Simon Kővesi
@kovesi.bsky.social
Professor of English & Scottish Literature, Head of the School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow
Research working-class literature & Romantic-period cultures.
Editor, John Clare Society Journal.
Seems important to add, son of a political refugee.
Research working-class literature & Romantic-period cultures.
Editor, John Clare Society Journal.
Seems important to add, son of a political refugee.
Cracking paragraph from William Morris (et al), "The Manifesto of The Socialist League" (1886).
So full of purpose & ideal: "we seek a change in the basis of Society - a change which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities" - imagine that.
So full of purpose & ideal: "we seek a change in the basis of Society - a change which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities" - imagine that.
December 30, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Cracking paragraph from William Morris (et al), "The Manifesto of The Socialist League" (1886).
So full of purpose & ideal: "we seek a change in the basis of Society - a change which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities" - imagine that.
So full of purpose & ideal: "we seek a change in the basis of Society - a change which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities" - imagine that.
Reposted by Simon Kővesi
Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit
December 27, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit
Three nieces, three novels, boom.
December 24, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Three nieces, three novels, boom.
Reposted by Simon Kővesi
via The New Yorker, Ellis Rosen cartoon
December 23, 2025 at 5:31 AM
via The New Yorker, Ellis Rosen cartoon
TFW you submit a book manuscript after about 5 years of mucking about.
a cartoon of the peanuts characters dancing on a stage
ALT: a cartoon of the peanuts characters dancing on a stage
media.tenor.com
December 23, 2025 at 2:58 PM
TFW you submit a book manuscript after about 5 years of mucking about.
Reposted by Simon Kővesi
From "The Dawn of Day" by Friedrich Nietzsche - on the importance of SLOW reading. He didn't know it, but this is the opposite of LLM, AI, ChatGPT etc etc - the fast, shallow, abbreviated, inattentive slop of reading (and writing) in an online world.
Slow. Down.
Slow. Down.
December 21, 2025 at 10:38 PM
From "The Dawn of Day" by Friedrich Nietzsche - on the importance of SLOW reading. He didn't know it, but this is the opposite of LLM, AI, ChatGPT etc etc - the fast, shallow, abbreviated, inattentive slop of reading (and writing) in an online world.
Slow. Down.
Slow. Down.
Reposted by Simon Kővesi
She’d forgive you! It’s Agnes Owens’ centenary in May 2026 and there’s going to be reissues of her Collected Stories and her o/p Collected Novellas. Her archive has also now found a home at the Alasdair Gray archive in Glasgow
@agrayarchive.bsky.social
@aowensarchive.bsky.social
@agrayarchive.bsky.social
@aowensarchive.bsky.social
December 22, 2025 at 7:08 AM
She’d forgive you! It’s Agnes Owens’ centenary in May 2026 and there’s going to be reissues of her Collected Stories and her o/p Collected Novellas. Her archive has also now found a home at the Alasdair Gray archive in Glasgow
@agrayarchive.bsky.social
@aowensarchive.bsky.social
@agrayarchive.bsky.social
@aowensarchive.bsky.social
No you don't have to, but you should mate.
JD Vance: "In the United States of America you don't have to apologize for being white anymore"
December 22, 2025 at 1:27 AM
No you don't have to, but you should mate.
From "The Dawn of Day" by Friedrich Nietzsche - on the importance of SLOW reading. He didn't know it, but this is the opposite of LLM, AI, ChatGPT etc etc - the fast, shallow, abbreviated, inattentive slop of reading (and writing) in an online world.
Slow. Down.
Slow. Down.
December 21, 2025 at 10:38 PM
From "The Dawn of Day" by Friedrich Nietzsche - on the importance of SLOW reading. He didn't know it, but this is the opposite of LLM, AI, ChatGPT etc etc - the fast, shallow, abbreviated, inattentive slop of reading (and writing) in an online world.
Slow. Down.
Slow. Down.
Reposted by Simon Kővesi
I really liked this Substack on the virtues of curiosity/carrying on going out and seeing and doing things if you are Of A Certain Age open.substack.com/pub/anniemac...
The Cure For Age-ing...
I apologise to all the people who are older than me reading this because you know this already, but it’s worth stating for personal documentation purposes, that 2025 is the year I finally realised tha...
open.substack.com
December 21, 2025 at 1:16 PM
I really liked this Substack on the virtues of curiosity/carrying on going out and seeing and doing things if you are Of A Certain Age open.substack.com/pub/anniemac...
Reposted by Simon Kővesi
Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621):
What a company of poets hath this year brought out... what a catalogue of new books all this year... who can read them?... we shall have a vast chaos & confusion of books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
What a company of poets hath this year brought out... what a catalogue of new books all this year... who can read them?... we shall have a vast chaos & confusion of books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
December 20, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621):
What a company of poets hath this year brought out... what a catalogue of new books all this year... who can read them?... we shall have a vast chaos & confusion of books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
What a company of poets hath this year brought out... what a catalogue of new books all this year... who can read them?... we shall have a vast chaos & confusion of books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621):
What a company of poets hath this year brought out... what a catalogue of new books all this year... who can read them?... we shall have a vast chaos & confusion of books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
What a company of poets hath this year brought out... what a catalogue of new books all this year... who can read them?... we shall have a vast chaos & confusion of books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
December 20, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621):
What a company of poets hath this year brought out... what a catalogue of new books all this year... who can read them?... we shall have a vast chaos & confusion of books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
What a company of poets hath this year brought out... what a catalogue of new books all this year... who can read them?... we shall have a vast chaos & confusion of books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.
Reposted by Simon Kővesi
Reposting again, but now with an image, London placard men by George Scharf, 1830s:
December 17, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposting again, but now with an image, London placard men by George Scharf, 1830s:
Party time in East End pub, from Pierce Egan's "Life in London", 1821. One to share with your racist Reform UK-inclined family at the winterval dinner table.
As Egan puts it:
"All was happiness, -every body free and easy, & freedom of expression allowed to the very echo. The group motley indeed".
As Egan puts it:
"All was happiness, -every body free and easy, & freedom of expression allowed to the very echo. The group motley indeed".
December 17, 2025 at 9:09 AM
Party time in East End pub, from Pierce Egan's "Life in London", 1821. One to share with your racist Reform UK-inclined family at the winterval dinner table.
As Egan puts it:
"All was happiness, -every body free and easy, & freedom of expression allowed to the very echo. The group motley indeed".
As Egan puts it:
"All was happiness, -every body free and easy, & freedom of expression allowed to the very echo. The group motley indeed".
pecq feat. Kate Ireland - no more trouble (Official Video)
YouTube video by pecq
youtu.be
December 13, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Tobias Smollet’s warm account of Glasgow in his 1771 tour of England & Scotland, “The Expedition of Humphry Clinker”. Smollet studied @glasgow.ac.uk c. 1730s.
December 12, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Tobias Smollet’s warm account of Glasgow in his 1771 tour of England & Scotland, “The Expedition of Humphry Clinker”. Smollet studied @glasgow.ac.uk c. 1730s.
Cat picture for no reason.
December 10, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Cat picture for no reason.
One of the greatest lines in all working-class fiction.
Billy Liar, by Keith Waterhouse, 1959:
"I'm just about thraped wi' this place".
Billy Liar, by Keith Waterhouse, 1959:
"I'm just about thraped wi' this place".
December 9, 2025 at 3:14 PM
One of the greatest lines in all working-class fiction.
Billy Liar, by Keith Waterhouse, 1959:
"I'm just about thraped wi' this place".
Billy Liar, by Keith Waterhouse, 1959:
"I'm just about thraped wi' this place".
Reposted by Simon Kővesi
And for our first post it's a pleasure to announce a brand new prize for outstanding scholarship in our field.
Nominations are now open for the 2026 Scottish Literary Studies Book Prize: ucsl-scotland.com/scottish-lit...
Nominations are now open for the 2026 Scottish Literary Studies Book Prize: ucsl-scotland.com/scottish-lit...
December 6, 2025 at 3:13 PM
And for our first post it's a pleasure to announce a brand new prize for outstanding scholarship in our field.
Nominations are now open for the 2026 Scottish Literary Studies Book Prize: ucsl-scotland.com/scottish-lit...
Nominations are now open for the 2026 Scottish Literary Studies Book Prize: ucsl-scotland.com/scottish-lit...
Reposted by Simon Kővesi
I finally got around to reading this. You should read it too.
"We are exporting the very labor of teaching and learning—the slow work of wrestling with ideas, the enduring of discomfort, doubt and confusion, the struggle of finding one’s own voice."
www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...
"We are exporting the very labor of teaching and learning—the slow work of wrestling with ideas, the enduring of discomfort, doubt and confusion, the struggle of finding one’s own voice."
www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...
AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.
www.currentaffairs.org
December 4, 2025 at 1:52 PM
I finally got around to reading this. You should read it too.
"We are exporting the very labor of teaching and learning—the slow work of wrestling with ideas, the enduring of discomfort, doubt and confusion, the struggle of finding one’s own voice."
www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...
"We are exporting the very labor of teaching and learning—the slow work of wrestling with ideas, the enduring of discomfort, doubt and confusion, the struggle of finding one’s own voice."
www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...
Reposted by Simon Kővesi
My annual post about how the Morning Star reported the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
hatfulofhistory.com/2014/11/07/h...
hatfulofhistory.com/2014/11/07/h...
November 9, 2025 at 9:02 AM
My annual post about how the Morning Star reported the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
hatfulofhistory.com/2014/11/07/h...
hatfulofhistory.com/2014/11/07/h...
Reposted by Simon Kővesi
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Excellent news
Excellent news
UK aims to secure agreement to rejoin Erasmus student exchange scheme
Britain quit EU programme after Brexit, when Boris Johnson claimed it did not offer good value for money
www.theguardian.com
December 1, 2025 at 8:21 PM
www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Excellent news
Excellent news
This is today at 1pm! Free event online & in person.
Very excited to host writer Kristie De Garis for a reading and a talk in the Chapel @uofglasgow.bsky.social on Monday starting 1pm - in person and on Zoom - discussing her first book "Drystone: A Life Rebuilt":
@kristiedegaris.bsky.social
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-c...
@kristiedegaris.bsky.social
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creative-c...
Creative Conversations: Kristie de Garis
Author and Dry Stone Waller Kristie de Garis in conversation
www.eventbrite.co.uk
December 1, 2025 at 11:20 AM
This is today at 1pm! Free event online & in person.