Stages of article revision: “I have written trash, the reviewer has seen through me, how can I possibly make anything of this…oh wait, that wasn’t so hard, cool!”

One week left to enter @sshmedicine.bsky.social Roy Porter Essay Prize 2025/6 Deadline: Sunday 1 February #histmed #histSTM #medhumanities

This term, Durham’s IAS is sponsoring myself, Hannah Brown, Francis Massé, and Justin Willis to run a project, “Interest in Cattle: Value, Risk, and Security in Eastern and Southern Africa,” alongside a great group of fellows from the Universities of Zambia, Cape Town, and Reading.

Life in Durham improved substantially when I realized I could get a really solid cup of vegan chai at basically any time of day

COW TOOLS COW TOOLS COW TOOLS

When your D&D group is made up of a bunch of historians and history buffs, you naturally do age of sail homages @robertsuits.bsky.social

The world is pretty crappy right now, but at least I managed to make a perfect vegan grilled cheese for lunch today (no picture because that’s how fast I ate it).

I'm hiring 2 postdocs on my Wellcome project "How Did Infectious Diseases Become Wild?: Plague, Yellow Fever, and Disease Ecology in the Brazilian Hinterland (1920-1975)" Department of Global Health and Social Medicine King's College 3 years 01/10/26- 30/09/29 Deadline: 01/02/26 shorturl.at/KZ6Vh

#CFP: "Cattle Commodification in Global History: Capitalism, Science and Empire". International Workshop, Ghent University, 3-5 June 2026. Deadline for abstracts: 23 January 2026 Info: cattlefrontiers.eu/workshop-cat... #envhum #envhist #agriculture #environment #hstm #histsci

More than 250 people who were exposed to measles, including dozens of unvaccinated school-aged children, are quarantining in South Carolina as the state wrestles to contain an outbreak that has sickened more than 110 people.

Had such an excellent couple of days thinking and speaking about Planetary Health with some brilliant people (and some of my academic role models!). Merci à tous! :)

Interested or know someone interested in doing a PhD on environmental histories/materialities of zoonotic or infectious animal disease as part of Transformative Humanities @durham.ac.uk Then please get in touch by Dec 8th! @pollenetwork.bsky.social @emilywebz.bsky.social @rgs-agwg.bsky.social

Amazing History of Medicine PhD scholarship opportunity at the University of Newcastle (Australia), part of Prof Cathy Coleborne's ARC grant on Australian experiences of polio: www.newcastle.edu.au/study/resear...

Hi all - I’m running the London Marathon this year for the Institute for Cancer Research. Those who know me know that this is a deeply personal cause to me. Please consider donating if you can! 2026tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/emily-web...

Anyone interested in joining a panel proposal on Health in Civil Rights movements for the AAHM this year? DM me or comment if so!

Your weekly reminder that voter "concern" with immigration doesn't correspond to actual immigration levels. It corresponds to the amount of coverage the media gives immigration. This an entirely self-fulfilling mess, and it is entirely pointless.

RFK Jr. rolled out that old chestnut again about how healthy Americans were in the 60’s, so here’s a fact check. In 1965: -42% of American adults smoked; it’s 11% now. -The infant morality rate was 24.7/1000; it’s 5.6/1000 now. -Overall life expectancy was 70 years; it's about 77 years now.

Me, trying to fit in in Berlin: ein Kaffee mit hafermilch, bitte Barista (in a heavy Irish accent): you want that regular or large?

Up early and off to #EAHMH2025! So excited to attend some fascinating talks and to present on sentinel animals in environmental health history alongside @kirchhelle.bsky.social! A big shoutout to @robertsuits.bsky.social for driving me to the airport at 4 AM so I could make it to morning panels ❤️

There is a group of seniors who meets in the cafe where I’m currently writing a conference paper, and they are laughing so hard they’re crying. It’s a real day-brightener, especially when we seem to hear overwhelmingly stories of isolation among those in their later years.

Hopping on the early morning Eurostar on my way to Basel for a very exciting workshop!! I hope the novelty of being able to travel without planes never wears off.

My cartoon for this week’s Books pages in @theguardian.com

Some of the media want to portray the thousand people protesting on asylum as being a proxy for general public opinion. They wouldn't want to say that about the much larger trans rights + allies protest of up to 100 thousand people www.thepinknews.com/2025/07/26/l...

It’s remarkable to me how much running has become an active part of my writing process over the last six years. Not only do they stretch the same muscle (showing up, consistency, endurance), but the calm energy is unlike anything else. I’m so grateful 25 year old Emily decided to give it a go.

Decades of mechanistic talk about university degrees as if they were bundles of 'skills' and 'prep' are about to be proved completely wrong (obviously). Want to get a real boost? Do History or English.

Surely the dogs we have all the way through our PhD programmes should be conferred the rank of “dog-tor.” At least, we have decided this for Baldr, who was the load-bearing emotional support dog for two PhDs simuntaneously.

We’ve opened the call for @britishacademy.bsky.social postdoctoral fellowships. We provide three years of funding for early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences to complete a significant piece of publishable research www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/post...

How did the pandemic start? I have avoided publicly commenting on this for 5 years. Here's my take as someone who has no stake at all in the game. gidmk.substack.com/p/pandemic-r...

Last call for the @ihr.bsky.social #London #SummerSchool - bookings close this evening! Join us for lectures, workshops, special visits and a week exploring London's rich #history through its #Rebels. From medieval uprisings to punk & much, much more... www.history.ac.uk/ihr-london-r...

We'll be a little quieter over the next week, as our social media manager is going on leave. But fear not, we're leaving our logins in the safe hands of our very capable deputy, who has assured us of committing absolutely zero crimes:

Brilliant job on the social science of Health and Climate, three year post-doc, hybrid opportunity, come at work at #Egenis, University of Exeter: jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

If you’re interested in this talk, or the Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease (CHMD) generally, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

I dont know if anybody has heard, but I gather There Is A Loneliness Epidemic. May 28 12:00-1:30PM (UK time) hybrid event Dr Fred Cooper (School of Law, University of Bristol) "The Loneliness Measurement Scales: A Critical Historical Analysis" to register contact @emilywebz.bsky.social

5 years ago: “An incalculable loss” Today: Banning masks and restricting vaccine access

"Does One Health need an ontological turn?" by Kaiser-Grolimund et al. explores some questions that have long preoccupied medical anthropologists and their applications for One Health specialists www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

We were so lucky to welcome Prof Salome Bukachi yesterday to speak about her experiences working in One Health for our upcoming IAS project, “Interest in Cattle.” Salome shared insights from decades of working at the interdisciplinary health interface in Nairobi.

The US government has disbanded the CDC's infection control committee - Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) - which created guidelines for health facilities on hand hygiene, safe reuse of equipment, and reducing the transmission of pathogens in the air

Spent a sunny Sunday building some raised vegetable beds in the backyard and cultivating our pollinators 🥰

Someone's modelled the impact of a precipitous decline in vaccination uptake in the USA. TL:DR: millions of avoidable disease cases; hundreds of thousands of deaths over the next decades. HT @duncanrobertson.bsky.social jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

silly questions inspired by today’s research: is social media the modern-day pamphlet?

I just attended a conference in the US. We had one speaker detained and two others turned away at the border.

"children & adolescents w/ prior SARS-CoV-2 infection are at a statistically significant increased risk of various cardiovascular outcomes, including hypertension, ventricular arrhythmias, myocarditis, heart failure, cardiomyopathy, cardiac arrest, thromboembolism, chest pain, & palpitations."

Had a nice little jet-lagged pootle around Pittsburgh today before my brief stop off at #ASEH2025 tomorrow for the day :)

An exhibition so good that it’s worth being inside on a sunny Saturday!

The cat we all need right now 🥰

Had a neat day taking one of my diss students to the archive to look for records of the Sunderland Cholera epidemics. It’s always such a joy introducing someone to archival research for the first time!!

We are recruiting! 3 Bridging Fellowships of 12 months for recent PhD graduates to develop research, ideas and connections in the @durhamimh.bsky.social Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities. Applications close 25 April durham.taleo.net/careersectio... Please share widely!