Claude Willan
@claudewillan.bsky.social
C18th stuff, DH, dad stuff, ex-pat things, poems, material culture, perfume, etc
UK-CA-NJ-TX-PA-UK. Durham.
Opinions are mine alone and do not represent my employer.
UK-CA-NJ-TX-PA-UK. Durham.
Opinions are mine alone and do not represent my employer.
Only plausible read of Disney's moves, which are never stupid, is that they have a solid assurance from someone that the US Copyright Ruling will be overturned, and that AI products will be copyrightable.
December 11, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Only plausible read of Disney's moves, which are never stupid, is that they have a solid assurance from someone that the US Copyright Ruling will be overturned, and that AI products will be copyrightable.
Striking tic of LLM prose: compulsive micro-free-indirect-discourse. Even just on the scale of an adjective or two; imparts a weightless, vertiginous feeling because the affect -- or, to be old fashioned, the ethos -- is completely unstable. Er, non-existent.
December 9, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Striking tic of LLM prose: compulsive micro-free-indirect-discourse. Even just on the scale of an adjective or two; imparts a weightless, vertiginous feeling because the affect -- or, to be old fashioned, the ethos -- is completely unstable. Er, non-existent.
I think the most glamorous thing about being an academic is when you can go to the tip on a monday afternoon instead of sunday like everyone else.
December 8, 2025 at 1:53 PM
I think the most glamorous thing about being an academic is when you can go to the tip on a monday afternoon instead of sunday like everyone else.
Root is out. After four days of play from a possible total of 25, I can tell you: the Ashes are staying in Australia.
December 6, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Root is out. After four days of play from a possible total of 25, I can tell you: the Ashes are staying in Australia.
So a key professional skill for me turns out to be "go to bed", then, "review that email in about 15 hours, and send at 15% of current length"
December 4, 2025 at 12:28 PM
So a key professional skill for me turns out to be "go to bed", then, "review that email in about 15 hours, and send at 15% of current length"
It is deeply dispiriting to watch the march of TERFism through British institutions.
December 4, 2025 at 11:46 AM
It is deeply dispiriting to watch the march of TERFism through British institutions.
When you look at England's cricketing performance today, you really have to take Root out of the picture, as a world-historical talent in the game. Then what have you got? Same old England, underperforming and prone to choke.
December 4, 2025 at 11:39 AM
When you look at England's cricketing performance today, you really have to take Root out of the picture, as a world-historical talent in the game. Then what have you got? Same old England, underperforming and prone to choke.
Juat remembering when Batya Ungar Sargon gave what was at the time one of the most interesting, if unhinged, papers about narration in Henry Fielding I had ever heard, and chuckling away to myself.
December 3, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Juat remembering when Batya Ungar Sargon gave what was at the time one of the most interesting, if unhinged, papers about narration in Henry Fielding I had ever heard, and chuckling away to myself.
Excitingly, @stanfordpress.bsky.social has a Cyber week sale with 40% off my book LITERARY AUTHORITY and others-- it's excellent press and there's lots of good stuff to pick up! www.sup.org/about-our-cy...
www.sup.org
December 1, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Excitingly, @stanfordpress.bsky.social has a Cyber week sale with 40% off my book LITERARY AUTHORITY and others-- it's excellent press and there's lots of good stuff to pick up! www.sup.org/about-our-cy...
Amazing; pre-capitulation!
This is the most alarming story I’ve read today. Giving up the fight before it’s started
November 30, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Amazing; pre-capitulation!
Tfw you have an academic idea so silly you dont even research to see if anyone's done it
November 20, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Tfw you have an academic idea so silly you dont even research to see if anyone's done it
Hershey has really buggered up Smarties. The chocolate is appallingly tempered and the oranges have only the very faintest tang.
November 19, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Hershey has really buggered up Smarties. The chocolate is appallingly tempered and the oranges have only the very faintest tang.
Striking to hear republican politicians who are planning to split on Epstein deploying the "evil counsellors" trope from the advice to princes genre
November 14, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Striking to hear republican politicians who are planning to split on Epstein deploying the "evil counsellors" trope from the advice to princes genre
I got my wish and moved back to the UK; now I'm drying my socks on my office radiator.
November 13, 2025 at 11:41 AM
I got my wish and moved back to the UK; now I'm drying my socks on my office radiator.
If Pasqua Rosée and partner took in £400, in ~1657 @ 1d per entrant, can that REALLY mean he had 96,000 patrons? Is that possible?
November 13, 2025 at 10:31 AM
If Pasqua Rosée and partner took in £400, in ~1657 @ 1d per entrant, can that REALLY mean he had 96,000 patrons? Is that possible?
New frontier for me today where the intransigence of the timetabling office of the university, plus an extremely hierarchical culture, forces curricular reform.
Mania for standardisation and efficiency, plus widespread redundancies =/= a good degree programme
Mania for standardisation and efficiency, plus widespread redundancies =/= a good degree programme
November 11, 2025 at 1:38 PM
New frontier for me today where the intransigence of the timetabling office of the university, plus an extremely hierarchical culture, forces curricular reform.
Mania for standardisation and efficiency, plus widespread redundancies =/= a good degree programme
Mania for standardisation and efficiency, plus widespread redundancies =/= a good degree programme
I'm going to do, i'm a professional eighteenth-centuryist and i'm going to stand up there and say to a roomful of undergrads on a module i convene, "coffeehouse culture", i've become what i hated
November 9, 2025 at 3:28 PM
I'm going to do, i'm a professional eighteenth-centuryist and i'm going to stand up there and say to a roomful of undergrads on a module i convene, "coffeehouse culture", i've become what i hated
AI and "mind" a short thread.
Recently, I've been working on writing children's stories, for my own pleasure. I have children and they love stories and like writing them, so.
I dictated one over the course of a couple of commutes. The app is designed for meeting and came up with "action items"
Recently, I've been working on writing children's stories, for my own pleasure. I have children and they love stories and like writing them, so.
I dictated one over the course of a couple of commutes. The app is designed for meeting and came up with "action items"
November 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM
AI and "mind" a short thread.
Recently, I've been working on writing children's stories, for my own pleasure. I have children and they love stories and like writing them, so.
I dictated one over the course of a couple of commutes. The app is designed for meeting and came up with "action items"
Recently, I've been working on writing children's stories, for my own pleasure. I have children and they love stories and like writing them, so.
I dictated one over the course of a couple of commutes. The app is designed for meeting and came up with "action items"
Eating lunch at 1021 am, the absolute latest I could push it
November 7, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Eating lunch at 1021 am, the absolute latest I could push it
Thank you for this much more accurate plug! Hope to see you there!
@claudewillan.bsky.social is at the English Faculty in @cam.ac.uk today at 5pm, speaking on Jacobite poetry in manuscript (1688-1750), & the work of Sean Bonney. This sounds like a 🔥 talk on the limits of permissible speech, materiality, & literary experimentation. @bsecs.bsky.social #18thcentury
November 6, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Thank you for this much more accurate plug! Hope to see you there!
I'm giving what might be the "biggest" talk of my life tomorrow, at Cambridge, and I seem to have written my most certifiably bonkers talk yet for it, about Jacobite poetics and Sean Bonney via Charles Le Brun, called "Non-Literary Beauty?". If you're in Cambridge, come see me in the Eng Dept @ 5pm!
November 5, 2025 at 2:08 PM
I'm giving what might be the "biggest" talk of my life tomorrow, at Cambridge, and I seem to have written my most certifiably bonkers talk yet for it, about Jacobite poetics and Sean Bonney via Charles Le Brun, called "Non-Literary Beauty?". If you're in Cambridge, come see me in the Eng Dept @ 5pm!
Read the new Pullman. Delighted, mostly.
Went to talk about it online.
Found readers concerned principally with casting an ethical field of their own contrivance over the actually existing artwork.
Exhausted and depressed.
Went to talk about it online.
Found readers concerned principally with casting an ethical field of their own contrivance over the actually existing artwork.
Exhausted and depressed.
November 5, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Read the new Pullman. Delighted, mostly.
Went to talk about it online.
Found readers concerned principally with casting an ethical field of their own contrivance over the actually existing artwork.
Exhausted and depressed.
Went to talk about it online.
Found readers concerned principally with casting an ethical field of their own contrivance over the actually existing artwork.
Exhausted and depressed.
Whenever I teach something multiple times, the best teaching comments I make are always the ones I forget to make again.
October 31, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Whenever I teach something multiple times, the best teaching comments I make are always the ones I forget to make again.
My 6yo is absolutely Rumplestiltskin-pilled and is on his way to harder ideologies like alchemy. This is the alt natural philosophy pipeline
October 25, 2025 at 11:21 AM
My 6yo is absolutely Rumplestiltskin-pilled and is on his way to harder ideologies like alchemy. This is the alt natural philosophy pipeline
The unironically-named recording suite we have, "Panopto" (!) didn't like having to transcribe me telling students about Rochester's use of rude words. I checked the recording; it is very much audible.
Anyone else encountered censorship in their institution's tools?
Anyone else encountered censorship in their institution's tools?
![Bowdlerised transcription snippet of me talking about Rochester's "mannerly obscene":
"It is something he called the mannerly obscene, in which Rochester suggested offensiveness is not saying dick or [INAUDIBLE] or like rude words"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4veunnbo2mplo5qdv2t322ap/bafkreidnz3moohtudmvf6j3cz42atosemhmi4qyjn7igbtnptedqfxv25m@jpeg)
October 23, 2025 at 1:34 PM
The unironically-named recording suite we have, "Panopto" (!) didn't like having to transcribe me telling students about Rochester's use of rude words. I checked the recording; it is very much audible.
Anyone else encountered censorship in their institution's tools?
Anyone else encountered censorship in their institution's tools?