Helen Kingstone
@helenkingstone.bsky.social
Senior Lecturer in 19thC literature at Royal Holloway, London.
I research how living memory becomes narrative history in novels, textbooks, oral history, panoramas, biography & via generations, including Digital Humanities
I research how living memory becomes narrative history in novels, textbooks, oral history, panoramas, biography & via generations, including Digital Humanities
Reposted by Helen Kingstone
This is as bad as anything proposed by Reform.
Leaving refugees in permanent limbo and unable to build a new life in the UK would be a complete abdication of our humanitarian responsibilities
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Leaving refugees in permanent limbo and unable to build a new life in the UK would be a complete abdication of our humanitarian responsibilities
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
UK set to limit refugees to temporary stays
Shabana Mahmood is expected to say the era of permanent protection for refugees is over, in major changes to the UK's asylum and immigration system.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 15, 2025 at 6:43 AM
This is as bad as anything proposed by Reform.
Leaving refugees in permanent limbo and unable to build a new life in the UK would be a complete abdication of our humanitarian responsibilities
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Leaving refugees in permanent limbo and unable to build a new life in the UK would be a complete abdication of our humanitarian responsibilities
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
My jaw dropped. This treats people's lives with shameful lack of respect, to spend even more years in limbo. It also treats people's lives as pawns to be traded for an elusive political gain from the far right.
"The era of permanent protection for refugees is over."
www.bbc.com/news/article...
"The era of permanent protection for refugees is over."
www.bbc.com/news/article...
UK set to limit asylum seekers to temporary stays
Shabana Mahmood is expected to say the era of permanent protection for refugees is over, in major changes to the UK's asylum and immigration system.
www.bbc.com
November 14, 2025 at 10:19 PM
My jaw dropped. This treats people's lives with shameful lack of respect, to spend even more years in limbo. It also treats people's lives as pawns to be traded for an elusive political gain from the far right.
"The era of permanent protection for refugees is over."
www.bbc.com/news/article...
"The era of permanent protection for refugees is over."
www.bbc.com/news/article...
I think I need to print copies of this and wave them threateningly at SUVs as I walk around town...
![4-panel vertical comic. (1) 100 Years Ago [two people standing next to bicycle with small car nearby] PERSON 1: It’s too dangerous riding a bike with these cars around. I should get a car, too. (2) 50 Years Ago [two people between smaller car and bigger car] PERSON 2 with short hair: Small cars are less safe in collisions with larger vehicles, so I should get a bigger one. (3) Today [two people between big car and even bigger car] PERSON 1: Everyone has huge SUVs now. If I don’t get the biggest one, I’m putting my family at risk. (4) Soon [two people next to large armored car with spiked clubs attached] PERSON 2: If I don’t install more whirling spike clubs, I’ll be destroyed by all the other drivers who...](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreiby6can6k76yzfmv2czxs4pu2l7zie7bqbrpswi7h3ifmiadkuqvu@jpeg)
November 14, 2025 at 10:10 PM
I think I need to print copies of this and wave them threateningly at SUVs as I walk around town...
Reposted by Helen Kingstone
There should be a tax on ridiculously bloated road boats registered in urban areas, because (a) they cause obvious problems in such areas (b) they are bad for the environment (c) they are dangerous for children (d) they are awful, and driving them should be expensive and socially stigmatised.
Cars the U.K are up to 55% larger today than they were in the 1970s and there are twice the number of motors on our roads as there were 30 years ago, but anti-Low Traffic Neighbourhood and anti-cycle lane campaigners keep claiming they 'cause congestion'.
Okay.
Okay.
November 4, 2025 at 9:50 AM
There should be a tax on ridiculously bloated road boats registered in urban areas, because (a) they cause obvious problems in such areas (b) they are bad for the environment (c) they are dangerous for children (d) they are awful, and driving them should be expensive and socially stigmatised.
Reposted by Helen Kingstone
You know what - it would be really life affirming if just for once - THIS 👇 was the story
Next time someone tells you that train drivers "just push buttons" show them this from the BBC
November 2, 2025 at 7:11 PM
You know what - it would be really life affirming if just for once - THIS 👇 was the story
Reposted by Helen Kingstone
The government plans to link university fees to institutional "quality". This is a nonsense because there are no metrics that actually measure teaching quality. There is no Ofsted, rather a handful of largely irrelevant statistics to actual quality. The NSS measure satisfaction, not quality.
October 20, 2025 at 5:05 PM
The government plans to link university fees to institutional "quality". This is a nonsense because there are no metrics that actually measure teaching quality. There is no Ofsted, rather a handful of largely irrelevant statistics to actual quality. The NSS measure satisfaction, not quality.
I'm really proud of this: the latest issue of #VictorianStudies has an article of mine in it!
It's on #ageing and #generations, & the insightful ways that Victorian novelist Margaret Oliphant approaches these issues, with takeaways for us now.
doi.org/10.2979/vic....
1/
It's on #ageing and #generations, & the insightful ways that Victorian novelist Margaret Oliphant approaches these issues, with takeaways for us now.
doi.org/10.2979/vic....
1/
October 8, 2025 at 3:27 PM
I'm really proud of this: the latest issue of #VictorianStudies has an article of mine in it!
It's on #ageing and #generations, & the insightful ways that Victorian novelist Margaret Oliphant approaches these issues, with takeaways for us now.
doi.org/10.2979/vic....
1/
It's on #ageing and #generations, & the insightful ways that Victorian novelist Margaret Oliphant approaches these issues, with takeaways for us now.
doi.org/10.2979/vic....
1/
Reposted by Helen Kingstone
"The fact that the asphyxiation of British higher education does not instantly count as a national scandal underlines the extent to which the austerity mindset continues to constrain our political imagination" - @robbhawkes.bsky.social & Scott Ferguson's piece is excellent.
Also: 1/2
Also: 1/2
As more of my valued colleagues face the threat of redundancy, here’s a quick reminder that it takes years and years of public investment to train an academic. Cutting someone with this wealth of experience loose isn’t “saving” anything. It is a massive waste of our collective resources.
UK Universities in Crisis? Time to Transform Higher Ed Finance
by Rob Hawkes and Scott Ferguson Universities in the UK are in crisis. Job cuts in the sector are reaching ‘cataclysmic’ levels, with an estimated 10,000 already lost and many more at risk. Just da…
moneyontheleft.org
October 5, 2025 at 12:23 PM
"The fact that the asphyxiation of British higher education does not instantly count as a national scandal underlines the extent to which the austerity mindset continues to constrain our political imagination" - @robbhawkes.bsky.social & Scott Ferguson's piece is excellent.
Also: 1/2
Also: 1/2
My to-read pile in the British Library today... (Of course I only got through 3 of 7 - I'd better come back next week.) But what luxury to sit with such richness of thought!
October 3, 2025 at 2:03 PM
My to-read pile in the British Library today... (Of course I only got through 3 of 7 - I'd better come back next week.) But what luxury to sit with such richness of thought!
Look upon this marvel and delight!
In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:
October 2, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Look upon this marvel and delight!
I'm so glad to be able to listen in to today's roundtable on #Humanities and #DataScience at the @bodleian.ox.ac.uk Centre for Digital Scholarship. digitalscholarship.web.ox.ac.uk/event/networ...
@melissaterras.bsky.social thank you for your wisdom & oomph beamed across the airwaves!
@melissaterras.bsky.social thank you for your wisdom & oomph beamed across the airwaves!
Network power: the humanities and data science in collaboration
digitalscholarship.web.ox.ac.uk
September 25, 2025 at 3:50 PM
I'm so glad to be able to listen in to today's roundtable on #Humanities and #DataScience at the @bodleian.ox.ac.uk Centre for Digital Scholarship. digitalscholarship.web.ox.ac.uk/event/networ...
@melissaterras.bsky.social thank you for your wisdom & oomph beamed across the airwaves!
@melissaterras.bsky.social thank you for your wisdom & oomph beamed across the airwaves!
Any insider information on this, or simply good guesses, welcome!
@aeon.co magazine, I wish I knew why the pitch form has been closed for >6 weeks.
Any plans to reopen?
I assumed it was summer holidays, but autumn is here & it's still shut. I hope it doesn't mean closure - maybe a backlog. I'd like to pitch an essay and don't know how long to wait... aeon.co/pitch
Any plans to reopen?
I assumed it was summer holidays, but autumn is here & it's still shut. I hope it doesn't mean closure - maybe a backlog. I'd like to pitch an essay and don't know how long to wait... aeon.co/pitch
Write for Aeon | Aeon
Have an idea to contribute? We love working with enthusiastic and dedicated writers with exciting, new ideas. Learn how to pitch your article to Aeon and join our community of expert writers.
aeon.co
September 19, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Any insider information on this, or simply good guesses, welcome!
@aeon.co magazine, I wish I knew why the pitch form has been closed for >6 weeks.
Any plans to reopen?
I assumed it was summer holidays, but autumn is here & it's still shut. I hope it doesn't mean closure - maybe a backlog. I'd like to pitch an essay and don't know how long to wait... aeon.co/pitch
Any plans to reopen?
I assumed it was summer holidays, but autumn is here & it's still shut. I hope it doesn't mean closure - maybe a backlog. I'd like to pitch an essay and don't know how long to wait... aeon.co/pitch
Write for Aeon | Aeon
Have an idea to contribute? We love working with enthusiastic and dedicated writers with exciting, new ideas. Learn how to pitch your article to Aeon and join our community of expert writers.
aeon.co
September 19, 2025 at 11:46 AM
@aeon.co magazine, I wish I knew why the pitch form has been closed for >6 weeks.
Any plans to reopen?
I assumed it was summer holidays, but autumn is here & it's still shut. I hope it doesn't mean closure - maybe a backlog. I'd like to pitch an essay and don't know how long to wait... aeon.co/pitch
Any plans to reopen?
I assumed it was summer holidays, but autumn is here & it's still shut. I hope it doesn't mean closure - maybe a backlog. I'd like to pitch an essay and don't know how long to wait... aeon.co/pitch
Reposted by Helen Kingstone
The last REF found that 98% of UK research was either "internationally recognised", "internationally excellent", or "world-leading". If you think low-quality research is the noteworthy challenge in UK higher ed right now, you are wilfully looking in the wrong direction
Ministers ‘want to shift funds away from low-quality research’ .
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
Ministers ‘want to shift funds away from low-quality research’ - Research Professional News
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
September 12, 2025 at 8:53 AM
The last REF found that 98% of UK research was either "internationally recognised", "internationally excellent", or "world-leading". If you think low-quality research is the noteworthy challenge in UK higher ed right now, you are wilfully looking in the wrong direction
Reposted by Helen Kingstone
This is a jaw-dropping statement from anyone in a uni leadership role — but also — what exactly is ‘low-quality’ and ‘hobbyist’ research? Nearly every academic I know is burning the candle at both ends and STILL producing important work in their fields. This feels like an anti-humanities dog whistle
Ministers ‘want to shift funds away from low-quality research’ .
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
Ministers ‘want to shift funds away from low-quality research’ - Research Professional News
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
September 12, 2025 at 8:23 AM
This is a jaw-dropping statement from anyone in a uni leadership role — but also — what exactly is ‘low-quality’ and ‘hobbyist’ research? Nearly every academic I know is burning the candle at both ends and STILL producing important work in their fields. This feels like an anti-humanities dog whistle
Aaaargh! (and read the comments)
Ministers ‘want to shift funds away from low-quality research’ .
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
Ministers ‘want to shift funds away from low-quality research’ - Research Professional News
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
September 12, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Aaaargh! (and read the comments)
Sarah's visit to @rhul-cvs.bsky.social to present on the research, NEXT TO the painting itself, is still one of my highlights of the past academic year!
As it is the anniversary of Princess Elizabeth's death in 1650 it seems like a good time to reshare my JVC article on her Victorian afterlife academic.oup.com/jvc/article/...
The Victorian Royal Family and the Body of Princess Elizabeth Stuart: Historical Culture and Heritage, Collection and Display
ABSTRACT. This essay explores the afterlife of Princess Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of the seventeenth-century civil war King, Charles I, and how her untime
academic.oup.com
September 8, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Sarah's visit to @rhul-cvs.bsky.social to present on the research, NEXT TO the painting itself, is still one of my highlights of the past academic year!
My favourite conferences nowadays are the ones where I know less. I've learnt so much (including about other norms, & other reading lists) at @cultsochistory.bsky.social last year, & @britishgerontology.bsky.social this summer.
Other people's conferences are so interesting. There's obviously plenty of crossover between archives and rare books but hearing how to suggest a thesaurus term for "pressed plants" in books to the Controlled Vocabularies Editorial Group (of SAA) is pleasing but also peacefully not my job.
September 6, 2025 at 5:32 PM
My favourite conferences nowadays are the ones where I know less. I've learnt so much (including about other norms, & other reading lists) at @cultsochistory.bsky.social last year, & @britishgerontology.bsky.social this summer.
Reposted by Helen Kingstone
@annagk.bsky.social and I are welcoming short pedagogy articles/approaches that use Dickens's Working Notes, or that center compositional process or serial form in some way.
If you teach Dickens, check out the dickensnotes.com platform!
If you teach Dickens, check out the dickensnotes.com platform!
August 26, 2025 at 4:41 AM
@annagk.bsky.social and I are welcoming short pedagogy articles/approaches that use Dickens's Working Notes, or that center compositional process or serial form in some way.
If you teach Dickens, check out the dickensnotes.com platform!
If you teach Dickens, check out the dickensnotes.com platform!
Thanks @rs4vp.org for sharing this. Any questions, email me & Clare Walker Gore, co-editors of the special issue. I look forward to lots more Oliphant!
A CFP has recently come across our digital desk that is sure to be of interest. /Women's Writing/ is celebrating 200 years of Margaret Oliphant with a special issue! Abstracts (300 words) are due 1 December 2025. Thanks for #SharingYourNews! More info here: think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...
August 9, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Thanks @rs4vp.org for sharing this. Any questions, email me & Clare Walker Gore, co-editors of the special issue. I look forward to lots more Oliphant!
Thank you Zoe !
August 7, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Thank you Zoe !
Reposted by Helen Kingstone
Please help me share the CFP for this Literature Compass Special Issue dedicated to the work of Simon J James and covering key Victorian and Edwardian writers like H. G. Wells, George Gissing, Dickens, Wilde, George Du Maurier, and Conan-Doyle on behalf of Hadas Elber-Aviram.
August 6, 2025 at 8:50 AM
Please help me share the CFP for this Literature Compass Special Issue dedicated to the work of Simon J James and covering key Victorian and Edwardian writers like H. G. Wells, George Gissing, Dickens, Wilde, George Du Maurier, and Conan-Doyle on behalf of Hadas Elber-Aviram.
This whole thread is full of compressed wisdom (and some justified anger) - and this particular nugget is the one I'll be following up first...
35. It is super historically important, and poorly understood, that until recently (last 300 years), poverty was as much lifecyclical as it was structural. It came and went a bit. And economic mobility over their working lives, for the poorest, *went down* during the industrial revolution, not up.
July 30, 2025 at 3:19 PM
This whole thread is full of compressed wisdom (and some justified anger) - and this particular nugget is the one I'll be following up first...
Reposted by Helen Kingstone
A reminder that I have some availability for any of your historical research, archive document photography, transcription, copy-editing and/or book-indexing needs. Feel free to get in touch here or contact me via my website:
helenglew.com
helenglew.com
Helen Glew
Historical Research and Writing
helenglew.com
July 28, 2025 at 12:50 PM
A reminder that I have some availability for any of your historical research, archive document photography, transcription, copy-editing and/or book-indexing needs. Feel free to get in touch here or contact me via my website:
helenglew.com
helenglew.com
Oh wow, this is basically the epitome of what my first and second books are about!!
1 = the zeal to create *permanent* historical narratives in the face of constantly shifting hindsight,
2 = a belief that it's possible for a big enough history to encompass *everything*...
1 = the zeal to create *permanent* historical narratives in the face of constantly shifting hindsight,
2 = a belief that it's possible for a big enough history to encompass *everything*...
Finally, the bringing together of the greatest history *brains* with a boatload of *cash*. Result: The Historians’ History of the World. This news just came my way (via a local bookshop) from Appleton’s Booklovers Magazine, November 1905. I sure hope it’s not too late to place my order.
July 26, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Oh wow, this is basically the epitome of what my first and second books are about!!
1 = the zeal to create *permanent* historical narratives in the face of constantly shifting hindsight,
2 = a belief that it's possible for a big enough history to encompass *everything*...
1 = the zeal to create *permanent* historical narratives in the face of constantly shifting hindsight,
2 = a belief that it's possible for a big enough history to encompass *everything*...