Jennifer Cooke

#EnglishCreates: Futures

To round off our series on 'Critical Reading', Prof Ben Davies (University of Southern Denmark) takes a fascinating look at some of the books that have shaped his research into reading and readers:

universityenglish.ac.uk/a-reading-li...

#EnglishStudies

This was fun to do with wonderful collaborators @jenniferacooke.bsky.social @bobeaglestone.bsky.social @gailmarshall.bsky.social CEO @englishassociation.bsky.social @jtwelsch.bsky.social #ReadingMatters @ies-sas.bsky.social

#EnglishCreates: Futures

Today, Prof Jennifer Cooke (Loughborough University) discusses the profound value of reading in the age of social media:

'Just as smart phones and social media sites train us in one way, proper reading trains us in another...'

universityenglish.ac.uk/really-readi...

Important post on the importance of reading by @jenniferacooke.bsky.social #EnglishCreates @ies-sas.bsky.social @englishassociation.bsky.social @engmediacentre.bsky.social @lboroenglish.bsky.social @rsliterature.bsky.social @literacy-trust.bsky.social

<em>C21</em>’s Roundtable Review of Timothy Bewes’s <em>Free Indirect: The Novel in a Postfictional Age</em> (2022)

C21 journal has published a ‘round table review’ of Timothy Bewes’s book FREE INDIRECT. It includes a short essay by me; other contributors include Leonid Bilmes, Laura Zander & Adam Kelly. Bewes does a response at the end 👇

c21.openlibhums.org/article/id/2...

@c21literature.bsky.social

Richardson is amazing & I’m so glad I worked on her earlier on in my career. Mainly I’m going to be writing about Ishiguro’s Klara & the Sun but I’ve read a few, including The Laughing Robot, not great as lit but ideas are interesting.

Today I am writing about carebots. No one seems to like them much, especially the people they are envisioned as helping. Novelists like them, though, & tend to make them likeable.

Got a contemporary lit proposal? Or one on care or feminism or social reproduction? Send it to me!

Tomorrow I am on campus in conversation with award-winning novelist & memoirist Christie Watson, discussing differences between memoir & fiction, the ethics of writing about patients & medical experiences, as well as hearing her read excerpts from her work.

DM me if you'd like the Teams link/room.

Angel was great too, bit of a masterclass in allowing questions to unfold into one another & giving yourself and your interviewee space. I’m interviewing Christie Watson next week so good to be thinking about this now.

Went to hear Adam Phillips in conversation with Katherine Angel about his new book, The Life You Want. I find psychoanalysis so endlessly fascinating & am turning to it once again for this book chapter on carers. Highly recommend listening to Phillips’ mellifluous voice too.

Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out.

As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class.

Here's what happened:

Nuffield Foundation The Nuffield Foundation seeks a new member of its Board of Trustees. The Nuffield Foundation tackles the UK’s biggest social challenges by funding

Looking for an opportunity to improve the world a bit? @nuffieldfoundation.org is looking for a new trustee. A great organisation supporting a range of research and initiatives such as @adalovelaceinst.bsky.social; all ably led by @gavin-kelly.bsky.social
www.saxbam.com/appointment/...

Preliminary proofs are in......

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoc The Centre for Uses of Literature at the University of Southern Denmark is inviting applications for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026 (MSCA-PF).

The Centre for Uses of Literature at the University of Southern Denmark is inviting applications for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026 (MSCA-PF). www.sdu.dk/en/forskning... @bacls.bsky.social @c21literature.bsky.social @englishassociation.bsky.social @ies-sas.bsky.social

We are delighted to share the programme for our upcoming conference!

We will be running fourteen panels across two days in early February - all online and open to everyone 😊 please see our website for more details on speakers, panels and how to book.

One of the most important December drops every year!

a new monograph by one of our fabulous advisory board ☺️

It was a stone building. It just didn’t work at all in certain parts of the building (where there were public seats)

Also it is pretty poor in my office at Loughborough Uni. I have a work laptop there so that’s okay but I have a personal Mac laptop I use a lot & that’s problematic

I was at Glasgow in the main building. Worked in cafes, not just outside (but still in the building). As an academic I’d normally think I’d be ok. As a side note, eduroam in teaching hospitals can be dire

It only works in certain university spaces — in the cafe, where I have to pay for something I don’t want — but not outside. Plus not always as full as I’d like or needed that day of many emails about a grant deadline

Saved by Stoppard Sir, In 1993 my wife and I went to see the first production of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (obituary, Dec I), and in the interval I experienced a Damascene conversion. As a clinical scientist I was trying to understand the enigma of the behaviour of breast cancer, the assumption being that it grew in a linear trajectory spitting off metastases on its way. In the first act of Arcadia, Thomasina asks her tutor, Septimus: "If there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose?" With that Stoppard explains chaos theory, which better explains the behaviour of breast cancer. At the point of diagnosis, the cancer must have already scattered cancer cells into the circulation that nest latent in distant organs. The consequence of that hypothesis was the birth of "adjuvant systemic chemotherapy", ", and rapidly we saw a striking fall of the curve that illustrated patients' survival. Stoppard never learnt how many lives he saved by writing Arcadia. Michael Baum Professor emeritus of surgery; visiting professor of medical humanities, UCL r.

Alt text for those who need it. This is amazing.

My cat used to sit for hours and hours by a mole hill. It works. It’s just time consuming.

Most academics strongly opposed to using AI in REF 2029 While new technologies seen as ‘game changer’ for national-level research assessment, study finds vehement opposition, particularly among humanities scholars

'The report, led by the University of Bristol and funded by Research England, found that some universities are already using generative AI to assess the quality of their research.' 1/3

This week in Glasgow I needed a space to work where I didn’t have to buy anything, with free WiFi & without the vagaries of eduroam. I used the beautiful Hillhead Library. We need to value our public libraries for the wonderful service they provide us all.

Inquiry report shows ‘horrific’ Covid death toll among disabled people was not inevitable, say DPOs A report by the Covid inquiry into political decision-making during the pandemic proves that the “horrific” and disproportionate death toll among disabled people was not inevitable but the result o…

A report by the Covid inquiry into political decision-making during the pandemic proves that the “horrific” and disproportionate death toll among disabled people was not inevitable but the result of treating them as an “afterthought”

www.disabilitynewsservice.com/inquiry-repo...

Interesting report for HEIs to consider. English degrees deliver a lot of the skills outlined as needed here.

S09 E02 | How Do We Teach Literature When Students Won’t Read What We Assign? Podcast Episode · C19: America in the 19th Century · 08/14/2025 · 37m

I tried a couple new things this term. It has been my best term since 2019.

Among my trial runs was self-directed reading, following the advice of Mary Isbell on @c19podcast.bsky.social

I highly recommend this & it should be part of your 2025 best of public humanities, @americanstudier.bsky.social

you do have to do it in a couple of places but this tutorial makes it easy to go uncheck the boxes that otherwise lets Google's AI read all your shit. or move everything over to protonmail but moving everything over is a giant thing I know.