Today I wore a turtleneck to work

Thinking about what defines an academic career nowadays and keep coming back to one word… admin

Final week to register for #SSHM2026! Registration Closes 15 June The Society’s biennial conference takes place 30 June - 3 July at University of Leeds The theme is In/Out

We're down to the last handful of tickets for my workshop on 'Medicine and the Senses' in Leeds on 10 July. Please share! www.eventbrite.com/e/medicine-a...

Many years ago when I finished my GCSEs, I vowed to never have in my life a job where I have to do maths. Today I find myself trying to figure out how many platters of sandwiches I need for a workshop of c.15 people and wonder where it all went wrong

One of the really nice bits about going back time and again to the same relatively small archive is you get to know the staff and to some extent, the other regulars. It’s a nice bit of community in what can often be quite a solitary thing

Favourite passage of the day, from the minutes of the welfare committee of a local steel manufacturer: “several complaints were made as to the food… the chips were abominable”

Not saying that I’m tired, but I did just spend a good few minutes unable to understand the point being made in something I’m reading, all because I was reading the word ‘views’ as ‘wives’

Today I face the enduring problem of what to wear to the archive on a day when it is 30 degrees outside

Is this advert supposed to be funny?

The result of normalising Reform’s ideas? Neighbour is turned against neighbour | Nesrine Malik

Anyone know of any histories of tabes dorsalis (specifically its evolution as a diagnostic category?). They don’t have to be specifically focused, even those which touch on that history would be super helpful!

Spent the day reading the accident books for local collieries. One man got injured (and compensated) because he was pushing a tub *with his head*

Anyone know of any histories of tabes dorsalis (specifically its evolution as a diagnostic category?). They don’t have to be specifically focused, even those which touch on that history would be super helpful!

Last night, I spent a while trying to unfurl these screwed up bits of newspaper which we found stuffed between the bricks of our hallway wall… one is from August 1928(!)

30 QMUL PhD students have been left in the dark about their future for a full month since they received a letter from QMUL’s partner in Mexico that they would suspend all stipends unilaterally. QMUL ignored all the alarm bells rang about this partnership and how it was conducted for years. #UKHE

Truly depressing that, like every other current ECR/PhD, I’ve never known an academia that is any different

Taking up the carpets in our hallway and found this! Our house was built c.1930 so I’m intrigued to know how old this might be…

I have a knack for finding library books that haven’t been taken out by anyone else for decades (so don’t register on the library system). Might start a thread. Today, it’s this…

Plans for the long Easter weekend (my resolution for this year was to read Mexican lit and I’ve been particularly looking forward to this one)

“One of the great weaknesses of our era is we get lone superhero movies that suggest that our big problems are solved by muscly guys in spandex, when actually the world mostly gets changed through collective effort, more like caregiving than it is like war.” www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/m...

Very much looking forward to this!

then i should've developed encyclopedic knowledge by now

This is Helen L*wis, for anyone under a rock still taking her seriously as a feminist/thinking journalist.

What are some great examples of creative approaches to history writing? Not necessarily historical fiction!

Visited Gainsborough Hall today for the second time today. First was when I went here on a school trip, c.2001-2003. I remember volunteering to dress up as the lady of the house, and getting to sit at the top table. The time of my life

Really enjoying Jacob Alon’s album at the moment. Melancholy and soothing in equal measure. Their voice is also lovely and style reminiscent of John Martyn (another personal fave). Highly recommend!

Feel I am about to tumble down a rabbit hole, but I would like to read something about Nikola Tesla and his experiences, studies of pain…

I want this book to map a path that I hope is critical (not taking experience for granted, or as self-evident) but generous (careful not to trample on or invalidate people’s hard-won experiential positions that are under attack from those who seek to erase them).

Oh my god it is actually out - like actually now. Over a week early! They snuck it out without telling me! lol. Well, here it is people, and you can download the whole thing for free - thanks to @wellcometrust.bsky.social Fill your boots: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mon...

Came across this collection by chance this lunchtime, and so glad I did. A really lovely illustration of how art, in this case poetry, ‘can offer a place where certainty and uncertainty mingle’ within medicine. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

And this is… a bad thing?

Most definitely one for the reading list!

Each morning, laptop seems to be taking longer and longer to turn on, same

Has anyone written something historical on the ‘… for Dummies’ book series? Just seen that there is one on chronic pain(!) and now obsessed with figuring out what that means

Left all my footnotes to the last minute. Will I ever learn (no)

"In a lot of ways Ive spent a lot of time being the one person willing to say we're all afraid to die and afraid to lose our loved ones..." Oh really, Justin? You're the only one willing to say death is scary? www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmQt...

I think this is more common than many of us feel able to admit… myself included…

: Half of UK universities face a deficit next year. Up to 50 could close. That is a sector in crisis. Simply blaming a tuition fee freeze and nudging fees up with inflation is not a plan. Where is the long-term strategy for higher education? #Universities #HigherEducation

For those of you also hanging on by a thread, there is a story out there at the moment about a little monkey called Punch who was first abandoned (😔) by his mum but has now found a friend in a stuffed orangutan toy and has learnt to walk, honestly have a look

Small joys. This dressing table belonged to my Grandma, and was recently refurbished by my Mum. Every morning when I sit there, I think about them and all they’ve given to me

"We have a challenge here in the face of appalling things happening around the world not to give in to a politics of despair because that's exactly what the people in power want us to do." Laura C. Forster, Julia Laite, Laura Schwartz, Anne Irfan and Jo Kelcey on doing history in turbulent times.

this saturday! I haven't heard it yet, but there's not only interviews with Carolyn Steedman and Miriam Stoppard, but also live audio of me attempting to get my kids out the door for school in the mornings www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Such a great paper—rich comparative analysis of “baby farms” in Britain, France, and the USA (late 19th–early 20th c.), showing how labor and care were reconfigured differently despite similar feminist arguments. Can’t wait for the book @emilybaughan.bsky.social! (also check out this wild image)

How are things going? Well, I just sighed off an email with ‘All the best, Ket’, so

#jobfairy this is an intriguing one - 18 month research fellowship for an object-focused historian, museums studies person or similar at Chatsworth House! £48k + £11k travel, outreach etc #skystorians www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQK358/d...

Friends, can I ask you to spread the word that we have a THREE-YEAR postdoc in American history at Cambridge up for grabs - ANY field, but applications are due March 1 so don't delay - apply, apply, apply! networks.h-net.org/jobs/69790/u...

We're looking for a new editor for @histhum.bsky.social's para-site histhum.com (founding editor @desfitzgerald.bsky.social; subsequent editors @sarahvmarks.bsky.social @hhnnccnnll.bsky.social), who will also be the journal's social media editor Honorarium Deadline: 9 March 2026 Please circulate

Bad Bunny has a consulting historian. news.wisc.edu/pop-star-bad...

🚨History Job: Assistant Professor in Early Modern British History (Permanent) 🗃️ Come work with us at Warwick! You will join a group of excellent early-modernists and one of the nicest bunches of historians around! 👇👇👇 @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/lang-en-G...