My years of research give me the authority to say that the most realistic part of Down Cemetery Road (ep1) is Ruth Wilson's character getting lost while trying to chase someone through an NHS hospital.

Lovely to connect with @uobrishistory.bsky.social, and to hear more about Victoria and Sarah's powerful books - on hospital colours and chronologies as overlapping and layered, and on mothers radicalised by and of the women's liberation movement. I've read both these books and really loved them 💖

Lovely to do a book launch-lunch today with @jennycrane.bsky.social and @sarahcrook.bsky.social - thanks to everyone who came along!

Delighted to share our Call for Papers for the workshop *Object Stories in Health and Medicine 1700-1900*. Taking place online on 5 December. Pls share and consider submitting an object story! @rebeccawhiteley.bsky.social @unibirmingham.bsky.social www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/objec...

📜 #histmed job opportunity in London

'As universities close courses and departments in response to financial pressures...students in parts of the North, South West and East of England, as well as large areas of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, are losing access to social sciences, humanities and arts (SHAPE) courses.' 1/2

Very excited to be giving a Thackray Insights lecture on February 7 with the wonderful @victoriabates.bsky.social! Our event is titled 'The Sick Sense', and will centre on the significance of the senses and colour in experiences of illness and recovery. thackraymuseum.co.uk/event/thackr...

It goes without saying: if you work on literature or other environmental humanities, you're welcome to join us. We have room for 1-2 more. // Por supuesto, invitamos a nuestrxs colegas en literatura y en humanidades del medio ambiente.

It's in the wild! Thanks @historicalmeredith.bsky.social for bringing it to Berlin.

Great to be at European Association for the History of Medicine #EAHMH2025 in Berlin this week. Have been busy & terrible at sharing on here, but having a lovely time! First #histmed conference since 2019 as I've been going to health/design stuff instead, and it's so nice to reconnect with people.

If you have 2 minutes, please watch this lovely video by @reubenarmstrong.bsky.social based on the book 'Feeling Blue: Colour and the modern British hospital', we released the film today! www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5L2... (free link to the book in the post below)

Despite the stereotypes, Bristol Uni is not just for the well-off. The English Dept does great outreach work and, this part-time, evening class, whole-ass degree, should be treated as the jewel in their crown (to upend a metaphorical hierarchy!) Please sign the letter.

🥳 The latest book in SSHM’s Social Histories of Medicine series Feeling Blue by @victoriabates.bsky.social Published by @manchesterup.bsky.social #histmed

Publishing today - Feeling blue by @victoriabates.bsky.social 💙 The first book-length history of colour in modern hospitals, thinking expansively about the role of colour in shaping how hospitals felt. Now #OpenAccess on manchesterhive.com 🔓 - from our @sshmedicine.bsky.social series. #histmed

'Feeling blue: Colour and the modern British hospital' is out! And it's free online (or a relatively affordable £25 hardback if you prefer print)! Thanks so much to everyone who helped with the research for this, from supporting site visits to reading drafts. www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781...

2) Handbook submitted! So proud to have followed Victoria Bates on this quest! Amber Abrams is an incredible scholar and colleague! A true superwoman! Overall, working with these two women has been incredible and getting to know them has been the best part of the journey. ❤️ bsky.app/profile/vict...

Wheee! Wheee!

Our next 'Think While You Drink' (24 June, 6.30pm, Greenbank, Easton) features Bristol-based writers, @boakandbailey.bsky.social on 20th C pubs in 21st C Bristol & Dafydd Wiliam, Principal Curator, St Fagans on re-building The Vulcan Hotel. goodchemistrybrewing.co.uk/pages/think-while-you-drink

The most RHS job advert ever. Which RHS, you ask? BOTH 🗃️💐 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNK213/s...

Really enjoyed doing this - my first of a recorded conversation series with UoB academics - have a listen, and join Pam and Kelly at some of the upcoming Think While You Drink events in June and July!

@victoriabates.bsky.social kindly interviewed @kellygcb.bsky.social & I for her new podcast on impact activities at Uni of Bristol. We talk about the ongoing collaboration with Professor Sam Goodman & re-launched series of talks: Think While You Drink humsimpact.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2025/05/29/t...

Having a ball today at this creative health methods workshop in Maastricht, enjoying hanging out with the ethnographers and learning so much from them. Thanks to Anna Harris for organising!

Thanks to @kellygcb.bsky.social and @victoriabates.bsky.social for my first introduction to podcast recording. So fun to chat about our Think While You Drink talks series in local pubs and all the other great stuff that we are doing together with Prof Sam Goodman. Link to recording to follow.

Want more? 👀 There are two other #SocialHistoriesofMedicine books coming out this summer! UNHAPPY MOTHERS by @sarahcrook.bsky.social FEELING BLUE by @victoriabates.bsky.social Stay tuned for their release on manchesterhive.com 🐝 @sshmedicine.bsky.social #histmed

Really excited to see these articles going live from our forthcoming SI on ‘visual histories’, including theatre, photography, film, Victoria and Rebekah here on visual arts practice… and a co-authored comic from me, Olly and Louis. Watch this space!

New article with @rfleetwood-smith.bsky.social for Special Issue by @willpooley.bsky.social, Louis Netter & Oliver Gruner. 'Making memories: creative research and sensory history' www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

During creativity and wellbeing week we’ll be sharing some of the artworks and prototypes created for @victoriabates.bsky.social’s Sensing Spaces of Healthcare project 🌟 Join us to find out more and take part in a creative activity #artsandhealth #creativityandwellbeingweek2025

This may be of interest: on creative works about child sexual abuse & the cultural ramifications of creative works (& we'd appreciate a repost) @mike-salter.bsky.social @ruthbeecher.bsky.social @amybeddows.bsky.social @profkarenboyle.bsky.social @joannabourke.bsky.social @victoriabates.bsky.social

Feel like I’m reconnecting with my #histmed community this year! Off to a mid career writing retreat on Sunday thanks to @sshmedicine.bsky.social with loads of fab people I haven’t seen for ages, and just got my EAHMH paper accepted with @drhick.bsky.social. Wheee! See you there?

I always think that a clumsy focus on primary colours and cartoon characters is a waste of our infants’ fast growing, fertile appreciation and fascination.

Just published - ‘Some people talk about children as though they’re completely different’: hospital art, architecture and design for children in modern Britain'. (1/2) mh.bmj.com/content/earl...

New book! I explore how voluntary organisations, psychologists, and policymakers have sought to identify "gifted children", and to mobilise these perceivedly hyperintelligent individuals to benefit (various visions of) "the world". . . global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Digital History: permanent post (Lecturer, standard teaching and research contract) at UCL History Department in Digital History. We're a friendly and diverse group with ace access to research resources and diverse, smart and friendly student cohorts. 1/2 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMI974/l...

Job Klaxon: come and join us. We are looking for a Postdoctoral Research Associate to work on a project on the history of intensive care medicine, directed by @fcondrau.bsky.social in Zurich and me in Manchester. www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

History job opportunity at Swansea: two year postdoc on neurodiversity in early modern Europe. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMI655/p...

My piece for History Workshop looks back at what feels, I'm sure to me and so many other academics in the UK, like a decade-long crisis in universities. A crisis of politics, of a particularly venomous form of "education as market" ideology, and now a crisis of desperate, annihilating job cuts. 1/2

UK universities are in crisis. Dave Hitchcock (@davehitchcock.bsky.social) on how the sector became 'broken' and why it must be approached as an interdependent system. www.historyworkshop....

Fabulous to see this all come together! So many great articles 🤩 Also the final output from the mighty & lovely hospital senses collective @victoriabates.bsky.social @marieallitt.bsky.social @harrietbarratt.bsky.social @agnesjuliet.bsky.social and Rebecca Fleetwood-Smith

Have loved being part of this project. Our special issue is all out now, with an Introduction by The Hospital Senses Collective #medhums #histmed #MedicalHumanities

Such a joy to be part of this! Please share widely - new #medhums SI on a huge range of medical & health phenomena from #sensory & #material perspectives @uclhhcentre.bsky.social @hpsleeds.bsky.social @durhamimh.bsky.social @the-polyphony.bsky.social @sshmedicine.bsky.social @asmedhum.bsky.social

Great to be part of this Special Issue on Senses & Spaces of Health/Care. Read my article on touch, comfort and private madhouses, plus many more open access!

Full Special Issue now out! 'Senses and Spaces of Modern Health/Care' www.tandfonline.com/toc/rfss20/1...

Also do check out @victoriabates.bsky.social's most recent work - 'Design for Life' vid on why we should invest in hospital spaces (www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1qT...), & #toolkit on 'Improving Sensory Environments: A Practical Guide to Person-Centred Healthcare Settings' (sensingspaces.rit.bris.ac.uk)

This is the latest output from our Senses of Health/Care Research Collective - see also our Hospital Spaces creative booklets: hospitalsenses.co.uk/2019/11/15/h... and two pieces on their making: mh.bmj.com/content/49/4... and thepolyphony.org/2022/06/09/m...

Really pleased to see the penultimate article in our Senses and Society SI (hopefully full set out imminently)! Here's Whitney Wood's fascinating work on sensory histories of US hospital births www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10..... See full SI overview here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

If you were interested in the birthing pool history piece, Jenny, Maria and I also wrote this companion article that just came out in a SI on experience: 'The Construction and Politics of the ‘Birth Experience’ in Britain, 1948–93' www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10....

'The deep cultural cost of British university job cuts" bit.ly/4gnDCuE An excellent letter, in today's @theguardian.com, by the co-chairs of @artsandhums.bsky.social, a collective of subject specialist organisations representing and advocating for arts & humanities subjects in UK HE. #skystorians

I’m at a @nuffieldtrust.bsky.social event on the shift from #hospitaltohome, and it’s remarkable to me - a historian - how longstanding these issues are. We’ve been worrying about delayed discharge, eg, since at least the ‘70: (as found by me and @victoriabates.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/jbr....)

If you think your medical history monograph is worth a prize, why not enter it for the EAHMH book prize this year? Details in this link: eahmh.org/prizes/

New publication from the Sensing Spaces of Healthcare project's Senior Research Associate Rebecka Fleetwood-Smith: it "challenges dominant calls for maternity settings to be ‘homely’." Read more open access here! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... [CW: contains discussion of miscarriage]