Don't miss! 🌿 Pocket Books and Floating Libraries: Books as Collecting Tools in Instructions to Travelers. Anna Svensson will discuss how books haven’t just described the natural world, they’ve also helped collect it. Wed. 10 Dec, 15:00–16:00 CET Zoom link, email: [email protected]

We all want to move on with our lives, yet the violence continues. The killing continues. The occupation continues. The colonisation continues. More than 9,000 Palestinian hostages are still in Israeli detention. /1

1/2 Historians of slavery & Empire have known all along that Lord Biggar’s & History Reclaimed’s interventions in these fields are wholly politically motivated, morally & logically inconsistent and founded on the cherry-picking rather than examination of evidence. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Join to learn how we can bring women’s voices forward—and reshape the story natural history collections tell. Today at 4-5 CET: “Not Mrs. Husband’s Name: Elevating Women’s Voices in Natural History Collections” by Archivists Ashley Aberg & Nicole Font (New York Botanical Garden).

A second book launch, this time at Uppsala University. Thanks to all who came and listened to @lindaaburnett.bsky.social and I outline our next book - on humanity and the history of scientific instructions. It’s a tale of skull collections and the colonial history of ideas.

”Vad högermän som Jönsson, Musk och Peterson drömmer om är ett svenskt val som liknar det amerikanska: fullt av kulturkrigande och propaganda, så att centrala frågor som vård, skola och klimat dränks i trams och spelad indignation – och högern får behålla makten.”

There is still time to register for tomorrow's seminar 'Race and the Scottish Enlightenment: A Colonial History'. The event will be hybrid, on 26 Nov from 3-4.30pm. Note that it is CET. Please email for a Zoom link: [email protected] #skystorians #Enlightenment #Scotland

Join @brucealexb.bsky.social and I as we launch our book Race and the Scottish Enlightenment: A Colonial History (Yale UP, 2025). The event will be hybrid, on Wed 26 Nov from 3-4.30pm CET. If you can’t join us in Uppsala, please email us for a Zoom link: [email protected]

Why were heads hunted in the Enlightenment? Who hunted heads, and where did they 'acquire' them? It’s a complicated history. @lindaaburnett.bsky.social and I tell some of it in our new book. We'll tell more of it in our next! You can read a little about it here: yalebooks.yale.edu/2025/11/20/h...

Latest update from @britishlibrary.bsky.social says they are launching a new version of their main catalogue on Monday 8 December and around that time also launch an interim version of their Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue. Hooray! www.bl.uk/stories/news...

A new Isis Focus Section asks a bold question: “Is deep history white?”The issue shows how ideas of deep time emerged through European geology, empire, and the dismissal of Indigenous temporal knowledge. Deep history has long carried the imprint of a distinctly white European, extractive worldview.

Don’t miss the first talk in the WOMNH (Women in Natural History Museums and Collections) Online Fall Seminar Series! Monday 24 November 2025, 4:00–5:00 pm CET by Louise Berridge (NHM London): “Women of the Riverflies”

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

Book launched! @lindaaburnett.bsky.social @kathryn-seymour.bsky.social #C18th #race #colonization #ScottishEnlightenment

Edinburgh folks — there’s still time to register for this Wednesday’s book launch of Race and the Scottish Enlightenment: A Colonial History, 1750–1820 and the accompanying symposium at IASH (for more info see below). Warm welcome! #skystorians

👇Don't miss tomorrow's seminar by Stefano Gulizia: “Dispatching Authority: Sovereignty and Natural Encounters with Spanish American Science.” Abstract: instructingnaturalhistory.com/events/yvr14... Please email us for zoom link: [email protected] #skystorians #histsci All welcome

Legacy of Slavery Project Officer Scottish Episcopal Church #skystorians 🗃️www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPB351/l...

📢 Upcoming seminar: Dispatching Authority: Sovereignty and Natural Encounters with Spanish American Science Wed 22 Oct, 15:00–16:00 CEST, Zoom Join Stefano Gulizia (Ca’ Foscari Univ.) for a deep dive into how colonial power co-opted indigenous knowledge through science, religion & empire.

We are hiring! Prospective PhD students in environmental history, history of science, history of technology and STS interested in the climate and environmental impacts of AI look here. Please share in your networks. #envhist #histsci #AI #anthropcoene

Our book launch is happening, at IASH in Edinburgh, October 29. It was there that @lindaaburnett.bsky.social and I first met, and had an idea that we might do some work together. That was in 2012! If you'll be in Edinburgh then, please come to our launch. Details below.

For those of you in Scotland, come along to the launch of Race and the Scottish Enlightenment at @iashedinburgh.bsky.social! Bruce and I will be introducing the book, and we’re thrilled to be joined by the formidable Colin Kidd, Thomas Ahnert, Matthew D Eddy, Rosi Carr and Ian Stewart. Programme⬇️

1/6 Another highlight for our 10th anniversary. @brucealexb.bsky.social (Griffith University) who wrote "Travels in Space and Time: Progress, War, and the Historical Mobilities of Scotland’s Enlightenment" with us in 2022 (print 2023). We asked him about this work and its future. His response:

Svenska regeringen, en kommentar?

Proud of my colleagues! 🗃 www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

'Even when women were mentioned, the report found they were more often victims than protagonists, with the women murdered by Jack the Ripper more likely to be taught in lessons than the female code breakers at Bletchley Park during the second world war 1/2

People say "autism never used to exist" and then you go to the Natural History Museum and the exhibit has a caption like "Born in 1762, The Revd [name] was famously irascible, steadfast in his routine, and dedicated his life to collecting 25,000 rare beetle specimens".

We have two jobs at KCL History! 16-month post in Modern Irish and/or British History: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOU178/l... And 5-year post in Early Modern Europe & The World: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOU182/l... (both to start in January 2026)

Natalie Davis; Arlette Farge (great trans of Allure of the Archives), Rebecca Spang (wittiest academic writer around: esp restaurant bk!); Jennifer Morgan (Reckoning w Slavery; John Merriman (eg Massacre); Judith Walkowitz; Tiya Miles; Will Pooley; Heather Cox Richardson (every single day!);

Due to Academia(.)edu licensing agreement, which permits the use of your likeness, voice, and publications in any manner they choose, I, like many others, have decided to leave the platform. You can now find my research on ResearchGate instead.

EUROPEAN DECLARATION OF CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION Faculty and staff in European higher education and research declare their conscientious objection to collaborating with Israeli institutions complicit in severe violations of international law. To sign, visit uppsaladeclaration.se/european-dec...

Excellent article from @jamborg.bsky.social about "genetic" mercantilism. Highly recommended

Our book, Race and the Scottish Enlightenment, now published, @lindaaburnett.bsky.social and I were challenged to the ‘Page 99 Test’. The challenge, as defined by Ford Madox Ford, is whether the whole book can be seen in a single page. Here’s our response. page99test.blogspot.com/2025/09/lind...

Hello everyone. Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax has a tenure-track job in Enlightenment rhetoric and / or 18th-century literature. Tell everyone. www.msvu.ca/about-msvu/c...

I love Terry Gross she is a top ten person

▶️ crh.ehess.fr/index.php?10... @ehess.fr @cnrsshs.bsky.social @crh.ehess.fr

Publication alert! Jens's article explores how sheep became geopolitical assets in 18th-c Europe, as France sought to rival British and Spanish wool production. His article introduces "animal mercantilism" to show how animals were entangled in politics, economics, and ideas of race. #skystorians

How bad was slavery? Why does Trump ask that question? @henrysnow.bsky.social and I have a piece up in @damemagazine.bsky.social on that issue, out today! www.damemagazine.com/2025/08/21/t...

Publication Day! How was race taught to students during the Enlightenment? Our book traces how Edinburgh-trained students carried their education into colonial contexts and forged race as a central category of Enlightenment thought. #History #Enlightenment #Colonialism #YaleUniversityPress

There is now a German version of the #uppsaladeclaration Here, you can declare your conscientious objection to collaborations with Israeli institutions complicit in illegal occupation, apartheid, genocide, and other violations of international law. uppsaladeclaration.se/germany/

Bettina Brandt & Daniel L. Purdy eds. Colonialism and Enlightenment: The Legacy of German Race Theories - Oxford University Press, November 2025 global.oup.com/academic/pro...

So much to look forward to in the programme for #ESEH2025! You should of course all come to our double panel on "Colonial climates and environments" on Fri AM with @poxygraduate.bsky.social, @nphellstrom.bsky.social,‬ @gianamar97.bsky.social, @lindaaburnett.bsky.social, @jamborg.bsky.social & more 🎙️

I'll say it a thousand times -- any account of the past that only celebrates the good parts of a nation without reckoning with the bad is not what we call "history" It is propaganda, pure and simple.

Very useful on James Cowles Prichard and 19th-century race science.

Why were human skulls collected for science? Who instructed their collection? What responsibility does C18th Enlightenment bear for 'scientific racism' in the C19th? How are we to interpret this legacy of trading in human flesh? Find out here! Open access journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Israeli forces bulldozed Palestinian seed bank in Al-Khalil/Hebron, home to 22 years of seed collection efforts to preserve heritage varieties and plants with valuable traits: e360.yale.edu/digest/hebro...

Den förstörelse av det palestinska samhället som just nu kulminerar inför öppen ridå har pågått ända sedan 1948, när Palestinas infödda befolkning fördrevs för att ge plats åt judiska överlevare från Europa. www.dn.se/kultur/pette...

It took shape over many years, written in Edinburgh, Uppsala, Brisbane, Paris, Copenhagen, and Adelaide. Now, at last, @lindaaburnett.bsky.social and my book is finally here! #18thCentury #Enlightenment #Race #Colonisation

Words fail. Look at that.

Our (@brucealexb.bsky.social) new article in History of Science traces the transnational legacy of 18th-c. natural history instructions in the making of race science. We address James Cowles Prichard and his education at Edinburgh University, skull collecting, & colonial violence