Christopher Smith
@christophersmith.bsky.social
University of St Andrews; Executive Chair, Arts & Humanities Research Council; International Champion and Creative Industries Sector Champion UK Research and Innovation
All views my own, but none of the poetry.
All views my own, but none of the poetry.
Profoundly beautiful account of the history of snow studies, the fragility of snow and the impact of the anthropocene by Sverker Sörlin.
Also an appeal for a different way of doing #science
Also an appeal for a different way of doing #science
November 23, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Profoundly beautiful account of the history of snow studies, the fragility of snow and the impact of the anthropocene by Sverker Sörlin.
Also an appeal for a different way of doing #science
Also an appeal for a different way of doing #science
and something else was with me in the dark
spirits were in the land, but
no one's ghost
for, had they been there,
out behind the yards,
I would have seen them in their
gloves and scarves
dusted with moonshine and frost
for the Great Beyond
John Burnside for #Halloween
spirits were in the land, but
no one's ghost
for, had they been there,
out behind the yards,
I would have seen them in their
gloves and scarves
dusted with moonshine and frost
for the Great Beyond
John Burnside for #Halloween
October 31, 2025 at 9:37 PM
and something else was with me in the dark
spirits were in the land, but
no one's ghost
for, had they been there,
out behind the yards,
I would have seen them in their
gloves and scarves
dusted with moonshine and frost
for the Great Beyond
John Burnside for #Halloween
spirits were in the land, but
no one's ghost
for, had they been there,
out behind the yards,
I would have seen them in their
gloves and scarves
dusted with moonshine and frost
for the Great Beyond
John Burnside for #Halloween
Robert Redford, 1936-2025
September 16, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Robert Redford, 1936-2025
Experiments in nature; Penone Thoughts in the Roots (Serpentine Gallery); Jarman The Black Paintings (Amanda Wilkinson)
"Around you the landscape lies transfigured. Here is the Amen beyond the prayer." Jarman
"Around you the landscape lies transfigured. Here is the Amen beyond the prayer." Jarman
August 30, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Experiments in nature; Penone Thoughts in the Roots (Serpentine Gallery); Jarman The Black Paintings (Amanda Wilkinson)
"Around you the landscape lies transfigured. Here is the Amen beyond the prayer." Jarman
"Around you the landscape lies transfigured. Here is the Amen beyond the prayer." Jarman
Sad to see John Walter’s imaginative artwork coming down from the Thames Tideway site in Bermondsey. Hoping there is a new artwork to come…
August 29, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Sad to see John Walter’s imaginative artwork coming down from the Thames Tideway site in Bermondsey. Hoping there is a new artwork to come…
Kiss me, end of summer, on the mouth
Tell me you won't go too far away
Come back with love upon your shoulders
And your weight won't have been in vain
Sandro Penna, tr Alexander Booth @wordkunst.bsky.social @seagullbooks.bsky.social
Tell me you won't go too far away
Come back with love upon your shoulders
And your weight won't have been in vain
Sandro Penna, tr Alexander Booth @wordkunst.bsky.social @seagullbooks.bsky.social
August 23, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Kiss me, end of summer, on the mouth
Tell me you won't go too far away
Come back with love upon your shoulders
And your weight won't have been in vain
Sandro Penna, tr Alexander Booth @wordkunst.bsky.social @seagullbooks.bsky.social
Tell me you won't go too far away
Come back with love upon your shoulders
And your weight won't have been in vain
Sandro Penna, tr Alexander Booth @wordkunst.bsky.social @seagullbooks.bsky.social
"Poetry may make nothing happen, but a novel destroyed Hiroshima and without Hiroshima there is no me and these words erase themselves and me with them."
Richard Flanagan, Question 7.
Richard Flanagan, Question 7.
August 13, 2025 at 5:19 PM
"Poetry may make nothing happen, but a novel destroyed Hiroshima and without Hiroshima there is no me and these words erase themselves and me with them."
Richard Flanagan, Question 7.
Richard Flanagan, Question 7.
H G Wells, dotd 1946
"Without Rebecca West’s kiss H.G. Wells would not have run off to Switzerland to write a book in which everything burns, and without H.G. Wells’s book Leo Szilard would never have conceived of a nuclear chain reaction...
"Without Rebecca West’s kiss H.G. Wells would not have run off to Switzerland to write a book in which everything burns, and without H.G. Wells’s book Leo Szilard would never have conceived of a nuclear chain reaction...
August 13, 2025 at 5:19 PM
H G Wells, dotd 1946
"Without Rebecca West’s kiss H.G. Wells would not have run off to Switzerland to write a book in which everything burns, and without H.G. Wells’s book Leo Szilard would never have conceived of a nuclear chain reaction...
"Without Rebecca West’s kiss H.G. Wells would not have run off to Switzerland to write a book in which everything burns, and without H.G. Wells’s book Leo Szilard would never have conceived of a nuclear chain reaction...
If you find your way to the Royal Academy's provocative Kiefer / van Gogh show, look out for Lesley Chamberlain's superb A Shoe Story: van Gogh, the Philosophers and the West
"The capacity of #art to protect and protest, to stand on real ground"
"The capacity of #art to protect and protest, to stand on real ground"
August 3, 2025 at 7:21 PM
If you find your way to the Royal Academy's provocative Kiefer / van Gogh show, look out for Lesley Chamberlain's superb A Shoe Story: van Gogh, the Philosophers and the West
"The capacity of #art to protect and protest, to stand on real ground"
"The capacity of #art to protect and protest, to stand on real ground"
The Edward Burra show @tate.bsky.social has gathered attention for his striking depictions of France and Spain, but in light of current conversations below this 1963 depiction of violence against a straw man resonates.
Burra was himself in many ways an outsider through his sexuality and invalidity.
Burra was himself in many ways an outsider through his sexuality and invalidity.
August 3, 2025 at 1:02 PM
The Edward Burra show @tate.bsky.social has gathered attention for his striking depictions of France and Spain, but in light of current conversations below this 1963 depiction of violence against a straw man resonates.
Burra was himself in many ways an outsider through his sexuality and invalidity.
Burra was himself in many ways an outsider through his sexuality and invalidity.
Over the sunstruck, drystone wall
we were ambushed by the sway
and scent of a July meadow
Moya Cannon, Monet in Árann, from Bunting's Honey, a beautiful collection from @carcanet.bsky.social
with a few thoughts from me
anatomiesofpower.wordpress.com/2025/07/05/c...
we were ambushed by the sway
and scent of a July meadow
Moya Cannon, Monet in Árann, from Bunting's Honey, a beautiful collection from @carcanet.bsky.social
with a few thoughts from me
anatomiesofpower.wordpress.com/2025/07/05/c...
July 5, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Over the sunstruck, drystone wall
we were ambushed by the sway
and scent of a July meadow
Moya Cannon, Monet in Árann, from Bunting's Honey, a beautiful collection from @carcanet.bsky.social
with a few thoughts from me
anatomiesofpower.wordpress.com/2025/07/05/c...
we were ambushed by the sway
and scent of a July meadow
Moya Cannon, Monet in Árann, from Bunting's Honey, a beautiful collection from @carcanet.bsky.social
with a few thoughts from me
anatomiesofpower.wordpress.com/2025/07/05/c...
From Moya Cannon's Bunting's Honey.
July 5, 2025 at 12:41 PM
From Moya Cannon's Bunting's Honey.
Current reading. History rhymes, sometimes too well.
July 3, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Current reading. History rhymes, sometimes too well.
"This transference of awe-inspiring unknowability from God to the ancient lands of the United States had helped to justify America's national parks. These secular Edens cleansed the human mind & spirit with their billion-year old landscapes."
Caroline Winterer @princetonupress.bsky.social
Caroline Winterer @princetonupress.bsky.social
June 25, 2025 at 8:17 PM
"This transference of awe-inspiring unknowability from God to the ancient lands of the United States had helped to justify America's national parks. These secular Edens cleansed the human mind & spirit with their billion-year old landscapes."
Caroline Winterer @princetonupress.bsky.social
Caroline Winterer @princetonupress.bsky.social
Summer
Be of this brightness dyed
Whose unrecking fever
Flings gold before it goes
Into voids finally
That have no measure.
W S Merwin
Be of this brightness dyed
Whose unrecking fever
Flings gold before it goes
Into voids finally
That have no measure.
W S Merwin
June 22, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Summer
Be of this brightness dyed
Whose unrecking fever
Flings gold before it goes
Into voids finally
That have no measure.
W S Merwin
Be of this brightness dyed
Whose unrecking fever
Flings gold before it goes
Into voids finally
That have no measure.
W S Merwin
@designcouncil.bsky.social and other #UKRI funded projects prominent at the Design Biennale, as well as the wonderful entry from Poland
June 5, 2025 at 7:29 PM
@designcouncil.bsky.social and other #UKRI funded projects prominent at the Design Biennale, as well as the wonderful entry from Poland
"pillar foundations and parts of columns scattered on the paving stones evoked a game that had ended, whose pawns in disarray hid an inescapable order; they seemed abandoned there by winners or losers who would never return."
Yourcenar, A Coin in Nine Hands, on Rome in 1933
Yourcenar, A Coin in Nine Hands, on Rome in 1933
June 1, 2025 at 7:21 AM
"pillar foundations and parts of columns scattered on the paving stones evoked a game that had ended, whose pawns in disarray hid an inescapable order; they seemed abandoned there by winners or losers who would never return."
Yourcenar, A Coin in Nine Hands, on Rome in 1933
Yourcenar, A Coin in Nine Hands, on Rome in 1933
3) as I keep saying we have to look at this whole issue together from the bottom up (which the UKRI new deal for PGRs hopefully will do). Regrettably AHRC just can't fix all the bits of AH that are broken right now with this budget. We are just trying our best with the band aids we have.
May 27, 2025 at 3:53 PM
3) as I keep saying we have to look at this whole issue together from the bottom up (which the UKRI new deal for PGRs hopefully will do). Regrettably AHRC just can't fix all the bits of AH that are broken right now with this budget. We are just trying our best with the band aids we have.
"the #garden, like the #library and the #hospital, is what makes all of our lives possible. We need gardens and the life they support established everywhere if we are to survive, and they must extend beyond the private realm, to form part of a cherished
common wealth."
Olivia Laing
common wealth."
Olivia Laing
May 4, 2025 at 8:17 PM
"There's no point looking for Eden on a map. It's a dream that is carried in the heart: a fertile garden, time and space enough for all of us."
Olivia Laing
Olivia Laing
May 4, 2025 at 8:12 PM
"There's no point looking for Eden on a map. It's a dream that is carried in the heart: a fertile garden, time and space enough for all of us."
Olivia Laing
Olivia Laing
"Call it a garden state: a cross-species ecology of astounding beauty and completeness, never static, always in motion, progressive and prolific. I want to live there, and the world won't survive much longer if we don't."
Olivia Laing, The Garden Against Time
Olivia Laing, The Garden Against Time
May 4, 2025 at 8:03 AM
"Call it a garden state: a cross-species ecology of astounding beauty and completeness, never static, always in motion, progressive and prolific. I want to live there, and the world won't survive much longer if we don't."
Olivia Laing, The Garden Against Time
Olivia Laing, The Garden Against Time
"Oh how I hate this unseeing."
Derek Jarman (on a thoughtless programme on Yves Klein)
Derek Jarman (on a thoughtless programme on Yves Klein)
April 27, 2025 at 7:45 PM
"Oh how I hate this unseeing."
Derek Jarman (on a thoughtless programme on Yves Klein)
Derek Jarman (on a thoughtless programme on Yves Klein)
Can there be any day but this, Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.
George Herbert, Easter
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.
George Herbert, Easter
April 20, 2025 at 6:57 AM
Can there be any day but this, Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.
George Herbert, Easter
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.
George Herbert, Easter
“We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist. Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life.”
Mario Vargas Llosa 1936-2025
Mario Vargas Llosa 1936-2025
April 14, 2025 at 6:16 AM
“We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist. Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life.”
Mario Vargas Llosa 1936-2025
Mario Vargas Llosa 1936-2025