them anytime.
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Hmm, something not quite right about this Monday morning's emergency fluffy kitten
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Lurkers around the soon-to-be-ready rotisserie chickens in Waitrose. Bit late this morning. Statistically this contest is the highest cause of violent death in the English middle classes, we’ve all read the research, wish me luck
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
So … sixth then?
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
DO YOU MIND IF I JUST SIT HERE AND BELLOW SOME LIFE COACHING BANALITIES INTO MY LAPTOP?
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
British Academy: Govt: We’ve set up two extra apprenticeships at the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works
thebritishacademy.ac.uk
British Academy President: UK higher education crisis risks irreversible damage
As course closures, shrinking provision and widening regional inequalities threaten the future of UK higher education and research, President of the British Academy, Susan J Smith calls for an immedia...
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
A frankly trying modern literature university job for someone, being forced to live in Lausanne on a very good salary for years on end
timeshighereducation.com
Assistant Professor (Tenure Track Directly to Professor Ordinaire) in Modern English Literature - Lausanne, Canton of Vaud (CH) job with UNIVERSITY OF LAUSANNE - UNIL | 415561
The University of Lausanne seeks a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Modern English Literature, leading to Professor Ordinaire ...
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
DO YOU MIND IF I SIT HERE AND BELLOW INTO MY PHONE ABOUT MY DRAMATURGICAL PRACTICE?
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Ah man. Lucky enough to see him talk about his films twice at London Film Festival, always compelling. Complete retrospective NOW. RIP.
deadline.com
Patricio Guzmán Dies: Chilean Documentarian Was 85
Patricio Guzmán Dies: Documentarian Who Chronicled Chile's Turbulent Political History Was 85
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Was in Paris for the 8 days straight above 30C, often not dropping below 25C at night
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
You have to admire human persistence in sending along Excel spreadsheets, even though only 2.37% of humans actually know how to use it properly because it has the worst interface ever invented
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
How did we get to the point where a train driver saying ‘I will be detraining everyone at Acton’ is a sentence that not only exists but is also immediately understood?
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Emails from Labour HQ campaigning to match that donation. With this kind of majority they did have a a chance to shore up key elements of the democratic state by banning this shit, but it's now too late. Frustrated by liberal trust that democratic institutions will just sort themselves out somehow
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Must be about twenty years ago on a blustery, rainy day in Normandy in late September when we and about 5 other people had the Bayeux Tapestry pretty much to ourselves for a couple of hours
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Watched 9/11 unfold on a scratchy, ghostly black and white TV in a rental in remote village of Achiltibuie overlooking the Summer Isles — which felt at once immensely safe and entirely sawn off from the new dispensation
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Here is an emergency fluffy kitten for Friday morning
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
When there are about 12 professors left in post in the UK in 2029, I’m pretty sure Smith will be giving speeches saying ‘this problem is definitely Brian’s fault’
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
In yesterday’s fascist-fash Beautiful Knees contest, No.6 (L-R) is going onto the world finals for both his shapely patellas and his rejection of hopes for world peace, longing instead for ‘relentless hatred and perpetual race war.’ Congrats, Tristram!
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
At least the feeble, decadent class of book reviewers got this in two volumes— get in training for the single volume release next week, as this is a doozy!
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
BREAKING hundreds of men have flooded Clacton dressed in bright yellow beanie hats, waxed moustaches and ironic, or possibly post-ironic, dungarees, intimidating cafe owners by asking for oat macchiatos and loudly discussing whether Olivia Laing's fiction or non-fiction is the best starting point
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Have you had your choices insidiously undermined by the Wordle-bot yet today?
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I still don’t understand why these theatre technicians flash mobbed a whole town — unless there was a major scene change needed for Act 2?
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Monday
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Yeah I’m not opening that in case the answer is they dip it in their own urine and I can never eat sushi again
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Stylist’s defence: “frankly, I wasn’t even listening.”
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
6 o’clock news: ‘The thoughts of our Chief Political Correspondent Chris Mason will be at the end of this bulletin, after they’ve been collected from the soft play area where they’ve been finger painting all afternoon’
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Day conference on Conan Doyle and the Orient comin’ up
ies.sas.ac.uk
Conan Doyle’s Orient
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Just a reminder that from today I will also need to be displayed flat to be protected from gravity #Bayeux
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Today is my work rentrée. Mood:
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
The Emails (Extended Cut)
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Roger Luckhurst @theprofrog.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Snapped up ticket to see these bands together, but this is a quite eye-opening blog/appeal on how much they need to crowdfund to break even. I’m beginning to suspect capitalism may have some flaws
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