By Mikael Klintman, Professor of Sociology, Lund University
It’s 2:47 am and your phone buzzes on the nightstand. The notification suddenly glows in the darkness: “You’re on a 7-day streak!”; “Don’t break your streak!”. You feel the need to open the app right away for an emergency breathing exercise. Half-awake, you fumble for the device, chest tightening. Another buzz: “What’s your positive intention for the day?”
The app that promised to ease your anxiety has just jolted you into a state of micro-panic. Have you fallen prey to some kind of toxic, digital positivity?
Research shows that smartphone notifications from various types…
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By George Newth, Lecturer in Politics and member of Reactionary Politics Research Network, University of Bath
Faced with an insurgent UK far right backed by a billionaire oligarch, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s pledge to lead the progressive fightback is long overdue. If Starmer’s speech, however, is to be anything but empty rhetoric, he must abandon his failed strategy of chasing the Reform vote in favour of a bolder, more hopeful narrative.
Based on his government’s actions and discourse so far, the signs are far from promising. He has helped embolden the very politics he claims to oppose.
Starmer’s speech comes hot on the heels of Britain’s largest ever far-right mobilisation.…
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By Katie MacLean, PhD Student, University of Stirling
Popstar Charli XCX is turning her hand to acting in the new film Erupcja. In it, she recites Lord Byron’s poem Darkness. Charli and Byron may be 200 years apart, but the legacies of Romantic poetry are alive in Brat, the singer’s sixth studio album.
Byron has often been described as the first modern celebrity, notorious in regency England for rumours of incest, homosexuality and vampirism. Irish writer Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, wrote…
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By Jenni Ramone, Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Global Literatures, Nottingham Trent University
The Times has described the 2025 Booker Prize shortlist as “revenge of the middle-aged author”“. If the phrase sounds derogatory, it isn’t meant that way: the review also describes the shortlist as "novels for grown-ups”, with the prize privileging “maturity over novelty” and supporting “unpretentious, old-fashioned literary fiction”.
This is reinforced by the Booker Prize website, which highlights the previous winner (Kiran Desai) and two previously shortlisted…
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By Tom Montgomery, Lecturer in Work and Organisations, University of Stirling
Businesses thinking of investing in the UK pay attention to announcements like these – so did Reform ask any industry groups if it was sound economic policy?
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By Tim Holmes, Lecturer in Criminology & Criminal Justice, Bangor University
The UK’s new digital ID card scheme, announced by Keir Starmer on September 26, has two big questions swirling around it. Is it a solution to illegal immigration? And will it give the government too much power to monitor people?
These questions are likely to dominate discussion and debate for some time. A petition has been posted and civil liberty groups and politicians are already questioning the value of the scheme. But what is the reality?
What is a digital ID card?
Similar…
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By Daanish Mustafa, Professor in Critical Geography, King's College London
The potential of water to cause conflict is a live issue in Pakistan, with climate change only making matters worse.
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By Naporn Popattanachai, Lecturer in Environmental and Marine Law, University of Galway
Two-thirds of the world’s oceans lie beyond national borders, an unregulated expanse under growing pressure from mining, fishing and climate change. Now, a new UN treaty promises to change that – but could also trigger fresh conflicts over who controls the high seas.
The high seas treaty, formally known as the BBNJ Agreement, has finally crossed the threshold to become international law after Morocco became the 60th…
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By Vincent Sizaire, Maître de conférence associé, membre du centre de droit pénal et de criminologie, Université Paris Nanterre – Université Paris Lumières
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be imprisoned. This decision illustrates the growing independence of the judiciary and the application of the principle of equality before the law.
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By Steven C. Roach, Professor of Internatiional Relations, University of South Florida
Salva Kiir, the president of South Sudan, met with then US president Barack Obama at the White House in 2011 to discuss the future of the newly independent state.
Officials seated at the table were eager to hear about the vision for the political stability of the new country. But when Obama asked Kiir about his plan,…
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