Sam Grinsell
@samgrinsell.bsky.social
Historian trying to help build better worlds 🇵🇸🌈✊🏳️⚧️
Blog here https://samgrinsell.hcommons.org/writing/
Buy me a brew https://ko-fi.com/samgrinsell
Blog here https://samgrinsell.hcommons.org/writing/
Buy me a brew https://ko-fi.com/samgrinsell
Pinned
Sam Grinsell
@samgrinsell.bsky.social
· Sep 25
Urban history as urgent work, an argument for disciplinary promiscuity | Urban History | Cambridge Core
Urban history as urgent work, an argument for disciplinary promiscuity
doi.org
Very pleased that my piece 'Urban history as urgent work, an argument for disciplinary promiscuity' has been published in @urbanhistory.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/S096...
Many thanks to @mctom.bsky.social for organising the roundtable that got these thoughts going back in 2023! #UrbanHist #EnvHums
Many thanks to @mctom.bsky.social for organising the roundtable that got these thoughts going back in 2023! #UrbanHist #EnvHums
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
This was not an easy thing to pull off, but, IMO, he did it.
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Stay free
Stay free
Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)
YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen
youtu.be
January 28, 2026 at 6:07 PM
This was not an easy thing to pull off, but, IMO, he did it.
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
Reform seem to have been charging people £125 to put themselves up as potential Gorton and Denton parliamentary Candidates:
Applications closed Sunday.
When did they select Goodwin?
Applications closed Sunday.
When did they select Goodwin?
January 28, 2026 at 8:19 AM
Reform seem to have been charging people £125 to put themselves up as potential Gorton and Denton parliamentary Candidates:
Applications closed Sunday.
When did they select Goodwin?
Applications closed Sunday.
When did they select Goodwin?
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
This January I officially started supervising my first PhD student 😱 What makes a good supervisor according to you?
January 28, 2026 at 10:45 AM
This January I officially started supervising my first PhD student 😱 What makes a good supervisor according to you?
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
#skystorians & other UK humanities scholars - does anyone have a Leverhulme Trust research grant *preliminary application* they'd be willing to share? I've got e.g.s of successful full apps but not the short first round ones. Email in screenshot and many many thanks.
January 28, 2026 at 9:51 AM
#skystorians & other UK humanities scholars - does anyone have a Leverhulme Trust research grant *preliminary application* they'd be willing to share? I've got e.g.s of successful full apps but not the short first round ones. Email in screenshot and many many thanks.
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
Save the date! Being Human Festival 2026 will take place from 5 to 14 November across the UK. More information coming in early February about how to get involved!
#BeingHumanFestival
#BeingHumanFestival
January 27, 2026 at 3:18 PM
Save the date! Being Human Festival 2026 will take place from 5 to 14 November across the UK. More information coming in early February about how to get involved!
#BeingHumanFestival
#BeingHumanFestival
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
Nothing can prepare your soul for the first image ever transmitted onto a television
January 26, 2026 at 2:03 PM
Nothing can prepare your soul for the first image ever transmitted onto a television
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
Help elect Manchester's first Green MP! www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/qr/jWr7J55...
Help Elect Manchester's First Green MP
We need your help on the Green Party’s path to electing it’s first Green MP and help us hit the key milestones leading up to it!
www.crowdfunder.co.uk
January 25, 2026 at 7:25 PM
Help elect Manchester's first Green MP! www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/qr/jWr7J55...
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
`for one of my wonderful dissertation students, who is writing about banlieue music, do you know of any work on fashion, especially bourgeois anxieties surrounding tracksuits and hijabs? I know of work in a UK context, but anything France-specific?
January 26, 2026 at 9:53 AM
`for one of my wonderful dissertation students, who is writing about banlieue music, do you know of any work on fashion, especially bourgeois anxieties surrounding tracksuits and hijabs? I know of work in a UK context, but anything France-specific?
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
Nine years to the day since Graham Linehan foresaw his own fate.
January 26, 2026 at 9:00 AM
Nine years to the day since Graham Linehan foresaw his own fate.
Help elect Manchester's first Green MP! www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/qr/jWr7J55...
Help Elect Manchester's First Green MP
We need your help on the Green Party’s path to electing it’s first Green MP and help us hit the key milestones leading up to it!
www.crowdfunder.co.uk
January 25, 2026 at 7:25 PM
Help elect Manchester's first Green MP! www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/qr/jWr7J55...
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
Help Elect Manchester's First Green MP
Kier Starmer has blocked Andy Burnham for running for Labour. Time for Gorton & Denton to have an MP on the left that actually listens to their community! 💚
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-elect...
Kier Starmer has blocked Andy Burnham for running for Labour. Time for Gorton & Denton to have an MP on the left that actually listens to their community! 💚
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-elect...
Help Elect Manchester's First Green MP
We need your help on the Green Party’s path to electing it’s first Green MP and help us hit the key milestones leading up to it!
www.crowdfunder.co.uk
January 25, 2026 at 7:20 PM
Help Elect Manchester's First Green MP
Kier Starmer has blocked Andy Burnham for running for Labour. Time for Gorton & Denton to have an MP on the left that actually listens to their community! 💚
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-elect...
Kier Starmer has blocked Andy Burnham for running for Labour. Time for Gorton & Denton to have an MP on the left that actually listens to their community! 💚
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-elect...
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
I love Starmerism, it's like "Uh no this guy can't be an MP because people like him. Only people everyone hates can be in Labour." It is so cool and smart.
NEW: Andy Burnham *blocked* from standing in the Gorton and Denton byelection. Of nine voting members on NEC group was 8-1 against him.
January 25, 2026 at 12:02 PM
I love Starmerism, it's like "Uh no this guy can't be an MP because people like him. Only people everyone hates can be in Labour." It is so cool and smart.
"Two songs from Hamilton, Kemi? Two??? That's insane"
January 25, 2026 at 11:31 AM
"Two songs from Hamilton, Kemi? Two??? That's insane"
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
💯. People can live under intolerable circumstances for centuries. Life is not a movie. It promises no resolution.
Every moment of justice won requires tireless effort, and every win requires vigilance and defense for eternity. Look at the backsliding on rights we were assured wwre settled law.
Every moment of justice won requires tireless effort, and every win requires vigilance and defense for eternity. Look at the backsliding on rights we were assured wwre settled law.
January 24, 2026 at 5:00 PM
💯. People can live under intolerable circumstances for centuries. Life is not a movie. It promises no resolution.
Every moment of justice won requires tireless effort, and every win requires vigilance and defense for eternity. Look at the backsliding on rights we were assured wwre settled law.
Every moment of justice won requires tireless effort, and every win requires vigilance and defense for eternity. Look at the backsliding on rights we were assured wwre settled law.
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
"I really like the ideas of Jeremy Bentham."
"The ones about maximising pleasure and treating everyone equally?"
"Not those ones, no."
"Animal welfare? Decriminalising consensual sexual acts? Expanding democratic accountability?"
"Not exactly."
"Which ones then?"
"Oh, you know the ones..."
"The ones about maximising pleasure and treating everyone equally?"
"Not those ones, no."
"Animal welfare? Decriminalising consensual sexual acts? Expanding democratic accountability?"
"Not exactly."
"Which ones then?"
"Oh, you know the ones..."
Shabana Mahmood here, whose “ultimate vision” is to turn the world into a prison
January 23, 2026 at 3:59 PM
"I really like the ideas of Jeremy Bentham."
"The ones about maximising pleasure and treating everyone equally?"
"Not those ones, no."
"Animal welfare? Decriminalising consensual sexual acts? Expanding democratic accountability?"
"Not exactly."
"Which ones then?"
"Oh, you know the ones..."
"The ones about maximising pleasure and treating everyone equally?"
"Not those ones, no."
"Animal welfare? Decriminalising consensual sexual acts? Expanding democratic accountability?"
"Not exactly."
"Which ones then?"
"Oh, you know the ones..."
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
Part of the current trend to see everything in summary is the lack of awareness that great writing tends to already be in its simplest, most accessible form. It may simply take 800 pages to state the simplest version of some ideas.
January 23, 2026 at 4:20 PM
Part of the current trend to see everything in summary is the lack of awareness that great writing tends to already be in its simplest, most accessible form. It may simply take 800 pages to state the simplest version of some ideas.
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
“it just reworks classically liberal metapolitics into the neoliberal “empire of intensities”…affect theory is another front of 90s privatization, like the Telecom Act and the Welfare Reform Act, but operating at the level of epistemology and aesthetics.”
www.its-her-factory.com/2026/01/i-fi...
www.its-her-factory.com/2026/01/i-fi...
I finally figured out what bothers me about affect theory
www.its-her-factory.com
January 21, 2026 at 9:58 PM
“it just reworks classically liberal metapolitics into the neoliberal “empire of intensities”…affect theory is another front of 90s privatization, like the Telecom Act and the Welfare Reform Act, but operating at the level of epistemology and aesthetics.”
www.its-her-factory.com/2026/01/i-fi...
www.its-her-factory.com/2026/01/i-fi...
This is the future, all bow before the notes app screenshot
Today’s the first time I received an essay submitted to the VLE as multiple JPG screenshots of a phone note-taking app. Anyone else?
January 23, 2026 at 3:25 PM
This is the future, all bow before the notes app screenshot
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
"Hans, are we on the board of peace?"
January 22, 2026 at 10:20 PM
"Hans, are we on the board of peace?"
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
This is one of the most compelling 'party political broadcasts' I've seen in decades. No wonder Labour is petrified about being eclipsed by the Green Party. There is an alternative to the politics of austerity and the weaponisation of prejudice and xenophobia and yes finally a glimmer of hope.
Help us make hope normal again.
Join the Green Party now.
Join the Green Party now.
January 23, 2026 at 8:41 AM
This is one of the most compelling 'party political broadcasts' I've seen in decades. No wonder Labour is petrified about being eclipsed by the Green Party. There is an alternative to the politics of austerity and the weaponisation of prejudice and xenophobia and yes finally a glimmer of hope.
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
Help us make hope normal again.
Join the Green Party now.
Join the Green Party now.
January 22, 2026 at 7:07 PM
Help us make hope normal again.
Join the Green Party now.
Join the Green Party now.
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
What a gracious response to this Alt text prompt, which in turn has prompted a follow.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and we apologise that we hadn’t been using alt text previously. We’ve now added alt text to all of our scheduled posts and will be including it on all posts going forward. We really appreciate you highlighting this for inclusivity — thank you.
January 23, 2026 at 9:11 AM
What a gracious response to this Alt text prompt, which in turn has prompted a follow.
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
The first paperback copy of my book Flooded Pasts: UNESCO, Nubia, and the Recolonization of Archaeology just arrived! Available on the 15th March from @cornellupress.bsky.social: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
January 21, 2026 at 11:34 AM
The first paperback copy of my book Flooded Pasts: UNESCO, Nubia, and the Recolonization of Archaeology just arrived! Available on the 15th March from @cornellupress.bsky.social: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
Reposted by Sam Grinsell
If you were thinking of writing a review of Bregman's recent Reith Lectures where would you pitch it?
January 20, 2026 at 5:38 PM
If you were thinking of writing a review of Bregman's recent Reith Lectures where would you pitch it?