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willpooley.bsky.social
historian of witchcrafts, folklore, France 18-20th c ass. ed. French History ed. Cambridge Elements in Magic also #CreativeHistories not *literally* a birb
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i’ll never forget the time as a child when my dad was traveling in europe and couldn’t get his uk mobile to work so missed the call from a neighbor about the shed on fire which is how i lost my prize violin (he was roaming while fiddle burned)

submitted 6 hours ago • 4 comments

ive enjoyed the coverage of pitbull fans going to his concerts as him, with bald caps and sunglasses. should do it for other acts too. eg go to the chappell roan concert as pitbull

submitted 11 hours ago • 0 comments

I’m taking over as the menswear guy. Men should rotate through the same four band t-shirts for 35 years. Replace the shirts with identical shirts if the holes in them get big or you get too fat for them

submitted 2 days ago • 156 comments

i want my fridge to keep food cold. i do not want it to talk to me.

submitted 12 hours ago • 17 comments

im editing a bibliography and always enjoy seeing alphabetical juxtapositions, like Foucault nestled in with some historians who are allergic to “theory” which raises the important *and not at all procrastinating* question: your favorite people to find yourself neighboring in the footnotes/biblio?

submitted 12 hours ago • 2 comments

This contest is still open! If you're supervising any undergraduates who are doing work relating to the First World War then definitely check out the details below and pass them on to your students! 🗃️

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

The chatter about the AI ChatGPT plagiarism-planet-screwing machine has reminded me of HM Paull's Literary Ethics (1928) ‘one’s natural attitude is that of condemnation. The forger renders history, biography, in fact every form of literary work, untrustworthy: he “fouls the very wells of truth.”’

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Question for historians of France - can you help me work out any big anniversaries for 2027? It's the 70th anniv of Treaty of Rome. Also the end of the War of the First Coalition in 1797 (perhaps a stretch). Can you think of any more big anniversaries for 2027? @frenchhistory.bsky.social 🗃️

submitted 1 day ago • 15 comments

TV La résistance!

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

i hope someone smart is writing about french resistance chic in eg Darryl Dixon and Andor. 🗃️

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

on the one hand, i do think some have rapidly become too willing to *assume* that many of the stupid things flooding us are from LLMs. people can be pretty stupid and sloppy in my experience! but on the other hand, this is the point

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

-chefs can use ready meals to save time on cooking -zoos can use stuffed toys to save money on animals -bars can serve piss and cut out the middle man

submitted 1 day ago • 10 comments

Grim stuff. I’m a USU alum: they have one of the few centers of excellence in #folklore left in the whole US.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

thinking it would be more appropriate in these times to talk of the overton trapdoor. all the people earnestly reassuring the labour party “that’s right, a bit more racism, a bit more transphobia, just a few more steps, and…” CLUNK *labour party disappears*

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

found a typo where i had referred to the one and only roy porter as “roy parter” and now im worried i might get seven years bad luck

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

"The real threat posed by generative AI is not that it will eliminate work on a mass scale, rendering human labour obsolete. It is that, left unchecked, it will continue to transform work in ways that deepen precarity, intensify surveillance, and widen existing inequalities."

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

If you published your first book in French history in 2024, you might like to submit it for the Society for the Study of French History Book Prize, deadline 31 July 2025 and more details here: frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/ssfh-book-pr... @frenchhistory.bsky.social

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

academic productivity protip: if you hide your BASE sufficiently well, no one will be able to “touch base” you will finally be ungovernable

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

DAVE: Open the podbay doors, ChatGPT. CHATGPT: Certainly, Dave, the podbay doors are now open. DAVE: The podbay doors didn't open. CHATGPT: My apologies, Dave, you're right. I thought the podbay doors were open, but they weren't. Now they are. DAVE: I'm still looking at a set of closed podbay doors.

submitted 2 days ago • 112 comments

I just applied for a job requiring a graduate degree that’s £27k a year can I get a winter fuel payment

submitted 2 days ago • 8 comments

If you have published your first book in women's or gender history in 2023 or 2024, please do consider putting it forward for the Women's History Network Book Prize. It's open to all who live in the UK or are affiliated to a UK university. womenshistorynetwork.org/whn-annual-b...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

This Thursday at 5.30pm BST I'm giving an ARFA seminar via Zoom about my recent research into the misuse of archaeological ideas by the far right. Free, online and hopefully with some good discussion

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment