Julia Laite
@julialaite.bsky.social
Teller of small stories. Professor of history at Birkbeck. Rider of bikes, grower of vegetables, Brook custodian & friend to five ducks. Townie Cantabrigian. Eternally homesick Newfoundlander; researching the island's history & the legacies of empire.
Pinned
Julia Laite
@julialaite.bsky.social
· Jun 27
The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey
Lydia Harvey was meant to disappear. She was young and working class; she'd walked the streets, worked in brothels, and had no money of her own. In 1910, politi
blackwells.co.uk
Hello new followers! If you like small histories of women surviving against the patriarchal odds, are interested in the history of trafficking, and are a nerd for historical details, then my book might be for you!
blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...
blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...
On of the most intimidating audiences I've ever spoken to....
Seriously though, thank you to all who came to hear my talk in Labrador. Thank you for listening & for sharing your stories. This place has 0.09 people and a million stories per square kilometre.
Seriously though, thank you to all who came to hear my talk in Labrador. Thank you for listening & for sharing your stories. This place has 0.09 people and a million stories per square kilometre.
November 10, 2025 at 7:36 PM
On of the most intimidating audiences I've ever spoken to....
Seriously though, thank you to all who came to hear my talk in Labrador. Thank you for listening & for sharing your stories. This place has 0.09 people and a million stories per square kilometre.
Seriously though, thank you to all who came to hear my talk in Labrador. Thank you for listening & for sharing your stories. This place has 0.09 people and a million stories per square kilometre.
I ended my first 24 hours in Happy Valley-Goose Bay with an amazing performance from Silver Wolf Band, playing their hometown in a brilliant local arts centre. Check them out! www.silverwolfband.com
November 9, 2025 at 3:59 PM
I ended my first 24 hours in Happy Valley-Goose Bay with an amazing performance from Silver Wolf Band, playing their hometown in a brilliant local arts centre. Check them out! www.silverwolfband.com
Adventures in Nitassinan, in the flood plain of the Mishta-shipu River and in the shadow of the mountains called Akami-Uapishkᵁ. Where the sky and the land are twice the size as they are other places, where beavers and muskrat swim in icy cloud rivers & where the silence is so deep it has a sound.
November 8, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Adventures in Nitassinan, in the flood plain of the Mishta-shipu River and in the shadow of the mountains called Akami-Uapishkᵁ. Where the sky and the land are twice the size as they are other places, where beavers and muskrat swim in icy cloud rivers & where the silence is so deep it has a sound.
Up early to begin my journey to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador! I've wanted to go ever since I heard my grandpa's stories of 'going on the Labrador'. I'm going to talk about my work on the Beothuk & to think with folks there about how we re-story the troubling & fascinating history of our region.
November 7, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Up early to begin my journey to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador! I've wanted to go ever since I heard my grandpa's stories of 'going on the Labrador'. I'm going to talk about my work on the Beothuk & to think with folks there about how we re-story the troubling & fascinating history of our region.
I have personally witnessed this immense change since arriving in the UK 22 years ago and these stats confirm my observations. It feels like there are twice as many motor vehicles on the road because there are.
Cycles are not the problem. They are the solution.
Cycles are not the problem. They are the solution.
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 10:45 AM
I have personally witnessed this immense change since arriving in the UK 22 years ago and these stats confirm my observations. It feels like there are twice as many motor vehicles on the road because there are.
Cycles are not the problem. They are the solution.
Cycles are not the problem. They are the solution.
Here's to the annual diwali-halloween-bonfire night mash-up with my friends. Here's to parkin & pumpkins & cider & samosas. Here's to light in the dark. Here's to all the blended cultures in the past and all the blended cultures yet to come
November 2, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Here's to the annual diwali-halloween-bonfire night mash-up with my friends. Here's to parkin & pumpkins & cider & samosas. Here's to light in the dark. Here's to all the blended cultures in the past and all the blended cultures yet to come
A perfect rainy autumn night to make my great-great-grandmother's gingerbread for her great-great-great grandchildren. A very old-fashioned recipe from my grandmother's head, scrawled by me.
November 1, 2025 at 7:49 PM
A perfect rainy autumn night to make my great-great-grandmother's gingerbread for her great-great-great grandchildren. A very old-fashioned recipe from my grandmother's head, scrawled by me.
Someone make me a fabric based on these nasturtium.
November 1, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Someone make me a fabric based on these nasturtium.
Kid the Younger just tried parma violets for the first time and is now spluttering around the house wailing, 'Oh my god, why? Why?'
November 1, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Kid the Younger just tried parma violets for the first time and is now spluttering around the house wailing, 'Oh my god, why? Why?'
Happy Halloween and a blessed Samhaim to all!
October 31, 2025 at 9:58 PM
Happy Halloween and a blessed Samhaim to all!
The allotment at sunset. Not pictured: the smell of quince wafting up from my arms.
October 28, 2025 at 4:31 PM
The allotment at sunset. Not pictured: the smell of quince wafting up from my arms.
Reposted by Julia Laite
I just had a brilliant seminar with my 1st years abt assessment in the age of AI. We chatted about what knowledge was; the value of making mistakes; what skills we are actually assessing; how we shouldn't sacrifice inclusive assessment (i.e. doubling down on exams) just to punish those who use AI.
October 27, 2025 at 9:43 PM
I just had a brilliant seminar with my 1st years abt assessment in the age of AI. We chatted about what knowledge was; the value of making mistakes; what skills we are actually assessing; how we shouldn't sacrifice inclusive assessment (i.e. doubling down on exams) just to punish those who use AI.
I just had a brilliant seminar with my 1st years abt assessment in the age of AI. We chatted about what knowledge was; the value of making mistakes; what skills we are actually assessing; how we shouldn't sacrifice inclusive assessment (i.e. doubling down on exams) just to punish those who use AI.
October 27, 2025 at 9:43 PM
I just had a brilliant seminar with my 1st years abt assessment in the age of AI. We chatted about what knowledge was; the value of making mistakes; what skills we are actually assessing; how we shouldn't sacrifice inclusive assessment (i.e. doubling down on exams) just to punish those who use AI.
Oh, Jamaica, you're in my thoughts. May all your hatches be battened.
October 27, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Oh, Jamaica, you're in my thoughts. May all your hatches be battened.
My gelder rose tree couldn't decide what autumn colour to wear so it put them all on.
October 27, 2025 at 10:42 AM
My gelder rose tree couldn't decide what autumn colour to wear so it put them all on.
I thought my shed was being broken into only to discover it was in fact Tux, my duck friend, throwing her body against my back door because I wasn't giving her lunch.
October 23, 2025 at 1:32 PM
I thought my shed was being broken into only to discover it was in fact Tux, my duck friend, throwing her body against my back door because I wasn't giving her lunch.
Here is my first publication from my new project on the history of colonial Newfoundland and the Beothuk people, and I'm rather nervous to put it out in the world. Genuinely, all thoughts on this work are welcome as I head into writing a book about it...
New in 'Transactions': 'Possible Maps: Newfoundland, 1763–1829' bit.ly/4oygf5V
@julialaite.bsky.social shows how overlapping maps highlight complexity of encounter with place over a coherence of colonial ideologies. What were peripheries of some people’s empires were centres of others' worlds 1/2
@julialaite.bsky.social shows how overlapping maps highlight complexity of encounter with place over a coherence of colonial ideologies. What were peripheries of some people’s empires were centres of others' worlds 1/2
October 23, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Here is my first publication from my new project on the history of colonial Newfoundland and the Beothuk people, and I'm rather nervous to put it out in the world. Genuinely, all thoughts on this work are welcome as I head into writing a book about it...
Dying. Someone please make this your next Only Fans project.
October 22, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Dying. Someone please make this your next Only Fans project.
I cannot quite describe how it feels to hear a proposal to deport millions of people coming from the ostensible 'right of centre' party. I cannot tell you how it feels to know this while waiting for my son's heart surgery: a claim on healthcare that would see me deported under this proposal.
Ostensibly the party of law and order with a plan to deport migrants even if they’ve done nothing more than live here legally and claim support to which they’ve contributed and are entitled. Years of targeting migrants disguised as concern about legality paving the way to this and open violence.
Here Lam explicitly sets out her proposal - which is official Conservative Party policy - to deport long-standing legal permanent residents who have *ever* claimed any benefit, including the state pension or child benefit (even if the child is British), or who earn less than £39K.
October 22, 2025 at 8:22 AM
I cannot quite describe how it feels to hear a proposal to deport millions of people coming from the ostensible 'right of centre' party. I cannot tell you how it feels to know this while waiting for my son's heart surgery: a claim on healthcare that would see me deported under this proposal.
I stand in solidarity with @sbsisters.bsky.social. 'A feminism that refuses to name these forces [of racism, colonialism, religious supremacy and patriarchy], or only challenges them when politically convenient, is not intersectional; it is complicit.'
southallblacksisters.org.uk/news/sbs-sta...
southallblacksisters.org.uk/news/sbs-sta...
SBS STATEMENT ON FILIA CONFERENCE - Southall Black Sisters
At a time when Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza has entered its second year, the FiLiA conference in Brighton highlighted deep schisms within a feminist movement committed to end violence against wo...
southallblacksisters.org.uk
October 21, 2025 at 10:36 AM
I stand in solidarity with @sbsisters.bsky.social. 'A feminism that refuses to name these forces [of racism, colonialism, religious supremacy and patriarchy], or only challenges them when politically convenient, is not intersectional; it is complicit.'
southallblacksisters.org.uk/news/sbs-sta...
southallblacksisters.org.uk/news/sbs-sta...
It is one of my great sorrows that I am never home for the utter majesty of autumn, when the blueberry bushes turn the hills fuchsia and the maple and birch are a riot of yellow and orange and gold and red.
October 21, 2025 at 9:27 AM
It is one of my great sorrows that I am never home for the utter majesty of autumn, when the blueberry bushes turn the hills fuchsia and the maple and birch are a riot of yellow and orange and gold and red.
Reposted by Julia Laite
Yarvin is a full-blown techno-fascist and the fact that the University of Oxford sees fit not only to platform him but to give him the floor entirely should sound the loudest alarm bell it's possible to sound about the number of elite fascist sympathizers in the UK right now.
“Following his lecture, Yarvin will debate the legendary British historian David Starkey on history and the future of conservatism.” Everything about this is so cursed. Masks off at the University of Oxford.
October 20, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Yarvin is a full-blown techno-fascist and the fact that the University of Oxford sees fit not only to platform him but to give him the floor entirely should sound the loudest alarm bell it's possible to sound about the number of elite fascist sympathizers in the UK right now.
Yarvin is a full-blown techno-fascist and the fact that the University of Oxford sees fit not only to platform him but to give him the floor entirely should sound the loudest alarm bell it's possible to sound about the number of elite fascist sympathizers in the UK right now.
“Following his lecture, Yarvin will debate the legendary British historian David Starkey on history and the future of conservatism.” Everything about this is so cursed. Masks off at the University of Oxford.
October 20, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Yarvin is a full-blown techno-fascist and the fact that the University of Oxford sees fit not only to platform him but to give him the floor entirely should sound the loudest alarm bell it's possible to sound about the number of elite fascist sympathizers in the UK right now.
Yarvin advocates for 'the liquidation of democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law,' to transform the government into “a heavily-armed, ultra-profitable corporation.”
Odd choice for a lecture dedicated to 'thoughtful conservatism'.
That's before we even get to the outright racist Starkey.
Odd choice for a lecture dedicated to 'thoughtful conservatism'.
That's before we even get to the outright racist Starkey.
“Following his lecture, Yarvin will debate the legendary British historian David Starkey on history and the future of conservatism.” Everything about this is so cursed. Masks off at the University of Oxford.
October 20, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Yarvin advocates for 'the liquidation of democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law,' to transform the government into “a heavily-armed, ultra-profitable corporation.”
Odd choice for a lecture dedicated to 'thoughtful conservatism'.
That's before we even get to the outright racist Starkey.
Odd choice for a lecture dedicated to 'thoughtful conservatism'.
That's before we even get to the outright racist Starkey.