Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rohan Deb Roy @rohandroy.bsky.social · 12d

South Asia at Reading this semester
Apurbaa Chatterjee (Kingston), Book launch: Visual Culture and the British in India
Nandini Chatterjee (Oxford): Statue Stories: Robert Clive as an imperial icon
Stenton Talk Sujit Sivasundaram (Cambridge): The Indian Ocean and Our Environmental Past and Present

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History Workshop @historyworkshop.org.uk · 28d

Aerial archaeology began not in neutral curiosity but in the violence of colonial Syria.

Benjamin Thomas White (@btwhite.bsky.social) traces its entanglement with empire.

The Bomber's View of the Past

Discover the influence of Antoine Poidebard on aerial archaeology and his complex role in French colonial history.

www.historyworkshop.org.uk

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The Royal Society @royalsociety.org · Aug 30

The Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal and Lecture 2025 goes to Professor Sadiah Qureshi for the distinguished and internationally-recognised specialism in subjects related to science, race and empire. #RSMedals https://royalsociety.org/medals-and-prizes/wilkins-bernal-medawar/

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Warwick Anderson @wombatscholar.bsky.social · Aug 24

Surprised and delighted to receive the 2025 Arthur J Viseltear Prize from @apha.org for lifetime achievement in public health history. Hoping to be at the APHA meeting in DC in early November to collect it.
#publichealth #sts #histstm #histmed #histsci

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Rohan Deb Roy @rohandroy.bsky.social · Jul 24

At the David Attenborough Studio (Natural History Museum, London) for a 'Climate action night' rountable on 'Insects, collections, colonialism'

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Raf De Bont 🟥 @rafdebont.bsky.social · Jun 13

New article in Osiris, entitled 'Flying Rhinos', in which I follow two northern white rhinoceroses to discuss the entanglement of mid-twentieth century zoo conservation, colonialism and celebrity culture: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

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Jules Skotnes-Brown @julesskotnesbrown.bsky.social · May 30

Honoured and delighted to hear that my book has been shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society First Book Prize. The two winners will be announced in July: blog.royalhistsoc.org/2025/05/28/r...

Royal Historical Society First Book Prize, 2025 – Shortlisted Titles | Historical Transactions

blog.royalhistsoc.org

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · Jun 4

Love’s Labour Launches with a roar! Thanks to many roarsome people I’ve gone from peasant to PhD, to Professor, and Penguin author with Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction out today. 🐅

Pls share, read, and help create a worthwhile world.
#WorldEnvironmentDay
#BookSky #HPS #Skystorians 🗃️

Book cover for Vanished. Features a nineteenth-century print with a fossilised mastodon skeleton, Asian elephant being ridden by a turbaned man, Native and colonial figures looking on. In the background is a mountainous landscape and there is also a single passenger pigeon in the sky. The whole scene is framed by an ornate frame and foliage.

Below the book is the following text: A love letter to the astonishing ways of being that have survived past extinctions, and an exhortation to create a worthwhile world.

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History Workshop @historyworkshop.org.uk · May 28

📣 Call for participants 📣

Have you ever used any History Workshop Journal articles in your teaching practice?

We’d love to hear from you for the 100th issue of HWJ!

Please let us know by sending an email or feel free to DM.

Green and red poster with History Workshop Journal printed in the corner, black and white illustrations in the corner, and short text under the title ‘Can you help us?’ requesting participation.

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Jules Skotnes-Brown @julesskotnesbrown.bsky.social · May 22

"This is an essential text for scholars working on environmental, animal, scientific, and segregation histories in South Africa and beyond". The first review of my book is out on Animal History. A big thank you to Mia Uys for this generous review.
online.ucpress.edu/ah/article-a...

Review: Segregated Species: Pests, Knowledge, and Boundaries in South Africa, 1910–1948, by Jules Skotnes-Brown

Segregated Species examines the role of pests in early 20th-century South Africa, and traces how conceptions of pestilence changed over time. In this engaging work, Skotnes-Brown links the South Afric...

online.ucpress.edu

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Stuart Elden @stuartelden.bsky.social · May 2

Alan Corbin, Fragility: A History of Plaster, trans. Helen Morrison - @politybooks.bsky.social, June 2025
www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

Fragility: A History of Plaster

Fragility: A History of Plaster, This new book takes a fresh look at the role of materials in shaping history. Corbin focuses on the neglected role that plaster played in the first half of the 19th c...

www.politybooks.com

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Chris(tyn) Parkes @parkesland.bsky.social · May 1

OPEN LETTER: HISTORIANS FOR TRANS RIGHTS

Are you a historian in the UK or working on UK history fed up at seeing the history of LGBTQIA+ discrimination repeat itself? Sign this open letter to MPs demanding they stand up for trans rights now!

Letter: tinyurl.com/879vuver
Sign: tinyurl.com/4p7wktrn

Historians for Trans Rights - Open Letter to MPs

In light of the recent and incessant attacks on the trans community in the UK by the UK government and legal system, a group of UK-based historians have drafted the letter linked below. Our aim is to ...

tinyurl.com

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Christos Lynteris @visualplague.bsky.social · Apr 28

Book review of Kathryn Renton's Feral Empire: Horse and Human in the Early Modern Iberian World, and its examination of "Spain’s imperial expansion through the unique lens of horse and human relations" muse.jhu.edu/pub/5/articl...

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Spooooky Suman Seth @alltoosuman.bsky.social · Apr 23

I now have a contract for my forthcoming book!!! Title, for now, ‘Mortality and Measurement: Race, Statistics, and Nineteenth-Century Empire’ (Cambridge, 2026).

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Rohan Deb Roy @rohandroy.bsky.social · Apr 16

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo... could be relevant ?

Victorian Sensation

Fiction or philosophy, profound knowledge or shocking heresy? When Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was published anonymously in 1844, it sparked one of the greatest sensations of the Victo...

press.uchicago.edu

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Gender & History Journal @genderandhistory.bsky.social · Apr 8

In this #OpenAccess article, Indrani Chatterjee traces the career of women slaves in the nineteenth century household-state of Awadh, before considering how British official necropolitics has shaped the historiography of slavery until the present.

Read it here 👇

doi.org/10.1111/1468...

Haunting the Historiography of Slaves in South Asia from the nineteenth century to the present

Using both English and Urdu-language records, this article traces the career of a few African and Afro-Asian women slaves in the household-state of Awadh during the first half of the nineteenth centu...

doi.org

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Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · Apr 8

I went to talk to BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour yesterday morning to talk about my @mitpress.bsky.social book 'Conceiving Histories: Trying for Pregnancy, Past and Present'. Catch it on iPlayer.
#nonfictionreads

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Erica McAlister @flygirlnhm.bsky.social · Apr 3

@nhm-london.bsky.socialtoday at @nhm-london.bsky.social we have the Colonies, Hives & Queens- Insects and Colonialism

We start it with @beetlequeen.bsky.social talking beetles in Guatemala. Collecting then & accessing now; there are issues with both but things, thankfully have changed

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · Apr 4

It's here.

Box of copies of Contesting Earth's History in Transatlantic Literary Culture, 1860–1935, sitting on a bench.

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Rohan Deb Roy @rohandroy.bsky.social · Mar 30

I am co-organising a workshop (with Dr Isabel Davis) on 'Colonies, hives and queens: Insects and Imperialism' at the Natural History Musuem in London on Thursday the 3rd of April. There will be a set of flash talks on the theme in the morning. Teams link:
teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-joi...

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Rebecca Rideal @rebeccarideal.bsky.social · Mar 28

These figures are utterly grotesque. Under a Labour government too.

(I’m not saying this for sympathy, but I grew up in poverty. Aside from the immediate dreadfulness of it, the long-term psychological consequences are very real).

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Record 4.5m children in poverty in UK as cuts condemned as ‘morally repugnant’

Data published on day after Labour announces cuts that analysts say will hit children and disabled people hardest

www.theguardian.com

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Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · Mar 16

Higher ed institutions are “…natural antidotes against the consolidation of what the founding fathers referred to as “artificial aristocracies founded on wealth and birth.” Yes! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

There’s nothing elitist about college or university. We should reject that idea | Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti

Higher education institutions continue to function as powerful engines of social mobility. They need more, not less, support

www.theguardian.com

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Dolly Jørgensen @dollyjorgensen.bsky.social · Mar 14

We need two people to step up into this editorial role. It has been incredibly fulfilling for me to have been co-editor for 5+ years, but now it’s time for us to let another team shape the field.

Dolly Jørgensen @dollyjorgensen.bsky.social · Feb 3

Are you an #envhum scholar looking to make a difference for the field?
Become a co-editor of the journal Environmental Humanities!
We need a new set of 2 co-editors to replace Franklin & I from Jan 2026. See the call here:
environmentalhumanities.org

Contact us if you have any questions.

Environmental Humanities – A journal published by Duke University Press

environmentalhumanities.org

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Warwick Anderson @wombatscholar.bsky.social · Mar 13

The Holberg Prize committee making a statement - a good choice too. Especially in relation to what's happening in the US and at Columbia...

#STS #histstm #postcol

Literary Theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Named 2025 Holberg Prize Laureate

It was announced today that the 2025 Holberg Prize is awarded to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Daniela Alaattinoğlu will receive the Nils Klim Prize. Today, the Holberg Prize—one of the largest…

holbergprize.org

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Mary Fissell @maryfissell.bsky.social · Mar 13

Thanks Hurst for all your work with me!

Hurst Publishers @hurstpublishers.bsky.social · Mar 13

Happy publication day @maryfissell.bsky.social! 🥳⭐

Abortion: A History is out today! 🌱

‘Fascinating...Fissell specialises in digging out individual stories from behind the headlines and the grandstanding.’ — @telegraphnews.bsky.social, 5⭐ review

25% off with code FISSELL25 ➡️ tinyurl.com/yybsa2wp

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