Sophia Nicolov
@sophianicolov.bsky.social
Environmental historian. Mainly whales, whaling, ocean and empire. Mostly 20th century and contemporary history.
AHRC ECR Fellow at the Natural History Museum, London. Leading the project ‘Cetacean (Re)Sources’
*Views my own.
AHRC ECR Fellow at the Natural History Museum, London. Leading the project ‘Cetacean (Re)Sources’
*Views my own.
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.
April 15, 2025 at 2:56 AM
Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
I’m sorry but if your students use AI to write papers and you use AI to grade them zero school is happening. You are running together on a hamster wheel
Why even have a brain, any ideas, any ability to express them, any kind of communication with other people, any desire to solve problems or invent anything, any reason to learn, any use for your eyes or your heart, or any reason to teach or create
April 15, 2025 at 12:15 AM
I’m sorry but if your students use AI to write papers and you use AI to grade them zero school is happening. You are running together on a hamster wheel
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
I just attended a conference in the US. We had one speaker detained and two others turned away at the border.
There are great conferences and science in the US, but with the way things are right now, it’s too risky to attend.
Australian academics refuse to attend US conferences for fear of being detained
‘When academics fear travelling or partnering with US institutions, the impacts ripple through the entire global knowledge ecosystem,’ one says
www.theguardian.com
April 13, 2025 at 11:10 PM
I just attended a conference in the US. We had one speaker detained and two others turned away at the border.
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
'It’s not alright to amend and ram through an environmental law for political gain. Laws should naturally hold democracy within them. In changing the law to favour big industry, Labor and the Liberals are ignoring vast numbers of their people, both Tasmanian and the wider Australian population.'
No, Tasmania's salmon industry shouldn't be protected from environmental challenges — it prioritises profit over nature
'To undermine and ransom nature by prioritising the profits of multinational industries is not alright.'
www.crikey.com.au
April 4, 2025 at 6:02 PM
'It’s not alright to amend and ram through an environmental law for political gain. Laws should naturally hold democracy within them. In changing the law to favour big industry, Labor and the Liberals are ignoring vast numbers of their people, both Tasmanian and the wider Australian population.'
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
Medical bag of Henry Lillie, surgeon to the Scottish whaling fleet. He highlighted cruelty to whales and campaigned for new whaling laws. His book The Path through Penguin City (c.1955) is one of the most influential books in whaling conservation tinyurl.com/4mbnz87h
#ArchiveConservation #Archive30
#ArchiveConservation #Archive30
April 4, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Medical bag of Henry Lillie, surgeon to the Scottish whaling fleet. He highlighted cruelty to whales and campaigned for new whaling laws. His book The Path through Penguin City (c.1955) is one of the most influential books in whaling conservation tinyurl.com/4mbnz87h
#ArchiveConservation #Archive30
#ArchiveConservation #Archive30
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
Keep in mind: the NEH’s budget is 0.01% of the entire federal budget. This is not about savings - it is about the destruction of the Humanities and the critical thinking abilities that they teach. 🗃️
DOGE has now turned its sights on a small agency that provides support for community programs in every state. The National Endowment for the Humanities, which funds museums, historic sites, libraries, educators and media outlets across the country, has been told to slash staff by 70-80 percent.🧵
April 4, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Keep in mind: the NEH’s budget is 0.01% of the entire federal budget. This is not about savings - it is about the destruction of the Humanities and the critical thinking abilities that they teach. 🗃️
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
Call for Papers: 'Mobilising Imperial History: Crime, Policing and Control in the British Empire' bit.ly/3Ye0Pco
Dr Aparajita Mukhopadhyay (Kent) will host a workshop on 15 July. Calls for papers are now invited. This event is supported by the Society's Workshop Grants scheme for 24-25 #skystorians
Dr Aparajita Mukhopadhyay (Kent) will host a workshop on 15 July. Calls for papers are now invited. This event is supported by the Society's Workshop Grants scheme for 24-25 #skystorians
April 3, 2025 at 8:44 AM
Call for Papers: 'Mobilising Imperial History: Crime, Policing and Control in the British Empire' bit.ly/3Ye0Pco
Dr Aparajita Mukhopadhyay (Kent) will host a workshop on 15 July. Calls for papers are now invited. This event is supported by the Society's Workshop Grants scheme for 24-25 #skystorians
Dr Aparajita Mukhopadhyay (Kent) will host a workshop on 15 July. Calls for papers are now invited. This event is supported by the Society's Workshop Grants scheme for 24-25 #skystorians
My brilliant colleague @richardfallon.bsky.social at @nhm-london.bsky.social has a new book!
April 4, 2025 at 8:19 AM
My brilliant colleague @richardfallon.bsky.social at @nhm-london.bsky.social has a new book!
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
The now extinct ivory-billed woodpecker, as drawn on wood by an Indigenous person in Florida around the year 650 CE.
February 26, 2025 at 1:53 AM
The now extinct ivory-billed woodpecker, as drawn on wood by an Indigenous person in Florida around the year 650 CE.
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
"Can you imagine that some dude just wrote an answer with this level of detail? Raw, without any AI? And for free?" from nmn.gl/blog/ai-and-... this quote via @rwpickard.bsky.social brought home to me the huge loss enshittification enacts. We already had access to detailed, kind &thoughful expertise
New Junior Developers Can’t Actually Code
Something’s been bugging me about how new devs learn and I need to talk about it. We’re at this weird inflection point in software development. Every junior dev I talk to has Copilot or Claude or GPT ...
nmn.gl
April 2, 2025 at 9:06 PM
"Can you imagine that some dude just wrote an answer with this level of detail? Raw, without any AI? And for free?" from nmn.gl/blog/ai-and-... this quote via @rwpickard.bsky.social brought home to me the huge loss enshittification enacts. We already had access to detailed, kind &thoughful expertise
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
Our new edited book 'Forced Migration' is out in ebook form, with hardcopies coming very soon! Many thanks to my tireless co-editors @andrekosvarnava.bsky.social & @evansmithhist.bsky.social - check it out here: brill.com/display/titl...
@dgb-history.bsky.social
@dgb-history.bsky.social
Forced Migration: Exiles and Refugees in the UK and the British Empire, 1815–1949
"Forced Migration: Exiles and Refugees in the UK and the British Empire, 1815–1949" published on 24 Mar 2025 by Brill.
brill.com
March 26, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Our new edited book 'Forced Migration' is out in ebook form, with hardcopies coming very soon! Many thanks to my tireless co-editors @andrekosvarnava.bsky.social & @evansmithhist.bsky.social - check it out here: brill.com/display/titl...
@dgb-history.bsky.social
@dgb-history.bsky.social
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
Check out our latest OA article '‘A Scheming Unprincipled Native and Notorious Mischief Maker’: The 1882 Ngāpuhi Petition to Queen Victoria and Settler Disinformation in the Late Nineteenth-century British Empire' by Darren Reid. This is part of an upcoming special issue: doi.org/10.1080/0308...
‘A Scheming Unprincipled Native and Notorious Mischief Maker’: The 1882 Ngāpuhi Petition to Queen Victoria and Settler Disinformation in the Late Nineteenth-century British Empire
In light of the inability of most late-nineteenth-century Indigenous petitions to the British Crown to achieve their stated objectives, many historians conclude that the rise of settler self-govern...
doi.org
April 2, 2025 at 1:33 AM
Check out our latest OA article '‘A Scheming Unprincipled Native and Notorious Mischief Maker’: The 1882 Ngāpuhi Petition to Queen Victoria and Settler Disinformation in the Late Nineteenth-century British Empire' by Darren Reid. This is part of an upcoming special issue: doi.org/10.1080/0308...
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
More new collections added
• Scandinavian anarchist press
• Freedomways (US civil rights)
• Tribune Socialiste collection (France)
• Sources on the Development of the Socialist International 1907-1919
• Vietnam Courier (late 1960s)
hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/radical-onli...
• Scandinavian anarchist press
• Freedomways (US civil rights)
• Tribune Socialiste collection (France)
• Sources on the Development of the Socialist International 1907-1919
• Vietnam Courier (late 1960s)
hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/radical-onli...
April 1, 2025 at 11:41 AM
More new collections added
• Scandinavian anarchist press
• Freedomways (US civil rights)
• Tribune Socialiste collection (France)
• Sources on the Development of the Socialist International 1907-1919
• Vietnam Courier (late 1960s)
hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/radical-onli...
• Scandinavian anarchist press
• Freedomways (US civil rights)
• Tribune Socialiste collection (France)
• Sources on the Development of the Socialist International 1907-1919
• Vietnam Courier (late 1960s)
hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/radical-onli...
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
History as a university subject for all is in deep peril. By the end of this Parliament you might need a row of A*s to study it, in just a handful of elite institutions. Is that what you really want?
In a new episode of the BBC History Extra podcast, the Society's President, Lucy Noakes, considers the state of history in UK higher education today bit.ly/4cwSiaJ
Lucy discusses the impact of cuts, restoring a student numbers cap, and history's contribution to national culture #skystorians 1/2
Lucy discusses the impact of cuts, restoring a student numbers cap, and history's contribution to national culture #skystorians 1/2
April 1, 2025 at 7:21 PM
History as a university subject for all is in deep peril. By the end of this Parliament you might need a row of A*s to study it, in just a handful of elite institutions. Is that what you really want?
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
THIS! 👇🏽👇🏽
All genuine historical work is revisionist. It revises what we thought we knew, with new evidence & new interpretations, in the present, for the present, respecting the reality of the past AND the multiple things it can be made to say.
Everything else is self-interested myth-making.
Everything else is self-interested myth-making.
There's a list in here of the kinds of topics that people might cry "revisionist history!" about and they've nearly all been the subject of an EO at this point. I'm not claiming to be some visionary, just that this was all pretty clearly where these folks wanted to go, even in 2019.
March 28, 2025 at 10:05 AM
THIS! 👇🏽👇🏽
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
Past lecture from SEA US 2022- the lectures series @UNESCO Chair 🌊“Indigenous People, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and Climate Change”
by Paul Montgomery @PMonty18 @TCEHTCD
YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIQN...
#fishweirs
#OceanDecadeHeritage #MaritimeCulturalHeritage
by Paul Montgomery @PMonty18 @TCEHTCD
YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIQN...
#fishweirs
#OceanDecadeHeritage #MaritimeCulturalHeritage
www.youtube.com
March 26, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Past lecture from SEA US 2022- the lectures series @UNESCO Chair 🌊“Indigenous People, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and Climate Change”
by Paul Montgomery @PMonty18 @TCEHTCD
YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIQN...
#fishweirs
#OceanDecadeHeritage #MaritimeCulturalHeritage
by Paul Montgomery @PMonty18 @TCEHTCD
YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIQN...
#fishweirs
#OceanDecadeHeritage #MaritimeCulturalHeritage
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
One element of this problem is the widespread inability/unwillingness to distinguish between the slave trade and slavery. So many people (including students, broadcasters etc) conflate the two, and then magically abolish slavery as an institution and practice in the British colonial world in 1807.
Most Britons do not know scale of UK’s involvement in slavery, survey finds
Vast majority unaware how many people were enslaved and for how long, although poll finds support for reparations is rising
www.theguardian.com
March 26, 2025 at 9:13 AM
One element of this problem is the widespread inability/unwillingness to distinguish between the slave trade and slavery. So many people (including students, broadcasters etc) conflate the two, and then magically abolish slavery as an institution and practice in the British colonial world in 1807.
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
I have often reminded clients that what makes something a contribution is that it inspires others to take some of the ideas further.
I really enjoyed reading where Clare O'Farrell took my thoughts on impatience.
clare-ofarrell.com/2025/03/25/t...
I really enjoyed reading where Clare O'Farrell took my thoughts on impatience.
clare-ofarrell.com/2025/03/25/t...
The impatient writer
Most writers struggle to a greater or lesser degree with the blank page. In a newsletter post titled “Perfectionism vs Impatience”, the academic and scholarly writing coach, Jo VanEvery, deals with…
clare-ofarrell.com
March 26, 2025 at 9:22 AM
I have often reminded clients that what makes something a contribution is that it inspires others to take some of the ideas further.
I really enjoyed reading where Clare O'Farrell took my thoughts on impatience.
clare-ofarrell.com/2025/03/25/t...
I really enjoyed reading where Clare O'Farrell took my thoughts on impatience.
clare-ofarrell.com/2025/03/25/t...
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
Delighted to announce an exciting collaborative PhD studentship at @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social and the Imperial War Museum in London.
The project is entitled "Lithographs of the First World War: printmaking, propaganda and mobilisation" and funded by the AHRC.
👇👇👇
warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/his...
🗃️
The project is entitled "Lithographs of the First World War: printmaking, propaganda and mobilisation" and funded by the AHRC.
👇👇👇
warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/his...
🗃️
March 24, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Delighted to announce an exciting collaborative PhD studentship at @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social and the Imperial War Museum in London.
The project is entitled "Lithographs of the First World War: printmaking, propaganda and mobilisation" and funded by the AHRC.
👇👇👇
warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/his...
🗃️
The project is entitled "Lithographs of the First World War: printmaking, propaganda and mobilisation" and funded by the AHRC.
👇👇👇
warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/his...
🗃️
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
🚨Are you a professor from overseas, interested in working with Cambridge collections to bring expertise, skills & knowledge in an underrepresented area?
We would love to hear from you!
Check the latest Visiting Professorships scheme @leverhulme.bsky.social
www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/news-events/...
#GLAM
We would love to hear from you!
Check the latest Visiting Professorships scheme @leverhulme.bsky.social
www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/news-events/...
#GLAM
The Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professorships - Collections Connections Communities
The Leverhulme Trust has opened its second round of applications for Visiting Professorships: https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/visiting-professorships If you are interested in applying to the above Visiti...
www.ccc.cam.ac.uk
March 24, 2025 at 1:24 PM
🚨Are you a professor from overseas, interested in working with Cambridge collections to bring expertise, skills & knowledge in an underrepresented area?
We would love to hear from you!
Check the latest Visiting Professorships scheme @leverhulme.bsky.social
www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/news-events/...
#GLAM
We would love to hear from you!
Check the latest Visiting Professorships scheme @leverhulme.bsky.social
www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/news-events/...
#GLAM
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP): The Hidden Gender of Collections: Women and the Curation of Scientific Heritage phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/2233... #skystorians 🗃️
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP): The Hidden Gender of Collections: Women and the Curation of Scientific Heritage
Project opportunity - AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP): The Hidden Gender of Collections: Women and the Curation of Scientific Heritage at the University of Leeds
phd.leeds.ac.uk
March 24, 2025 at 5:42 PM
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP): The Hidden Gender of Collections: Women and the Curation of Scientific Heritage phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/2233... #skystorians 🗃️
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
Crises don’t pause just because the world looks away.
Cholera deaths jumped 32% in February, driven by conflict, displacement, and climate disasters. Weak infrastructure & limited healthcare mean a disease is killing people that clean water and sanitation could prevent
🧵
Cholera deaths jumped 32% in February, driven by conflict, displacement, and climate disasters. Weak infrastructure & limited healthcare mean a disease is killing people that clean water and sanitation could prevent
🧵
Multi-Country Outbreak of Cholera, External Situation Report #24, Published 20 March 2025 - South Sudan
Situation Report in English on South Sudan and 28 other countries about Coordination, Health, Epidemic and more; published on 20 Mar 2025 by WHO
reliefweb.int
March 20, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Crises don’t pause just because the world looks away.
Cholera deaths jumped 32% in February, driven by conflict, displacement, and climate disasters. Weak infrastructure & limited healthcare mean a disease is killing people that clean water and sanitation could prevent
🧵
Cholera deaths jumped 32% in February, driven by conflict, displacement, and climate disasters. Weak infrastructure & limited healthcare mean a disease is killing people that clean water and sanitation could prevent
🧵
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
World War Zoos, my new history of #zoos and World War II, has hit the warehouse.
Much more between now and release date: April 22.
Hit me up for interviews, visits (live and Zoom), podcasts, etc. -- I am up for any chance to talk zoos, war, politics, & animals!
@uchicagopress.bsky.social
Much more between now and release date: April 22.
Hit me up for interviews, visits (live and Zoom), podcasts, etc. -- I am up for any chance to talk zoos, war, politics, & animals!
@uchicagopress.bsky.social
March 19, 2025 at 8:02 PM
World War Zoos, my new history of #zoos and World War II, has hit the warehouse.
Much more between now and release date: April 22.
Hit me up for interviews, visits (live and Zoom), podcasts, etc. -- I am up for any chance to talk zoos, war, politics, & animals!
@uchicagopress.bsky.social
Much more between now and release date: April 22.
Hit me up for interviews, visits (live and Zoom), podcasts, etc. -- I am up for any chance to talk zoos, war, politics, & animals!
@uchicagopress.bsky.social
Reposted by Sophia Nicolov
Feels wrong to celebrate while academia is on 🔥, but this week I got the lovely cover for my long overdue book *The Sweet Taste of Empire: Sugar, Mastery and Pleasure in the Anglo Caribbean* forthcoming from UPenn Press!
#RaceB4Race
#RenSA2025
#RSA2025
#Shax2025
#RaceB4Race
#RenSA2025
#RSA2025
#Shax2025
March 19, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Feels wrong to celebrate while academia is on 🔥, but this week I got the lovely cover for my long overdue book *The Sweet Taste of Empire: Sugar, Mastery and Pleasure in the Anglo Caribbean* forthcoming from UPenn Press!
#RaceB4Race
#RenSA2025
#RSA2025
#Shax2025
#RaceB4Race
#RenSA2025
#RSA2025
#Shax2025