Liam Connell
@liamconnell.bsky.social
Independent Scholar, Researcher & Policy Advisor. Australasian, he/him.
People get really, performatively weird about the difficulty of Ulysses. It's not that inaccessible, particularly if you listen to it; it demands attention and mental effort, but it's not some literary shibboleth or an emperor with no clothes.
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
October 14, 2025 at 9:01 AM
People get really, performatively weird about the difficulty of Ulysses. It's not that inaccessible, particularly if you listen to it; it demands attention and mental effort, but it's not some literary shibboleth or an emperor with no clothes.
Reposted by Liam Connell
Why do you feel the need to believe you were born in Babylon? What do you get out of it, emotionally?
October 12, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Why do you feel the need to believe you were born in Babylon? What do you get out of it, emotionally?
American sports, or Yugoslavia in 1942, who can say.
I forgot Tito was managing the Reds, now I have to root for them
October 1, 2025 at 2:11 AM
American sports, or Yugoslavia in 1942, who can say.
My undergrad lecturer, the late and much lamented Chris Jones once succinctly taught a lesson through three 16thC portraits: which of these three men is most confident in his power? It’s remarkable that Charles looks more like a merchant or lawyer than the most powerful man in the Atlantic world.
September 1, 2025 at 2:48 PM
My undergrad lecturer, the late and much lamented Chris Jones once succinctly taught a lesson through three 16thC portraits: which of these three men is most confident in his power? It’s remarkable that Charles looks more like a merchant or lawyer than the most powerful man in the Atlantic world.
Stephen is quite wrong about the Craig era being a total disaster, but quite right that people sleep on the Tosca scene in QoS: it's a perfectly absurd Bond set piece, overdramatic, mildly comic, and the right amount of camp. Pity about the rest of the film mind.
It goes off the rails at the end, but the Tosca scene is a great setpiece, it actually appears to have some sense of what it wants to do with this new joyless Bond and it actually has weight (until it goes off the rails).
September 1, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Stephen is quite wrong about the Craig era being a total disaster, but quite right that people sleep on the Tosca scene in QoS: it's a perfectly absurd Bond set piece, overdramatic, mildly comic, and the right amount of camp. Pity about the rest of the film mind.
Remember when Scorsese - quite rightly - pointed out that Marvel movies were the simply rollercoasters and was decried on twitter?
A varied media diet matters, which means you can enjoy the trite or trashy or childish. In fact, some children's art is profound. But you need the other stuff!
A varied media diet matters, which means you can enjoy the trite or trashy or childish. In fact, some children's art is profound. But you need the other stuff!
I think the idea of a ‘guilty pleasure’ is a good one: you should still enjoy trashy stuff, you should also feel a little embarrassment about this. I find some warhammer stuff entertaining. Warhammer is a setting made to sell video games and miniatures. It’s not great art, and I won’t pretend it is.
My increasingly close-held crank take is that we need to be way better about casting off childish things, or at the bare minimum recognizing they’re for children and feeling weird about that
August 30, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Remember when Scorsese - quite rightly - pointed out that Marvel movies were the simply rollercoasters and was decried on twitter?
A varied media diet matters, which means you can enjoy the trite or trashy or childish. In fact, some children's art is profound. But you need the other stuff!
A varied media diet matters, which means you can enjoy the trite or trashy or childish. In fact, some children's art is profound. But you need the other stuff!
Sensible historical critique this, and I don't understand the medievalists quibbling.
As a late Victorian historian, I can confirm that medieval people wore dirt and all early modern people wore silly wigs and ruffs. I hope this helps clear up the distinction for any lay people.
As a late Victorian historian, I can confirm that medieval people wore dirt and all early modern people wore silly wigs and ruffs. I hope this helps clear up the distinction for any lay people.
Seeing a lot of critical responses from medievalists about this BBC 1066 thing. As an early modernist, just to say that I'm happy to confirm that medieval people were indeed covered in dirt all the time and did all sound like they were in the Wurzels.
August 27, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Sensible historical critique this, and I don't understand the medievalists quibbling.
As a late Victorian historian, I can confirm that medieval people wore dirt and all early modern people wore silly wigs and ruffs. I hope this helps clear up the distinction for any lay people.
As a late Victorian historian, I can confirm that medieval people wore dirt and all early modern people wore silly wigs and ruffs. I hope this helps clear up the distinction for any lay people.
A good essay on a series I have a lot of residual fondness for. A lot of ink has been spilled on 'YA fiction' that's actually written for and read by adults; the Wheel of Time is a great example of 'adult' literature whose ideal audience is a bookish eleven year old.
I had this plan that I would write three full sections analyzing some key themes depth, but the first half was already 10k words and this was taking way too long, so I've wrapped up with a single additional section about Tolkien, iteration, and intertextuality (now total 16k words -- egads!).
Reading “The Eye of the World” by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time 1)
Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World (1990) is the titanic first novel in his Wheel of Time series (1990-2013), yet for all its prominence in the fantasy field, it has rarely been given serio…
seanguynes.com
August 18, 2025 at 1:34 PM
A good essay on a series I have a lot of residual fondness for. A lot of ink has been spilled on 'YA fiction' that's actually written for and read by adults; the Wheel of Time is a great example of 'adult' literature whose ideal audience is a bookish eleven year old.
I think the CANZUK delusion is more widespread than people think. Story time: At the graduation drinks for my masters, I spoke to a fellow student who was very excited about the job he was going to at an exciting new campaign: Brexit.
The idea of the UK "regaining" South Africa is particularly lmao.
Every graf here is awful in a different way
August 17, 2025 at 3:46 AM
I think the CANZUK delusion is more widespread than people think. Story time: At the graduation drinks for my masters, I spoke to a fellow student who was very excited about the job he was going to at an exciting new campaign: Brexit.
Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, for starters.
Here’s a question: who is the artist with politics you disagree strongly with, whose politics *do* (in your view) influence their art, that you still think is talented and whose work you enjoy?
August 9, 2025 at 6:49 AM
Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, for starters.
The bizarre thing about Starfield is that it has one (1) really good idea, a genuinely innovative advance in not just the studio's formula but the entire genre of the western RPG... and it's locked behind completing the main quest, which the studio's players never, ever, do.
imagine being Bethesda, the only thing people want is the next elder scrolls and you spend a decade going "no no that'll come after the super cool thing, you'll LOVE the super cool thing" then the super cool thing is Starfield, a game you probably forgot existed until just now
August 9, 2025 at 6:33 AM
The bizarre thing about Starfield is that it has one (1) really good idea, a genuinely innovative advance in not just the studio's formula but the entire genre of the western RPG... and it's locked behind completing the main quest, which the studio's players never, ever, do.
I'm recovering from surgery so I can't join the #marchforhumanity in Sydney today. I'm so glad to see so many people rallying against starvation and ethnic cleansing. Solidarity!
August 3, 2025 at 2:07 AM
I'm recovering from surgery so I can't join the #marchforhumanity in Sydney today. I'm so glad to see so many people rallying against starvation and ethnic cleansing. Solidarity!
Frustratingly, most of the Tom Lehrer clips on youtube cut out his extremely witty intros.
This man was a comedy titan; my family loved him since the 60s.
My extremely Catholic grandfather loved the Vatican Rag; my mum hummed 'The Masochism Tango.' But as a history nerd, this was my favourite:
This man was a comedy titan; my family loved him since the 60s.
My extremely Catholic grandfather loved the Vatican Rag; my mum hummed 'The Masochism Tango.' But as a history nerd, this was my favourite:
Tom Lehrer - Who's Next - with intro
YouTube video by The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel
youtu.be
July 28, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Frustratingly, most of the Tom Lehrer clips on youtube cut out his extremely witty intros.
This man was a comedy titan; my family loved him since the 60s.
My extremely Catholic grandfather loved the Vatican Rag; my mum hummed 'The Masochism Tango.' But as a history nerd, this was my favourite:
This man was a comedy titan; my family loved him since the 60s.
My extremely Catholic grandfather loved the Vatican Rag; my mum hummed 'The Masochism Tango.' But as a history nerd, this was my favourite:
I'm sorry, but for a list of Australian Songs, the top 100 is picking the wrong Crowded House numbers. 'Four Seasons in One Day' is one of the great songs about Melbourne, and is the band's great Australian song. 'Don't Dream it Over' is a New Zealand song, that's settled fact. #hottest100
July 26, 2025 at 9:32 AM
I'm sorry, but for a list of Australian Songs, the top 100 is picking the wrong Crowded House numbers. 'Four Seasons in One Day' is one of the great songs about Melbourne, and is the band's great Australian song. 'Don't Dream it Over' is a New Zealand song, that's settled fact. #hottest100
Yep. The other point, is that just like today, people in the past could say the same word and mean different things. And those people might not realise that the people they were talking to meant different things! (traumatised phd flashbacks.) There's no shortcut or ai summary to historical truth.
Seems to me an increasing amount of bad history is based on the idea that you can just keyword search terms (esp. 21st c. terms) to locate origins & relative usage. It's totally unimaginable to these keyword searchers why folks in the past would use diff terms or not mention common practice at all.
"the term doesn't appear therefore the concept didn't exist" is genuinely very dumb?
July 18, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Yep. The other point, is that just like today, people in the past could say the same word and mean different things. And those people might not realise that the people they were talking to meant different things! (traumatised phd flashbacks.) There's no shortcut or ai summary to historical truth.
This sounds like a dream project and a great example of what the humanities can be: it's fun, it'll open up understandings of post war Europe, it engages with mass culture, it works across disciplines... some young scholar deserves a great experience working on this.
There is a PhD scholarship on offer for someone to come and work on Asterix, with me, at Monash:
careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...
careers.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/jo...
Job Search
careers.pageuppeople.com
July 4, 2025 at 4:37 AM
This sounds like a dream project and a great example of what the humanities can be: it's fun, it'll open up understandings of post war Europe, it engages with mass culture, it works across disciplines... some young scholar deserves a great experience working on this.
I thought a lot about this doing my doctorate, and I landed on 1: 'it's a good tool for forcing you to think about why what happened happened, but it has no predictive value, nor can it be used to prove things.' History can't really be wargamed, nor can you change variables in an experiment. 1/7
👇 This is essentially why I don’t have much time for counterfactual history. Most of the time the answer to “what if X had won?” is “they couldn’t”.
(Less facetiously “decisive world-changing battles as individual events don’t actually exist” is the position I’m coming to - fundamentally losing a war is a political/economic event not a military one per se - think about Rome’s reaction to Cannae or the USSR’s reaction to Kyiv 1941)
June 1, 2025 at 10:50 AM
I thought a lot about this doing my doctorate, and I landed on 1: 'it's a good tool for forcing you to think about why what happened happened, but it has no predictive value, nor can it be used to prove things.' History can't really be wargamed, nor can you change variables in an experiment. 1/7
This is a pun worthy of Asterix
Genghis Khan? In this economy? Best we can do is Temu Jin
May 25, 2025 at 2:01 AM
This is a pun worthy of Asterix
Reposted by Liam Connell
A weird consequence of the discrediting of fascism in WW2 meaning that subsequent movements occupying the similar political ground run away from the label is people act as if the concept is itself fictional.
But the bad guys in WW2 were in fact real.
But the bad guys in WW2 were in fact real.
May 24, 2025 at 8:38 AM
A weird consequence of the discrediting of fascism in WW2 meaning that subsequent movements occupying the similar political ground run away from the label is people act as if the concept is itself fictional.
But the bad guys in WW2 were in fact real.
But the bad guys in WW2 were in fact real.
I’ve never before seen rats drill a hole in the side of the ship before they leave.
Wrote about this being a strong possibility and yup - the Nationals have had a massive dummy spit and broken up the Coalition. Marching both parties even closer to obscurity. Absolutely amazing.
May 20, 2025 at 3:34 AM
I’ve never before seen rats drill a hole in the side of the ship before they leave.
I'm very pleased to be published in the excellent Liberal Currents, writing about how Trump's foreign policy is actually not a return to colonial imperialism. It's much stranger and more stupid, and it presents quite the challenge to what remains of worldwide liberal democracy.
"This has been the most tumultuous year in international politics since 1989, and it is only May. It has become clear that the second Trump administration is breaking with the norms of US foreign policy that have held since 1945." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-most-chi...
The Most Childish Imperialism
How Trump is different from the old imperialists, and the liberal world must respond.
www.liberalcurrents.com
May 14, 2025 at 1:40 PM
I'm very pleased to be published in the excellent Liberal Currents, writing about how Trump's foreign policy is actually not a return to colonial imperialism. It's much stranger and more stupid, and it presents quite the challenge to what remains of worldwide liberal democracy.
I can’t reply but yes - a non human working with a Jedi and another group of aliens. In the old canon, they’re all absent from the imperial campaigns we see in the films - and suddenly appear to be demonised as alien traitors, dark Jedi, and Vader cultists once the Kenobi/Skywalker clique wins.
@liamconnell.bsky.social was it you who wrote a piece ages back arguing Thrawn was /obviously/ a rival Republican restorationist maliciously portrayed as an ex-Imperial by the New Republic to delegitimise him?
May 3, 2025 at 12:29 AM
I can’t reply but yes - a non human working with a Jedi and another group of aliens. In the old canon, they’re all absent from the imperial campaigns we see in the films - and suddenly appear to be demonised as alien traitors, dark Jedi, and Vader cultists once the Kenobi/Skywalker clique wins.
It was aid of Louis XVI that he was like a pillow - the last to sit on it leaves the impression
The United States is led by a figure whose mental faculties are so impaired that his ranting and rambling can be pushed in any direction depending on who spoke with him last
Trump after meeting Zelenskyy: "Putin had no reason to shell civilian areas, cities, and towns in recent days. It makes me think he may not want to stop the war, just playing with me. Time to deal with him differently, with 'Banking' or 'Secondary Sanctions'?"
April 26, 2025 at 2:02 PM
It was aid of Louis XVI that he was like a pillow - the last to sit on it leaves the impression
And the voices of trans women were entirely excluded from the case. Shameful stuff.
NEW: Big moment unfolding at the Supreme Court in the history of trans rights in the UK. They’ve ruled unanimously that sex and woman definitions in Equality Act 2010 refer to biological women only.
Judgment being explained.
Judgment being explained.
April 16, 2025 at 9:51 AM
And the voices of trans women were entirely excluded from the case. Shameful stuff.
'De l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace!'
March 23, 2025 at 3:12 AM
'De l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace!'