Ben Mechen

Hi Sam. Would be interested in reviewing The Ruin Dwellers if it’s available, as I am working on dropouts, improvised community, that sort of thing in a 70s-80s UK context atm. Let me know! Cheers, Ben

I have access and am happy to help if you DM me what you need!

Francis Gooding · Hoodoo Man: Dr John and ‘Gris-Gris’ Beyond or beneath the theatrics there is a disconcerting sense that something much more serious is going on, that all...

‘Could this unknown white session musician in fancy dress actually be an authentic Louisiana hoodoo man, a root doctor, a gris-gris man? Is the whole thing so fake it’s real?’

Francis Gooding on Dr John’s ‘musico-magical palimpsest of New Orleans history’.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Feminism, Artistry, Madness, and the Ghost of Valerie Solanas Abstract. Valerie Solanas holds an unsettled place in feminist history, notorious for both her incendiary 1967 diatribe the SCUM Manifesto and her near-fat

Highly recommend this gripping, beautifully written article on Valerie Solanas, the ownership of ideas, art, madness, and feminist praxis + memory in @historyworkshop.org.uk

By @marybethhamilton13.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-...

yeah that’s a full rewiring. I now can’t watch anything that involves kids in any kind of perilous situation, or indeed anything meaningful about human relationships in general 🥺

Thank you!

Looking fwd to teaching with Tom Harrisson’s 1938 essay on jazz dancing in “Worktown” tmrw—“Whistle While You Work”. (Sub)cultural studies before the fact…captures well that tension in youth culture btw escape from work, expectation, into *fun*, social life—and subsumption by the DISNEY DEATHMACHINE

Revisited Bitches Brew, On the Corner and Live-Evil this afternoon. Don’t know JDJ’s solo/bandleader stuff - any tips? - but those Miles records are so good

Solidarity with the strikers!

Support the British Library strikers More than 300 PCS members at the British Library in London are striking over their poverty wages for two weeks from Monday (27) to Sunday, 9 November and need your support in person and online.

Nice big loud PCS picket line at the BL this morning. Info on the strike here: www.pcs.org.uk/news-events/...

Bodies, Tides, Timber, and the Global History of London’s Docks, 1860–1928* Abstract. This article examines changes in the bodies and environment of labourers carrying timber imported into London’s docks in the 1860s to the 1920s t

New on advance access: "Bodies, Tides, Timber, and the Global History of London’s Docks, 1860–1928"

by Simeon Koole (@uobrishistory.bsky.social) and @benmechen.bsky.social (@uclhistory.bsky.social)

#OpenAccess

doi.org/10.1093/past...

All good here, cheers 👍 busy with work and kids, but enjoying the latter especially (work is fine too, tbf, but also a yearly grind of new things in new places…having fun with research though, when I find time - finishing thing on trans ppl and psychoanalysis in the 60s-70s, a new area for me)

Congrats Matt! Was brilliant to hear you (and @julialaite.bsky.social) on the book, and to learn more about an area I walk through on my commute. Am just starting chapter 2 🏢

This paper is tonight! Teresa Doherty (RCN) on “The Fragility of Feminist Futures in Digital Collections”

Registration link below. It’s at the IHR at 5.30pm.

A banner advert for Matt Houlbrook’s new book Songs of Seven Dials: An intimate history of 1920s and 1930s London

There's just a day to go until @manchesterup.bsky.social publish my latest book Songs of Seven Dials: An intimate history of 1920s and 1930s London.

I thought I should explain a bit about where the book came from.

1/15

The Oakeshitt lectures

Also as part of the series John Gray and Robert Tombs on Raise the Colours as part of “the English revolutionary tradition” 🙃

Looks really interesting Liam, looking forward to reading!

We're excited to announce the call for papers for #MBS26, the next Modern British Studies conference, at Birmingham in June 2026. We'll be launching the #MBS Association at this event, to support further regular conferences in Modern British Studies.

www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/moder...

Burlington Contemporary - Reviews - Against Morality Rosanna McLaughlin’s Against Morality is the eighth title in Floating Opera Press’s Critic’s Essay Series, which, according to the publisher, ‘gives voice to critics who offer thought-provoking ways i...

I wrote a review of Rosanna McLaughlin’s Against Morality for @burlingtoncontemp.bsky.social

contemporary.burlington.org.uk/reviews/revi...

Looks great Charlie, will read. Congrats

So sorry about the laptop!! And also sorry to hear you were feeling ill. We all really enjoyed the paper.

Not sure about the Rosenberg book - been a while!

Also Anat Rosenberg's book on advertising and British modernity might help?

Think @claireljones.bsky.social work potentially useful here. Also maybe Harry Cocks' on lonely hearts ads, e.g. Jnl of History of Sexuality article on 'Sporty Girls' and 'Artistic Boys' and Ross Brooks - and Lisa Sigel on 'London Life'. All touch on sex/euphemism/alibi including through ads I think

Public space and popular protest in 20th century England: enclosure, resistance and commoning This session draws from the book, Contested Commons: a History of Protest and Public Space in England

On Weds we welcome @katrinanavickas.bsky.social to IHR @cont-brit-hist.bsky.social seminar

Katrina will talk abt "Public space + popular protest in 20thC England: enclosure, resistance + commoning"

In-person/hybrid. All welcome, register here!
www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

@ihr.bsky.social

Enjoyed this!

Union Jacks ✅
Racism ✅
“Can’t say that anymore”-people saying things ✅
Turds everywhere ✅

Very contemporary programming imo!

Teaching Public History in Britain Today: A Roundtable Discussion Abstract. ‘What is Public History Now?’ This was the question posed by the 2022 AHRC Network led by Julia Laite. The network culminated in a conference of

How do we teach public history today? Pleasure to join @julialaite.bsky.social, @ktrcarpenter.bsky.social & Anna Maguire in this roundtable for @historyworkshop.org.uk. Image from @qmul.bsky.social qHeritage project with @museumofthehome.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-...

V happy to share a new OA article in @pastpresentsoc.bsky.social written with Sim Koole. It’s about dock work, dockside life and the changing river in turn of the century Rotherhithe.