Pernille Strande-Sørensen
LightNews LightNews
banner
spstrande.bsky.social
Pernille Strande-Sørensen
@spstrande.bsky.social
1.5K followers 3.8K following 180 posts
18C & 19C Scots ballads. Macpherson, Burns, Scott, & Child. R. Browning. Text theory, Folklore, Book History. Semiotics. Lib.Soc. Feminist. There’s a photo of me somewhere in my posts.
Also on Mastodon:@spstrande.mastodon
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
spstrande.bsky.social
Pernille Strande-Sørensen @spstrande.bsky.social · Nov 11
My academic trajectory was a bit all over the place. My B.A. was English lit(major) & folkloristics (minor). My masters was in medieval lit and languages, so my PhD tried to mix all that: what happens in terms of txt/genre/value when oral txts are written down.
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
peteralanross.bsky.social
Many thanks to Alistair Braidwood for inviting me to discuss Upon A White Horse on his "Scots Whay Hae!" podcast. There are so few opportunities to talk about arts and culture in Scotland now. I think Ali does a real service to the country. www.scotswhayhae.com/post/drawing...
Drawing From The Past: The Scots Whay Hae! Podcast Talks To Peter Ross...
For the latest Scots Whay Hae! podcast we welcome back writer Peter Ross to talk to Ali about his latest book Upon A White Horse: Journeys in Ancient Britain and Ireland - published by Headline - and ...
www.scotswhayhae.com
November 16, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
anneberra.bsky.social
Oh goody
World still on track for catastrophic 2.6C temperature rise, report finds
Fossil fuel emissions have hit a record high while many nations have done too little to avert deadly global heating
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
fakehistoryhunter.net
The finale of the great TV comedy show Blackadder goes Forth.
Back then I didn't expect one of the funniest programmes ever to end with a scene that makes me cry every time I see it.
Every single time.
November 11, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
starcrossed2018.bsky.social
Today is the OFFICIAL publication day for TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE! Please indulge me: I want to say a little (perhaps rather a lot) about it and share my acknowledgements - and a discount code! Appropriately,🧵1/10
The cover of a book. Title reads TEXTILE SHAKESPEARE. The illustration shows black embroidery of flowers, fruit, animals and insects on a stained cream ground.
November 11, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
tatiana1979.bsky.social
#FairyTaleTuesday A Summary & Analysis of Angela Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’
Carter takes Charles Perrault's Bluebeard fairy tale as the basis for ‘The Bloody Chamber’, but makes several important changes to the original story. interestingliterature.com/2022/12/ange...
Art- Rebecca Sutherland
November 11, 2025 at 10:49 AM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
sarahebond.bsky.social
Told my editor this morning that I almost threw up in a sink while attempting to recreate garum, but the truth is I also threw up learning how to tan Roman leather using urine and feces to clean the hides.

Reconstructive archaeology: not for those with weak stomachs.
November 10, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
asls.org.uk
CFP: Fantasy’s Present Pasts
The inaugural European Conference on the Fantastic
23–25 June 2026 @uofglasgow.bsky.social

Proposals invited for papers on how speculative genres engage with the interplay of past & present. Deadline 12 December
#litcrit #fantasy
fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/20...
Fantasy’s Present Pasts – Call for Papers and Sessions – Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic
fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk
November 10, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
scattyscribbler.bsky.social
A HUGE shout-out to @scottishbooktrust.bsky.social!
Opportunities for writers. Book lists. Schools and organisations can apply for Live Literature and choose from hundreds of Scotland-based authors, ensuring a fair fee and expenses for writers. THANK YOU!
www.scottishbooktrust.com/writing-and-...
Writing and authors
Tell the next part of your story. Apply to our writing programmes for targeted support, discover the magic of an author visit or delve into inspirational writing tips, publishing advice and competitio...
www.scottishbooktrust.com
November 9, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
thegodpodcast.com
Hi Bluesky,

God just needs 17k followers to hit 600k. And then 66k more after that to hit 666k. That will be funny.

Thanks,

God
November 9, 2025 at 3:23 AM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
meadekrosby.bsky.social
Thinking only of Rosalind Franklin today, and what was stolen from her (and so many other female scientists alongside her).
Rosalind Franklin and the damage of gender harassment
Spurred by a recent report on sexual harassment in academia, our columnist revisits a historical case and reflects on what has changed—and what hasn’t
www.science.org
November 7, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
bibliowingate.bsky.social
Decided today was a day where I needed Disney movie as the background to working on this bookseller inventory. Robin Hood seemed appropriate (though it's also my favorite. I wore out the VHS...) And now you too have this music in your head :D
a cartoon rooster is playing an ukulele and wearing a blue shirt
Alt: The rooster from the animated Robin Hood movie stepping in time with the music playing his lute
media.tenor.com
November 8, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
asls.org.uk
“The understated power of this writing is extraordinary”
—Prof Alan Riach re-examines Neil Gunn’s legacy

Neil M. Gunn (1891–1973), one of the most important & influential writers of the 20th-century Scottish renaissance, was born #OTD, 8 Nov – a 🎂 🧵
1/5
💙📚
www.thenational.scot/news/1563761...
Neil Gunn and the search for Scotland’s soul
Alan Riach re-examines the legacy of a great modern novelist who described the relation between spirit and matter like no other
www.thenational.scot
November 8, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
openculture.bsky.social
An Archive of Handwritten Traditional Mexican Cookbooks Is Now Online
An Archive of Handwritten Traditional Mexican Cookbooks Is Now Online
“The search for authentic Mexican food—or rather, the struggle to define what that meant—has been going on for two hundred years,” writes Jeffrey Pilcher at Guernica. Arguments over national cuisine f...
www.openculture.com
November 8, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
jasonkoebler.bsky.social
Once you start thinking of AI as a war on humanity, on human thought, on human inquiry, on human labor, on nuance and critical thinking, it slots in pretty seamlessly with the right wing ideological project, oligarchical political projects, big tech's political projects, etc
The future being pushed by both AI boosters and educational censors is one where access to information is tightly controlled. Children will not be allowed to read certain books or learn certain narratives. “Research” will be performed only through one of a select few artificial intelligence tools owned by AI giants which are uniformly aligned behind the Trump administration and which have gone to the ends of the earth to prevent their black box machines from spitting out “woke” answers lest they catch the ire of the administration. School boards and library boards, forced to comply with increasingly restrictive laws, funding cuts, and the threat of being defunded entirely, leap at the chance to be considered forward looking by embracing AI tools, or apply for grants from government groups like the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which is increasingly giving out grants specifically to AI projects.
November 6, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
heymrsbond.com
Teaching is not fun right now.

It’s actually pretty draining and soul-crushing.
November 8, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
connorclang.bsky.social
imagine a podcast that switches to video and you realize it's been recorded like this the whole time
November 6, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
dgplacenames.bsky.social
Made a site where you can practise Old English scansion. You get given a half-line and have to select which of Sievers's five types it belongs to.
Just Beowulf for now, but that's 6364 half-lines to be getting on with: dgplacenames.github.io/scansion/

[Data: clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/]
November 7, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
asls.org.uk
Alasdair Gray’s “The Great Bear Cult” is a script for a (rejected) documentary on the movement which briefly swept Britain in the 1930s. Although mention of the Cult is still suppressed, @canongate.co.uk includes the script in UNLIKELY STORIES, MOSTLY
#HugABearDay🧸
💙📚
canongate.co.uk/books/100-un...
THE GREAT BEAR CULT In 1975 there came straight to Glasgow from a Berlin gig Pete Brown the poet, Pete Brown the friend of Horowitz, Pete Brown the songwriter and sometimes pop-song singer. And I dined with him at the home of Barbara and Lindley Nelson. As usual Pete was with a new girlfriend who received most of his conversation, but first he showed the Nelsons and myself a souvenir of Berlin, and that was what we discussed. It was a street photograph of Pete arm in arm with a bear. Berlin takes its name from a bear, so commercial cameramen prowl the streets with a suitably dressed partner. But though the bear in the picture was a disguised man he appeared so naturally calm, so benignly strong, that beside him Pete (who in isolation is as calm, benign and shaggy as a sapient man can be) looked comparatively shifty and agley. We were also intrigued to find the image in the photograph oddly familiar though Barbara, Lindley and myself had never seen another like it. Did it recall dim memories of our infancy in the thirties when the British bear cult was still a political force? As we discussed what we knew of the cult I realized that the time had come for a television programme on it, one which mingled public archive material (photographs, films and sound recordings) with dramatic re-enactments of what took place in private. In 1975 the British Broadcasting Corporation was celebrating the fiftieth year of its charter, archive material was being daily broadcast and displayed, surely the BBC would be interested? It was not. I discovered that although Lord Reith's restrictions upon clothing, drink and sexual conduct had for years been matter for jest in the corridors of Broadcasting House and the Television Centre, his tabu upon all reference to the cult after Ramsay McDonald's famous broadcast to the nation was still in force. The BBC rejected my documentary drama. I offer it here, hoping readers will not be afraid to view it upon the television screen of their minds. [ILLUSTRATION: In the centre is Rupert the Bear's smiling but slightly unsettling face, a tartan scar around his neck; on either side, between two tall bearskin hats as worn by British guardsmen on parade, stand two portly, Winnie-the-Pooh-like figures, facing inwards, heads tilted proudly skywards. Each has their right arm raised straight out and up in what Elon Musk would unconvincingly claim was a Roman salute.] 1 STUDIO INTRODUCTION To a recording of The Teddy Bears' Picnic the camera advances upon a commentator leaning casually against a table on which is displayed: a fancy-dress bear costume, a toy teddy bear, a Buckingham Palace sentry's bearskin helmet, a Daily Express Rupert Bear cartoon annual, and a copy of The House at Pooh Corner. RECORDING: If you go down to the woods today you're sure of a big surprise! If you go down to the woods today you'd better go in disguise! For every bear that ever there was Has gathered there for certain because Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic! COMMENTATOR: If you go down to the woods today, you'd better go in disguise. Yes. And if you were clearing out an old cupboard recently it's very likely that you found one of these at the back of it. (HE LIFTS THE BEAR COSTUME AND STANDS UP) Perhaps curiosity prompted you to try it on. You can slip into them quite easily . . . (HE PUTS IT ON) Once the zip is pulled up it's surprising how warm and comfortable you feel. And then, if you adjust the mask over your head, like this . . . (HOLLOWLY) you are not only completely weather-proof, your voice has acquired a hollow, resounding note. (HE REMOVES THE MASK) The costume you found was almost certainly a relic of the great bear cult which swept Britain in the early thirties. Nobody who remembers those years likes talking about them, but most of you watching tonight were born rather later, so perhaps the time has come to give the origins of the cult, its wildfire spread and wholly unexpected collapse, some sort of dispassionate examination. So let me take you back to 1931, a year of world-wide trade-depression and economic crisis. There are nearly three million unemployed in Britain alone. A former socialist is prime minister of a National Coalition government with the conservative leader as his deputy. In Trafalgar Square the photographic business is in a bad way. 2 TELECINE: TRAFALGAR SQUARE, STUDIO, STREETS, LAWCOURT Henry Busby, a licensed street photographer, squabbles with two others for the custom of a foreign visitor ("I saw him first!") who manages to escape all of them. Henry returns glumly to Book cover: UNLIKELY STORIES, MOSTLY Alasdair Gray After the author's name is a picture of a small wooden craft with a paddlewheel. An angry-looking duck's head pokes up out of the top. Surrounding the title are fourteen black and white squares, each containing a human skull. Within each skull, against a gold background, are curled-up human fetuses, about to be born. Each one has a small pair of wings sprouting from their shoulders. At the base of the cover is an oriental-looking view. Against a red background, a city is in flames. In the distance, a tiny man hauls on s string, which reaches up to a winged kite, to which is strapped a small child. The flying child fills most of the scene. At the bottom is the a capital C (standing for the publisher, Canongate), above the words THE CANONS
November 7, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
davidandress.bsky.social
Jesus fucking Christ.
damonberes.com Damon Beres @damonberes.com · 15d
NEW: Common Crawl, the massive archiver of the web, has gotten cozy with AI companies and is providing paywalled articles for training data. They’re also lying to publishers who have asked for material to be removed. “The robots are people too,” CC’s exec director told us when we asked about this.
The Nonprofit Feeding the Entire Internet to AI Companies
Common Crawl claims to provide a public benefit, but it lies to publishers about its activities.
www.theatlantic.com
November 4, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
libro.fm
Your indie needs your help this holiday season 💕

Support your bookshop when you gift audiobooks from Libro.fm.*

*An employee-owned, Certified B Corp…and not a giant corporation
November 4, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
leximcmenamin.com
thank you for the outpouring of support!

those of us laid off from Teen Vogue yesterday are now sharing our GoFundMe to help us cover our emergency expenses now that we've lost our incomes, as we get back on our feet.
Donate to Help Laid-Off Teen Vogue Staffers Recover, organized by Lexi McMenamin
More than half the team at Teen Vogue was laid off this week by our parent co… Lexi McMenamin needs your support for Help Laid-Off Teen Vogue Staffers Recover
www.gofundme.com
November 4, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
tsakraklides.bsky.social
It takes immense courage to wake up from the matrix, knowing already that doing so will get you depressed. How many of us wake up on a Monday, look outside our window and think : “What have we done to this world?”
November 4, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
lenamstrid.bsky.social
There is a free online seminar on the book today, which I will sadly miss, as I’m outside digging pits and postholes. ☹️ Hope there will be an article soon. 1/2
November 4, 2025 at 4:25 AM
Reposted by Pernille Strande-Sørensen
agrayarchive.bsky.social
📣PLEASE SHARE 📣 Call for Writers! Two 8-month residencies (2026) at AGA & @aowensarchive.bsky.social exploring Neglected Voices. Supported by Creative Scotland. £12k fee, flexible structure. Apply by 4 Dec 2025 👉 sorcha@thealasdairgrayarchive.com, Link on website to application brief & criteria✍️
November 3, 2025 at 7:17 AM