Dr Francesca Benatti

Happy birthday, Jane!

Congratulations, Siobhan!

We are the University HE replacement ballot request / I've voted form This form allows UCU higher education members to request a replacement ballot for the 2025 HE industrial action ballots, or to self-report that they have already voted.

Can't find your ballot? Get another.

Replacements ballot requests end SUNDAY MIDNIGHT:
yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/wearetheu...

Job alert!

@ischoolui.bsky.social is hiring in 4 areas this year

Early literacies: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Information behavior/HCI/UX: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Information, Culture & Society: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Open IS: illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

Thanks for the repost @trendingworld.bsky.social
The conference is online, and free!
The Sigrid Nunez and Karen McCarthy Woolf talks will be hosted by OU writers @emmaclairesweeney.bsky.social and @janeyeh3.bsky.social

#literature
#freeonline

A flyer for the OU Letters and Literature conference, featuring photos of the guest authors, Karen McCarthy Woolf and Sigrid Nunez. It says 'Still time to get tickets for our guest authors on Friday 7th of November. Karen McCarthy Woolf - 1800 GMT. Sigrid Nunez - 2000 GMT.'

After an excellent first day of conference we're really looking forward to our guest authors on Friday: Karen McCarthy Woolf at 18:00 and Sigrid Nunez at 20:00. Tickets here: tinyurl.com/5793w2ch

@littlebrown.bsky.social
@viragopress.bsky.social
@carcanet.bsky.social
@sarahsavitt.bsky.social

We are delighted to host Sigrid Nunez at our Letters and Literature conference on the 7th of November. One week to go! Tickets here: digital-humanities.open.ac.uk/letters2025/...
@sarahsavitt.bsky.social
@hachetteuk.bsky.social @littlebrownbooks.bsky.social
@viragopress.bsky.social
#sigridnunez

And we are thrilled to host @karenmccarthywoolf.bsky.social
on 7/Nov at the Letters and Literature conference. One week to go! Tickets here: digital-humanities.open.ac.uk/letters2025/...

@carcanet.bsky.social
@tseliotprize.bsky.social
@bloodaxebooks.bsky.social
@rsliterature.bsky.social
4 m

Cover of the book The Midnight Letterbox by Edwin Morgan, showing a bright red letter box.

“How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter" (Haruki Murakami). Join the Open University for an international celebration of Letters and Literature, November 5-7. Full programme at
digital-humanities.open.ac.uk/letters2025/...

@carcanet.bsky.social
@thepostalmuseum.bsky.social

Lovely to see a postcard of my Alma Mater Bologna

What is dispute about

We’re into week two of the ballot, time to get back to basics.

Why vote? Because your voice is the only way to change what’s happening in our sector:
📉 Falling pay
⚠️ Rising insecurity
💬 Broken national agreements

Every vote counts.
Vote YES. Post your ballot.

#WeAreTheUniversity

We are delighted to be supporting the W&A Working-Class Writers' Prize 2025 with
@writersandartists.bsky.social
@ruppin.bsky.social, @societyofauthors.bsky.social and @openuniversity.bsky.social
Submissions open on 1st November 2025. www.writersandartists.co.uk/about-wa-wor...
PLEASE SHARE

A map of Jane Austen's Hampshire showing locations connected to the writer

Postcards continue to arrive from speakers all over the globe as we prepare for the upcoming international conference, Letters and Literature. Full details of the programme at
digital-humanities.open.ac.uk/letters2025/...
@modernistudies.bsky.social
@mklitfest.bsky.social
@ies-sas.bsky.social

Sigrid Nunez, one of the USA’s most esteemed authors, talks to Open University novelist Emma Claire Sweeney about the letters of Virginia Woolf and Susan Sontag.

mklitfest.org/sigridnunez

#openuniversity
#creativewriting
#lettersandliterature
#sigridnunez

A postcard showing scenes from the town of Chapel Hill

The first of a series of postcards for our free online conference: Letters and Literature 1500-2025, 5-7 November 2025. Full programme: digital-humanities.open.ac.uk/letters2025/...

Every day we'll share a postcard sent to us by one of our guest speakers. Watch out for tomorrow’s!

OU Connect on Instagram: "📚 How do you read? 🧐 How much detail can you remember after reading in different formats? 🌍 For International Literacy Day, BBC Morning Live welcomes The OU’s Dr Shafquat Tow... 10 likes, 0 comments - ouconnect on September 8, 2025: "📚 How do you read? 🧐 How much detail can you remember after reading in different formats? 🌍 For International Literacy Day, BBC Morning Live wel...

How do different ways of reading affect our experience of literature? In collaboration with the BBC, Open University lecturer @shaftowheed.bsky.social has developed a short quiz to show how different formats affect our reading experience. You can find the quiz here:
www.instagram.com/ouconnect/re...

And to his further appearance on BBC Radio 4 this evening!

Looking forward to listening to my colleague Ed’s award-nominated story this afternoon!

The Edinburgh Companion to Literature and Music is now in paperback! So happy that this is now a very affordable book. A big shoutout to all the brilliant contributors!

Welcome to Bluesky to my colleagues at @ouliterature.bsky.social !

‘Letters and Literature 1500-2025: histories, forms, communities’ Online only conference from the 5th to 7th of November 2025.

Excited to see the preparations for our upcoming Conference:
‘Letters and Literature 1500-2025: histories, forms, communities’
Online only from the 5th to 7th of November 2025. More details soon!

Who was Jane Austen’s best heroine? These experts think they know We’re pitting her much-loved heroines against each other in a battle of wit, charm and sass

A fascinating article in @theconversation.com on Jane Austin heroines co-written by OU English and Creative Writing lecturer Dr Emma Sweeney. Check it out: theconversation.com/who-was-jane...

VCs don’t run universities.

We do.

After another real terms pay cut, UCU is launching a UK-wide strike ballot.

Ballot opens October.

Vote YES.

#WeAreTheUniversity

Congratulations to all the winners and judges!

2025 ELO Awards – Electronic Literature Organization ELO is excited to announce the winners of the 2025 Electronic Literature Awards.  These awards were coordinated by. Alinta Krauth and Jason Nelson.  ELO gives 4 juried awards that come with a cash prize and the esteem of the international e-lit community.

Full announcement of the 2025 ELO Awards

eliterature.org/2025/07/2025...

#elo25

¡MAÑANA YA! Looking forward to chairing Linda Berube's and @rhymesontheroad.bsky.social's session on Digital Comics and user-centred approaches #HCID2025

ANYONE who thinks ANY group should accept fewer human rights than everyone else is totally unfit to serve as an EHRC commissioner.

A man is sitting at a bus stop in a grassy landscape, reading from an open laptop balanced on his knee. The text says 'What is Open Access? Open Access (OA) research is free to read, available online to anyone, anywhere in the world. Photo credit David Clode on Unsplash.'

Open Access is changing research! Traditionally, institutions paid to read journals, excluding anyone who could not afford it. But now, anything published #OpenAccess can be freely read by anyone.

Much of the OU's #research is Open Access: read it on ORO 👉 oro.open.ac.uk

5 yr Postdoc at Edinburgh - how and why digital participation is transforming experience of warfare. Data Viz, NLP, text & data mining, principally related to Russian war against Ukraine.

A cover of the UK Comics Fund proposal with a cartoon pencil and the CCIC boat, next to the phrase ‘we’re asking DCMS for solid investment in comics’

Be amazing if £1.5m could be invested in the UK comics scene, wouldn’t it? Someone’d need to build a fully-costed, well-reasoned argument to DCMS for such a thing first, I guess…

WELL, NOW. Come see what your friends at CCIC have done! www.thecomicsculturalimpactcollective.org/CCIC%20DCMS%...