Against REFonomics: Quantification cannot satisfy the demands of rationality, equity and tolerability.

Academics are assured by government ministers and institutional heads that research assessment is designed on their behalf. Liz Morrish looks at whether the assessment tools created have extended their reach and left academics exposed. At its best, the REF distorts research agendas and priorities. However, a graver hazard is that a new selective and competitive academic will be formed, whose research trajectory is entirely determined by a regime peripheral to their own intellectual curiosity and academic judgement

Pressure vessels II: An update on mental health among higher education staff in the UK

Analysing fresh data drawn from Freedom of Information requests, Pressure Vessels II provides an update to Morrish’s 2019 investigation into mental ill health in universities in the UK. This report highlights a continuing rise in anxiety and mental distress amongst HE staff, particularly amongst women and professional service staff

Discourse and identity in a corpus of lesbian erotica

This article uses corpus linguistic methodologies to explore representations of lesbian desires and identities in a corpus of lesbian erotica from the 1980s and 1990s. We provide a critical examination of the ways in which “lesbian gender,” power, and desire are represented, (re-)produced, and enacted, often in ways that challenge hegemonic discourses of gender and sexuality. By examining word frequencies and collocations, we critically analyze some of the themes, processes, and patterns of representation in the texts. Although rooted in linguistics, we hope this article provides an accessible, interdisciplinary, and timely contribution toward developing understandings of discursive practices surrounding gender and sexuality

Pressure vessels II: An update on mental health among higher education staff in the UK

Analysing fresh data drawn from Freedom of Information requests, Pressure Vessels II provides an update to Morrish’s 2019 investigation into mental ill health in universities in the UK. This report highlights a continuing rise in anxiety and mental distress amongst HE staff, particularly amongst women and professional service staff