Marianna Dudley
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dudleymarianna.bsky.social
Marianna Dudley
@dudleymarianna.bsky.social
Environmental historian. Author of ‘Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain’ https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526182937/
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I heard a story about a female academic giving a paper at the IHR who, after receiving a long and aggressive question from a senior male professor, simply leaned back with her hands behind her head and replied “Oh, do fuck off.”
One of my colleagues went to a seminar at Berkeley and when someone asked a question Derrida brushed it off saying ‘what you ask may be important but it is not interesting’.
November 27, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
from an Inuit song originally translated
into Danish by Knud Rasmussen —
English version by Autumn Richardson,
Heart of Winter (Xylem Books, 2018)
November 25, 2025 at 2:19 PM
best summary I've read of COP, noting the increasing militarisation of the event - to protect fossil fuel interests.
“Why are military emissions still not on the agenda here?”

@militaryemissions.org reflects on #COP30, the little that it achieved for the global climate, and on the growing public pressure for #military and conflict GHG emissions to be addressed, somehow. ceobs.org/remind-us-wh...
Remind us. Who was the Amazon COP for? - CEOBS
COP30: what it achieved, where it failed, what comes next and the ever growing profile of military and conflict Greenhouse Gas emissions.
ceobs.org
November 27, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
the budget should be a publicly published document with footnotes and everyone — government MPs, opposition MPs, academics and journalists — should have to read the whole thing before commenting on it!!!!
Am enjoying BBC pundits' heads exploding over something that is entirely normal in Europe. Pretty sure the German budget (in draft, so not even decided) is just a press release...
November 26, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
7 x 3000+ students + 17 smaller institutions must mean 30,000+ affected students. That’s about the same size as Sheffield uni, which employs 8000ish staff. Why is the government tolerating the impending collapse of up to 24 related employers and 8000+ more lost jobs? Where is the sense of crisis?
Chief exec of OfS 'said the OfS believes there are 24 institutions at risk of exiting the market in the next 12 months, seven of which are large providers with more than 3,000 students. There are another 25 or so institutions of various sizes at risk over a two- to three-year period, she added.'
Seven ‘large providers’ at risk of going under in the next year
Skills minister says no higher education institutions are at imminent risk of collapse this year but OfS confirms more than 20 providers are being closely monitored
www.timeshighereducation.com
November 26, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
all those years work pitching the value of the humanities and STILL when financial crunch comes and management consultants role in, they could not care less.

history doesn’t have enough commercial applications! humanities aren’t engaged enough with AI! why isn’t my house a helicopter!
November 26, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
Where I work, grad student enrollment in Engineering and Business is down 70% and 40%, respectively.

Now, to cover the loss in revenue from these Departments, the rest of the colleges have to take MASSIVE hits. History Dept alone has cut/closed 6 TT lines. Forget about raises or salary equity. 🫠
Enrollment by international students from China dropped by 3 percent, from India by 4 percent, and enrollment from students from Mexico has flatlined. Here are the likely consequences for Texas' education and economy:
The High Cost of Targeting International Students in Texas
The Trump administration’s bans and airport detentions are derailing the academic dreams of students who carry out important research—and sometimes pay hefty tuition—to attend Texas institutions.
www.texasobserver.org
November 25, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
For a small fee, I will go to your historian enemy’s seminar presentation and say “I guess I’m just wondering what the “so what” of this paper is?”
November 26, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷
November 26, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
wild that this happened within 24 hours of bolsanaro going to prison. will be a timeless textbook example of what works to save a democracy and what doesn’t
Breaking News: The last pending criminal prosecution against President Trump was dismissed by a judge in Georgia, effectively ending efforts to hold Trump criminally responsible for attempts to overturn the 2020 election. trib.al/EnJu57H
November 26, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Omg. I was in Oslo yesterday and I MISSED IT.
So this happened in Oslo yesterday. Four articulated buses got stuck in a roundabout.
November 26, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
Free access to British Newspaper Archive
BTW some of you may know this but others won't. If you're in a place that's free WiFi is _TheCloud then it will give you unlimited credits to the BNA.

Key places are Wetherspoons (which is cheap and quiet during the day) and Cafe Nero (who don't do booze and whose coffee is good)
November 25, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
Great chance to get immersed in these fantastic collections, and have some quiet writing time in a beautiful Cambridge setting.
📚 Whether you're an undergraduate, postgraduate, academic, or independent researcher, our research grants and By-Fellowships are designed to support work using our collections here at Churchill Archives Centre.

🔗 Click the link to find out more & apply: buff.ly/JGsTtHK
November 25, 2025 at 5:25 PM
What an amazing public resource this place is (and a great rec from FAJ) - if I lived in Oslo, this is where I'd come to write.
November 25, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
It bears constant repetition that expertise is nurtured slowly over a very long time. It doesn’t bounce back like a rubber band with every flex of a spreadsheet. Once it is gone, it can’t be rapidly rebuilt overnight or on demand.

P.S. a lot of Research and innovation happens at unis.
"A system built on specialisation, efficiency", that right there is the death knell for the current university system in the UK, if (big if) government pushes it through. They actively don't want HE to grow, they will intervene, apparently, to help it shrink.

per this morning's education committee.
November 25, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
Are you an early-career environmental historian or interested in the challenges aspiring environmental historians face? Join our panel discussion with
@askehn.bsky.social @kathiescharf.bsky.social @tidetales.bsky.social and @wilkohardenberg.bsky.social et al., hosted by @eseh.bsky.social #envhist
November 24, 2025 at 7:46 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
💔Blue whales are going eerily silent
Blue whale vocalizations dropped nearly 40% alongside a collapse in krill and anchovy populations

"it’s like trying to sing while you're starving,” Ryan adds
“They were spending all their time just trying to find food"
www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...
Blue whales are going eerily silent—and scientists say it’s a warning sign
A six-year study off California’s coast shows how marine heat waves and noise pollution are silencing the ocean’s largest singers. Does saving the ocean start with hearing it?
www.nationalgeographic.com
November 24, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
We saw it with big tobacco, we saw it with the fossil fuels industry. When their own internal research showed the harm from their product, the defunded the research and attacked independent researchers coming to the very same conclusions.
#ScienceUnderSiege
Meta halted internal research that purportedly showed (young) people who stopped using Facebook became less depressed and anxious, according to an unredacted legal filing released on Friday. www.cnbc.com/2025/11/23/m...
Meta halted internal research suggesting social media harm, court filing alleges
Meta is alleged to have halted internal research suggesting social media harm, according to court documents.
www.cnbc.com
November 24, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Had a great time speaking to a group of geographers, philosophers, historians, & economists in Oslo today. The penultimate stop on the #ElectricWind world tour (unless you want me to speak to your group/bookshop/students! email me). Everyone in Norway seems to have an ERC grant under consideration.
November 24, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
We did analysis for this project that showed the claims being made about the emissions from the U.S. gas that would feed this project were far far too low.

Another example of how US gas is being marketed as "low emissions" and "clean" despite the overwhelming evidence that it is not.
The plant, would make ethylene for plastics manufacture - likely to cause ammonia, ozone, nitrogen oxide + PM2.5 pollution - linked to increased cases of heart + breathing conditions - and carcinogenic VOCs - risking people's health says @clientearth.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Pollution from Ineos’s Antwerp plastic plant ‘could cause more deaths than jobs created’
Lawyers challenge €4bn Project One development, saying emissions and health impacts vastly underestimated
www.theguardian.com
November 20, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
"could cause more deaths than jobs" 😲
The plant, would make ethylene for plastics manufacture - likely to cause ammonia, ozone, nitrogen oxide + PM2.5 pollution - linked to increased cases of heart + breathing conditions - and carcinogenic VOCs - risking people's health says @clientearth.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Pollution from Ineos’s Antwerp plastic plant ‘could cause more deaths than jobs created’
Lawyers challenge €4bn Project One development, saying emissions and health impacts vastly underestimated
www.theguardian.com
November 21, 2025 at 11:26 AM
I’m in Oslo, giving a talk at the UiO Faculty of Humanities today at 12.15 about Electric Wind, my book on the history of wind energy. About to head to breakfast to suss out the brown cheese situation…
November 24, 2025 at 7:40 AM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
Do I know any former British Academy postdocs here who'd be willing to have a quick chat about the format of the final report? Some questions have come up with my research office and it'd be useful to have another insight
November 21, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
To “my students and to anyone who might listen, I say: Don’t surrender to AI your ability to read, write and think when others once risked their lives and died for the freedom to do so.”

www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
I Set A Trap To Catch My Students Cheating With AI. The Results Were Shocking.
"Students are not just undermining their ability to learn, but to someday lead."
www.huffpost.com
November 21, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Reposted by Marianna Dudley
Hey @dudleymarianna.bsky.social, your book came for the Greenhouse Library today! You need to sign it when you’re here!
November 19, 2025 at 2:47 PM