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Lesley A Hall

Lesley A Hall

@erinacean.bsky.social

12K followers 450 following 3.4K posts

Archivist, historian, reader, Londoner, feminist
@erinacean
@[email protected]
www.lesleyahall.net
https://lesleyahall.blogspot.com/

History 49%

Political science 20%

more

Posts Replies Media Videos

Lesley A Hall @erinacean.bsky.social · 1h

I've always (maybe wrongly) supposed the bread in 'bread and circuses' to have been some kind of government dole to the masses, and the circuses were, more or less, to distract their minds from criticising the system. (This is probably down to some trashy historical novel read in my teens.)

Reposted by Dave O’Brien, Lesley A. Hall

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 9h

What do UK graduates do? Lots of information in this annual report.

A reminder that Humanities graduates are quite employable. Compare unemployment rates for Biology (8.4%), Chemistry (5.9%) and Physics (8.0%) with English literature (6.4%), History (7.6%) and Languages (7.6%) for example.

graduatemarkettrends.cdn.prismic.io

Reposted by Will Jennings, Lesley A. Hall, Tom Griffin , and 3 more Will Jennings, Lesley A. Hall, Tom Griffin, Stephen Jones, Christina Pagel, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 9h

I don’t think this is a “politicians have got dumber” issue for the most part. If you look at the *actual CVs* of previous cohorts of MPs, their background is not radically different when you account for, you know, the fact the economy is different! It is primarily a media and ecosystem issue.

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 11h

We have got to make politics intellectual again. It is the only way that societies thrive is when politicians have the capability to actually think and reflect deeply:

I confess that I always had difficulty with interpreting the Biblical precept to love our neighbours “as ourselves” until I read some of the words of C.S. Lewis. He pointed out that we don't exactly love ourselves when we fall below the standards and beliefs we have accepted. Indeed we might even hate ourselves for some unworthy deed.

None of this, of course, tells us exactly what kind of political and social institutions we should have. On this point, Christians will very often genuinely disagree, though it is a mark of Christian manners that they will do so with courtesy and mutual respect. [Applause] What is certain, however, is that any set of social and economic arrangements which is not founded on the acceptance of individual responsibility will do nothing but harm.

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada @vsawc.bsky.social · 9h

Please see vsawc.org/events/ for more details!

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Dr Anna Jamieson @annafranjam.bsky.social · 9h

Still time to sign up for our online event *Object Stories in Health and Medicine* on Friday 5 December! We've got a fantastic programme with panels on Wearable Objects, Object Biographies, Representing the Body, Personal Papers and Domestic Health. One week today
@rebeccawhiteley.bsky.social

Object stories in health and medicine, 1700-1900 - University of Birmingham

This event is aimed at researchers across the medical humanities and histories of medicine and psychiatry working with material culture.

www.birmingham.ac.uk

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall, Rebecca Sear

Kevin Bird @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social · 9h

Kudos to Rebecca for leading this charge! Lynn's data is an embarrassment to the scientific enterprise. The skull measurers on Twitter are having a predictable response with the repeated claim that "other data replicate" Lynn's results.

Easy to see that's not true for the 2002, 2012, or "new" set

Lesley A Hall @erinacean.bsky.social · 12h

Doctor said 'that the play had to stop using real knives, I remember thinking: “You just don’t understand theatre.”' Who is it here who does not understand theatre???

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 13h

The irony is that one of the reasons Harriet Harman decided not to pursue Badenoch for hacking her website was a belief that more black women in politics was a good thing. So, in a small but salient way, Badenoch owes her position to the very solidarity she now mocks.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Badenoch defends calling chancellor 'spineless' in Budget row

The Conservative Party leader says she was

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · 13h

Is your child texting about Buckinghamshire Archives? Here are the signs to look out for:

BRB: Buckinghamshire records, blimey
LOL: Lots of ledgers
SMH: Some medieval holdings
WTF: Where's that folder?
ROFL: Researching our former lacemaking
IDC: Is Duke corrupt?
BTW: Big trees, Wendover

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Helen King @helenking.bsky.social · 13h

I’ve finally published a piece on the abuse of the Read sisters and the inadequacy of the review into the CofE’s response. viamedia.news/2025/11/28/s...

Safeguarding: How Can We “Learn Lessons” From the Read Sisters’ Case? - ViaMedia.News

by Professor Helen King, lay member of General Synod, Oxford Diocese When, in July 2025, the details of Revd Anne-Marie Ghosh’s emotional and physical abuse by her former husband were published by a B...

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall, Naomi Sykes

National Trust Research @researchnt.bsky.social · 13h

🎉Exciting news! 🏆Together with our research partner the University of Exeter, we have won in the Strategic Partnership category at the #KnowledgeExchangeUK Awards! Read more about the work researchandinnovation.co.uk/creating-rea...

Exeter Blog Creating real-world impact: The University of Exeter and the National Trust

Creating real-world impact: The University of Exeter and the National Trust

researchandinnovation.co.uk

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Jeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 13h

Oh boy

He followed his friends Andrew Doyle and Martin Gourlay, formerly of GB News, over here. They were hired by US comic actor Rob Schneider’s production company and put in a word for Linehan. He moved in March and works for Schneider too. Having co-created Father Ted in the 1990s and created The IT Crowd in the 00s, Linehan is co-creating a sitcom called Tenure – “Our academics are like Father Ted academics: they’re very old and musty” – with Doyle, Gourlay and British comedian Jonathan Kogan. They’ve written eight episodes.

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Jenny Crane @jennycrane.bsky.social · 13h

If anyone wants to form a panel where any of the following fit, please get in touch...

~in/out classifications (intelligence testing&its impacts)
~in/out of 'trauma' (reparative archiving around birth 'trauma' v. 'experience')
~in/out of the academy (expertise/engagement)

sshm.org/sshm-2026/

SSHM 2026: In/Out

Location: University of Leeds Dates: 30 June to 3 July 2026 Submission Deadline: 5.00pm (GMT) 11th January 2026 Conference Co-Convenors: Dr Alexia Moncrieff & Dr Katherine Rawling Conference Co…

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 13h

Can’t underline this enough really: these cases are a squillionaire giving crackpots money to seek out individual members of the public quietly going about their working day, so they can turn them into national hate figures, hand in hand with our utterly poisonous media outlets. That’s all it is.

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 13h

Long shot: I'm looking for someone who might know more than I do about the herb Summer Savoury. It's central to Newfoundland cooking & apparently also to Mennonite food & I've more recently learned its a major ingredient in Jamaican food. What trade winds blew this herb to these different places?

Reposted by Dave O’Brien, Lesley A. Hall

Emma Jackson @emmakjackson.bsky.social · 14h

New policy discussion paper in this @britishacademy.bsky.social series by me and Louise Rondel on the need for policy makers to learn from place-based knowledges about urban rivers. www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications...

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Dr Rachel Clarke @drrachelclarke.com · 14h

🧵/ Today a damning parliamentary report on the state of palliative care services in England was published.

Services are patchy, underfunded & “ill-equipped” to address end-of-life needs.

Bereavement support is “frequently inaccessible.

The palliative care workforce is in a “critical” situation”.

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall, Jérôme Denis

Kari Lancaster @karilancaster.bsky.social · 15h

5 year STS post doc at ANU Canberra, with international ERC funded team jobs.anu.edu.au/jobs/researc...

Research Fellow, Ethnography and Sociology of the Artificial Cryosphere - Canberra / ACT, ACT, Australia

Classification: ANU Academic Level BSalary package: $118,632 - $134,507 per annum plus 17% superannuationTerms: Full-time, Continuing (contingent funded) This position is continuing (contingent funded...

jobs.anu.edu.au

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall, Stephen Ryan

Beau @drbeaubeaumont.bsky.social · 15h

And still, there are those who say that Americans can’t do irony.

A post from the US Homeland Security, reading “This Thanksgiving, there is no room at the table for invaders.”

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Alice Wickenden @awickenden.bsky.social · 15h

Now available online! www.cambridge.org/core/books/h... 🌿📚💚🪲

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Prof. Ben Pohl @benpohl.bsky.social · 16h

Only a genuine idiot or a nasty piece of work could think that making one’s country less welcoming and hospitable so fewer people want to come and live there constitutes an achievement worth bragging about.

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 23h

“An infant in Kentucky who was unvaccinated against pertussis, or whooping cough, has died, marking the third death from the deadly bacteria in the state this year. Before 2025, Kentucky had last recorded an infant whooping cough death in 2018.”

Third infant in Kentucky dies of whooping cough as national cases stay high for second year in a row

www.cidrap.umn.edu

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Michael Lombardi-Nash @lombardinash.bsky.social · 1d

The significance of translations of Early #GermanGayRightsMovement texts, by Magnus Hirschfeld and Karl Ulrichs, is their relevance to contemporary discussions on sexuality and rights. #glbtqHistory Transgender & Intersex Studies #MagnusHirschfeld 🌈🏳️‍⚧️Ο www.amazon.com/dp/B0F1Y41JRL

Gedenkschrift Celebrating the Bicentennial Birthday Anniversary of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895): Architect of LGBT Pride, Community and Movement

A memorial piece that introduces Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) through an eclectic collection of writings by and about Ulrichs. Pieces penned by Paul J. Nash, Vern L. Bullough, Magnus Hirschfeld, ...

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall, Margot C. Finn

Museums Association @museumsassociation.org · 1d

News | Budget 2025: ‘Far more ambitious action’ needed for culture sector 💼

How museum and culture sector leaders have responded to this year’s budget

#AutumnBudget2025 #Budget2025

Budget 2025: ‘Far more ambitious action’ needed for culture sector - Museums Association

How museum and culture sector leaders have responded to this year’s budget

www.museumsassociation.org

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 1d

This is off the top of my head.

These sorts of inefficiencies happen on quite literally a daily basis. Everybody in the system knows this. Everyone.

Yet what is the government’s diagnosis?

“Juries. They are the problem. Get rid of juries.”

It is absolutely mind-boggling.

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 1d

14. The government artificially restricting court “sitting days” - effectively closing perfectly usable courtrooms and forcing judges to stay at home, to make a tiny saving on court staff.

This happened regularly under the last government. The new lot are still doing it.

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 1d

10. Not enough barristers to cover cases. Often - especially in serious, specialised and difficult work such as Rape and Serious Sexual Offences - the CPS will not be able to find an available barrister, due to so many having quit. www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/barrist...

Barristers to quit RASSO work, survey suggests

Barristers cite poor pay and emotional exhaustion for wanting to quit rape and serious sexual offences work.

www.lawgazette.co.uk

Reposted by Steve Peers, Lesley A. Hall

The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 1d

Here is a list of reasons why some of my hearings and trials this year have been delayed and kicked off into the long grass, stuck in our record court backlog. Serious allegations which will now be tried *years* after the event. 🧵👇

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall, Andrew Perchard

Ben Jennings @bjennings90.bsky.social · 1d

Latest @theguardian.com cartoon

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Reposted by Catherine Baker, Lesley A. Hall

will pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 1d

What makes historic collections difficult? And how do researchers work with “difficult” collections?

New CFP from Paper Trails here:

blogs.ucl.ac.uk/special-coll...

Deadline for proposals 31/1/2026
🗃️

Call for Papers: Difficult Collections | UCL UCL Special Collections

blogs.ucl.ac.uk