Ruth Scobie
@ruthscobie.bsky.social
Mostly eighteenth-century; she/her. Writing a book: NOVELS AND THE RISE OF CELEBRITY, which is not about the rise of the novel
Reposted by Ruth Scobie
So delighted that this long-gestated brain child is now out and in the real world. I'll be talking about it at the English Faculty in Cambridge, @cam.ac.uk on Thursday of next week at 5pm. Do please come along if you're in town!
November 12, 2025 at 5:15 PM
So delighted that this long-gestated brain child is now out and in the real world. I'll be talking about it at the English Faculty in Cambridge, @cam.ac.uk on Thursday of next week at 5pm. Do please come along if you're in town!
Reposted by Ruth Scobie
Today is the OFFICIAL publication day for TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE! Please indulge me: I want to say a little (perhaps rather a lot) about it and share my acknowledgements - and a discount code! Appropriately,🧵1/10
November 11, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Today is the OFFICIAL publication day for TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE! Please indulge me: I want to say a little (perhaps rather a lot) about it and share my acknowledgements - and a discount code! Appropriately,🧵1/10
Accidentally bought Goth potatoes
November 4, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Accidentally bought Goth potatoes
Love how the right-hand column reads like a list of recently elected Reform councillors
Read this work on Restoration Comedy 1671-1682 Character types
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
October 25, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Love how the right-hand column reads like a list of recently elected Reform councillors
Lots of things in the British Museum were stolen and should be returned! Lots of things weren't! Uncritically repeating 'Everything in the British Museum is stolen' reinforces the imperialist narrative that only the British had agency over a passive monolithic Other! Hope this helps
October 17, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Lots of things in the British Museum were stolen and should be returned! Lots of things weren't! Uncritically repeating 'Everything in the British Museum is stolen' reinforces the imperialist narrative that only the British had agency over a passive monolithic Other! Hope this helps
Of course they had to cover up what happened to all the children at Lowood School. They didn't want panic to spread
“My name is Jane Eyre. I am 10 years old, and I live with my aunt Mrs. Reed. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had.”
Yeah, that works.
Yeah, that works.
The general reader can improve their experience of most nineteenth-century novels by assuming that the Angel in the House character is secretly murderous. Jane Eyre (obvs). Esther Summerson. Fanny Price slipping cyanide into the clear soup. JANE FAIRFAX
October 16, 2025 at 7:46 AM
Of course they had to cover up what happened to all the children at Lowood School. They didn't want panic to spread
The general reader can improve their experience of most nineteenth-century novels by assuming that the Angel in the House character is secretly murderous. Jane Eyre (obvs). Esther Summerson. Fanny Price slipping cyanide into the clear soup. JANE FAIRFAX
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
October 15, 2025 at 11:17 AM
The general reader can improve their experience of most nineteenth-century novels by assuming that the Angel in the House character is secretly murderous. Jane Eyre (obvs). Esther Summerson. Fanny Price slipping cyanide into the clear soup. JANE FAIRFAX
Reposted by Ruth Scobie
If you are a supporter and reader of @contingent-mag.bsky.social one of the biggest things you can do to help us at the moment is get this CFP to the NTT folks in your life. The fracturing of social media has made it very difficult to get the word out esp. to adjuncts and VAPs.
CFP: A Time of Monsters
The monster has been here all along. It is a historical constant that manifests in wildly different ways across time, place, and culture. Whatever form it takes, the monster claws at categories; it un...
contingentmagazine.org
October 5, 2025 at 9:41 PM
If you are a supporter and reader of @contingent-mag.bsky.social one of the biggest things you can do to help us at the moment is get this CFP to the NTT folks in your life. The fracturing of social media has made it very difficult to get the word out esp. to adjuncts and VAPs.
Mine was an (otherwise unobjectionable) novel set in the nineteenth century in which a professor called a boring task "like folding laundry". 1) Nineteenth-century profs did not do laundry 2) only people with modern washer-driers think *folding* is the worst bit of laundry
And don't tell yourself: "It's a story. The small details don't really matter." They do. I once read a historical novel set in Victorian London (written, I think, by an American author), in which the detective protagonist presses a 50-pence piece into a grimy urchin's hand. I think about this a lot.
August 14, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Mine was an (otherwise unobjectionable) novel set in the nineteenth century in which a professor called a boring task "like folding laundry". 1) Nineteenth-century profs did not do laundry 2) only people with modern washer-driers think *folding* is the worst bit of laundry
Reposted by Ruth Scobie
Look at this cat I'm catsitting, he looks like Percy Bysshe Shelley
August 6, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Look at this cat I'm catsitting, he looks like Percy Bysshe Shelley
Look at this cat I'm catsitting, he looks like Percy Bysshe Shelley
August 6, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Look at this cat I'm catsitting, he looks like Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mary Robinson already making fun of AI bros in 1799
August 5, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Mary Robinson already making fun of AI bros in 1799
Reposted by Ruth Scobie
Some thoughts on how authors resort to autobio(mytho)graphy in order to deal with their complex status in the cultural imagination - available here, OA, in my article on the British poet #StephenSpender:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
@fwf-at.bsky.social @acdh-oeaw.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
@fwf-at.bsky.social @acdh-oeaw.bsky.social
Writer, Work, and World(s): Stephen Spender as Autobio(mytho)grapher
The British poet Stephen Spender (1909–1995) is perhaps best known today as the chronicler of the 1930s ‘Auden Group’, a cosmopolitan public intellectual, and cultural activist. Throughout his life...
www.tandfonline.com
August 4, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Some thoughts on how authors resort to autobio(mytho)graphy in order to deal with their complex status in the cultural imagination - available here, OA, in my article on the British poet #StephenSpender:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
@fwf-at.bsky.social @acdh-oeaw.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
@fwf-at.bsky.social @acdh-oeaw.bsky.social
Reposted by Ruth Scobie
‘Dapaan altered my perception of how conflict shapes culture, and how culture, in turn, resists disappearance. Stories are a way of knowing the world and these stories are my stories and will remain with me …’
Read this review of @psemolina3.bsky.social’s book: inkstickmedia.com/dapaan-the-s...
Read this review of @psemolina3.bsky.social’s book: inkstickmedia.com/dapaan-the-s...
Dapaan: The Stories of Kashmir that Refuse to Die
In her new book, journalist Ipsita Chakravarty turns to rumors, folklore, and ghost stories to shine a light on life in Kashmir.
inkstickmedia.com
July 18, 2025 at 8:04 AM
‘Dapaan altered my perception of how conflict shapes culture, and how culture, in turn, resists disappearance. Stories are a way of knowing the world and these stories are my stories and will remain with me …’
Read this review of @psemolina3.bsky.social’s book: inkstickmedia.com/dapaan-the-s...
Read this review of @psemolina3.bsky.social’s book: inkstickmedia.com/dapaan-the-s...
Reposted by Ruth Scobie
‘It is said, two things can change at any time in Kashmir, the weather and the haalaat.’
It’s pub day for award-winning journalist @psemolina3.bsky.social’s moving, powerful, thought-provoking debut.
Dapaan is now available at all major bookstores and online. Get your copy today.
It’s pub day for award-winning journalist @psemolina3.bsky.social’s moving, powerful, thought-provoking debut.
Dapaan is now available at all major bookstores and online. Get your copy today.
July 7, 2025 at 5:29 AM
‘It is said, two things can change at any time in Kashmir, the weather and the haalaat.’
It’s pub day for award-winning journalist @psemolina3.bsky.social’s moving, powerful, thought-provoking debut.
Dapaan is now available at all major bookstores and online. Get your copy today.
It’s pub day for award-winning journalist @psemolina3.bsky.social’s moving, powerful, thought-provoking debut.
Dapaan is now available at all major bookstores and online. Get your copy today.
This is the last page of the first Penguin edition of Virginia Woolf's Orlando
[Pixies voice]
GOT ME A BLOOMSBURY AH-HA-HA-HO
SLICING UP MARS BARS AH-HA-HA-HO
[Pixies voice]
GOT ME A BLOOMSBURY AH-HA-HA-HO
SLICING UP MARS BARS AH-HA-HA-HO
July 7, 2025 at 1:33 PM
This is the last page of the first Penguin edition of Virginia Woolf's Orlando
[Pixies voice]
GOT ME A BLOOMSBURY AH-HA-HA-HO
SLICING UP MARS BARS AH-HA-HA-HO
[Pixies voice]
GOT ME A BLOOMSBURY AH-HA-HA-HO
SLICING UP MARS BARS AH-HA-HA-HO
Her biographer says of Elizabeth Inchbald that "she was at last forced to give up her determination never to play Lady Sneerwell in 'The School for Scandal'" in 1778. Does anyone have any ideas what Inchbald objected to? I'd have thought Lady S was quite a fun role
June 27, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Her biographer says of Elizabeth Inchbald that "she was at last forced to give up her determination never to play Lady Sneerwell in 'The School for Scandal'" in 1778. Does anyone have any ideas what Inchbald objected to? I'd have thought Lady S was quite a fun role
Reposted by Ruth Scobie
No written word can do justice to the power and beauty of the stories I heard in Kashmir. But I tried. Thrilled to announce the India edition of my book, with lovely cover art by Basita Shah, is out on 7th July. Pre-orders here: amzn.in/d/7NuVhNn @westlandbooks.bsky.social
June 25, 2025 at 6:42 AM
No written word can do justice to the power and beauty of the stories I heard in Kashmir. But I tried. Thrilled to announce the India edition of my book, with lovely cover art by Basita Shah, is out on 7th July. Pre-orders here: amzn.in/d/7NuVhNn @westlandbooks.bsky.social
Yes. I loved uni teaching and I think I was quite good at it, but after ten years the precarity was making me miserable and exhausted, so I stopped. So many senior people seemed to find that surprising
I want to briefly talk about one thing people don't really talk about too much with precarity and one thing that most senior staff gloss over, offering a platitude instead of engaging with what is fundamentally wrong with the precarity situation in the UK. 1/
June 20, 2025 at 10:34 AM
Yes. I loved uni teaching and I think I was quite good at it, but after ten years the precarity was making me miserable and exhausted, so I stopped. So many senior people seemed to find that surprising
An older relative, who is not and does not look like Alan Bennett, has been mistaken for Alan Bennett several times, including once by Jonathan Miller
Right folks. Feeling rather down at the moment so bringing back an oldie
Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction
Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction
June 13, 2025 at 3:17 PM
An older relative, who is not and does not look like Alan Bennett, has been mistaken for Alan Bennett several times, including once by Jonathan Miller
Reposted by Ruth Scobie
My book, "Welsh Revivalism in Imperial Britain" (or "True Britons and Celtic Empires", if you'd prefer) is now AVAILABLE FOR HARDBACK PREORDER
Your library needs more about bardic antislavery, imperial complicity, and druids with telescopes, no?
boydellandbrewer.com/978183765195...
Your library needs more about bardic antislavery, imperial complicity, and druids with telescopes, no?
boydellandbrewer.com/978183765195...
June 10, 2025 at 10:51 AM
My book, "Welsh Revivalism in Imperial Britain" (or "True Britons and Celtic Empires", if you'd prefer) is now AVAILABLE FOR HARDBACK PREORDER
Your library needs more about bardic antislavery, imperial complicity, and druids with telescopes, no?
boydellandbrewer.com/978183765195...
Your library needs more about bardic antislavery, imperial complicity, and druids with telescopes, no?
boydellandbrewer.com/978183765195...
It's a strange truth known to veterans of the great Flipped Classroom nonsense of the 2010s that the loudest voices shouting that stale UK higher education pedagogy needs radical change always turn out to have horrifying teaching practice that they insist is universal
June 9, 2025 at 11:06 AM
It's a strange truth known to veterans of the great Flipped Classroom nonsense of the 2010s that the loudest voices shouting that stale UK higher education pedagogy needs radical change always turn out to have horrifying teaching practice that they insist is universal
Reposted by Ruth Scobie
Does Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon have a niche Bluesky afterlife yet? Can we start one? It's got a reputation as unreadable, but that's only true if you're not in the market for postmodern jokes about, like, Sir Eyre Coote
May 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Does Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon have a niche Bluesky afterlife yet? Can we start one? It's got a reputation as unreadable, but that's only true if you're not in the market for postmodern jokes about, like, Sir Eyre Coote
Does Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon have a niche Bluesky afterlife yet? Can we start one? It's got a reputation as unreadable, but that's only true if you're not in the market for postmodern jokes about, like, Sir Eyre Coote
May 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Does Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon have a niche Bluesky afterlife yet? Can we start one? It's got a reputation as unreadable, but that's only true if you're not in the market for postmodern jokes about, like, Sir Eyre Coote
Reposted by Ruth Scobie
As recent tensions between India and Pakistan come to a head, we have shared an excerpt from ‘Dapaan: Tales from Kashmir’s Conflict’ by @psemolina3.bsky.social on our blog.
‘It is said, two things can change at any time in Kashmir, the weather and the haalaat.’
Read it here ➡️ tinyurl.com/2vu835b7
‘It is said, two things can change at any time in Kashmir, the weather and the haalaat.’
Read it here ➡️ tinyurl.com/2vu835b7
May 8, 2025 at 4:23 PM
As recent tensions between India and Pakistan come to a head, we have shared an excerpt from ‘Dapaan: Tales from Kashmir’s Conflict’ by @psemolina3.bsky.social on our blog.
‘It is said, two things can change at any time in Kashmir, the weather and the haalaat.’
Read it here ➡️ tinyurl.com/2vu835b7
‘It is said, two things can change at any time in Kashmir, the weather and the haalaat.’
Read it here ➡️ tinyurl.com/2vu835b7