It’s just one of the many stories I love about him, but it always made me laugh that he hated the musical of Les Misérables but loved The Book of Mormon, and would take friends and family to see it when they visited him in London.
I am so sorry to hear about the passing of Michael Slater, the grandfather of modern Dickens Studies but also a wickedly funny friend. He was a generous scholar, knew more about Dickens than anyone I’ve ever met, and was a talented actor and reader of Dickens. It was a privilege to know him.
The thing I love about teaching close reading via the strike scene in North and South is 1) how easy students find it to identify language they think is important; 2) how that can build out to a bigger claim about humanisation or dehumanisation; and 3) how you can then get them to see the other side
Our next #RSVPDigiEv is about a month away! Join us Oct. 17 to hear about recent updates to the Curran Index from editors @emilyjlm.bsky.social+Lars Atkin in a talk, "From Periodicals to Dailies: Attribution Scholarship and the Joys and Challenges of Archival Plenitude." rs4vp.org/oct-digital-...
Newly discovered Virginia Woolf proofs of "Orlando," "The Waves" and "Common Reader: Second Series" are now available online, thanks to Edward Mendelson and @columbiauniversity.bsky.social bloggingwoolf.org/2025/09/07/n... #VirginiaWoolf
Hello! You too! And fingers crossed for a positive outcome from the strike action.
Workhouses in England and Wales linked to transatlantic slave trade, study suggests
John Atkinson Grimshaw was born in Leeds OTD, 6 September in 1836. The Victorian painter is celebrated for his luminous nocturnal scenes of city streets and docks. Self-taught and once employed by the railway, he turned to painting full-time in the 1870s. Influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites and
This is a brilliant opportunity. Happy to answer any questions if anyone is interested in applying!
So @lydiacraig.bsky.social and myself were guests on @dominicgerrard.bsky.social’s wonderful podcast, Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire recently. Here we are talking about his poetry, including some readings of the best (and worst) bits:
If you're teaching global history (or, frankly, just history) in the coming year, this 10-min talk will be a fab resource, and can be supplemented by Rebecca's articles on the history of food & her book on the history of the potato, Feeding the People: The Politics of the Potato (Cambridge, 2020).
I didn't notice this either, but if you're on Academia you can opt out of their AI nonsense by going to 'Account Settings' under your profile pic then 'AI Settings' on the left-hand side.
This post tries to explain why I find language models exciting. But it doesn't try to persuade skeptics that they should agree. It's aimed more at people already working with AI, and its goal is to sharpen our collective sense of what the upside potential might be. #MLSky 🤖 🧪
For 30 years I've been experimenting with ways to see & use the online collections of libraries, archives & museums. I've made useful things, playful things, & weird things. Here's a big list of them for you to explore! https://wraggelabs.com #GLAM #histodons #digitalHumanities
Tickets free for #GlobalJaneAusten attendees!
Job: Managing Editor for the World Historical Gazetteer (whgazetteer.org), author and support the development of publications and datasets in digital spatial history, and communicate a vision for spatial history research initiatives. cfopitt.taleo.net/careersectio...
Today we launched a small service on JSTOR to help expert researchers get bulk access to bibliographic data and full text content. A fun part: you can go download 12M+ metadata records bulk in one file, right now: www.jstor.org/ta-support
Olive and Rose was a firescreen produced by Morris & Co. The symmetrical design of the pattern is characteristic of William Morris. This firescreen pattern was implemented by May Morris, Morris's daughter and Director of Embroidery at Morris and Co. The colors and directness of the implementation are characteristic of May's style. Her philosophy of needle
Happy Father’s Day from this William/May Morris father-daughter collaboration!
Are people out there using doccano? I'm new to it, but it seems like a lightweight easy (free) way to do sequence annotation tasks for ML projects. #MLSky doccano.github.io/doccano/
Job Alert! We're hiring a 3-year F/T Public Engagment Fellow based @lcflondon.bsky.social to lead our exciting programme of activities. We're looking for collegial & creative people with expertise in History, Galleries, Archives, Libraries, or Museums. Spread the word! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNI861/p...
Today at 2pm I'll be at the Dickens Museum in conversation with @emilyjlm.bsky.social @lydiacraig.bsky.social and Jo Hofer-Robinson about the verse and plays of Charles Dickens. The event is fully booked for in-person attendance BUT you can still join online: dickensmuseum.com/blogs/all-ev...
Thanks, Mark! I think the audiobook is wonderful, and I hope more people will read the story.
The University of Glasgow & the British Library have announced a fully funded PhD Studentship on "Fanfiction and Online Fan Communities: Collecting Practice and Inclusion in a National Collection"
www.gla.ac.uk/scholarships...
We recorded an episode of his podcast, Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire to accompany the audiobook, if you want to explore the weirdness of this, one of Dickens's last complete works www.buzzsprout.com/1897197/epis...
The brilliant Dominic Gerrard has published an audiobook of Dickens's under-appreciated short story 'George Silverman's Explanation', and you can listen to it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXwT.... It's probably my favourite underrated Dickens, and it's well worth a listen.
Next Wednesday, we're putting on a free event at the Dickens Museum to introduce Dickens's plays and poetry dickensmuseum.com/blogs/all-ev.... Join us, in person or online!
A fascinating article on using AI to write or review science papers. I wonder how different people's responses would be in the humanities. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
The ESTC is back (mostly) 😭😭😭
datb.cerl.org/estc
🤟🤟🤟💙💙💙🙏🙏🙏
[i guess the press is shipping it now, omg!]
