Felicity Callard
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felicitycallard.bsky.social
Felicity Callard
@felicitycallard.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1.3K following 660 posts
Researching daydreams and fantasies. I am employed as a human geographer and also work in the medical humanities

Editor, History of the Human Sciences @histhum.bsky.social
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felicitycallard.bsky.social
DIVEST

Walking past one of the main university buildings on my way to lecture this morning
DIVEST sprayed in red paint with lots of red paint behind it on a glass fronted university building. The building is cordoned off.
November 26, 2025 at 10:57 AM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
“Meeting the demands made by people of conscience across the world in the case of Gaza – suspending the sale of arms and imposing economic sanctions – remains the only way to prevent the true worst-case scenario from reaching every Palestinian village, town, and city in the West Bank”
versobooks.bsky.social Verso Books @versobooks.bsky.social · 1d
"As Israel ostensibly redirects its weapons away from Gaza, the West Bank braces to receive them full-force.

What is the step from local ethnic cleansing to all-out genocide, when the world splits no hairs over international law?"

www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/t...
The Death that Keeps on Going
How much can one village physically take? The worst-case scenario has already happened countless times in the small West Bank community of Umm al-Khair. It happened when prominent Palestinian activist...
www.versobooks.com
November 25, 2025 at 6:38 PM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
“exiting the market”
In the next category down, where the OfS is concerned about the risk of exit within 12 months, Lapworth said there are currently seven large and 17 small institutions. "That's us being conservative so we are on the right foot and engaging...we're not saying they are going to exit in a disorderly way," Lapworth said. "I'm confident we understand what's happening in those situations." In a third category for providers with a two-to-three-year risk of exit, Lapworth said there are 26 institutions. "The pattern generally is that the smaller ones are those that we're more worried about than the larger ones," Lapworth said.
November 25, 2025 at 6:23 PM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
Let me get up early to remind myself of the debates over how to construe Marx on the fetishism of commodities before I teach the first year geography students

<3 hours later still in the thickets never coming back out>
November 25, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
andyhines.bsky.social
everyone is talking about getting copies of University Keywords (or other JHU Press books) for all their friends, students, and comrades for the holidays, especially when it is 40% off with the code HHOL25.
November 24, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
sonjadrimmer.bsky.social
This is not the way, and @cnygren.bsky.social and I lay out in detail why it isn’t in this essay here. static1.squarespace.com/static/55577...
How We are Not Using Al in the Classroom By Sonja Drimmer & Christopher J. Nygren Premise Prompt engineering is a term that has become commonplace since the widespread availability of generative AI applications like ChatGPT. The idea is that the outputs of the large language models (LLMs) on which these applications are based are only as good as the prompts that are input: vague prompts result in equally vague outputs. And thus was born the race to train for careers in prompt engineering. Unfortunately, the bubble seems to have burst before even the first generation of students was trained for this career outcome. We were given a prompt as an invitation to participate in this newsletter: "How are you using Al in the classroom?" While we have accepted this invitation, we are engaging in the most humanistic act we can imagine-refusing the prompt.
November 24, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
nkalamb.bsky.social
Images of the first amputee football tournament in Gaza by photojournalist Rizek Abdel Jawad.

nbmediacoop.org/2025/11/21/p...
November 21, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
dukepress.bsky.social
In "Occupied Refuge," @hannobrankamp.bsky.social challenges the view of refugee camps as indispensable safe havens, showing that humanitarian missions often function as militarized occupations that treat camp inhabitants as colonized subjects. Read the intro for free now: buff.ly/IwyWW8p
Cover of Occupied Refuge: Humanitarian Colonization and the Camp in Kenya by Hanno Brankamp. The cover features a black-and-white photograph of a refugee camp with small structures that have corrugated metal roofs. In the foreground, a dirt ground stretches across the image with people walking, sitting, and standing near a vehicle. A vertical yellow line runs from top to bottom, dividing the composition. The title and subtitle appear in white text on the left side of the cover, with the author's name at the bottom right.
November 21, 2025 at 4:22 PM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
23k lives could have been saved if lockdown had been 1wk earlier. My mind turns away from those weeks of Feb/March 2020: the memories are too painful. Desperately trying to push universities to close. All of us who fell so ill **infected before Johnson finally locked down**. All those of us who died
November 21, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
echomikeromeo.bsky.social
I'm glad to have signed this statement in support of queer and trans staff at the National Library of Scotland, who by the sounds of it are going through an awful time at the moment: docs.google.com/document/d/e...
November 19, 2025 at 10:15 AM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
Going great with universities in Britain
on.ft.com/4oVmSQw
Philippa Pickford, Ofs director of regulation, said the sector had "become more realistic and prudent" but that some universities continued to rely on "unrealistic expectations of growth" *We do not expect multiple universities to close in the short term. But some institutions need to take radical action," she added.
November 20, 2025 at 7:57 AM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
histhum.bsky.social
Recovery and rehabilitation in mental health: Historical perspectives

Hannah Blythe @hanblythe.bsky.social and Sarah Marks @sarahvmarks.bsky.social’s introduction to their special issue journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Recovery and rehabilitation in mental health: Historical perspectives - Hannah Blythe, Sarah Marks, 2025
Recovery and rehabilitation are highly charged terms in contemporary mental health, with their meanings and implications contested by professionals and survivor...
journals.sagepub.com
November 19, 2025 at 7:22 PM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
Post a book you love from the 80s. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky #bookchallenge #readingchallenge #readingcommunity #booktok #bookish #books
Landscape for a Good Woman. Carolyn Steedman. https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/landscape-for-a-good-woman/9780813512587/
November 20, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
bakerdphd.bsky.social
"[admin]...who regard the...students of their own universities with such contempt as to be undeserving of the education that in many cases those administrators themselves, or their parents, or their children received...are an enemy of the educational enterprise"

🎁 link

www.wsj.com/opinion/mont...
Opinion | Montclair State’s Inhumanity to the Humanities
Goodbye, English department. Hello, Institute for Complex Systems and Algorithmic Infused Societies.
www.wsj.com
November 17, 2025 at 9:05 PM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
Each of these sentences is devastating to read. Worlds upon worlds being destroyed
voicesbend.bsky.social Julie Beth Napolin @voicesbend.bsky.social · 7d
The New School is now a place where students cannot major in History, Anthropology, Sociology, Global Policy & International Affairs, Global Studies, Urban Studies, or Environmental Studies. And more pauses, closures, and mergers coming down the pike this week. The future is uncertain.
November 19, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
elienyc.bsky.social
I know that at this point it's a subplot in the Epstein files drama, but I feel compelled to point out, once again, that Larry Summers HAS NO BUSINESS teaching students at ANY university ever again!

My latest cries into the abyss, in @thenation.com

www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Why Is Larry Summers Still Employed?
The revelations about the economist’s attempts to pressure a women into a “relationship”—with guidance from Jeffrey Epstein—should finally disqualify him from teaching students.
www.thenation.com
November 19, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
earlymodernjohn.bsky.social
I was just thinking the other day that it is mad that if this continues then the book I'm writing, about London 1560-1630, will contain basically no British Library manuscript material. Would have been unthinkable to me but there hasn't been a manuscript catalogue for two years now!
hetanshah.bsky.social Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 8d
I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care?
The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity
www.cityam.com
November 18, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
liziwat.bsky.social
There’s a petition countering proposals to close the Film Studies programme at the University of Leicester. Read more here c.org/WfcP6tX6gG
Stop the Closure of Film Studies at Uni of Leicester
Can you spare a minute to help this campaign?
c.org
November 17, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
eriklinstrum.bsky.social
What happens when nationalist history meets the horrors of empire? For @jacobinmag.bsky.social, I reviewed a new exhibition on British counterinsurgency at the Imperial War Museum jacobin.com/2025/11/brit...
Reckoning With Empire at Britain’s Imperial War Museum
An exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum offers a welcome corrective to the nostalgia for empire common among Britain’s elites.
jacobin.com
November 4, 2025 at 7:05 PM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
Been going back to this all morning to confirm that the Labour government’s minister for asylum does indeed describe someone fleeing persecution and war coming over with a ‘bagful of gold rings’
saulstaniforth.bsky.social Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 9d
Govt minister Alex Norris is asked if the govt will take jewellery from people [fleeing war and persecution]. Norris says the govt won't be taking peoples wedding rings but they will seize assets.
November 17, 2025 at 1:51 PM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
Solidarity with all on strike at University of Edinburgh
frasermacdonald.bsky.social Fraser MacDonald @frasermacdonald.bsky.social · 9d
Covid prevents me from being on the picket line but solidarity to everyone there.

An isolated management, censured by its own academic senate, seeks to literally decimate its own staff.

Oh, and it has the third largest uni endowment in the UK.
ucuedinburgh.bsky.social UCU Edinburgh @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social · 9d
Pickets all over Edinburgh this morning! From Old College to King's Building, Edinburgh UCU staff are saying NO to job cuts!
November 17, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Felicity Callard
johnmerrick.bsky.social
We're now open for pitches for Issue #3 of @the-breakdown.bsky.social, AIRBORNE, on the importance of air in the climate crises, its role in environmental history and activism, and its future on a transformed planet.

If you have ideas for a piece, send them our way www.break-down.org/pitching/
November 14, 2025 at 1:44 PM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
“Between c.1966 & 1983, U of Birmingham employed & promoted researchers who orchestrated so-called ‘conversion therapy’* for same-sex love & desire & gender nonconformity…”

Our thanks to @rebeccawynter.bsky.social and colleagues for ensuring this history and its ongoing impacts are not disavowed
rebeccawynter.bsky.social Rebecca Wynter @rebeccawynter.bsky.social · 22d
Long tails and important outcomes. Finally, it's live - the website for the report, "Conversion Therapy' and the University of Birmingham c.1966-1983'!

There's material about the history, the project, its organisation, and there are resources there too.

#HistPsych #HistSTEM #QueerHist #HistSex
‘Conversion Therapy’ and the University of Birmingham c.1966-1983 - University of Birmingham
Between c.1966 and 1983, the University of Birmingham employed researchers who orchestrated so-called 'conversion therapy' for same-sex love
www.birmingham.ac.uk
November 17, 2025 at 10:59 AM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
'Such reliance on rankings means that universities are shaped not by the needs of society or by innovations driven from inside the international higher-education community, but by unappointed third-party ranking agencies'

@lizziegadd.bsky.social in Nature www.nature.com/articles/d41...
To reform universities, first tackle global rankings
Universities are in thrall to a rankings system that prioritizes narrow aspects of academic life. Three changes would give institutions the freedom to explore fresh ways of working.
www.nature.com
November 17, 2025 at 10:35 AM
felicitycallard.bsky.social
Sophie Lewis on the contributor boycott of the New York Times
reproutopia.bsky.social Sophie Lewis @reproutopia.bsky.social · 9d
The courage to withstand, as feminists, the reformulated myth of the black rapist at the core of Zionism’s femonationalist gambit is also a profound antifascist commitment. We are, quite simply, drawing a line... - me on the NYT contributor strike/boycott for New Arab www.newarab.com/opinion/no-o...
No Opinion for Gaza: Why we are boycotting the New York Times
Sophie Lewis explains why she & 200+ former New York Times contributors are boycotting the outlet until it addresses its anti-Palestinian bias.
www.newarab.com
November 17, 2025 at 7:13 AM