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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺

@katherineschof8.bsky.social

21K followers 5.8K following 6.8K posts

Historian: Mughal & colonial India and Hindustani music, FRAS FRHistS. Head of Music @ KCL. Musicians at risk 🇦🇫 Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly (work in progress). Whippet owner. Immigrant. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/katherine-butler-schofield

www.kcl.ac.uk

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 2d

18,500 children have been killed in Gaza. Tens of thousands more have been injured. Many of those have lost their entire families. 55,000 are acutely malnourished. Many many more lack food and shelter.

Please donate now to @unicef.org Gaza appeal:

www.unicef.org.uk/donate/child...

Children in Gaza crisis appeal

Widespread malnutrition is threatening the lives of children and families in Gaza. Please donate to our Gaza Appeal for children in crisis.

www.unicef.org.uk

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Reposted by Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 15h

Goes back to the argument I made in the Guardian earlier this year that the world is in danger because the techbros have completely misunderstood a bunch of sci-fi and fantasy...

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 15h

I think I may have a virus. Lingering headache all day and I have just woken up from a three-hour accidental sleep on the sofa, still feeling rubbish.

Bleugh.

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 15h

Oh Thomas I am SO sorry. Virtual hugs. I know they are nothing in the face of such loss but I am thinking of you xxx

Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 19h

By doing so we did, in fact, make an art-historical discovery: although penises are rife throughout the rest of the palace, there are no penises on the walls, ceiling, or other art work of the Chamber of the Great Council.

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 19h

I got my then pre-teen to look closely at all the art in the Doge’s Palace in Venice by having a “Where’s Willy” competition with him, to see which of us could count the most penises.

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Reposted by Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺

Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 20h

This is it. I didn’t find it at all difficult to leave Twitter in the end: it stopped being fun and became boring and depressing. Whenever I opened it I’d see things that were obnoxious or upsetting. It was a relief not to do that.

Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 23h

This is an exact encapsulation of why I moved to Bluesky.

No amount of handwringing in the Atlantic about how I owe some eternal Promethean suffering to the discourse is going to make me stay on a site I hate, that stopped doing anything for me professionally years ago.

Well – no. Bluesky may or may not be, as one centre-right friend who felt unwelcome put it, “self-righteous island”. But the idea that’s why we went is nonsense. That I’ve largely stopped posting on a site that’s done more to shape my career and social circle than the rest of the internet combined is less about avoiding rival opinions (I love arguing with people who are wrong!) than with the fact the site simply became unusable. It stopped generating the things (good jokes, interesting debate, clicks) I wanted; it became extremely good at generating the things (racists, pornbots, racist pornbots) I did not.

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Reposted by Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺

Jenny Edwards CBE @jennyedwards.bsky.social · 19h

An interesting piece on sentience. "Our society is so generous in considering the sentience of machines, yet so skeptical of other creatures. We sympathize with software that prints “I don’t want to die,” without bothering to learn the languages others use to make the same plea." #NatureConnection

Why All Animals Are Sentient, and Machines Will Never Be

Even the smallest sea slug feels pain. That means we have a responsibility not to inflict it.

www.currentaffairs.org

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 22h

Those of you looking for some scrolling joy in these dark times, boy have I found the thread for you!

Especially if handsome men are your thing. Or batshit crazy costumes. Or both!

Bevis Musson @bevismusson.bsky.social · 1d

You know what, let's do the Annual Mister Global National Costume thread tonight after all. Usual rules apply - this is all in fun, this isn't about the contestants looks or making fun of them, it's about the costumes and appreciating them (or, you know, making fun of them...)

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Reposted by Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺

1EarthMedia @1earthmedia.bsky.social · 1d

The Knitting Nannas have gone global ... led by Aunt Tifa.

#AuntTifa #KnittingNannas #GrandmasUnite #UmbrellaSquad #IamAuntTifa

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 23h

The antifa nonsense is like declaring all people who believe exercise is good for you are a single organised terrorist group who must be banned.

Having said that….compulsory PE, amirite?

Jenny Frecklington-Jones #IStandWithWatermelon🍉🍉 @joneshowdareyou.bsky.social · 1d

Utter madness from the far right.

There is no such fucking thing as "antifa" except inside their tiny little fascist minds.

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 23h

Eduroam is not working

Marjorie James Keenan @unenthusiast.com · 1d

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

rm -rf ~/

hammancheez @hammancheez.bsky.social · 1d

"The chancellor approved it"

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 23h

a man in a brown coat stands in front of a yes or no sign

ALT: a man in a brown coat stands in front of a yes or no sign

media.tenor.com

Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 23h

I think it is helpful to think of those things as neutral, not latently pernicious. Crowd energy — and music, indeed — can be used for both good and ill. And everyone but Watkins, and perhaps a small group around him, were completely unaware of any ill at the time.

Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 23h

The USiabs have been saying an-TEE-fa and my god it sounds stupid.

In fact the whole antifa scaremongering thing is so bloody stupid it would be funny if it wasn’t serious; it’s like deciding people who believe exercise is good for you are a single organised terrorist group who must be stopped.

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 1d

You are absolutely in no way complicit or to blame. You didn’t know. There was no way you could know. You did nothing wrong.

This is all on him.

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 1d

It was devised to deal with British fascist leader Oswald Moseley and his Blackshirts.

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 1d

All sorts of groups wear uniforms - nurses, police, football teams, girl guides, St John’s Ambulance.

The law is that political groups are not allowed to parade publicly for a political cause wearing a uniform associated with that group.