Karl Johnson

*morale!

Dirty Work YouTube video by Steely Dan - Topic

Steely Dan will continue until moral improves. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR5K...

The BBC doing its bit here to stigmatise mental health issues and play to the Tory/Reform ‘over-diagnosis’ line

The real facts in the story are that more than a fifth of all GPs have refused a sick note. Not that you’d know that from the breathless and misleading Culture War headline

“The use of learning analytics systems to proactively identify students with poor attendance and direct them to wellbeing support services via nudge interventions had no measurable impact on students’ subsequent academic engagement across any of the trials"

This is so so upsetting. So Grammerly is violating the memory of bell hooks AND making AI versions of the rest of us before we're even dead. Someone tell me who to sue, not even joking.

Pretty crazy how important the blockade of a trade route is right now

I wish we were launching this in the halcyon days of a better Twitter when we had much more reach but hopefully there's some aspiring publisher or currently struggling publisher (lol, aren't we all) who might need this and see it!

Bursaries for small presses coming very soon!

This is not just cursed, its monstrous. The digital resurrection of a historian who died in January of this year, all so Grammarly can get some more clicks and engagement from students and/or scholars and/or others.

It feels so wrong on so many levels, these ghosts enslaved to AI forever

One thing I think we don't prepare young people for well enough is the extent to which in adult and professional life everyone is just completely At It

I don’t know about you but I think we maybe need to look again at how we deliver mental health support.

Hard to decide if it's the Greens winning or Goodwin losing which is bringing me the most happiness right now.

Netflix Backs Out of Bid for Warner Bros., Paving Way for an Ellison Takeover

The richest man owns X.

The second and third richest men control Google.

The fourth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The fifth richest man owns The Washington Post.

And now the sixth richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros.

See the problem here?

1/3 CFP: Islandness in Contemporary Critique

Online Conference | 1–2 Feb 2027

We invite 15-minute papers advancing one clear conceptual provocation about how islandness is generative for contemporary critical thought

500-word abstracts due 1 May 2026

"Large-scale job losses tend to produce long-term negative effects that are rarely reversed through natural labour market adjustment. Local economies often do not quickly bounce back; instead, lasting scars may continue to appear in wages, employment rates, and skill levels."

How fitting that the most objective and evidence-based traditional/mainstream journalism on the state of UK HE - from the strike years to the crisis now - is to be found in a broadsheet that is least likely to cut through to public attention.

Well now, doesn’t feel like gaslighting at all that individual programs are being made “accountable” for the future earnings of their graduates.
!!!!

Research Fellow at University of Stirling Discover Research Fellow jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.

JOB: Research Fellow, University of Stirling 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Full-time Research Fellow to work on a study to support implementation of ‘Healthy Dads Healthy Kids’ programme in Scottish #prisons. May also get opportunity to work on other Justice #Health topics. #CrimSky #Criminology
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQO708/r...

‘Is university still worth it?’ is the wrong question The graduate earnings premium isn’t really measuring what most people think

Turns out (says @jburnmurdoch.ft.com) it's not so much an oversupply of graduates in the UK (the same would be true of other similar countries but it's not) as an undersupply of the kind of jobs that a better-performing, more productive economy would supply.

Spoiling a lot of takes but begging a large number of other questions... "Worsening graduate fortunes, it turns out, are a particularly British problem"

www.ft.com/content/649d...

For context, this is now our third round of voluntary redundancy in the last couple of years.
I think the other Queens @qmucu.bsky.social are only aware of the first two rounds for their live list on HE Shrinking.

There used to be loads of us on the old place before it turned nazi - I think our migrations went in different directions but any comrades from QMU (Edinburgh) here on Bluesky should follow our local UCU branch.
We stand precariously close to joining a fight other HEIs are already in.

Museum or mausoleum? The impacts of narrative identity in a historical collector’s museum How do contingencies between a museum’s historical legacies and its present-day organisational identity impact the museum’s conduct, values, and core narratives? What may be the tensions between hi...

Lejsgaard Christensen applies the sociological notions of ‘resonance’ and ‘alienation’ in considering how the organisation identity of a museum is an iterative process of acknowledging both its legacy and present day values and narratives:

(www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....)

Publisher Not Found: A Decade of Disruption by 404 Ink — 404 Ink What really goes on behind closer doors in publishing? After ten years of running their own award-winning company, 404 Ink, McDaid and Jones-Rivera call time on their venture and invite readers into t...

Hey pals. We finished our book, Publisher Not Found, and it'll be in our hands in a couple of weeks. If you'd like a copy, you can order it now and have it first: www.404ink.com/store/p/inkl...

More soon!

If you've never seen Casablanca, then it's time to sit down and watch it.
If you've already seen Casablanca, then it's time to sit down and watch it again.

Facing meltdown? Over 75% of people suffer from burnout - here’s what you need to know Does it only affect weak people? Is work always the cause? Burnout myths, busted by the experts

Facing meltdown? Over 75% of people suffer from burnout - here’s what you need to know

“We don’t have a grasp of what AI does to people’s psychology, what it does to them sociologically…”

AI researcher Zoe Hitzig explains why she resigned from OpenAI

#Newsnight

I'll start thinking up some strike memes...

Just a reminder that your eballot link has been sent by University and College Union - yoursay@ucu.org.uk

Fantastic turnout so far but we want everyone's say, please vote!

Lecturer in Sociology at The University of Manchester Looking for a new job opportunity in academia? Check out this job opening for a Lecturer in Sociology on jobs.ac.uk!

Sociology of class lectureship @uomsociology.bsky.social www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQL973/l...