Christopher Pittard
@christopherpittard.bsky.social
Course leader and Senior Lecturer in Victorian Literature. Specialist in detective fiction, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dickens, Wilkie Collins. New book: *Literary Illusions: Performance Magic and Victorian Literature* (Edinburgh UP, 2025).
Had a great day teaching on Victorian detective fiction with @victoriandetective.bsky.social and David Grylls for @oxlifelonglearning.bsky.social yesterday. I'm back there this Saturday with a course on British detective fiction from Holmes to Morse. lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk/courses/brit...
British Detective Fiction: From Conan Doyle to Colin Dexter
Study the development of British detective fiction from Arthur Conan Doyle to Colin Dexter, taking in the golden age whodunit of Agatha Christie and the postwar crime writing of Margery Allingham.
lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk
January 18, 2026 at 12:29 PM
Had a great day teaching on Victorian detective fiction with @victoriandetective.bsky.social and David Grylls for @oxlifelonglearning.bsky.social yesterday. I'm back there this Saturday with a course on British detective fiction from Holmes to Morse. lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk/courses/brit...
Reposted by Christopher Pittard
Wow, sure would be pretty crazy if a ton of experts in the artificial intelligence field relentlessly warned everyone about this state of affairs being inevitable over and over for years.
January 17, 2026 at 11:38 AM
Wow, sure would be pretty crazy if a ton of experts in the artificial intelligence field relentlessly warned everyone about this state of affairs being inevitable over and over for years.
Today's work: lecturing on Victorian detective fiction and the Strand Magazine in Oxford.
January 17, 2026 at 9:22 AM
Today's work: lecturing on Victorian detective fiction and the Strand Magazine in Oxford.
Will be reading this tomorrow, but just noticed that the copyright page says 2026, so I suppose I picked up an early release...
Final book purchase of 2025, from The Edge of the World bookshop in Penzance.
January 15, 2026 at 8:10 PM
Will be reading this tomorrow, but just noticed that the copyright page says 2026, so I suppose I picked up an early release...
I once liberated a nice Ruskin volume from a pub that had bought books by the metre. No regrets.
Surely those aren’t back issues of the eminent Victorian Studies being used as decoration in a hotel in Amsterdam?
January 15, 2026 at 6:37 PM
I once liberated a nice Ruskin volume from a pub that had bought books by the metre. No regrets.
Jenrick going to Reform is hilarious because he's solely motivated by personal ambition, and NUKIP is essentially a personality cult centred on Farage.
January 15, 2026 at 6:25 PM
Jenrick going to Reform is hilarious because he's solely motivated by personal ambition, and NUKIP is essentially a personality cult centred on Farage.
Ah - catching up with the Christmas LRB, and found John Lanchester making the same point.
January 15, 2026 at 6:17 PM
Ah - catching up with the Christmas LRB, and found John Lanchester making the same point.
The Guardian have launched a new article series, "The Pub That Changed Me", and it sounded great until I read the first entry, which was a poorly written piece on how a Guardian hack was outraged that she, too, had to follow COVID regulations on the number of people in a gathering.
January 15, 2026 at 11:26 AM
The Guardian have launched a new article series, "The Pub That Changed Me", and it sounded great until I read the first entry, which was a poorly written piece on how a Guardian hack was outraged that she, too, had to follow COVID regulations on the number of people in a gathering.
Disappointing to see BBC News using terminology like "hallucinate" and "make things up" in relation to AI. These terms imply a subjectivity that simply isn't there, rather than a machine that doesn't work.
January 14, 2026 at 6:10 PM
Disappointing to see BBC News using terminology like "hallucinate" and "make things up" in relation to AI. These terms imply a subjectivity that simply isn't there, rather than a machine that doesn't work.
The eye is so drawn to the three Warringtons that it's easy to overlook the fact that Manchester Piccadilly is also Sheffield.
January 14, 2026 at 1:39 PM
The eye is so drawn to the three Warringtons that it's easy to overlook the fact that Manchester Piccadilly is also Sheffield.
INSPECTOR MORSE: [Types into ChatGPT] Who killed the Master of Lonsdale College?
CHATGPT: That's a great question! Let's delve into why murder really is a top issue for you and I.
MORSE: [Mutters disgustedly] You and me.
CHATGPT: That's a great question! Let's delve into why murder really is a top issue for you and I.
MORSE: [Mutters disgustedly] You and me.
January 14, 2026 at 11:48 AM
INSPECTOR MORSE: [Types into ChatGPT] Who killed the Master of Lonsdale College?
CHATGPT: That's a great question! Let's delve into why murder really is a top issue for you and I.
MORSE: [Mutters disgustedly] You and me.
CHATGPT: That's a great question! Let's delve into why murder really is a top issue for you and I.
MORSE: [Mutters disgustedly] You and me.
Reboot of *Columbo*, but modern Columbo relies on Microsoft CoPilot and 78 people are wrongfully executed.
January 14, 2026 at 11:40 AM
Reboot of *Columbo*, but modern Columbo relies on Microsoft CoPilot and 78 people are wrongfully executed.
Reposted by Christopher Pittard
I'm running a popular romance course at the University of Liverpool... but only if enough people sign up!
Come and join us!
www.liverpool.ac.uk/continuing-e...
Come and join us!
www.liverpool.ac.uk/continuing-e...
January 13, 2026 at 10:33 AM
I'm running a popular romance course at the University of Liverpool... but only if enough people sign up!
Come and join us!
www.liverpool.ac.uk/continuing-e...
Come and join us!
www.liverpool.ac.uk/continuing-e...
Reposted by Christopher Pittard
Cuts. Never. Produce. Growth.
It is a downward spiral to collapse, and that’s the way we’re all headed.
It is a downward spiral to collapse, and that’s the way we’re all headed.
Today’s activities: an all-day meeting to decide how specifically to make our surviving degree courses worse, the general outlines already having been imposed (fewer modules, fewer hours per module, fewer assessments, fewer subject modules, fewer academics).
January 13, 2026 at 7:43 PM
Cuts. Never. Produce. Growth.
It is a downward spiral to collapse, and that’s the way we’re all headed.
It is a downward spiral to collapse, and that’s the way we’re all headed.
Reposted by Christopher Pittard
With a hat tip to @twirl.bsky.social
January 13, 2026 at 6:22 PM
With a hat tip to @twirl.bsky.social
Picked this up from the library on my way home. In August I'm teaching a summer school at Brasenose on Gothic and while I usually teach a lot of Gothic literature, I'm doing something I've meant to do for ages and added a whole new bit on folk horror (Andrew Michael Hurley's *Starve Acre*).
January 13, 2026 at 7:29 PM
Picked this up from the library on my way home. In August I'm teaching a summer school at Brasenose on Gothic and while I usually teach a lot of Gothic literature, I'm doing something I've meant to do for ages and added a whole new bit on folk horror (Andrew Michael Hurley's *Starve Acre*).
Tomorrow's work: being interviewed for an audio documentary on Sherlock Holmes and the Louvre heist.
January 12, 2026 at 10:38 PM
Tomorrow's work: being interviewed for an audio documentary on Sherlock Holmes and the Louvre heist.
Interesting to see Nadhim Zahawi described as an ex-Chancellor. Zahawi was Chancellor for about 63 days in that weird period in summer 2022 when there was no working government because Boris Johnson had buggered off. Zahawi did absolutely nothing in the role.
January 12, 2026 at 12:00 PM
Interesting to see Nadhim Zahawi described as an ex-Chancellor. Zahawi was Chancellor for about 63 days in that weird period in summer 2022 when there was no working government because Boris Johnson had buggered off. Zahawi did absolutely nothing in the role.
What's that? A Guardian opinion piece on how cafes have become gentrified?
Suspect Guilty GIF
ALT: Suspect Guilty GIF
media.tenor.com
January 12, 2026 at 10:53 AM
What's that? A Guardian opinion piece on how cafes have become gentrified?
Reposted by Christopher Pittard
It's no surprise that fascists love generative AI.
It erodes critical thinking.
It makes mass disinformation easy.
And it's great for humiliating and abusing people.
These so-called 'tools' are not politically neutral and they can't be used responsibly.
It erodes critical thinking.
It makes mass disinformation easy.
And it's great for humiliating and abusing people.
These so-called 'tools' are not politically neutral and they can't be used responsibly.
January 11, 2026 at 6:30 PM
It's no surprise that fascists love generative AI.
It erodes critical thinking.
It makes mass disinformation easy.
And it's great for humiliating and abusing people.
These so-called 'tools' are not politically neutral and they can't be used responsibly.
It erodes critical thinking.
It makes mass disinformation easy.
And it's great for humiliating and abusing people.
These so-called 'tools' are not politically neutral and they can't be used responsibly.
Lots of MLA discussion on here at the moment. I only went once (Philadelphia, 2006), but I was there at "Is the Anus a Text?" The whole back row was journalists desperate to report on the decadence of the humanities.
January 11, 2026 at 7:57 PM
Lots of MLA discussion on here at the moment. I only went once (Philadelphia, 2006), but I was there at "Is the Anus a Text?" The whole back row was journalists desperate to report on the decadence of the humanities.
Catching up with Katherine Rundell's Radio 4 documentary on Christmas ghost stories, and wondering why our modern culture now privileges summer, with winter seen as something to be put up with.
January 11, 2026 at 5:36 PM
Catching up with Katherine Rundell's Radio 4 documentary on Christmas ghost stories, and wondering why our modern culture now privileges summer, with winter seen as something to be put up with.
Waking up 10 years ago to the news of Bowie's death was an uncanny experience. The previous day I'd been listening to *Blackstar* and the various references to death had prompted me to wonder about how sad it would be when Bowie himself died. Of course, I had no idea that it was already that day...
January 11, 2026 at 9:22 AM
Waking up 10 years ago to the news of Bowie's death was an uncanny experience. The previous day I'd been listening to *Blackstar* and the various references to death had prompted me to wonder about how sad it would be when Bowie himself died. Of course, I had no idea that it was already that day...
About 70pp into *Caledonian Road* - is it worth persisting with?
January 10, 2026 at 12:13 PM
About 70pp into *Caledonian Road* - is it worth persisting with?