Will Tullett
@willtullett.bsky.social
He/him. Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at University of York. Books on 'Smell in Eighteenth-Century England' and 'Smell and the Past'. #smellhistory #smellstudies #sensoryhistory
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Will Tullett
@willtullett.bsky.social
· Nov 14
Hello new followers! I'm a historian at the University of York who works on histories of smells and smelling. Any sense of personality I possess mainly revolves around my two cats. I'm writing a big history of smell for a broader audience for Yale University Press. I like making people sniff things.
Went to see Marty Supreme last weekend and good lord what a weird film. It's not bad but it's completely at odds with how it was promoted - logo-bearing tracksuit tops dolled out to people as if the titular character, whose ambition hurts everybody around him, is something to be imitated.
January 7, 2026 at 4:10 PM
Went to see Marty Supreme last weekend and good lord what a weird film. It's not bad but it's completely at odds with how it was promoted - logo-bearing tracksuit tops dolled out to people as if the titular character, whose ambition hurts everybody around him, is something to be imitated.
Reposted by Will Tullett
If the Palestine Action hunger strikers die - which they could do at any moment, as they are now very close to the end - it will be the government that killed them. Today’s column explains why. Please share, and write urgently to your MP.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Let’s be clear: if the Palestine Action hunger strikers die, the government will bear moral responsibility | George Monbiot
The three remaining hunger strikers have been convicted of nothing. Yet with astonishing cruelty, ministers refuse to listen to their reasonable demands, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com
January 7, 2026 at 8:07 AM
If the Palestine Action hunger strikers die - which they could do at any moment, as they are now very close to the end - it will be the government that killed them. Today’s column explains why. Please share, and write urgently to your MP.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Jesse Norman doing the usual ‘I got to study classics but the oiks must study engineering‘.
'Jesse Norman MP has lauded the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE) as an institution “not just focused on marginal educational gain, but on transformational improvement”.' 1/3
Is this tiny engineering institute really the future of HE?
New provider has been lauded by politicians and the media alike due to its different approach that seeks to ‘build a new type of university for a new type of undergraduate’. But what lessons can it te...
www.timeshighereducation.com
January 7, 2026 at 8:34 AM
Jesse Norman doing the usual ‘I got to study classics but the oiks must study engineering‘.
A piece in the Telegraph today (www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/27e9c89...) that reminds everybody that Cecilia Bembibre and I are interested in the UK smells that YOU might want to preserve for posterity (and you can log them here: smelluk.org/participate/)
UK Heritage Smell Inventory - Smell Heritage UK
The research is part of an investigation on the smells that people in the United Kingdom consider meaningful and would like to preserve for the future. The study is led by UCL Institute for Sustainabl...
smelluk.org
January 5, 2026 at 10:02 AM
A piece in the Telegraph today (www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/27e9c89...) that reminds everybody that Cecilia Bembibre and I are interested in the UK smells that YOU might want to preserve for posterity (and you can log them here: smelluk.org/participate/)
Turns out people who work in radio prefer it to podcasts. Who’d have thought that eh?
January 2, 2026 at 10:30 AM
Turns out people who work in radio prefer it to podcasts. Who’d have thought that eh?
2025 has been a weird year. Did some good things, but they were outweighed by several keenly felt losses. Congratulations, nonetheless, to all of those celebrating a bumper 2025.
December 31, 2025 at 3:19 PM
2025 has been a weird year. Did some good things, but they were outweighed by several keenly felt losses. Congratulations, nonetheless, to all of those celebrating a bumper 2025.
Merry Ratmas one and all.
December 25, 2025 at 9:03 AM
Merry Ratmas one and all.
Shout out to Scrivener, a text editing and writing program that basically only gives writers useful features and thus is admirably AI free.
December 20, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Shout out to Scrivener, a text editing and writing program that basically only gives writers useful features and thus is admirably AI free.
Nicola Barker‘s TonyInterruptor may be the best book I’ve read with an image of somebody farting on the cover. A high accolade from me.
December 19, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Nicola Barker‘s TonyInterruptor may be the best book I’ve read with an image of somebody farting on the cover. A high accolade from me.
Oh no the Governor of the Bank of England compared AI to the Industrial Revolution
December 19, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Oh no the Governor of the Bank of England compared AI to the Industrial Revolution
If a material is so essential to British security and well being then maybe you should just nationalise it rather than bankrolling private companies…
December 18, 2025 at 12:44 PM
If a material is so essential to British security and well being then maybe you should just nationalise it rather than bankrolling private companies…
Reposted by Will Tullett
The government's keenness to protect "good jobs" in manufacturing contrasts with its inaction in the face of the destruction of "good jobs" in universities. What's going on here is something other than economics.
December 18, 2025 at 11:23 AM
The government's keenness to protect "good jobs" in manufacturing contrasts with its inaction in the face of the destruction of "good jobs" in universities. What's going on here is something other than economics.
On first reading this headline I thought it was the latest Adrian Chiles piece.
Take that Santa! This is me upside-down and naked in a fireplace – Brooke DiDonato’s best photograph
Take that Santa! This is me upside-down and naked in a fireplace – Brooke DiDonato’s best photograph
‘I wanted to make a perfect square with my body. My back hurt for days afterwards. People often want to know if the kitten is real’
www.theguardian.com
December 17, 2025 at 6:05 PM
On first reading this headline I thought it was the latest Adrian Chiles piece.
it’s mainly a 200 page book review because the reviewer is incapable of writing lucid, concise, and therefore readable prose. It’s the kind of stuff you write as a first year undergraduate when you think unnecessary verbiage, long words, and even longer sentences are the mark of clever writing.
An academic disliked an Oxford Very Short Introduction (145 pages) in his field so much that he wrote a 200 page book review attacking it. www.pierre-legrand.com/ewExternalFi...
December 12, 2025 at 8:15 AM
it’s mainly a 200 page book review because the reviewer is incapable of writing lucid, concise, and therefore readable prose. It’s the kind of stuff you write as a first year undergraduate when you think unnecessary verbiage, long words, and even longer sentences are the mark of clever writing.
The lack of self awareness in this review (or the few pages I read before I put it in the metaphorical waste paper bin) is genuinely gobsmacking.
An academic disliked an Oxford Very Short Introduction (145 pages) in his field so much that he wrote a 200 page book review attacking it. www.pierre-legrand.com/ewExternalFi...
December 12, 2025 at 8:09 AM
The lack of self awareness in this review (or the few pages I read before I put it in the metaphorical waste paper bin) is genuinely gobsmacking.
Reposted by Will Tullett
Really excited to share that the first episode of my podcast with @universityofleeds.bsky.social Cultural Collections is now live! 🎧
Based on my 2024 Bedford Fellowship research into emotion in advertising. This episode looks at fairy lights — a Christmassy listen ✨
Based on my 2024 Bedford Fellowship research into emotion in advertising. This episode looks at fairy lights — a Christmassy listen ✨
Selling Sentiment 1: Comfort and Joy
Podcast Episode · Gloves Off: Stories from Cultural Collections & Galleries at the University of Leeds · 11/12/2025 · 37m
podcasts.apple.com
December 12, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Really excited to share that the first episode of my podcast with @universityofleeds.bsky.social Cultural Collections is now live! 🎧
Based on my 2024 Bedford Fellowship research into emotion in advertising. This episode looks at fairy lights — a Christmassy listen ✨
Based on my 2024 Bedford Fellowship research into emotion in advertising. This episode looks at fairy lights — a Christmassy listen ✨
so we've gone from 'there's going to be a narrative element for E&I for REF to 'nah actually maybe not'. I mean fine it's less work I guess but why bother floating it in the first place...
December 10, 2025 at 11:16 AM
so we've gone from 'there's going to be a narrative element for E&I for REF to 'nah actually maybe not'. I mean fine it's less work I guess but why bother floating it in the first place...
One thing that I'm not clear on yet is: does the ruling on the portability of long-form outputs within a 5 year window also apply to material underpinning an ICS?
December 10, 2025 at 11:04 AM
One thing that I'm not clear on yet is: does the ruling on the portability of long-form outputs within a 5 year window also apply to material underpinning an ICS?
My take-away so far is that buckets are very important to the government's research strategy. Big times ahead for material culture researchers.
December 10, 2025 at 10:27 AM
My take-away so far is that buckets are very important to the government's research strategy. Big times ahead for material culture researchers.
Reposted by Will Tullett
And we're off! UUK's Research & Innovation conference with panels on REF2029 are now underway, as pause transitions into the forward march toward November 2028, and beyond. 1/n
December 10, 2025 at 9:57 AM
And we're off! UUK's Research & Innovation conference with panels on REF2029 are now underway, as pause transitions into the forward march toward November 2028, and beyond. 1/n
it's classic 'could have been an email' stuff this. you'd feel right mugged off if you'd paid £300-400 to be in the room to hear it.
December 10, 2025 at 10:16 AM
it's classic 'could have been an email' stuff this. you'd feel right mugged off if you'd paid £300-400 to be in the room to hear it.
waiting, as I am sure we all are, to find out what tomfoolery is coming down the REF pipeline this morning
a man in a suit sits at a desk in front of a computer monitor
ALT: a man in a suit sits at a desk in front of a computer monitor
media.tenor.com
December 10, 2025 at 9:55 AM
waiting, as I am sure we all are, to find out what tomfoolery is coming down the REF pipeline this morning
Can’t tell if Pluribus is very good or extremely stupid.
December 9, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Can’t tell if Pluribus is very good or extremely stupid.
I will never tire of reading ordinary people's descriptions of the smells that have defined them. It feels like the most intimate, generous, entry into another person's life. A person unfurls their world and it wraps those wreaths of scent about you both and draws you together.
December 9, 2025 at 2:26 PM
I will never tire of reading ordinary people's descriptions of the smells that have defined them. It feels like the most intimate, generous, entry into another person's life. A person unfurls their world and it wraps those wreaths of scent about you both and draws you together.