Alex Hensby
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alexhensby.bsky.social
Alex Hensby
@alexhensby.bsky.social
Sociologist at University of Kent. Research UK & US social movements, race and higher education, and the social causes of political (non) participation.
Pinned
I have written a comment piece for @timeshighered.bsky.social with Barbara Adewumi about the need to keep fighting ethnicity awarding gaps amid financial turmoil for UK universities. www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/lets-el...
Let’s eliminate the ethnicity degree-awarding gap with efficacy and truth
Managers should take inspiration from student organising, but we need more than diversity window-dressing, say Alexander Hensby and Barbara Adewuni
www.timeshighereducation.com
Lest we forget.
November 7, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Alex Hensby
FIFA awarding a "peace prize" to Trump would be so absolutely on-brand, a truly genius innovation.
November 5, 2025 at 8:30 PM
I'm stepping down from the Sociology board to take up a new editorial position, but learned a great deal during my time there so am happy to talk to anybody about what it involves.
📢 Applications are open for the Sociology (SOC) and Work, Employment and Society (WES) Editorial Boards!

Both welcome ECRs, with Sociology offering mentoring for those newer to reviewing.

🗓️ Deadline: 30 Oct 2025, 17:00 GMT
👉 Apply or nominate: www.mi-nomination.com/britsoc
Nominations
www.mi-nomination.com
October 23, 2025 at 10:28 AM
Reposted by Alex Hensby
Horrific reporting from the AP on the Myanmar families watching their kids starve to death from Trump and Musk’s aid cuts apnews.com/article/myan...
Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.
apnews.com
October 8, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Reposted by Alex Hensby
An absolutely priceless way to show you are not aloof...
perfect detail
October 6, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Reposted by Alex Hensby
Oh this is BAD.

The new TOC from academia dot edu.

You grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness…
September 25, 2025 at 6:29 AM
"You seem like a girl who packs her own lunches" is one of the bolder chat-up lines I've overheard recently.
September 23, 2025 at 9:48 AM
It's reasonable to assume that for many marchers their racial prejudices were more tacit and nebulous until the Brexit vote. But now, the populist and mainstream right has not only (re)validated such prejudices, but encouraged it to operate as the core basis of their political identity.
This, from The Londoner yesterday, also features people on the march who claim not to be racists. Though the things they say prove otherwise
September 16, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Love it when my university is in the news.
September 10, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Reposted by Alex Hensby
Are you a researcher who could do with £8k to engage the public about your research working with a gallery, museum, library or archive? We’ll shortly be opening a call so I just wanted to give you a heads up this is coming
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/shap...
SHAPE Involve and Engage
A funding programme for innovative public engagement from the British Academy.
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk
August 15, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by Alex Hensby
I'm looking for participants for my oral history on space and feminism! Please share with anybody you feel may have contacts and email me if you have any questions or would like to get involved: sinead.carter@pgr.reading.ac.uk
July 4, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Brain thuddingly stupid vandalism.
Oh ffs: no, the graduate visa scheme did not lead to an elevenfold increase in overseas students in the UK from 2020 to 2023. Reclassifying EU students as overseas students as of August 2021 did that.

on.ft.com/4crwsVV
May 7, 2025 at 7:21 PM
New publication alert! My new article about community heritage activism and Black counter-reenactment in the American South (with Lucy Bond) has just been published as Open Access in Memory Studies. journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....
Community heritage activism in the American South: Black counter-reenactments as mnemonic restitution
journals.sagepub.com
May 6, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Reposted by Alex Hensby
✨Very excited to share details of our British Academy-funded one-day symposium at Lancaster University in July: SPECULATIVE MACHINES AND US: HISTORIES AND FUTURES OF AI. ✨💥Featuring @ohalpern.bsky.social @mbfazi.bsky.social @aleenachia.bsky.social and more💥 tinyurl.com/bde6x7ub Please share widely!
Speculative Machines and Us: Histories and Futures of AI
We warmly invite colleagues to join us for an in-person one-day symposium on Thursday 17th July 2025. To join, please register using the link below. The event is organised by the Centre for Science…
wp.lancs.ac.uk
April 29, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Excellent collaborative event last night between Kent's Centre for Social & Political Movements and University of Westminster about museums, identity, and social justice work in UK and USA. Some great speakers and timely conversations (to say the least).
April 23, 2025 at 7:46 AM
It's just utterly exhausting how years of government mismanagement has driven UK universities - a good and profitable thing - to the brink and yet we're still at the stage of having to state the most basic facts about how the sector operates.
The core trilma here remains the same - the govt needs to accept one of three things: high student migration, higher domestic student fees (or higher taxes to fund universities) or university bankruptcies. Those are the only options, given where we are. Pick one.
The UK government is proposing to finally finish off its universities by further tightening the terms of the graduate visa route. The stupid fools. Playing with dangers they don't even understand. www.ft.com/content/f441...
April 8, 2025 at 10:00 AM
CALLOUT FOR Black Radical Activists

Application Deadline: Thursday 17th April 11:59pm

ukblm.org/news/timbukt...
Make Waves for Black Liberation: Volunteer as a Project Timbuktu Facilitator - Black Lives Matter
Role: Volunteer Timbuktu Course FacilitatorLocation: Community-led circles in London, Birmingham, and Manchester (specific hubs TBC)Commitment: 5 hours/week (including one 2-hour evening session weekl...
ukblm.org
April 4, 2025 at 11:01 AM
I'm co-hosting an event on museums, storytelling, and civic participation in London on Tuesday, April 22nd at 5pm. Featuring speakers from the Smithsonian Institution, Migration Museum, and Windrush Museum. Free to attend but registration needed www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shaping-th...
Shaping the Past, Building the Future
Museums, Storytelling, and Civic Participation
www.eventbrite.co.uk
April 3, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Reposted by Alex Hensby
We are now receiving applications for one fully funded PhD position in peace and conflict research, with a focus on political violence in democratic countries. Read more 👉 www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

Applications are also open for our general PhD position👉 www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

#PhD #Democracy
March 7, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Didn't have Arnold the dog barking at Lil Wayne on my bingo card for this year's departmental seminar series but there's first time for everything.
February 27, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Reposted by Alex Hensby
WSJ sub: “Indian Partition went smoothly enough, right? Will try to remember to check this before publishing.”
February 13, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Reposted by Alex Hensby
Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence (IT), is recruiting 16 candidates to our PhD programme in sociology and politics. Students are offered fully funded, 4-year scholarships.
The language of the programme is English.
Deadline 13 March 2025
www.sns.it/en/phd-admis...

pica.cineca.it/sns/phd41-sps/
PhD Calls | ScuolaNormaleSuperiore
www.sns.it
February 11, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Amid the never-ending churn of bad news and despair across UK higher education, this talk was a valuable shred of positivity - definitely worth watching!
February 11, 2025 at 11:30 AM
I am totally floored by this. RIP.
Michael Burawoy was a wonderful sociologist and person.

We rarely spoke, but we just happened to be emailing in January. He wrote about how much he was loving this phase of his life.

The hit and run scourge is taking so many people who have so much more to live

www.mercurynews.com/2025/02/04/o...
Oakland resident dead in hit-and-run crash at intersection
The collision happened around 7:10 p.m. Monday near the entrance to Children’s Fairyland.
www.mercurynews.com
February 5, 2025 at 7:39 AM