Rachel Herrmann

Text reads: I am humbled and excited to be elected the next UCU Vice-President for Higher Education. Now is a devastatingly difficult and challenging time for our sectors and so many workers in post-16 education, but as a union we cannot succumb to despair. We have the skills, knowledge and capacity to help chart a way out of this mess and restore higher and further education. That you have put your trust in me to help do that is a huge honour and responsibility. I do not take this lightly. Thank you to the many thousands of members who voted for me and also to those who did not – we need to build better engagement in our union and part of that is voting, no matter who you voted for. I promised in my election materials to work hard to bring our union together and that is what I will do.

Text reads: Thank you to the other HE candidates Sean and Steve, both committed trade unionists. I know they will continue to fight for members and the future of Higher Education and I look forward to doing that alongside them. Congratulations to those elected to the National Executive Committee and commiserations to those who missed out this time. Your willingness to put yourself forward for election is hugely valued and I know you all will continue to contribute in other ways. So what next? Until the end of May, I’ll be tying up some loose ends and taking some time off to visit family and friends back in Australia. I will take up my role after UCU’s annual Congress at the end of May, this year in Harrogate.

Text reads: For the following three years, I will be lead negotiator for pay and conditions and for USS pensions across UK Higher Education, working with our team of elected negotiators and officials. I will also chair UCU’s Higher Education Committee and HE sector conferences, serve on other national committees and represent you in various forums. In 2029-30 I will become UCU’s President after the excellent Suzi Toole, who has also been elected as Vice-President for Further Education and will spend two years leading on further education matters before becoming President. She will take over from Dyfrig Jones, who succeeds early to the Presidential role for a two-year term this May, due to the casual vacancy that arose last year, replacing Maria Chondrogianni. Maria stays on as immediate past president, rounding out the presidential team. I want to again acknowledge David Hunter who stepped down as President-Elect last year for health reasons and continue to wish him and his family all the best.

A picture of two smiling people (Suzi Toole and Mark Pendleton) wearing UCU beanies. Text reads: That’s a lot of work, and a lot of moving parts, but at the heart of it will be my commitment to build a better union, alongside members and branches, and through that transform our sectors. I am ready and I know from the responses to this election that many of you are too. I’m looking forward to getting to work, together with you all.

UCU’s elections concluded this week and I am honoured to have been elected as the next Vice-President for Higher Education, to become President in 2029-30.

Thank you for all the support.

A short statement about the election and what’s to come after I take up the role in May.

‘I Felt All This’ Cambridge Core - American Studies - ‘I Felt All This’

Excited to see my book, 'I Felt All This': Enslaved People's Emotional Lives in the Antebellum US South, is up on CUP's website - coming out in July 2026! www.cambridge.org/core/books/i...

British American Nineteenth American Historians (BrANCH) BrANCH, the association of British American Nineteen Century Historians, is a UK-based group of historians interested in US history across the long nineteenth-century.

Thrilled/nervous to be taking over as Chair of BrANCH (@branchuk.bsky.social) from October. Emily has left some enormous shoes to fill (figuratively...), but this is the first organization I joined back in the mists of PhD time, and it's an enormous honor to step up here. www.branch.org.uk

Photo of Jessica Roney in a blue sweater holding a copy of our book. Pretzel, the cat, is in background right, with his white-gloved paw extended in an elegant pose.

Photo of Rachel Herrmann in a blue shell holding a copy of our book. Paz Purrmann stands at left, looking at Rachel/the book/his bag of food. Paz is white with seal pointing and his fluffy gray tail is elevated with interest

Table of contents featuring Rachel Herrmann and Jessica Choppin Roney, Edward Gray, Christian Koot, Alex Zukas, John Morton, and Paul Musselwhite

Second page of the table of contents featuring Kim Gruenwald, Karen Rann, Charles Prior, Chad McCutchen and Jennifer Monroe McCutchen, Rachel Herrmann, Harvey Amani Whitfield and Sarah Chute, and Samuel Truett

Claiming Land, Claiming Water: Borders and the People Who Crossed Them in the Early Modern Atlantic arrived at the houses of Pretzel and Paz Purrmann this week, and their humans (Jessica Roney, and me) were pretty jazzed @pennpress.bsky.social

On this, the last hour of the last day of Reading Week, I am pleased to announce that I have successfully read all of the book chapters and articles in my panic download folder from 2021. If you mention books, or downloads from 2022 onwards I will smite you into oblivion

Truly no more deserving loss than for Matt Goodwin.

Research Fellow (French-Language Print Publications in England to 1685) at University of Birmingham An academic position as a Research Fellow (French-Language Print Publications in England to 1685) is being advertised on jobs.ac.uk. Click now to find more details and explore additional academic job ...

Job! A 21-month postdoc at Birmingham on French-language print publications in England to 1685 led by the marvellous team of Peter Auger and Suzanne Jones. International applicants are welcome and Birmingham can support a visa application where required. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQN896/r...

description of event as found on https://baas.ac.uk/community/green-baas/2024-2025-green-baas-roundtable-series/

📆 Reminder that @officialbaas.bsky.social is holding an online roundtable next Fri 27 Feb on *Teaching Sustainability in American Studies*

👭 With S. Palmer (NottinghamTrent), R. Hermann (Cardiff), D. McLaughlin (UEA), yours truly+chaired by F. Hines

✏️ Register at us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

I say all this as someone who has studied disability, been trained professionally to work with people with disabilities, and lived with multiple visible and less visible disabilities myself. A real apology is owed.

Backlash mounts to Bafta N-word controversy as Jamie Foxx and Wendell Pierce criticise outburst Foxx calls Tourette syndrome activist John Davidson’s shouts at the film awards ceremony ‘unacceptable’, while Sinners’ production designer criticises Bafta’s ‘throwaway’ apology

Some of the discourse around this is kind of ableist. Look, people with disabilities that impact behavior are still responsible for their behaviors, even when those behaviors are involuntary or due to some diminished inhibition.

www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

Since this site is apparently dying, I would love to get @contingent-mag.bsky.social to 10k followers before the end.

Deep scream

The Central Fire of the Iroquois A comprehensive history of the Native American community at the heart of the HaudenosauneeThe people of the Onondaga Nation have lived in central New York St...

Our release date is still seven months away, but my book is now up on the Yale website. Grateful to so many people who helped make this possible.

yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Library Company names its new chief, the first-ever woman to lead the group in 295 years

Jessica Chopin Roney will take over after the Library Company of Philadelphia merges with Temple University. She has existing ties to both institutions.

Hemingway was once bet that he couldn’t write the world’s happiest short story in just 5 words. He replied,

Friends: the mealy-mouthed Home Office is currently running a consultation about proposed changes to settlement, and Amnesty has a great guide for responding by tomorrow. Please take time to call the Home Office numpties as I have done

Genuinely, if you live in the UK you should so the consultation just to find out some of the unbelievable details of what's being proposed. Even with their spin and obfuscation it's shocking

English-only California: the golden state with Spanish place names removed. First map I ever commissioned, to commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, whereby the US made Mexico give up its northern half, adding California and the Southwest to the Union.

American empire: a history of US imperial expansion Donald Trump’s 21st century take on the Monroe Doctrine harks back to an earlier era of US interference in Latin America

A whole article about US imperial expansion. Not a word about Native nations
theweek.com/history/amer...

Mamdani announces a new executive order protecting New Yorkers from "abusive immigration enforcement," including requiring ICE to have a judicial warrant to enter NYC property

Teaching Sustainability in American Studies - British Association for American Studies How can we meaningfully integrate discussion of sustainability and the environment into the teaching of American Studies? This online event will explore practical, pedagogical, and disciplinary…

How can we meaningfully integrate discussion of sustainability and the environment into the teaching of American Studies?

TASN + Green BAAS will host a panel discussion on 27th February exploring practical, pedagogical & disciplinary approaches to teaching sustainability.

I know more than one researcher who found/finds the tracking process a bit intrusive, but I can agree on the importance of trying to keep track of research

Team, what are we saying in feedback to students and authors? I am fond of "look up the origins of this word and then strike it from your vocabulary," but I am now accepting alternative variations

5 occurrences of "seminal" in an otherwise excellent historiographical essay is 5 too many

Don’t keep swimmin’

Blueskis. There is now a video.

🐝🐝🐝

We’ve Never Agreed About George Washington and Slavery Removing a slavery exhibit in Philadelphia revives a 250-year-old American debate.

The removal of the slavery exhibit from the President's House site might feel unprecedented, but nothing could be further from the truth. We've been fighting over slavery's place in George Washington's legacy for 250 years. I wrote about it for @time.com.

Book info here

time.com/7357382/geor...

There’s a lot being said about ICE paralleling fugitive slave patrols. As a historian of slavery, I think it’s far more complicated than most are articulating. A lot of historical context and power dynamics are being mashed up in the process.

I’d start them with the 2021 EAS special issue on food in early America ed. Jennifer Anderson and Anya Zilberstein, and add @joshspecht.bsky.social’s Red Meat Republic, @veghistory.bsky.social’s Vegetarian Crusade, and (tho I’ve not yet read it!) Michelle McDonald’s Coffee Nation

Reminder - this salty maritime MA scholarship is open for applications: www.uea.ac.uk/study/fees-a...