Dr Lena Ferriday

Very excited to announce this workshop on environmental approaches to modern British History taking place this September at @lincoln.ox.ac.uk. Please share!

HistoryLab 20th Anniversary Annual Conference 2026 — Call for Papers Embodied Histories: Body, Mind, and Experience 17th July 2026 | Hybrid Conference, in-person at University of Birmingham, Staff House, Grand Central Room The human body is both a biological reality and a cultural construct. It is a site of meaning, experience, and power. From rituals of health and healing to practices of regulation, discipline, and display, bodies have both shaped and been shaped by their historical contexts. We invite papers that place the body and lived experience at the centre of historical inquiry, engaging with themes such as medicine, disability, gender, the senses, and the emotions. We welcome contributions that explore how bodies and experiences have been represented, regulated, or performed, and how these processes intersect with broader questions of identity, power, culture, and society across periods and regions. This conference also marks the 20th anniversary of HistoryLab. Since its founding, HistoryLab has provided a national platform for postgraduate and early career historians to share ideas, foster collaboration, and build community. We invite participants to join us in celebrating this milestone year.

Our conference #cfp is now live! This year's conference, "Embodied Histories: Body, Mind and Experience" will take place on 17th July 2026 at University of Birmingham!

Keep on reading to find out more...(1/9)

Everyday Giving: Food, Emotions and Community in England, 1760–1850 Abstract. This article proposes that gifts of everyday foodstuffs were a crucial way in which labouring communities attempted to provide care, and express

New article! Ella Sbaraini @ellasbaraini.bsky.social on 'Everyday Giving: Food, Emotions and Community in England, 1760–1850'

academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...

@kingshistory.bsky.social

Looking forward to speaking at this excellent workshop. I'll be speaking about my new work on sensory histories of wild swimming!

Thanks El 💝💝very excited for the extended fieldwork portions...

I am not aware, thanks so much Jon! What an amazing tip, I'll get in touch straight away

Thanks Chloé! 💝 we should arrange to go to another BA ECR meeting together soon...

Please contact me via my new email lena.ferriday@newcastle.ac.uk, and do get in touch if you want to chat about health humanities/ water/ environments/ the south-west, i.e. all the things I have consistently been interested in 😁

🤠 Following a gorgeous year at KCL, I'm returning to research (for the next four years!!) as a PDRA on Beth Turk's wonderful 'Accessing the wellbeing commons' project at @newcastleuni.bsky.social, leading the strand on histories of wild swimming on Dartmoor 🫶

wellcome.org/research-fun...

The Bombing of Guernica | Dan Snow's History Hit How Guernica became a symbol of the horrors of modern warfare.

Our colleague David Brydan talked to Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social about the bombing of #Guernica for the History Hit podcast shows.acast.com/c939f8d1-c4b...? #Gernika

hehe I have a copy of this because you told me to buy one during my undergrad, I think particularly to firmly curtail my split infinitives (failed)

I had the same thought !!!!!!

Let’s be clear: if the Palestine Action hunger strikers die, the government will bear moral responsibility | George Monbiot The three remaining hunger strikers have been convicted of nothing. Yet with astonishing cruelty, ministers refuse to listen to their reasonable demands, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

If the Palestine Action hunger strikers die - which they could do at any moment, as they are now very close to the end - it will be the government that killed them. Today’s column explains why. Please share, and write urgently to your MP.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Postdoctoral Research Associate | King's College London

I'm hiring 2 postdocs on my Wellcome project "How Did Infectious Diseases Become Wild?: Plague, Yellow Fever, and Disease Ecology in the Brazilian Hinterland (1920-1975)"

Department of Global Health and Social Medicine
King's College
3 years 01/10/26- 30/09/29
Deadline: 01/02/26
shorturl.at/KZ6Vh

UK’s industrial regions face ‘entrenched disadvantages’ going back decades Social mobility report highlights ‘extreme regional differences’ in terms of childhood, jobs, innovation and growth

UK’s industrial regions face ‘entrenched disadvantages’ going back decades. But 'beacons of hope' in Aberdeen, Brighton, Bristol, Cheshire West and Chester, Edinburgh, Oxfordshire, Reading, West Berkshire and Manchester. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

It's been a pleasure being on the great organising team at York and Northumbria for next year's NEHN meeting - a collaborative worksop on the many histories of 'unwanted life'. Do see the CFP below, and send in a submission if it appeals!

now sharing professional and adjacent silly escapades on instagram!
www.instagram.com/drferriday
(absolute result that I’ve beaten all other dr ferridays to it)

Funded PhD opportunity at King's!

The Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at @kingshistory.bsky.social is inviting applications for prospective students to pursue a PhD in the History of Science and Technology. For more information, click here: tinyurl.com/mw84w7py

It’s important not to get caught up in pastoral fantasies that before various technologies we didn’t have many of the same struggles concerning power and equality, but it’s likewise essential to recognize that industrial “progress” involved an era of machines ripping off the hands of child workers.

Robert Mcintosh Applied History & Policy Fellowship Robert Mcintosh Applied History & Policy Fellowship

If you are a historian with policy-facing interests who has recently submitted their PhD (or will do so imminently), this fantastic new London-based postdoc fellowship in Applied History could be for you. www.history.ac.uk/fellowships/...

Hardline migration policies are fuelling people smuggling, report finds As leaders try to break smugglers’ business model, research suggests strategy so far has had opposite effect

In the year's most unsurprising news

Opportunity for historians of empire to contribute to the discussion. #Skystorians

Editorial Assistant for RGS-IBG Journals | Job vacancy An exciting opportunity to develop a greater understanding of the academic peer review and publishing process. Part time, six-month fixed term contract.

🚨 Job opportunity🚨

We are looking for an editorial assistant to work with me on the RGS journals (TIBG, The GJ, Area & Geo) as we move online systems.

🗓6 months fixed term
🕑0.4 FTE
📍Remote working option
❗️Closing date 11th Dec

Please share & apply! Happy to answer Qs.
www.rgs.org/about-us/wor...

Advert for a Masterclass 'PhD proposal and funding 101: Learn to apply like a Pro: Meet the Experts'.

📢Applying for a PhD?📢

My excellent colleagues are running a Zoom masterclass next Weds 3 December on how to write a successful PhD proposal and how to apply for funding.

Free, register below - choose from:
- 10am: lnkd.in/eUPhAXHc
- 4pm: lnkd.in/e_U79jUt

🗃️ #PhDChat #Humanities

🗣️ A rally is taking place TOMORROW Wednesday 26 Nov at 3pm outside KCL’s Strand building in solidarity with KCL student Usama Ghanem who fled persecution on Egypt and is now facing deportation after having his visa revoked by the College for his Palestine solidarity. Please join!

A fab opportunity!!!

Two students look at objects in the reading room at The Museum of English Rural Life.

Are you a PhD student & interested in using museum collections in your teaching or research?

We're running a *free* doctoral training programme for students at any institution to learn about working with collections.

Find out more:

collections.reading.ac.uk/whats-on/

Getting Emotional About History? A Panel Discussion | King's College London Want to learn more about what studying emotions in the past entails? Interested in how historians manage their own emotional relationships with their source material?

Join Ella Sbaraini, Dan Matlin, Adam Sutcliffe and Lena Ferriday, to hear how King's academics work with the emotions in their own historical work followed by a chaired panel on the nature of studying these slippery but important histories.

www.kcl.ac.uk/events/getti...

⏰ Hampstead Heath’s swimming ponds consultation closes on Tuesday 25th. If you care about this, please complete the survey and say that the current arrangements work well.