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Clare Hickman

@drhick.bsky.social

Environmental & medical historian at Newcastle University - hospitals, gardens, landscapes, senses, inclusive interpretation, story teller.

698 Posts3248 Follower1564 Folgt
Nicola Chester@nicolawriting.bsky.social · 13h ago

Weather Report pt 2: contrails for comets at sunset. Words I’ve held dear since 1987: ‘A comet that was lost Should be visible at sunset, Those million tons of light Like a glimmer of haws & rose-hips’ Ravens homeward on taffeta wings. Blowing up sparks from embers of light. *Seamus Heaney

Sunset framed by trees, & a short vapour trail from an aeroplane lit brightly. Bild
Dr CC Flinn@bostonoxford.bsky.social · 13h ago

On sale again! UK: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/rebuildin... US: www.bloomsbury.com/us/rebuildin...

Rebuilding Britain's Blitzed Cities

Named one of the Books of the Year 2019 by History Today.Many British cities were devastated by bombing during the Second World War and faced stark economic dil…

bloomsbury.com

Dr CC Flinn@bostonoxford.bsky.social · last yr.

So my book is on sale if there's any random person out there wanting to read it - or encourage their library to buy it! www.bloomsbury.com/us/rebuildin...

Alison Fisk@alisonfisk.bsky.social · 3d ago

An ancient and magical amber bear 🐻 ✨ Carved some 10,000 years ago, it washed up on a beach at Fanø in Denmark from a submerged Mesolithic settlement under the North Sea. National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen 📷 by me #Archaeology

My photo shows a small and ancient figurine of an amber bear carved some 10,000 years ago during the Danish Mesolithic period. The museum lighting makes the amber glow translucent orange against a dark display case background. The bear is displayed on a small metal stand viewed in profile facing right. The ears, muzzle, and mouth are defined. The neck has a polished groove suggesting it was once suspended on a cord. The characteristic shoulder hump of a brown bear is clearly defined. There are some finely incised horizontal lines along the belly. The legs are incomplete. Length 6.5cm. Amber has many properties which may have been associated with 'magic' for ancient peoples. For example, when rubbed against fur, amber produces static electricity which can give off sparks in the dark, make hair stand on end, and attract small things towards it. The bear was found in 1991 on a west coast beach of the Danish North Sea island of Fanø. It is one of a small number of amber animal figurines from the Baltic Sea region which have been assigned to the Mesolithic period by means of a typo-chronological approach and /or other contextual information.
Helsbels@helenus3.bsky.social · 3d ago

Loving the beautiful @petroc.bsky.social sea-themed programme now drawing to a close on Radio3, Where the Light Sings. Broadcast from the lighthouse on St Agnes, Isles of Scilly. Islands very close to my heart after several idyllic holidays there My 📷, Higher Town Bay, St. Martin's, Isles of Scilly

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Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 4d ago

'Accounts described elephants selecting particular plants when they seemed unwell, and mothers reportedly giving medicinal plant material to their calves. ...the researchers concluded that the elephants use 35 different plant species, and that 25 of those are known locally to have medicinal uses.'

Elephants treat themselves with medicinal plants, witnesses say

African elephants use dozens of different medicinal plants to treat themselves and their families when they are sick, research reveals.

bbc.co.uk

Dr Dave Hitchcock@davehitchcock.bsky.social · 5d ago

"Every page the model reads exists because a historian in Havana did this work, and any honest account of AI in the humanities has to include the unevenly distributed labour, energy, and access on which these systems rest." Yes! No notes. If we're going to do this there's only one honest way.

NiCHE Canada@nichecanada.bsky.social · 5d ago

"Unlike infectious diseases like smallpox and cholera, malaria was firmly place-based, meaning that local and environmental histories are best suited to telling its history–if we can reconstruct past environments." - @gabtm.bsky.social niche-canada.org/2024/05/29/t... #envhist #histmed #cdnhist

Tropical Disease in Untropical Places: Thinking of Malaria in Canada

The processes designed to “soften” Upper Canada’s disease landscape—such as agriculture and settlement—were also tools of settler colonialism.

niche-canada.org

Municipal Dreams@municipaldreams.bsky.social · 5d ago

🚨 New on Substack, my post on the Meadow Well estate, North Shields. The estate became infamous for its 1991 riots but they were part of a much more complex and richer history. municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-meadow...

The Meadow Well Estate, North Shields I: ‘a victim of labelling’

‘Decent people living on a decent estate’ – that’s how Carole Bell, a Meadow Well community activist wanted people to think of the Estate in 2012.

municipaldreams.substack.com

Mona Bieling@monabie.bsky.social · 6d ago

Please consider applying 👇🏼We'll discuss your work in progress in a friendly and constructive environment, invite an expert discussant to join the conversation, and help you make connections with peers in environmental history #envhist #envhum

ESEH NEXTGATe@esehnextgate.bsky.social · 6d ago

Call for Writing Support Program! Are you an early-career scholar working on a manuscript? Apply for this great opportunity with Andrea Gaynor and Mona Bieling. #envhist #envhum

Tim Waterman@tim-waterman.co.uk · 6d ago

Barbara Bender wrote in 1993, “Operating … at the juncture of history and politics, social relations and cultural perceptions, landscape has to be … ‘a concept of high tension’.”

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 6d ago

THIS FRIDAY: You can come to my @royalhistsoc.org public lecture on rights of way and the struggle for land access in England and Wales... It's at London's Senate House at 6pm. Still a few tickets left! And an online version. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rhs-lectur...

RHS Lecture: 'In All Our Footsteps?' with Professor Glen O'Hara IN PERSON

'In All Our Footsteps? Rights of Way and the Battle for the Land after the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act' at the IHR

eventbrite.co.uk

Miles King@milesking.bsky.social · 7d ago

What a farce. As farmers fail to access funds to support sustainable farming, this will undoubtedly mean valuable wildlife habitat (recently created or much older) will be destroyed, as farmers feel they have no option but to intensify their farming systems. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘Worse than the scramble for Oasis tickets’: England’s sustainable farming funds run out in just six hours

Entire £233m budget for 2026 allocated in less than a day, leaving thousands of farmers disappointed

theguardian.com

Robert Hutton@roberthutton.co.uk · 7d ago

Hard to explain how gobsmacking this is. The government opened applications for farm subsidies this morning at 10. And closed it just before 4 because they'd run out of cash. Applying for your livelihood like it's Oasis tickets. defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/2026/09/22/s...

SFI26: Window 2 now closed

Window 2 of the Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 (SFI26) has now closed. Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit an application.

defrafarming.blog.gov.uk

Charlotte Lydia Riley@lottelydia.bsky.social · 7d ago

literally thousands of jobs in higher education were cut *last year alone* and there's been almost no media coverage and no government action

Willard Foxton@willardfoxton.bsky.social · 7d ago

I think it's absolutely mad that today there's a *national news story* about 400 oil platform workers losing their jobs, and the government being blamed. 25% of the UK TV industry lost their jobs in the last 4 years and we never hear a peep about it! Some jobs are 'real jobs' I guess.

Dr Laura Sangha@lsangha.bsky.social · last wk.

📢**NEW** MANY HEADED MONSTER POST!📢 A little case study where I apply rigorous, critical thinking to a very modern matter 🗃️ #Humanities manyheadedmonster.com/2026/09/22/a...

A plea for critical thinking humans in our world of extremes

Laura Sangha A companion piece to: What is history for? Or: Doing history/thinking historically The train to Totnes this weekend was full of late holiday makers heading for Cornwall. They were grat…

manyheadedmonster.com

Saima Nasar@saimanasar.bsky.social · last wk.

Please join us in celebrating the Centre for Black Humanities’ tenth anniversary. CBH is holding a two-day symposium titled ‘Collectivity, Community, Collaboration’. Our keynote will be Professor Christina Sharpe. Cfp below. Please spread the word!

CALL FOR PAPERS Centre For Black Humanities 10th Anniversary Symposium: ‘Black Humanities: Collectivity, Community, Collaboration’ Keynote Speaker: Professor Christina Sharpe 8-9 th April 2027 University of Bristol The Centre for Black Humanities is an interdisciplinary research collective dedicated to advancing scholarship on the artistic and intellectual contributions of people of African descent. It is inspired by and expands legacies of scholarship, art, and activism relating to Black lives across time and space. Building on our international and multilingual networks, and our home in the port city of Bristol, our research often engages with communities beyond traditional academic settings and addresses inequality and social justice through innovative collaborations. By centring an ethics of care and generosity, despite the chronic conditions of life in and beyond the academy, we support earlycareer scholars and visiting scholars/practitioners. In turn, we seek to interrogate and repurpose institutions of knowledge production such as universities, museums and publishing houses, within entangled contexts of reparative justice, decolonization, and the climate crisis. We imagine collectivity, community and collaboration as methods for Black Humanities research going forwards.To celebrate the Centre’s 10-year anniversary, we will be holding a two-day symposium entitled: ‘Black Humanities: Collectivity, Community, Collaboration’. The keynote will be Professor Christina Sharpe, Research Chair in Black Studies in the Humanities at York University (Canada), and author of In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016) and Ordinary Notes (2024). We invite scholars and practitioners (at all levels, independent and affiliated) to submit abstracts for presentations of 15 minutes. The event will be held in person at the University of Bristol. We invite presentations that speak to Black Humanities in its multi/anti/undisciplinary forms. We are particularly interested in work that speaks to the following themes: - Collectivity, Collaboration and/or Community in Black Humanities - Black Humanities/Studies in times of polycrisis - Black Health - Environmental Justice - Radical Imaginaries (how creative works make sense of Black pasts/present and help to shape Black futures) - Methods for solidarity and/or incompleteness - Folklore and storytelling as method - Translation and multilingual solidarities - Beyond critique Please submit your abstract of no more than 250 words, along with a short bio of no more than 100 words, to cbh-publicity@bristol.ac.uk. Abstracts should be submitted no later than Friday 30th October 2026. A publication and podcast series are planned to follow on after this event. You may reach us at cbh-publicity@bristol.ac.uk in case of any questions or observations.
David Veevers@davidveevers.bsky.social · last wk.

Can we make a comparison to deindustrailisation now? The slashing of wages, the redundancies, the subordination of learning to profit? The intellectual impoverishment of communities and generations, not to mention the literal impoverishment through unemployment and shrinking of local economies?

Chris Millard@chrismillard83.bsky.social · last wk.

“Universities have managed staff costs significantly below inflation,[between 2016-17 and 2023-24] increasing only 14% compared to the 41.2% increase in RPIX [measure of inflation]” Substantial real terms pay cut, which continues a trend existing years before that…