From universities to business: comment and roundup

It is all change in higher education again, with a big emphasis on doom and gloom. A couple of years ago, I posted a cautious, but not entirely negative piece on the new department for innovation, universities and skills. Following the expenses rows, local and European elections, the department for innovation, universities and skills has been demolished and universities shifted to business. I cannot pretend to be anything other than deeply alarmed by this turn of events.

Thinking about space (and time) in chronicles

In my last post I commented on how the problems faced by relativists trying to show time and space in representations of black holes seemed similar to the difficulties faced by historians trying to talk about representations of space in our sources. A recent post by Jonathan Jarrett has also raised some of these questions – is this picture of Toledo in council season a depiction of the council or the relationship between Toledo and its territories? And who is in the tents?

Gesta expands her (event) horizons

Usually in the vacations I go to a conference or workshop. Easter 2009 was no exception to this rule, but instead of going to something medieval, I found myself in a corner of BritGrav 2009 at Cardiff – a meeting of those people who devote themselves to the study of gravitation, general relativity and other similar things. I was, of course, there with Reivers in case anyone thinks I’m planning a radical career change.