Nikolas Orr

Matthew McConaughey taking a long drag from a cigarette while doomscrolling

When your research is relevant but you’re not in academia anymore

My honours thesis was titled “Skirting ‘round a…”.

(Visual artists do it better 🤷🏻)

How to report on neo-Nazis without giving them what they want Media coverage of the anti-immigration marches was a 'propaganda triumph' for Australian neo-Nazis, who use media-baiting tactics to spread their message.

🚨I spoke to Crikey for this story on the need for better media reporting on the far right!

Long story short: stop giving neo-Nazis propaganda wins

www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/05/h...

Very cool if true: Academia.edu says I have readers in Singapore, Hanoi and Cangzhou

At bottom, these programs are an attempt to sidestep work and thought, which is inimical to historical thinking. Not to mention the gross environmental and economic costs. And to treat this as some kind of inevitable paradigm shift is truly ahistorical thinking.

Seriously, fuck off.
I say that with all due gravity.

The argument that Palestine should not be recognised as a state as it can not comply with the obligations of a state reminds me of the 1899 Hague Convention, which excluded 'uncivilised' people from attempts to minimise the cruelty of war - because they were deemed incapable of observing such laws.

After a year of practising history as a public servant, I’ve been thinking about the opportunities & constraints in a gov role – how it changes the work we do, types of histories we write, people/sources we consult, and audiences we write for.

DM me if you want to throw around ideas on this theme!

One historian’s take on doing history. Great thread!

I upset someone just the other day. Peer review can be tough 🤷🏻‍♂️

So, if humanities produce good job outcomes, humanities have a secure ROI that bring in more than they cost, and STEM now has an even lower ROI due to grant cuts…. shouldn’t we invest more in humanities where less $$ goes a longer way? Apparently not. We should ask why not. /9

Jury hears from Hannah McGuire's parents in ex-partner's murder trial The grieving parents of young Victorian woman Hannah McGuire tell a Supreme Court their daughter's ex-partner Lachlan Young did not treat her well before her death.

How is it okay to describe Hannah McGuire’s response to Lachlan Young’s violence as “hysterical”? www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07...

What It’s Like to Be a Student Who Hates ChatGPT “Everyone is using it”—almost everyone.

you've heard about the college kids who can't do anything without ChatGPT's help—but what about the students who oppose generative A.I. for myriad reasons and refuse to rely on it as a shortcut? well, I found and spoke with a few of them here: slate.com/life/2025/07...

Looks great, can’t wait!

In the middle of moving house but keen after that! Will need a distraction from unpacking boxes.

Yes to boots! Good thing about canvas shoes, though, is you can chuck them in the wash!

Donate to Preserve & Update Kooriweb.org, organized by Koori web Kooriweb.org is the world’s oldest Indigenous owned, created, coded and controlled website. I… Koori web needs your support for Preserve & Update Kooriweb.org

Donate to help keep Gary Foley’s important digital archive of Indigenous history going

www.gofundme.com/f/preserve-u...

Paddington Bear statue vandalisers fined for criminal damage The pair drunkenly stole the statue in the early hours of the morning before fleeing in a taxi to the RAF base they live on.

Judge hands down sentence to statue vandals:
“His famous label attached to his duffel coat says 'please look after this bear'. On the night of March 2 2025, your actions were the antithesis of everything Paddington stands for."
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03...

My writing at the local library this morning was not helped by the full-volume “floor is lava” kids’ session on downstairs nor the Top Gun and Voltron re-runs to my right.

So, Australian #AcademicBluesky, uhhh what do you make of the ARC's proposed "A NEW PLAN FOR ARC-FUNDED RESEARCH"? 👀

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History Volume 53, Issue 1 of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

The first issue of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (@jich.bsky.social) under the new editorial team is out now, with books reviews edited by me.

www.tandfonline.com/toc/fich20/c...

Arts as a remedy to contested monuments. Paper in "Contested Histories" contestedhistories.org/wp-content/u...
Bottom-up public intervention versus vandalism? Many international examples. #Arts #Monuments #PublicHistory #skystorians

This 100%

Definitely sign up for this! There are some rewarding careers for historians out there!

Happens to me too!

Anyone got access to this article? Asking for a friend…

Anna Cole, “Gender, race and colonialism: Aboriginal debutante balls in the 1960s”, Crossings, no. 20 (June 1994), 22–30.

Please consider doing this survey. We'd love to hear from people all over the world. Queer or not queer, you'd have thoughts on seeing queer representation.

Vandal photographed with head severed from statue of PM Police say images circulating online that appear to show busts of past prime ministers stolen from Ballarat Botanical Gardens indicate the "thinking capacity" of those responsible is "fairly low-end".

Changing comms strategy in the radical left’s war on statues
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02...

No I have not been hallucinating; ‘sewage’ and ‘sewerage’ are both words but mean different things!

TIL the difference: 💩 vs🚰

(Obviously, the ‘S’ in Sydney’s ‘MWSDB’ referred to sewerage 😏)

After the AHA shot down their members’ statement on Gaza, I can’t see it having much to say about this but it really needs to.

The historiography and writing is, well, fit for an “incredible Nation”.