1. Timothy Snyder from Yale University is putting his lecture course on The Making of Modern Ukraine online as he goes. Here’s Lecture 1, which is an introduction to the themes of the course, which also explores more general notions of nationhood using Ukraine as an example https://youtu.be/bJczLlwp-d8

Lecture 22 (of a planned 23 or 24, I think), Ukrainian Ideas in the 21st Century, was last Thursday https://youtu.be/yz6MSiGZQCU

As you can see from the comments, not everyone agrees with him.

2. The NATESOL December webinar is this Saturday, 10^th December at 10:00 UK time: Clare Courtney’s title is the rather neat Heart & Parcel: using creative learner-focused approaches to welcome new arrivals More info and registration  here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdxFGXMM7YQmSL5phxVg-gyxx40miU3aP3t2qSFNb9-NrQmZw/viewform

3. I’d certainly have found BISH useful at the age of fourteen (and later!) https://www.bishuk.com/

4. Here’s our occasional three from The Conversation:

Working less is a good thing: https://theconversation.com/four-day-week-trial-confirms-working-less-increases-wellbeing-and-productivity-195660

And so is walking backwards: https://theconversation.com/walking-backwards-has-a-surprising-number-of-health-benefits-195246

But is ayahuasca? https://theconversation.com/ayahuasca-just-how-safe-is-this-psychoactive-brew-194475

5. And, finally and psychedelically, Carlos Castaneda was a popular read when I was at university in the mid-1970s. Having read that piece from The Conversation on ayahuasca, I Googled him the other day, and I’ve now learnt that he made it all up, never met a Yaqui shaman, and very likely never took ayahuasca at all! 

Here’s an account for Open, the Indian weekly current affairs and features magazine, by Santhosh Babu of his experience of taking ayahuasca (and kampo and bufo) https://openthemagazine.com/columns/guest-column/the-ayahuasca-story/