This year, I published my first monograph—a comprehensive exploration of breast cancer in Europe, based on 10 years of ethnographic research. I would love to discuss my research further in seminars and classrooms, and if you want to review it, I still have physical copies I can send!

-- historians of death and dying -- I'm looking for any studies of men dying from illness/old age as opposed to '''exceptional''' circs i.e., war, execution

This #UKDisabilityHistoryMonth we're celebrating our Disability History Series, a selection of works exploring global perspectives on disability across society, culture, and time. manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/disab...

Excited to be launching this new series of online talks, running Feb-July 2026. We'll be talking to a bioengineer, an immersive reality specialist, a visual artist, a glass artist, and a speculative designer on how a whole range of visual & material practices can transform healthcare. Sign up below!

I will never tire of reading ordinary people's descriptions of the smells that have defined them. It feels like the most intimate, generous, entry into another person's life. A person unfurls their world and it wraps those wreaths of scent about you both and draws you together.

I have kindly been invited to talk about gardening and reading at the Gibson Library in Saffron Walden! Come along (for free!) at 19.30 on 10 Dec to hear about #earlymodern plants, print & marginalia (+ Gabriel Harvey’s compulsive underlining of mentions of saffron). gibsonlibrary.org.uk/news.html

My latest article is now available on advanced access. Huge thanks to @claireturner.bsky.social and @leannecalvert.bsky.social for all of there support in getting it over the line. brill.com/view/journal...

Today marks my first day as a Visiting Early Career Research Fellow at @thejohnrylands.bsky.social! I’ll be using the time to develop my research on sensory experiences of cancer in the past. If you’re in Manchester between now and June, drop me a line - I’d love to connect!

A thoughtful review of Cancer Virus Hunters in BJHS by @ctimmermann.bsky.social #cancer #historyofbiology #tumorvirology #HPV #cancervaccine #oncogenes #historyofscience #historyof20thcentury www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

@jbhist.bsky.social & I are pleased to see that our article on the sensory, emotional, & material history of the Royal Military Exhibition of 1890 is now formally out in November's issue of Historical Research. It's completely Open Access, so please check it out ... academic.oup.com/histres/arti...

📣 Applications are open for our 2026-27 Medical Humanities in Practice Research Fellowship scheme! The scheme supports professionals and researchers from health or voluntary and community sectors to develop research within the medical humanities. Apply by 30 Jan:

📢Call For Papers📢 Sociability & Political life Marc Jaffré & I are organising a conference! We're asking: can there be politics without sociability? How have friendship, intimacy, socialising & informal attachments been central to political projects & movements? Get your abstracts in by Feb 14th!

Join us for our next seminar on Thursday 27 November, when @claireturner.bsky.social will be discussing the gendered construction of cancer amongst men during the long nineteenth century. Details below: Location: Virtual (link in event listing). Time: 12:45 - 14:00 www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/e...

Places almost completely filled for this! Let me know if you'd like a spot reserving before they run out.

We're happy to share: Amazing Blood Ties! written by Jieun Kim (PI of Hematopolitics) and illustrated by Leigh Bowser. This children’s book introduces kids aged 5–8 to the stories behind blood donation and how we’re all connected. Freely available at: hematopolitics.org/amazing-bloo...

historians, every day:

Does anyone happen to have a digital copy of Religion and life cycles in early modern England (Edited by Caroline Bowden, Emily Vine and Tessa Whitehouse)? TIA!

We are pleased to welcome a new member of the team: Xiao Ge has joined as Guest Editor for the Polyphony Meets China (PMC) project! Welcome Xiao! thepolyphony.org/2025/11/10/n...

it’s that time of the year again where I reiterate my strong belief that we should ban fireworks because they’re stupid, pointless, and harmful.

📢 @durham.ac.uk has announced the competition for eight PhD Studentships in Transformative Humanities, supported by our AHRC Doctoral Landscape Award and the Faculties of Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences, for candidates starting October 2026. Find out more 👇 www.durham.ac.uk/research/ins...

Happy Halloween! Here is a picture from when I took my book of spooky smells, The Doom Town Dummies, to the house of spooky smells. ☂️

You can SMELL the point-and-click game Foolish Mortals by @inklingwood.bsky.social! It was a delightful opportunity to develop smells, through @aromaprime.bsky.social, for players to sniff as they explore.

why is it that it's always when you've got an important deadline or event that your body decides it's the right time to get covid

📅 Join us on Monday 24 November for an online interdisciplinary symposium on Tourette Syndrome, imagining a future of Tourettic Studies that is looking beyond the syndrome, featuring Bridging Fellow @danielpjones.bsky.social. Find out more & register here 👇 medhumsplatform.org/event/toward...

Speaking at the University of Manchester's History Department in early December about my work on prisons and racism if you're in town and interested.

Why did it have to be snakes? The greatest fear of antiquity-hunting adventurers is the focus of this temporary display case for Halloween half term's "Fears and Phobias" theme. (Which means spending my last afternoon before the school holidays putting a bunch of cheap plastic snakes on display).

I'm planning an interactive workshop on the senses and medical humanities, to be held in Leeds in July 2026. It will involve creative practitioners, academics, and clinicians. If this is something you'd be interested in attending, please drop me a message or reply to this post and we can chat more!

I'm planning an interactive workshop on the senses and medical humanities, to be held in Leeds in July 2026. It will involve creative practitioners, academics, and clinicians. If this is something you'd be interested in attending, please drop me a message or reply to this post and we can chat more!

New publication! Our v. own @beccajackson.bsky.social discusses the racial history of the Apgar Score – a score assigned to infants one minute after birth. Find out more: medhumsplatform.org/the-apgar-sc...

Running a test, and now the parlour smells like the Alton Manor graveyard 🪦

Interesting to see how entertainment industries are tackling sensory-based sensitivities including intense smells and sounds. @aromaprime.bsky.social doing a great job as always with the various themed smellscapes! Examples from Alton Towers this weekend.

We're putting on an exciting range of research events this year at @manchester.ac.uk on 'Queer Bodies' in 18 & 19C Britain. Colleagues in English, Art History (@emmamerkling.bsky.social), & History are exploring queer approaches to bodies and embodiment and their cultures. See poster for more!

The deadline is still over a month away, but reminder about this @themhra.bsky.social funded conference @fairbanc.bsky.social and I are organising on the exciting subject of **early modern practical texts**! 📅 Abstracts due 24/11. Full details can be found here: sites.google.com/sheffield.ac...

Tomorrow marks the start of my #Dance Residency with Dance City. I'll be exploring #urban #affect and its impact on the Tourettic body, and considering the value of tics in performance spaces for translating experiences of #TouretteSyndrome! 🕺 Here's to making art! 🌟 (Photos from previous work!)

Welcome to @claireturner.bsky.social, who joins us as a Bridging Fellow in the Affective Experience Lab 🎉 Claire is a historian of medicine and the senses. We're excited to work with her! Find out about Claire's research in this written interview 👇 medhumsplatform.org/introducing-...

📙 Bluesky is the only platform where I haven’t circulated my book, as I’d recently joined and was waiting for the physical copy. So here it is (last book post, I promise) 📙 ☀️ Sunbed in Britain: Tanning Culture from Fad to Fear is free to download via: dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781...

An amazing opportunity for a PhD and a 4-year postdoc on this important project with the brilliant and lovely @smschober.bsky.social - hair, race, trade and multispecies history! #EarlyModern 🗃️

Sent this q to VICTORIA, but also figure I should ask here — does anyone know of scholarship on strategies that advertisers (e.g. of fraudulent or illegal goods or services) used to evade surveillence, esp in Victorian Britain? Or strategies that advertisers used to track responses to ads in +

Now open access: BJRL back archive, including special issue on ‘Medical History in Manchester: Health and Healing in an Industrial City, 1750–2005’. Check it out.

The museum's lecture series, Insights, is back from this Saturday. To tie in with our POO! exhibition, the first lectures come from Dr Piers Mitchell from Cambridge's Ancient Parasites Laboratory and gut microbiome scientist Dr Jane Freeman. Tickets here: thackraymuseum.co.uk/event/thackr...

Are there any Leverhulme Early Career scholars (past or present) on here who might be willing to share their application with me? 🙏

Today is day 1 of my @srsrensoc.bsky.social Postdoc Fellowship. Excited to get started on my new project 'Animals, the environment & the 'Protestant' worldview in c.17th Scotland' 🐄🌷⛪ Now to make an elaborate to do list for the next few months of research, monograph writing & a whole load more ...

Updated my bio to reflect some upcoming changes - this week marks my last week working with @srsrensoc.bsky.social and @hematopolitics.bsky.social. Next week, I'll be starting at @durhamimh.bsky.social, where I'll be continuing my research on the sensecapes of cancer.

There are not 10, not 20, but 39 AromaPrime smells at Alton Towers Resort's Scarefest this year! 🤯 Carefully concocted to immerse, 3 of the smells are bespoke blends exclusively designed for Scarefest's attractions.

We are very pleased to welcome @harrietbarratt.bsky.social 🎉 Harriet joins us as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Visual & Material Lab. Read about Harriet and her work in this interview: 👇 medhumsplatform.org/introducing-...

At the heart of the event is a one-hour live storytelling performance by Matthew Bellwood. Please spread the words to anyone who may be interested! festivalofsocialscience.com/events/amazi...

Our sessions will run twice in person: first at the Thackray Museum of Medicine on 28 October 2025 (10:30–15:30), and again at Moor Allerton Library on 1 November 2025 (10:30–15:30). Children can enjoy hands-on activities throughout the day, including crafting, colouring, quizzes, and games.

Hematopolitics are taking part in the ESRC Festival of Social Science! This event runs from 18th October to 8th November 2025. We will be introducing 'Amazing Blood Ties!', a children's book on blood donation that she co-created with textile artist Leigh Bowser.

And our FIVE YEAR teaching and research position in Early Modern Europe and the World is now live..... Please do circulate and/or think about applying. I truly love our department! @kingshistory.bsky.social

First post of the new academic year and it's a good one: JOBS! There are THREE fixed-term research jobs in @kingshistory.bsky.social attached to my colleague Francisco Bethencourt's new ERC project on the Visual and Material Culture of New Christians. Please circulate! #EarlyModern 🗃️