Michael H Whitworth
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profmhwhitworth.bsky.social
Michael H Whitworth
@profmhwhitworth.bsky.social

Oxford, U.K. Prof of Modern Literature and Culture. Literature & Science, Modernism, Book History, Virginia Woolf, 1920s & 30s poetry. Also found on IG under the same name. All posts in a personal capacity.

Art 29%
Philosophy 21%
Pinned
2025 marks the centenary of A.N. Whitehead’s Lowell Lectures, Science and the Modern World; 2026 the centenary of the first British edition.

Nick Gaskill and I are organising a panel on Whitehead, focused on SMW, for the MSA/BAMS conference in 2026, and are looking for an additional contributor.
'David Maguire and Alex Bols, vice-chancellor and chief of staff respectively at the University of East Anglia, updated their prediction made last autumn that 10,000 jobs could be lost in 2024-25, claiming this same amount could in fact be lost every year going forward.' 1/3
UK universities ‘could cut 10,000 jobs every year’
Academics claim changes made to higher education system a decade ago have divided sector into ‘winners and losers’, with government-imposed limits on income exacerbating financial challenges
www.timeshighereducation.com
Stephen Miller is now arguing that assimilation is fundamentally impossible and that certain cultures are not compatible with Western civilization
Today's 70% fall in net migration to 205,000 was not one of the six stories in BBC ten o'clock news.

Ta massive assymetry in whether rises in immigration and falls in immigration are considered newsworthy by broadcasters

Down by 140k isn't thought to be.

Up by 140k undoubtedly would be.
The UK, where the day after a decision to take half a million children out of poverty, the media & political world has been full of sneering at those same children & their families, labelling them as ‘Benefits Street’, while the same people are moaning about a tax on £2m mansions. Shameful stuff.
Tony Smith on Ch4News saying international students should be limited because they’re “economically inactive”.

International students pay around £27k p.a. in fees to their universities, at least half again to landlords and they spend their parents’ hard-earned money in local shops.
The "don't have an extra kid if you can't afford it" brigade get awfully upset when you suggest they don't stay in their £2m house if they can't afford it, don't they?
70% of the additional spending from removing the two-child limit will go to families who are in work. This is targeting support for low-income working households who are being priced out of a decent standard of living despite doing everything asked of them.
So we are already back to the levels of migration of the early 2010s and declining faster... let's hope all those new restrictions, based on previous higher numbers, don't make Britain massively unattractive to those migrants the government DOES wish to attract.
Net migration fell sharply agaim to 204,000 in the year to June 2025, having been 344k in 2024 and 848k in 2023. But falling immigration has been the biggest secret - and it is time for the media and political debate to catch up with this change
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn...
UK net migration fell to 204,000 in year to June - live updates
Net migration, the difference between those entering and leaving the country, was 345,000 in 2024 according to revised figures.
www.bbc.co.uk
Net migration fell sharply agaim to 204,000 in the year to June 2025, having been 344k in 2024 and 848k in 2023. But falling immigration has been the biggest secret - and it is time for the media and political debate to catch up with this change
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn...
UK net migration fell to 204,000 in year to June - live updates
Net migration, the difference between those entering and leaving the country, was 345,000 in 2024 according to revised figures.
www.bbc.co.uk
PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS!

gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!

www.versobooks.com/products/303...
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!
I'm hearing criticisms of the end to the two child limit, because it was done just to mollify Labour backbenchers, at a cost of £billions.

I remember another govt delivering a referendum on EU membership, just to mollify restive backbenchers. That's costing way, way more... A little perspective?
Slop Evader is a tool from artist and researcher Tega Brain that lets you search the web for results exclusively before November 30, 2022—the day that ChatGPT was released to the public.
'Slop Evader' Lets You Surf the Web Like It’s 2022
Artist Tega Brain is fighting the internet’s enshittification by turning back the clock to before ChatGPT existed.
www.404media.co
🔥🔥🔥 While everyone is distracted by other budget news, Labour have just announced that they will allow more drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea 🔥🔥🔥

Genuinely catastrophic for our climate and further proof that Labour care more about corporate profits than people or planet.
"Protest over future of University of Nottingham language courses"
Protest over future of University of Nottingham language courses
The University of Nottingham has suspended entry for new students on modern language courses.
www.bbc.co.uk
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
This story should be covered waaaaayy more than it is.

The US has sanctioned six judges if the international criminal court ICC, because Trump didn’t like them issuing arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.

www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...
Nicolas Guillou, French ICC judge sanctioned by the US: 'You are effectively blacklisted by much of the world's banking system'
Six judges and three prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have been sanctioned by the Trump administration. In an interview with Le Monde, Guillou discusses the impact of these measures on ...
www.lemonde.fr
📽️ The recording from our widely popular #RSVPDigiEvent "How to Get Published in an Academic Journal" is now live. We had a record-breaking 101 registrants for this panel! Since we did not quite hit that number in attendance, we know many will be interested to watch/re-watch: youtu.be/sP5Y1iicKJ0
How to Get Published in Academic Journal
YouTube video by Research Society for Victorian Periodicals
youtu.be
Friend of mine fell and broke his wrist while on holiday in New York last week. Had to have an x-ray and got bandaged up. His hospital bill was £7550. Just in case anyone was starting to buy into the current UK effort to privatise our healthcare and forgot how good we have it.
Come and apply to be the Professor of Bibliography & Modern Book History @engfacoutreach.bsky.social & @jesusoxford.bsky.social (and work closely with us @bodleian.ox.ac.uk). Following a long line of great scholars: Don McKenzie, Kathryn Sutherland, & Dirk van Hulle ... my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
my.corehr.com
What a way to go 😱 🐟
Now in my early 60s I have only just started reading Middlemarch (blame the education system…), so I am immensely grateful to @adamroberts.bsky.social for this wonderfully perceptive exploration of the epigrams at the head of each chapter. open.substack.com/pub/profadam...
Middlemarch: Epigraphs and Mirrors
George Eliot and Pascal
open.substack.com
Actual analysis of the BBC’s coverage of Gaza is devastating for Prescott and the right wing attacks on the BBC. Ratio of Israeli-Palestinian deaths: 1 /34. Ratio of coverage of those deaths: 19 / 1.

cfmm.org.uk/bbc-on-gaza-...
BBC On Gaza-Israel: One Story, Double Standards - Centre For Media Monitoring
cfmm.org.uk
forever grateful to @waterman.bsky.social who introduced me to patti smith ~15 years ago in his writing new york class as I see her play once again 🥰
Unclear where this war profiteering plan came from or why it emerged right now, but clear that it is in every way disastrous
This is not a peace plan. It is a proposal that weakens Ukraine and divides America from Europe, preparing the way for a larger war in the future. In the meantime, it benefits unnamed Russian and American investors, at the expense of everyone else.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Trump Has a Recipe for War and Corruption, Not Peace
Who would benefit from the White House’s 28-point proposal for Ukraine?
www.theatlantic.com

Email me by 12 December on [email protected] if you’re interested! We will be submitting our proposal by 19 December at the latest.

#WeirdModernisms #BAMS2026 #MSA2026
Oxfordshire swans have died from bird flu this week, including near us. Report it, don't touch, and keep dogs away. RSPB guidance page, including contact details, here www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wi...
#COP30 is about to agree a climate deal that doesn’t mention fossil fuels, which is a bit like an alcoholic agreeing a plan to tackle his addiction without mentioning the vodka.
A major healthcare policy paper commissioned by @govnl.bsky.social government from Deloitte at a cost of $1.6 million, cites research papers that don’t exist, making it the second major government policy paper called into question in as many months. #nlpoli #AI
theindependent.ca/news/lji/maj...
Major N.L. healthcare report contains errors likely generated by A.I. – The Independent
$1.6 million Health Human Resources Plan from Deloitte cites research papers that don’t exist, making it the second major government policy paper called into question in as many months
theindependent.ca
Ah yes. Harvard Law School in the early 1990s, well known for its Communist professors.