Anna Girling
@annagirling.bsky.social
Teaching English at the University of Edinburgh. Generally reading, writing, day dreaming. Writing and thinking about Edith Wharton, Nancy Cunard, modernism, decadence, anti-colonialism, anti-fascism, cosmopolitanism, & other people and things like that.
Pinned
Anna Girling
@annagirling.bsky.social
· Jun 13
Our young people
“Where there is no vision the people perish.” With this proverb, the Cosmopolitan, a new Jamaican magazine, announced itself to the world in May 1928.
www.the-tls.co.uk
A complete honour to be able to write about Una Marson and her magazine, The Cosmopolitan, for @thetls.bsky.social: www.the-tls.co.uk/politics-soc... There is so much I didn't get to include, but hopefully this gives a taste of the importance & scope of Marson's Cosmopolitan - in Jamaica, & beyond.
mystic bridge (with train window filter)
November 10, 2025 at 8:57 AM
mystic bridge (with train window filter)
The unhinged right-wing opinion to 'evidence-based' journalism pipeline described here could just as easily apply to the BBC – on which Justin Webb stated, as 'heard' fact this week, that 'all' UK university staff & students are 'looking for a victim group of some kind to which they can belong'
Peter Coviello isn't on Bluesky, but this definitely should be: lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
lithub.com
November 9, 2025 at 10:09 AM
The unhinged right-wing opinion to 'evidence-based' journalism pipeline described here could just as easily apply to the BBC – on which Justin Webb stated, as 'heard' fact this week, that 'all' UK university staff & students are 'looking for a victim group of some kind to which they can belong'
can anyone who has had library fellowships or similar in the US recommend a tax accountant who can help with claiming back the $$$ that are taken pre-payment? i have tried the self-service route and have hit several brick walls (social security numbers, mailed-in documents, etc etc)
November 8, 2025 at 2:22 PM
can anyone who has had library fellowships or similar in the US recommend a tax accountant who can help with claiming back the $$$ that are taken pre-payment? i have tried the self-service route and have hit several brick walls (social security numbers, mailed-in documents, etc etc)
Reposted by Anna Girling
If you happen to be in beautiful Edinburgh on 10 Dec, perhaps come to the Edinburgh Futures Institute to hear me talk about developing archival imaginary digital interactives! Maybe I will even explain what that means! Hopefully by then I'll know!
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-users-...
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-users-...
How Users Imagine Archival Research
This talk will focus on the development of JPCA Explore and how it reflects wider issues around creating human-scale digital projects.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 4, 2025 at 2:52 PM
If you happen to be in beautiful Edinburgh on 10 Dec, perhaps come to the Edinburgh Futures Institute to hear me talk about developing archival imaginary digital interactives! Maybe I will even explain what that means! Hopefully by then I'll know!
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-users-...
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-users-...
That the UK has so far pledged only £7.5 million in aid to Jamaica is shameful - it is a drop in the ocean of what is needed, & of what Britain can afford, particularly given the wealth that the UK has extracted from Jamaica over the centuries. Justice means reparations, not drip-fed handouts.
‘How do you rebuild all this?’ Black River residents assess damage after Hurricane Melissa
People of Jamaican coastal town described as storm’s ground zero are traumatised and desperate for help
www.theguardian.com
November 3, 2025 at 1:39 PM
That the UK has so far pledged only £7.5 million in aid to Jamaica is shameful - it is a drop in the ocean of what is needed, & of what Britain can afford, particularly given the wealth that the UK has extracted from Jamaica over the centuries. Justice means reparations, not drip-fed handouts.
Reposted by Anna Girling
Seconding this endorsement. It's @priyamvadagopal.bsky.social, so no surprise that it's good, but the range and depth here are just what we need.
As a map to the landscape of current global politics and ideas 7 decades on from Bandung, this is essential. Coexistence & the Commons!
As a map to the landscape of current global politics and ideas 7 decades on from Bandung, this is essential. Coexistence & the Commons!
This is a very good discussion w/ @priyamvadagopal.bsky.social on the different meanings and politics of decolonisation - in particular, the dangers of cultural decolonisation shorn of any materialist analysis of capitalist imperialism. 1/2
www.returntobandung.com/episodes/pil...
www.returntobandung.com/episodes/pil...
Episode 18 - The Politics of Decolonization w/ Priyamvada Gopal — Return to Bandung
Listen to full episode :
www.returntobandung.com
November 2, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Seconding this endorsement. It's @priyamvadagopal.bsky.social, so no surprise that it's good, but the range and depth here are just what we need.
As a map to the landscape of current global politics and ideas 7 decades on from Bandung, this is essential. Coexistence & the Commons!
As a map to the landscape of current global politics and ideas 7 decades on from Bandung, this is essential. Coexistence & the Commons!
Reposted by Anna Girling
Honestly, all I can think about right now is #JAMAICA. Hold her in your heart RIGHT NOW! #hurrianemelissa
October 28, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Honestly, all I can think about right now is #JAMAICA. Hold her in your heart RIGHT NOW! #hurrianemelissa
Reposted by Anna Girling
Join us for the launch of
Henry Dee’s ‘Militant Migrants: Clements Kadalie, the ICU and the Mass Movement of Black Workers in Southern Africa, 1896-1951’. Published with @livunipress.bsky.social.
Marx Memorial Library, 29 November
sslh.org.uk/2025/10/27/b...
Henry Dee’s ‘Militant Migrants: Clements Kadalie, the ICU and the Mass Movement of Black Workers in Southern Africa, 1896-1951’. Published with @livunipress.bsky.social.
Marx Memorial Library, 29 November
sslh.org.uk/2025/10/27/b...
October 28, 2025 at 7:02 AM
Join us for the launch of
Henry Dee’s ‘Militant Migrants: Clements Kadalie, the ICU and the Mass Movement of Black Workers in Southern Africa, 1896-1951’. Published with @livunipress.bsky.social.
Marx Memorial Library, 29 November
sslh.org.uk/2025/10/27/b...
Henry Dee’s ‘Militant Migrants: Clements Kadalie, the ICU and the Mass Movement of Black Workers in Southern Africa, 1896-1951’. Published with @livunipress.bsky.social.
Marx Memorial Library, 29 November
sslh.org.uk/2025/10/27/b...
I shouldn’t be surprised, but it‘s pretty appalling to hear Today on BBC Radio 4 cover Hurricane Melissa exclusively through multiple interviews with British holidaymakers in resorts –completely ignoring actual Jamaicans & the millions of people in the UK worried about family and friends in Jamaica.
October 28, 2025 at 7:39 AM
I shouldn’t be surprised, but it‘s pretty appalling to hear Today on BBC Radio 4 cover Hurricane Melissa exclusively through multiple interviews with British holidaymakers in resorts –completely ignoring actual Jamaicans & the millions of people in the UK worried about family and friends in Jamaica.
Reposted by Anna Girling
“No Category 4 or 5 hurricane has made a direct landfall on Jamaica in recorded history. No one living there has ever experienced anything like what is about to happen.”
For only the second time in recorded history, an Atlantic season has produced three Category 5 hurricanes... the previous year was 2005. This puts 2025 in an elite class of hurricane seasons. It also means that nearly 7% of all known Category 5 hurricanes have occurred just in this year.
#Melissa
#Melissa
Melissa becomes third Category 5 hurricane of the extraordinary 2025 season
Updates and summaries on tropical Atlantic activity... including easterly waves, tropical storms, subtropical storms, and hurricanes.
bmcnoldy.blogspot.com
October 27, 2025 at 11:48 AM
“No Category 4 or 5 hurricane has made a direct landfall on Jamaica in recorded history. No one living there has ever experienced anything like what is about to happen.”
today's typo which could also be a work by Leonora Carrington: 'ear of a queer planet'
October 22, 2025 at 2:31 PM
today's typo which could also be a work by Leonora Carrington: 'ear of a queer planet'
Reposted by Anna Girling
Brilliant snapshot of Claude McKay and the transnational radicalism of #20s30s British world.
www.theguardian.com/news/2025/oc...
www.theguardian.com/news/2025/oc...
‘The jobless should lead the attack’: a radical Jamaican journalist in 1920s London
The long read: Economic insecurity, race riots, incendiary media … Claude McKay was one of the few Black journalists covering a turbulent period that sounds all too familiar to us today
www.theguardian.com
October 16, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Brilliant snapshot of Claude McKay and the transnational radicalism of #20s30s British world.
www.theguardian.com/news/2025/oc...
www.theguardian.com/news/2025/oc...
Reposted by Anna Girling
Lord Peter Wimsey is the narrative voice of The Waste Land.
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
October 13, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Lord Peter Wimsey is the narrative voice of The Waste Land.
Marcus Garvey in Scotland in 1914: 'I have seen wonders, I have learnt wonders and I hope to teach wonders... At some places I have been the only black man seen for a good time... I have had access to places that only the aristocracy would think of going... some take me for an African millionaire'
October 13, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Marcus Garvey in Scotland in 1914: 'I have seen wonders, I have learnt wonders and I hope to teach wonders... At some places I have been the only black man seen for a good time... I have had access to places that only the aristocracy would think of going... some take me for an African millionaire'
'Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.'
(Oscar Wilde, 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism', 1891 - full text here: www.marxists.org/reference/ar...)
(Oscar Wilde, 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism', 1891 - full text here: www.marxists.org/reference/ar...)
October 7, 2025 at 9:17 AM
'Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.'
(Oscar Wilde, 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism', 1891 - full text here: www.marxists.org/reference/ar...)
(Oscar Wilde, 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism', 1891 - full text here: www.marxists.org/reference/ar...)
'I find earth as beautiful as heaven, and the body as beautiful as the soul. If I do live again I would like it to be as a flower — no soul but perfectly beautiful. Perhaps for my sins I shall be made a red geranium!!' Oscar Wilde dissing the (suburban? bourgeois?) red geranium in 1885.
October 6, 2025 at 11:01 AM
'I find earth as beautiful as heaven, and the body as beautiful as the soul. If I do live again I would like it to be as a flower — no soul but perfectly beautiful. Perhaps for my sins I shall be made a red geranium!!' Oscar Wilde dissing the (suburban? bourgeois?) red geranium in 1885.
Nancy Cunard in 1938, spelling out the links between 'articifically constructed race "superiority" & "inferiority"; the Nazi "Aryan" farce acted out in blood, Mussolini's brutal "pacifications," Anti-Semitic campaigns, & the setting of Arab against Jews throughout North Africa, Syria and Palestine.'
October 2, 2025 at 12:26 PM
Nancy Cunard in 1938, spelling out the links between 'articifically constructed race "superiority" & "inferiority"; the Nazi "Aryan" farce acted out in blood, Mussolini's brutal "pacifications," Anti-Semitic campaigns, & the setting of Arab against Jews throughout North Africa, Syria and Palestine.'
Very sad to hear about the death of John Lucas. Among all of his other achievments, I have always been grateful to him for his 2005 edition of Nancy Cunard's poetry with Trent Editions– I think it was the first republication of her poems & laid the groundwork for a lot of subsequent interest in her.
John Lucas (1937-2025) — poet, novelist, critic, teacher, editor of the incredible Shoestring Press…cornet player, cricket lover, socialist, enabler, and kindest and dearest of friends
October 1, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Very sad to hear about the death of John Lucas. Among all of his other achievments, I have always been grateful to him for his 2005 edition of Nancy Cunard's poetry with Trent Editions– I think it was the first republication of her poems & laid the groundwork for a lot of subsequent interest in her.
This is huge (though I can’t help but think that the years of my PhD I spent downloading the library of Alexandria in PDF form in anticipation of being cut off really shaped me as a researcher).
Great news!
JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month
www.jstor.org/action/showL...
JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month
www.jstor.org/action/showL...
September 29, 2025 at 7:40 PM
This is huge (though I can’t help but think that the years of my PhD I spent downloading the library of Alexandria in PDF form in anticipation of being cut off really shaped me as a researcher).
hand-drawn angels from the cover of one of Sylvia Townsend Warner's scrap-books and on the plaster above a cell door in a fourteenth-century Umbrian convent
September 27, 2025 at 9:59 AM
hand-drawn angels from the cover of one of Sylvia Townsend Warner's scrap-books and on the plaster above a cell door in a fourteenth-century Umbrian convent
Some images from Wael Shawky’s amazing opera Drama: 1882 - first shown at last year’s Biennale and now on as part of an exhibition of his work at the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh. It ends tomorrow - I highly recommend catching it if you can!
September 25, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Some images from Wael Shawky’s amazing opera Drama: 1882 - first shown at last year’s Biennale and now on as part of an exhibition of his work at the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh. It ends tomorrow - I highly recommend catching it if you can!
Reposted by Anna Girling
Stephen Mullen, a highly regarded historian specialising in Scotland's links with Atlantic slavery, objects to a right wing scholar's flagrant misrepresentation of his own work and that of Glasgow's Kelvingrove Museum's curators in @thetimes.com
alanlester.co.uk/blog/falsify...
alanlester.co.uk/blog/falsify...
Falsifying Heritage: The Denial and Disavowal of Glasgow’s Links with Atlantic Slavery
By Stephen Mullen In a recent article in The Times, (‘Scottish Taxpayers should not have to pay the price for Slavery, 7 June 2025), Professor Nigel Biggar misrepresented an exhibition in Glasgow’s…
alanlester.co.uk
September 24, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Stephen Mullen, a highly regarded historian specialising in Scotland's links with Atlantic slavery, objects to a right wing scholar's flagrant misrepresentation of his own work and that of Glasgow's Kelvingrove Museum's curators in @thetimes.com
alanlester.co.uk/blog/falsify...
alanlester.co.uk/blog/falsify...
Reposted by Anna Girling
Can literature’s ‘what if’ questions help us reset our relationship with money? Dive into speculative fiction and the emerging field of the Economic Humanities in the new episode of Beyond the Books ft. Paul Crosthwaite, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature.
Full ep: youtu.be/hWlrWuaz5IQ
Full ep: youtu.be/hWlrWuaz5IQ
![Extract from a podcast episode where the speaker says these [speculative] genres are really good at prompting us to ask what if questions](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:it5o5ex2bqyasoiu6gvgxk37/bafkreihr72ezwrzy4mxiqztllv4sl6pf2hosnvpmvkxg25saapcawdohs4@jpeg)
June 6, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Can literature’s ‘what if’ questions help us reset our relationship with money? Dive into speculative fiction and the emerging field of the Economic Humanities in the new episode of Beyond the Books ft. Paul Crosthwaite, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature.
Full ep: youtu.be/hWlrWuaz5IQ
Full ep: youtu.be/hWlrWuaz5IQ
Reposted by Anna Girling
@ucuedinburgh.bsky.social FIRST DAY OF WELCOME WEEK STRIKE ACTION ‼️#StopTheCuts
September 8, 2025 at 12:32 PM
@ucuedinburgh.bsky.social FIRST DAY OF WELCOME WEEK STRIKE ACTION ‼️#StopTheCuts