Saorfhlaith Burton

Some of y’all can’t handle 2 high agency males going at it and it really shows

The public meltdown happening between the world’s richest man 🙄 and the President of the United States 🙄🙄 once again begs the age-old question: are men simply too emotional to be in positions of power?

Thank you to all the amazing @britsoci.bsky.social staff for putting on such a lovely event this year! #britsoc25

Dance with Death, by Hieronymus Hess, 1841, 📸 via Vatican Media Pool

Research by Newcastle, Northumbria & Durham universities reveals gaps in police custody healthcare, sparking calls for healthcare for those in custody to be brought under the NHS remit.
Read more @the-independent.com tinyurl.com/5cjwf66d
Our animation for Newcastle Uni illustrates the findings.

On my way to #britsoc25 and ofc my first train of the day is cancelled 🤦‍♀️

Looking forward to the @britsoci.bsky.social conference this week. l'll be giving the plenary 'What Can Sociology Say about Right-Wing Extremism & the Mainstreaming of Racism & the Far-Right?' and @bsaecf.bsky.social masterclass 'Teaching & Researching the Far-Right & Extremism'
tinyurl.com/bdhcmhhp

Headline that says mushrooms may talk to one another with up to 50 words

so they're mycoblogging

amazing how the cyber attack on the British Library still means that all recently published work (and that's a definition that stretches back several years) is completely unavailable to researchers, since they only acquired ebooks and that system is still down

Full text April 3, 2025 Dr. Joseph Rezek Dear NEH Grantee, This letter provides notice that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is terminating your federal grant (Grant Application No. FEL29509824) effective April 3, 2025, in accordance with the termination clause in your Grant Agreement. Your grant no longer effectuates the agency's needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant Agreement and is subject to termination due to several reasonable causes, as outlined in 2CFR§200.340. For instance, NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President's agenda. The President's February 19, 2025 executive order mandates that the NEH eliminate all non-statutorily required activities and functions. See Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, E.O. 14217 (Feb. 19, 2025). Your grant's immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities. Any objections or appeals to this termination will be managed in strict accordance with the President's Executive Orders, including but not limited to: E.O. 14217 (Feb. 19, 2025), Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy; E.O. 14151 (Jan. 20, 2025), Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing; E.O. 14168 (Jan. 20, 2025), Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government; and E.O. 14190 (Jan. 29, 2025), Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling. The termination of your grant represents an urgent priority for the administration, and due to exceptional circumstances, adherence to the traditional notification process is not possible. Therefore, the NEH hereby terminates your grant in its entirety effective April 3, 2025.

They did it. They terminated my NEH grant. Their letter went to my junk mail. This is an active grant that would have finished on June 30.

“Your grant’s immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government”

They are so afraid of us.

'Once you decide that a single vulnerable minority can be sacrificed, you’re operating within a fascist logic, because that means there might be a second one you’re willing to sacrifice, and a third, a fourth, and then what happens?’ - Judith Butler

Off to Newcastle Sociology today to host this event - with wonderful speakers including Les, @michaelacbenson.bsky.social, @katesang.bsky.social, Anoop Nayak, Alison Phipps, and @britsoci.bsky.social’s own Alison Danforth.

#AcademicSky #Sociology

In Newcastle to speak at this the BSA event Coping, Thriving Progressing? What Happens After ‘Early Career’. www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-b... Also, going to do a ‘This Cultural Life’ conversation with the inimitable Miranda Iossifidis for the Sociology Seminar.

A large stack of cream purple and green books bearing the title Pathfinding

I was made very welcome today at Topping & Co Edinburgh. *Sixty* copies of Pathfinding have now been signed, alongside quite a few copies of Wanderers. Pop in if you’re in the area and fancy an autographed first edition of my new book!

Like many of you, we are gravely concerned about recent Federal government actions in regard to higher education. While we recognize that the government plays an important role in addressing discrimination and ensuring good stewardship of public resources, we see recent actions going beyond those purposes in ways that threaten core values: academic freedom, freedom of inquiry, and freedom of expression. We do not know what demands the Federal government may make of Berkeley, but do know that we will be steadfast and unrelenting in our efforts to defend those core values. A Berkeley without academic freedom, without freedom of inquiry, without freedom of expression is simply not Berkeley. We recognize that some of you may find our statement too timid or too bold or deficient in some other way. That’s okay—a key to Berkeley’s excellence is our diversity of opinion and perspective. Robust debate is essential to scholarly advance. The purpose of a university is not to present us with ideas with which we are comfortable. To borrow from Clark Kerr, it is to make us safe for ideas. We don’t know what will happen. In part because we don’t know what may be demanded of us and in part because we won’t be the only decision makers. But what we do know is that we will stand up for Berkeley’s values and defend them to the very best of our ability. For 157 years, through the education it provides and the research it produces, Berkeley has produced immense economic and societal benefit to its students, California, the nation, and the world; this societal jewel needs to be preserved and defended, and we will toil tirelessly to see that it is. Fiat Lux. Rich Lyons Chancellor Ben Hermalin Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost

Leadership from UC Berkeley.

"...we see recent actions going beyond those purposes in ways that threaten core values: academic freedom, freedom of inquiry, & freedom of expression.... we will be steadfast and unrelenting in our efforts to defend those core values."

Solidarity with our Newcastle University members on strike today ✊

The 6th day of strike action this month fighting against hundreds of job cuts 💪

The whole union is behind you 🪧

Read more: www.ucu.org.uk/article/1391...

🚨🚨 An ECF workshop is going to be hosted at Newcastle University on 21 March 2025: "Coping, Thriving, Progressing? What happens after ‘early career’?" Hope to see you there! 🚨🚨

www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-b...

Becky Burke of Book Island (a picture book publisher in the UK founded by my fellow Tokarczuk translator Greet Pauwelijn) was "detained" by ICE at the Canadian border on 2/28. Her father asked that her story be shared in case someone can help her. He writes:

SVH is the real one. I can trace my love of the gothic to that trilogy where they go to London and meet a werewolf.

I don’t even like it when other people call my cat by her pet name. Ew.

My new work friend makes a thing that we’ve now termed a ‘gout board’ - it’s a charcuterie board but with all the best stuff and sweet treats. Anyway it gets him through marking season. I wish you a gout board!

Me: *reading Wuthering Heights at age 10*

Mum: I mean, at least she’s reading, what’s the worst that could happen

Me: if it’s not necrophilia, it’s not true love!

‘Has growler but does not work’ just pure killed me.

words I never imagined writing in my lifetime.....

General Sir Richard Shirreff, the former Nato deputy supreme allied commander in Europe, has told Times Radio:

"I think we have to assume, after the events of the last 10 days, that we cannot in any way count on America as an ally"

Yeah I’m really not convinced at this stage that any novara folks are good actors.

I feel like David Lynch deserved more than 5 seconds of a montage, and Shelly DuVall deserved more than to be nearly cropped out of the frame, hovering above the orchestra, and Tony Todd deserved literally anything. I guess sometimes I wish the Oscars were a funeral to celebrate those lost.

Especially when they’ve got a book out on the topic….🤔