Becca Harrison
@BeccaEHarrison
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Media historian. Dr of film. Sight & Sound, BBC, MAI, etc. Researching Star Wars and the environment. They promised a trickle, but we can cascade. She/her.
UK
Joined August 2011
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Pinned Tweet
I have FINALLY ranked all of
#StarWars
based on screen time for women. This is now canon. Don't @ me.
43% Last Jedi
37% Force Awakens
35% Rogue One
23% Return of the Jedi
22% Empire Strikes Back
20% Phantom Menace
18% Attack of the Clones
17% Revenge of the Sith
15% A New Hope
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So I told Piers Morgan he's a fascist-enabling cunt who's doing serious damage to our country. He was not impressed. Which has made my morning
Pretty sure Piers Morgan is in the cafe I'm in who dares me to call him a cunt and ruin his breakfast
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My project, entitled ‘Why can’t I connect to eduroam?’ is an interdisciplinary study drawing on exasperation, IT desks, and a back-up data plan. Conducted over a decade, this mixed-methodology research uses autoethnography and other people’s angry tweets to ask why the network
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Tomorrow night there's a lunar eclipse causing a blood moon lasting 53mins. Ample time to synch our periods, hex the patriarchy and maybe cast a rain spell. The coven meets at 9, bring familiars.
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Somehow I don't think a seven-month-old pic of a doctor is quite as misleading as the doctored pics that lost you that job at the Mirror though, right Piers?
Hi Becca, so lovely to meet you. Just an FYI, Trump doesn’t run our country.
ps I’d update your profile pic - been a few years hasn’t it..
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About 2months ago Buckingham Palace pressured the govt to censor The Crown because the royals didn't like how the show represented their treatment of Diana.
I'm no PR expert but maybe bullying Meghan Markle in full public view isn't a great strategy to prove it was all fiction?
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Pretty sure Piers Morgan is in the cafe I'm in who dares me to call him a cunt and ruin his breakfast
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Polite request: could the University of Glasgow comms team (hi!) please stop monitoring my Twitter feed and passing info to other universities’ management teams? It’s creepy and re-traumatising for me so please stop (also you’ll be hearing from my union reps in due course)
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Oh Piers, at least quote me correctly - there was no 'fucking' in there. Perhaps it's that lack of attention to detail that stopped magazines and newspapers inviting you to write for them? Or it could be your support for fascist ideology... difficult to say, at this point.
Woman who calls me a 'f**king fascist-enabling c**t' in a café because I interviewed the US President becomes liberal heroine & invited to write for a magazine about her behaviour.
What a joke.
Thank God I'm leaving this country for a few weeks - people are losing their minds.
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As a historian who has actually read letters and diaries and newspapers from the actual Second World War I can assure you that the notion that Britons were happy about being bombed, uprooted and watching people die is categorically untrue.
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Thinking about how in just 15yrs we've gone from Jamie Oliver getting political support for increasing salad portions in school meals to Marcus Rashford begging the govt not to let kids starve in the holidays and local businesses stepping in because politicians don't care
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It's not up to audiences or distributors to 'save cinemas' during a deadly pandemic.
It's not up to students or staff to 'save universities'.
It's not up to theatremakers, wedding planners, publicans or anyone else to make sectors viable.
THE GOVT SHOULD BE OFFERING BAILOUTS
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I’m seeing a lot of articles about “‘poor quality courses.’”
Seems like a strange way to say ‘Sunak vows to cut funds to arts & humanities courses, especially those taken by students from low-income households, after successive Tory govts decimate the UK’s arts sectors’
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And no it's not nice, but not as bad as normalising racism, sexism and dangerously harmful politics
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Raging so hard. Pitched article to
@guardian
on gender + film criticism on Sunday. They accepted; I was delighted. Filed early Monday. They didn't respond for 2 days despite my follow up.
Today: we pulled your piece because we've run a similar article instead. BY A MAN.
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Wanted: angry feminist academics with experience in coven-forming or similar. Must be willing to participate in Greek tragedy inspired acts of revenge and retribution. Apply within.
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People criticised the Kasabian tweet for not being sympathetic enough to Tom Meighan's mental health but actually what they should be criticised for is framing his domestic violence as a mental health concern. Fuck, and I cannot say this loudly enough, all the way off with that
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Well this is a big moment. For 2yrs a team at Al Jazeera have been working to expose how UK universities cover up sexual violence and protect abusers. The first story is out today. Mine - which names the serial abuser at the University Glasgow that I never could - is out soon
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If I've been a bit quiet of late (well, quiet for me) it's because I've been on pins waiting to share news that's now official... this summer I'm joining the Open University as Lecturer in Film & Media! I am, as might be imagined, thrilled, excited, OVER THE MOON about the move
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I'm seeing a lot of 'join a union' tweets, so here's a list of which union supports each sector and job type. It might be your best shot at surviving the pandemic in England. The membership fees will be worth it
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Your regular reminder that an abusive academic was going to plagiarise my work - even sent me the book proposal - and other women said he did the same to them, too. When I told everyone he started a defamation case against me. His institution know and afaik he’s still in post 🤷🏻♀️
A Cambridge history professor copied and pasted *pages* of an undergrad’s weekly coursework essays into an essay, which he then published in a journal as his own work… and he’s not been fired because it was deemed to be an accident.
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And OF COURSE I'm really sorry to score your fav A New Hope last, I really am, and I thought the prequels were awful too BUT
@rianjohnson
wins here for giving women almost equal screen time and TLJ passing the Bechdel test more than once. Them's the rules so...
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I'm assuming that anyone claiming PhDs should be completed in three years has found a solution to the academic mental health crisis. Please, do wave that magic wand, we're all dying to see this trick
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So we're clear, an account with 600 followers says students choosing Media Studies at A Level is a crisis. Now 1000s of people are retweeting it and giving it attention. Which means the poster will end up on tv tonight setting the terms of a 'debate' about MS. I am so tired
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If you didn’t want me to talk about UofG’s failures over sexual violence you could have taken action to support me? If you didn’t want me to mention Neal Juster’s part in it you shouldn’t have put him in charge of my case, like I requested multiple times?
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Also this is just so fucked up? This is how people get blacklisted and can’t get jobs elsewhere in the academy after making complaints, isn’t it? It’s blood-curdlingly grim behaviour
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I know it's a bit off-topic but all the men rightly complaining about how ineffective the Stay Alert, Control the Virus message is should know that this is how women have been told to deal with rapists for decades. Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?
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I’ve changed jobs, I’m uprooting my life, I’m still waiting for MH support as a result of UofG actions. My only power here is being able to talk about it. To the people of the comms team doing this work - some of whom I’ve met - please think about what you’re doing. And stop it.
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And! a casual reminder that the University of Glasgow still hasn’t arranged a hearing for outstanding complaints against the same student who assaulted me, despite having since March to do it
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At first he was all smiles because I got my notebook out to make it look like I wanted his autograph. I figured he might be used to people despising him
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Obviously the list won't include
#SoloAStarWarsStory
until it's available to buy. I actually think it might score reasonably well, although it doesn't pass the Bechdel test (the other Disney films do BUT BARELY)
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This is what most feedback would look like if everyone (especially hourly paid GTAs!) spent the exact amount of time marking essays that they get paid for.
When students get more than this it’s usually down to the good will and overwork of staff.
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Also if you want to know how long it took me to edit all the men out of Star Wars you're welcome to ask but you might be alarmed at my Star Wars/feminist nerdiness... so we can maybe keep that a secret
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His response was 'well that's nice, isn't it?' and he asked my name. Apparently knowing I'm Becca will make all the difference to him.
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It's a sad fact that many students will be safer not being on campus this year - not just because of coronavirus, but because the threat of sexual violence against them is real, pervasive and ongoing. I hope Durham takes action and denies these men places
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I'm seeing a lot of articles about the student covid crisis that criticise the irresponsibility of 'luring' students into accommodation. Yet I haven't seen a single journalist name and shame VCs or management teams for doing so. It's like our universities are run by ghosts
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It’s my first day at the OU… I have a shiny new laptop that actually meets my work needs! I have proper, planned lead-in time to produce teaching materials! Research support is already on offer! I could get used to this
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So this Star Wars women thing blew up (and you all @-ed me after all...) but seeing as lots of people have asked questions about the methodology, I've written a short explanation for you here
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I have a phone call with Nicola Sturgeon later this afternoon to discuss responses to campus sexual violence in Scottish universities. To say I'm nervous would be an understatement... wish me luck! It would be amazing to have something positive come out of this
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This year I've noticed a huge increase in students who reciprocate care by checking in with staff - so many emails acknowledging 'we know it's hard for you too.' Every single one makes me sad - but simultaneously hopeful for the communities that we build in spite of everything
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I know that The Thick of It references are passé but this really does have the desperate s4 energy of Nicola Murray about it
EXCL: Keir Starmer is in talks with a production company about a fly on the wall documentary tracking his leadership
Some aides see it as a way of getting a broader section of the public to engage with him
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Why Carrie Fisher should be remembered and celebrated today - a short thread.
Two years missed. Our princess and general, Carrie Fisher.
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MY BOOK IS REAL!!! Tea, biscuits, very late nights, even earlier mornings, many hours in archives and a lot of encouragement from friends and family went into it. Oh... and more viewings of The Empire Strikes Back than I can count. Seeing actual copies is making me emotional
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How I Was Silenced: A Full and Complete Account of My Media Appearances in the Wake of Being Cancelled. Volume 1, Nov 2021 - Jan 2022
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Obviously their current campaign against Meghan relies on racism, enabling people to say 'they didn't actually do that to Diana, and Meghan deserves it.' But come on. Most of us surely see it for what it is - a desperate eg of DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim-offender)
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I have now had time to send my response to
@guardian
. I'm writing it on behalf of all the precarious women freelancers that can't voice their frustrations about the industry. And I stand by my call to donate the fee to
@WritersofColour
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Just received a very abrupt and non-sympathetic email from a funder cancelling my £15,000 research grant because they don’t count the OU Scotland as a Scottish uni. All that energy, all that work... all gone. Another casualty of a sexual violence complaint. I’m beyond devastated.
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I know everyone has more important things to think about right now. But I've spent 2yrs of hell because of a PhD student who lied about his identity, got me on a date with him, and sexually assaulted me. Today, they told me they're taking no action against him
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It feels like we've spent 10yrs in the UK playing out the 'At first they came for' poem. They already came for Black, disabled, trans, poor people. Academics, nurses, trade unionists. Now white women existing in public space. If you're not resisting already, start. And quickly.
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This is how democracy dies, with a newspaper moralising about Matt Hancock’s extramarital affair while downplaying the real issues
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If anyone thinks using student feedback in TEF is fair maybe you want to come and chat to me about the gendered comments I just got about my women's history course while I sit and have a very public cry in a cafe.
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My. PhD. Research. Had. To. Be. World. Leading. To. Get. An. Entry. Level. Job.
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A child is missing. A community is under threat. Everyone is a suspect. New on Sunday nights from the BBC, Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn star in All We Have Left
Some exceptional Ed Miliband pics in the last 24 hours, great to see him back
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Just picked up the keys for my new flat. It's in a turreted 1930s gothic monster of a building that used to be a women's hospital. Me and all the lady ghosts are going to be friends and take down the patriarchy
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@jgro_the
The problem is that vast swathes of academia don't believe there is a 'supposedly' before 'lowbrow'. And the notion of guilty pleasures tends to reinforce a lot of class, race and gender biases.
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When I wrote to say I'm taking sick leave til my last day in the dept my manager emailed everyone with a one-line cursory 'yeah thanks bye.' So my friend suggested I write the email they *should* have written about my achievements and send it. So I did. And it feels fucking great
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Having been on the receiving end of the DARVO tactic from abusive individuals and institutions, I wish the press was more critical of 'Buckingham Palace' (ie the Queen, Charles... let's hold people to account, here, not buildings) because it's horrible to watch
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This is terrible. By the time the system triggers an alert you could be dead. It’ll be used by staff to target vulnerable women. And wait for the inevitable victim blaming when a woman gets attacked and the Mail, Telegraph et al ask why she didn’t call 888 to prevent it
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Shout out to the quietly unassuming male allies who do, on occasion, do meaningful things to support women without being all performative-feminist cookie monster about it
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So. That heat stroke I had the other day? It was covid that didn’t show on lat flow tests til day 3. The NHS person I spoke to said they’d heard the exact same from loads of people testing positive - that their symptoms were consistent with heat stroke not typical covid
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IT'S BOOK PUBLICATION DAY!!! I poured so much of myself into writing it during a very difficult period... it's an exciting and proud moment. While I can't encourage people going into shops right now, if anyone happens to see The Empire Strikes Back in the wild please let me know!
40 years after its release in cinemas,
@BeccaEHarrison
’s study of The Empire Strikes Back draws on previously unpublished archival research, revealing a variety of original and often surprising perspectives on the film.
Cover artwork:
@AudreyEstok
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This is my familiar, btw. Her name is Sid and she's nearly 7. She likes eating cables (but only if they're plugged in) and biffing people until they scratch her nose. Definitely not as innocent as she appears in this photo
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For the past year I've been really panicking about how I'm going to write my big Star Wars book with no funding. But I just won a grant to cover an archival history of the franchise and the military-industrial complex! I'm so, so relieved. Maybe I can do this after all
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Well this is it. The wait is over. These
@AJIunit
episodes name my abuser at Glasgow Uni as Zahid Khan. He has multiple serious allegations against him of violence against women that were known to the uni, incl my dept, before my assault took place
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One day I'll talk publicly about what my institution has put me through over the last two years as I've attempted to protect our students. For now, having another anxiety attack, I won't be picketing. My biggest act of resistance may be surviving 2019. Solidarity
#UCUStrikesBack
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I've avoided talking about Reylo since time began. BUT that widely shared essay was harmful, perpetuated racism and came for John Boyega in ways that aren't ok. So I've written about the whiteness of data, and why it's a trap
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I have published 75 tweets since the beginning of March and all it took was
1: 8 hours a day on social media
2: 1-2 hours of sleep a night
3: constant anxiety about whether to delete the tweets because honestly, who else can I trust to hold me back
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When you realise 'record number' means 16% the headline reads very differently. I know the gains are worth celebrating but I'm bored of having to accept these positive spins on industry-wide sexism
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In about 15mins
@AJIunit
are naming the student abuser who assaulted me and devastated the lives of multiple women. Because Glasgow Uni protected him, as staff I had to honour duty of care and conceal his identity. It’s been a long 3.5yr wait to finally, hopefully protect others
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Stop denying that our pain exists and start finding better contraceptive solutions that don’t harm us
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Apparently the cover of my BFI The Empire Strikes Back book is no longer embargoed and I'm so so excited to share it... LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS!!!
It's not out til Oct but you can pre-order it here. Worth it just for
@AudreyEstok
's beautiful artwork
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I have just resigned my position as Athena SWAN lead for my School over its use of REF as a benchmark of equality and lack of institutional support for feminist issues, eg pensions. If you're in a position to do so, I encourage you to
#boycottAthenaSWAN
#boycottREF
#usstrike
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Maybe it's just me but I think helping to 'level the playing field' starts with reassessing the biases that make you think Oxford, Cambridge, UCL et al are the 'best', 'leading' and 'top' unis, rather that just the most exclusive
Britain’s best universities are dominated by private schools. Could I help level the playing field?
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Some news: I was recently awarded an AHRC fellowship (!) to trace the environmental impact of props and costumes made for (you guessed it) Star Wars. If you're post-viva and know about histories of extraction/manufacturing, this RA post might be for you:
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As promised, here’s the open letter to the AHRC asking for an immediate reversal of cuts to PhD studentships and an impact assessment that accounts for class/household income. Please sign and share as widely as you can
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As if I needed more excitement right now LOOK WHAT JUST LANDED ON MY DESK!!! Lots of feelings about this. I can't quite believe it's finally real.
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The writer they ran is good. I like his work, a lot. But my work is good too and you (the publication) just denied a woman a voice while making claims to pay attention so yeah, I'm pretty hacked off
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Very bemused by an article in the Guardian this morning that suggests you should always be civil or risk your 'basic leftwing principles.'
Louder for those at the back: You 👏 do 👏 not 👏 lose 👏 the 👏moral 👏 high 👏 ground 👏 for 👏 being 👏 uncivil 👏 to 👏 fascists
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So here’s a thing. Two weeks ago, we learned that the serial abuser student at Glasgow Uni who assaulted me and DARVOed his way through a PhD on gender-based violence was FINALLY found guilty of misconduct in someone else’s case. And yet, still no apology from the institution
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This might just be me - but is anyone else worried about potential far-right/incel radicalisation of 18-year-olds who have been totally let down by govt and unis and forced to isolate for weeks with little more than access to YouTube in sub-standard living conditions?
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A senior lecturer at
@SussexUni
just told me to 'go fuck yourself' because I said patriarchy, white supremacy and heternormativity were bad things. Welcome to academia in 2018, everyone.
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@ashleyeleigh
I'm going to work that out for the next part of the project. Know it'll be a depressingly low stat but maybe helpful drawing attention to racism/inequality
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Finally, a camp show that relies on queer aesthetics based on a dance culture THAT ROUTINELY FEATURES SAME SEX COUPLES has allowed them on tv. Strictly is behind the times but this is good news! Ready the sequins, and prepare for my wrath if Nicola Adams gets voted out too early
Boxer Nicola Adams announced as Strictly Come Dancing's first contestant in same-sex pair
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If we're advocating a reduction in student fees because of online teaching next year, can we please make it clear this is about lack of access to physical resources and NOT the delivery of teaching materials? Digital does not mean less labour. Fees do not equal contact time.
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They sat on my piece until a similar article came out by someone who writes for them regularly so now chances of my work seeing the light of day are practically 0. The irony given the topic is 100+
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Relieved to learn that I’m being promoted to SL. Finally! Wish I was outright ‘delighted’ but it’s so late and was such a battle that I have mixed feelings.
Grateful to those who supported me, and will do my best to support others struggling for job security/recognition in HE
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As an interdisciplinary researcher I know it's challenging but please, for the love of all things cinematic, will people in other fields *please* acknowledge that Film Studies exists? There's 60+ years of scholarship. Even more of criticism. Check it out! Read it! Cite it!
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When I worked at UEA in 2016 a white student made racist comments in class. I told him to stop. When I reported it, my manager said it didn't matter because there were no Black students in the room. I was dragged in front of HR and made to feel like I was in the wrong. Fuck this.
“UEA stands in solidarity with all of our BAME students and staff at this difficult time.”
#BlackLivesMatter
UEA Vice-Chancellor David Richardson
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@SabinaStent
Probably close to 48 hours to do the basic editing (have been doing bits here and there over the past few months). Now going to turn the rough cuts into a video essay so that'll take a while longer
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Issa Rae pointedly saying 'congratulations to those men' after the Best Director noms is a fucking mood
#OscarNoms
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When David Starkey says 'wokeness is less an intellectual position and more a form of wish-fulfilment' he demonstrates academia's deep-rooted disdain for marginalised people whose demands for equity & justice cannot be rationalised away by the bigoted theories of Great White Men
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Anyone that thinks people in Britain were happy about living in wartime conditions on the home front is seriously misguided. Stop reading Brexit propaganda and get a bloody history book.
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I've got the first batch of my subject access request docs back from the University of Glasgow. Senior management were conducting surveillance of my socials, planning press statements because they knew coverage of my case might be bad... the gaslighting was (and is) so real
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My Empire book is already getting a reprint and it's in the top 20 film books on Amazon. I am... overwhelmed?! stunned?! overcome with emotion?! So grateful to everyone who's bought it, and to all the people who helped me write it. I just hope it lives up to expectations!
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My whole first year at the OU has been characterised by me being EXTREMELY SURPRISED by ways of working that are normal here yet considered impossible at other unis. Eg just learned you can get advance funds to avoid spending your own money on expenses and… jaw on the floor
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To add to the misery, the piece they ran doesn't cite a single woman
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So thanks for drawing attention to gender issues but it's ringing pretty hollow now, isn't it? Know by saying this in public that probably means not writing for them in future (and the likely response being 'you're writing just wasn't as good') but I'm sick of this shit
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For clarification, cycle synching is just one of the many activities we have on offer. Your hexy vibes are also welcome if you're a woman who doesn't have periods
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