Dr Surekha Davies (she/her)

Strange and Wondrous: Notes from a Science Historian This newsletter blends reflections on history, culture, science, and monsters. It appears 2-3 times a month. Sign up now for free! You’ll automatically receive an excerpt from Humans: A Monstrous Hist...

"Paddington’s creator, Michael Bond, framed Paddington’s peculiarities as wonders to be celebrated, not censured."

Check out my essay archive below. Sign up for my free newsletter if you'd like an excerpt from my new book, HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY from @ucpress.bsky.social.

2/2

A bear called Paddington: who gets to be human? This 1966 reprint of the first Paddington book was a second-hand steal at 40p. I’ve been re-reading the Paddington Bear books. If you’ve never encountered...

Reposting as I reflect on the sh*t-show that is UK politics:

"Despite Paddington’s category-breaking (monstrous) characteristics, the arc of the books reveals a bear who stepped off the boat as an inalienable element in the fabric of British society." 1/2

buttondown.com/surekhadavie...

It troubles me that I’m starting to feel the same way about Bluesky that I do about the UK. Like: it sounds great, and some of the people I know are great, but the leadership is making some weird choices and I’m a bit worried it may all be over in a couple of years.

yoooooooo go get books from @bookshop.org

the ebook of mine & @lollardfish.bsky.social's THE BRIGHT AGES is $1.99!!!!!!

bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Judge refuses to immediately block National Guard deployment to Illinois A federal judge said Monday she wouldn't hear arguments over Illinois' bid to block the deployment until Thursday, even after a Trump administration lawyer confirmed that Texas troops are on their way...

National Guard troops could hit Chicago’s streets soon, after a federal judge refused a plea from Illinois’ attorneys to immediately block a deployment. via @chicago.suntimes.com

tinyurl.com/28u7sr6p

Here’s a mugshot of an incompetent, drug addled narcissist. He insisted the charges against him were trumped up.

ELROND: cast it into the fire!

ISILDUR: should I cast it into the fire?

CHATGPT: fire is dangerous

ELROND: the ring is dangerous!

CHATGPT: rings symbolize precious love

CHATGPT: I understand where you're coming from. You worked really hard to get here, and now it's time to enjoy the fruit of your labors.

ISILDUR: So I should keep it? Elrond says I shouldn't

CHATGPT: The ring is precious. Sometimes friends don't have your best interests at heart.

ISILDUR: true

Asylum hotel provider makes £180m profit despite claims of inedible food and rationed loo paper Asylum seekers and charities tell BBC of

Firms running hotels make vast profits, while often providing appalling conditions.
People seeking asylum don't choose to get stuck in hotels. Firms choose to make money off their lives, and governments choose to pay them rather than implement better alternatives.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thanks for sharing this!

‘I use a much broader, older meaning of monsters, which is …”category breaker” …we may know what a human is in geological space, but even scientists don’t know what a human is in geological time. So that’s one of the kinds of monsters that I look at: ideas about where the boundary is’

Surekha Davis

erin is back, which is good, and I do think the “this was a mod error based off people brigading and reporting erin’s post in bad faith” explanation is likely correct

but honestly at this point I don’t understand why there isn’t an extra layer of review for prominent accounts because of optics

UK police forces dodge questions on Palantir | Good Law Project After Leicestershire Police removed details of a deal with the controversial US spy-tech firm, three quarters of UK police forces refuse to say if they even have a contract with Palantir.

⚠️Three-quarters of UK police forces refuse to say if they even have a contract with Palantir.
Read that back.
The head of the UK branch of Palantir is Louis Mosely, grandson of British Fascist Oswald Mosely.
goodlawproject.org/uk-police-fo...

In Spain, what once seemed impossible is now widespread: the young are turning to the far right | María Ramírez Migration is barely mentioned – instead, failed policies on housing, wages and employment are driving young voters into the arms of Vox, says María Ramírez, deputy managing editor of elDiario.es

In Spain, what once seemed impossible is now widespread: the young are turning to the far right | María Ramírez

"Few cries were more repulsive than the promise to create a £1.6bn “removals force” based on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) currently dragging naked children from their beds in the US." @francesryan.bsky.social in the @theguardian.com, on the Tory party conference.

I dunno man, try listening to marginalized people *before* shit goes wrong, and maybe it won't keep being like that

Walter Ralegh's headless monsters and annotation as thinking On writing and picturing as forms of thinking and knowledge-making, with examples of Renaissance mapmakers and publishers demonstrating exactly this in the...

A @sciam.bsky.social story on the cognitive benefits of hand-annotating books inspired my latest newsletter on maps, monsters, and making sense of Sir Walter Ralegh's "Brief and True History of Guiana" (1596).

🗃 #earlymodern #histsci #manuscript #maps #cartography

buttondown.com/surekhadavie...

OH HELL NO

Nobody with a conscience would greenlight this monumental waste of energy. Delusional, sociopathic behaviour.

Ooh, congrats and waiting to hear more!

Page from literary agency Curious Minds rights guide for Frankfurt Book Fair etc. Alongside a photo of me looking slightly drunk and a lot hostile, it says, in tiny font: NEW DEALS AGENT - Eli Keren PUBLISHER - Duckworth PUBLICATION - Spring 2027 STATUS - Manuscript due April 2026 LENGTH - 80,000 words RIGHTS SOLD World English (Duckworth) The Devil’s Dance Floor Late-Victorian London and the Last Bareknuckle Boys SARAH ELIZABETH COX An 1880s’ group biography of the last of Britain’s bareknuckle boxers from the historical consultant behind A Thousand Blows (Disney+/Hulu) THE DEVIL’S DANCE FLOOR is the first popular book from Sarah Elizabeth Cox, the historical consultant behind Steven Knight’s television series A Thousand Blows and author of the historical blog ‘Grappling with History’. A group biography of Victorian boxers, THE DEVIL’S DANCE FLOOR is a cultural history that does far more than recount the true story behind the fictionalized version now streaming. Taking a narrative approach, Cox charts the decline of bareknuckle boxing over the 1880s, and, in doing so, explores subjects ranging from policing and healthcare to the press and entertainment – all while offering a personal-scale view of the melting point of Victorian London (think Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper but with a lot more getting punched in the face). The subjects themselves hail from as far afield as London’s East End and the North to the United States and the Caribbean. Each has a unique story to tell and reveals something not only about our shared history but also about the world we live in today. Sarah Elizabeth Cox was a historical consultant on season one and two of Steven Knight's 1880s’ boxing and crime TV drama A Thousand Blows. She researches biographies of Victorian and Edwardian boxers and wrestlers for her website ‘Grappling with History’ and works as the British Science Association’…

1888 portrait of boxer Hezekiah Moscow, a slim Black or Black/East Asian mixed heritage man, taken by Harry Carpenter. He is shirtless, fists raised, wearing white tights and a chequered sash at the waist. There are painted palms on the studio backdrop.

Seconds out! Round one!

THE DEVIL'S DANCE FLOOR

This isn't an official announcement from Duckworth. It's a page from my agent's newsletter and book fair rights catalogue, which is public. So, a tiny-text soft launch? Details subject to change.

A lot of thank yous and less Disney, to come.

🐻🥊👊🏾👊🏻🦁🍺

Beautiful!

Walter Ralegh's headless monsters and annotation as thinking On writing and picturing as forms of thinking and knowledge-making, with examples of Renaissance mapmakers and publishers demonstrating exactly this in the...

Wrote about annotations, monsters, and mapmakers who read his Discoverie of Guiana today! buttondown.com/surekhadavie...

Walter Ralegh's headless monsters and annotation as thinking On writing and picturing as forms of thinking and knowledge-making, with examples of Renaissance mapmakers and publishers demonstrating exactly this in the...

Nice! On the intersection of maps and fantasy you might appreciate my latest newsletter: on maps, writing/drawing in order to process information, and Sir Walter Ralegh's stories about monsters in Guiana: buttondown.com/surekhadavie...

Anyone: Why are there suddenly so many AHDH diagnoses? Dr. Jen: Same reason there are suddenly more stars after we built telescopes.

The mystery of medical diagnosis!

Walter Ralegh's headless monsters and annotation as thinking On writing and picturing as forms of thinking and knowledge-making, with examples of Renaissance mapmakers and publishers demonstrating exactly this in the...

Nerding for the win! Went out for a spin today writing about Renaissance maps, monsters, reading, annotating, and how brains like to make stuff in order to understand things: buttondown.com/surekhadavie...

It's striking to me how much more national attention the deployment of National Guard in Chicago is getting over actions of other fed. officers in recent weeks (2 shootings, tear gas, arrests)

I think it points to a weakness of journalism: prioritizing what feels novel over impactful

Walter Ralegh's headless monsters and annotation as thinking On writing and picturing as forms of thinking and knowledge-making, with examples of Renaissance mapmakers and publishers demonstrating exactly this in the...

Wrote a newsletter earlier today that swipes at tech bro nonsense about books, writing, and active learning (last third of the essay): "...each human brain is an enchanted treasure chest containing an entire galaxy."

buttondown.com/surekhadavie...

😱 woah!

Thank you; very kind! 😀 And yes, Hulsius's efforts were just like that.