Holly Fletcher

Olivette Otele Prize 2025/26 Open for Submissions! The Institute of Historical Research’s History Lab is excited to announce the call for papers for the Olivette Otele Prize for the 2025/26 academic year. The prize offers the chance for fast-tracked publication of an article and a cash prize of £250 and is open to Black UK-based PhD students working in history or related disciplines, exploring any place or period.

Olivette Otele Prize 2025/26 Open for Submissions! We invite you to submit an abstract of no more than 400 words for a 40 minute paper by Friday 28th November 2025 to ihrhistorylab@gmail.com. Timeline: Abstract deadline of no more than 400 words due by 28th November 2025 Shortlisted scholars will be notified by Friday 19th December 2025 and asked to submit a full paper of no more than 8000 words by Friday 27th February The winner will be announced by the end of March 2026

Prize and Recognition The winner will receive a £250 cash prize, will be invited to speak at History Lab’s annual conference in summer 2026, and to submit their paper to Historical Research, the leading generalist historical journal and flagship publication of the Institute of Historical Research. Shortlisted scholars will receive a £30 book voucher and the opportunity to present their research at a History Lab seminar.

About the Prize The Olivette Otele Prize was created in 2020 in response to the Royal Historical Society’s ‘Race, Ethnicity and Equality Report’ which highlighted racial inequality in the field of history. The prize was named after the UK’s first Black woman history professor and was designed to both raise participants’ profiles as well as financially reward labour involved in academic research. We look forward to reading your applications!

📢CFP: Annual Olivette Otele Prize 2025/26!

Our annual prize for Black UK-based history PhD students is now open for submissions!

📆Key dates:

- Abstracts due on 28th November
- Notifications on 19th December
- 8000 word essay due on 27th Feb

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Thanks - I hope you enjoy!!

If anyone needs a freelance researcher in London (or across the UK), I'm your person!
I've reasonable rates, lots of archive experience & great recommendations from academics globally. I'm only teaching 1 module this term, as the job market is what it is. Therefore, I'm open to all work. DM me!

The Renaissance Wound Man: Parallels with today’s understanding of wound repair The image of the “Wound Man” first appeared in surgical texts from the late fourteenth century where it served as an illustrated guide to what medical practitioners might be called upon to treat. Acro...

I collaborated with cell biologist, Prof. Paul Martin to explore the relationship between early modern and modern wound healing through the lens of the Wound Man. Our article is available open access: www.jprasurg.com/article/S174... (first and likely last time I'll publish in a surgical journal!)

Woodcut of four individuals around a table which has tankards of ale on it and a candle in a candle stick. One individual on the right as you look at the image is smoking a pipe and standing. The others are sitting. They are dressed in late Elizabethan or early Stuart clothings with some hats with feathers. One individual may be a woman the other three are male.

Just your periodic reminder that there is an early modern pub night once a month for PhDs and ECRs and anyone else who'd like to join in London. If you'd like to be added to the mailing list please DM me.

Birth! Death!! Domestic Religion!!!

Come along (or join online) to hear @emilymayvine.bsky.social's talk at the @ihr.bsky.social next Thursday.

Renaissance Skin Book Launch — CEMS KCL Blog Book launch for Prof. Evelyn Welch's Renaissance Skin, hosted by King's Centre for Early Modern Studies.

Book launch October 23rd!

Join CEMS for the launch of Prof. @evelynwelch.bsky.social's Renaissance Skin. We'll be gathering in King's History department. Comments from Dr. @historyelaine.bsky.social and Dr. Paolo Savoia. Chaired by Dr. @hsmurphy.bsky.social.

kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/renai...

Call for Applications: Postgraduate Research Student Conference 2026 📣

Applications are open for the GHIL Postgraduate Research Student Conference, taking place 26–27 February 2026! 📅
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One week to go until Lyndal Roper's talk at @ihr.bsky.social!

Register for the hybrid event here: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

And check out our other talks by @emilymayvine.bsky.social and @nailyas.bsky.social here: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

An amazing opportunity for a PhD and a 4-year postdoc on this important project with the brilliant and lovely @smschober.bsky.social - hair, race, trade and multispecies history!

#EarlyModern 🗃️

Author holding copy of book

Page with birds on left, text on right

Double page spread with a photo of diorama

Chapter 3 Cursed treasures on left, lion on right

It’s real!!
I just got my first copy of Ghosts Behind Glass and it is beautiful. You all really need to order your copies. You will not regret it. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Oak gall wasps are my current obsession - galls are a key ingredient in European writing inks before industrialisation.
Countless ideas on paper start with the relationship between an oak tree and a wasp.

Marcello Malpighi observed galls to understand and illustrate their growth in the 1670s

Call for applications! 📣

The German Historical Institute London is seeking a Research Associate with a particular research interest in medieval history (with a focus on late medieval English history) for a part-time project position to start on 1 February 2026. 🤝
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And our FIVE YEAR teaching and research position in Early Modern Europe and the World is now live..... Please do circulate and/or think about applying. I truly love our department! @kingshistory.bsky.social

First post of the new academic year and it's a good one: JOBS! There are THREE fixed-term research jobs in @kingshistory.bsky.social attached to my colleague Francisco Bethencourt's new ERC project on the Visual and Material Culture of New Christians. Please circulate!

#EarlyModern 🗃️

Thanks Dolly!! Yes, super exciting!

Honoured to have won the @eseh.bsky.social St Andrews Prize for my article 'Making Beds in Early Modern England'! You can read more about the prize below and check out the article here: academic.oup.com/histres/arti...

#ESEH2025 @sleepingwelluom.bsky.social

Sleep and Self-care

Read the second of two blog posts in which Ifeoma Akobi from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University, reflects on the connections between past and present approaches to sleep care
sites.manchester.ac.uk/sleeping-wel...

Sleep Botanics: Past and Present

Read the first of two blog posts in which Ifeoma Akobi from the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University, reflects on the connections between past and present approaches to sleep care: sites.manchester.ac.uk/sleeping-wel...

A group of people stand in front of a treelined river for a photograph

A highlight of #ESEH2025: the Polar Bear Swim! Was so great to meet so many other swimmers - by FAR the biggest conference swim to date!

A photo of the author holding up a copy of her book, which has a red cover.

Delighted that the print copies of my first book 'Birth, Death, and Domestic Religion in early modern London', just published with @universitypress.cambridge.org, have arrived! 📚📚📚

Call for Applications: Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop, 2025 History Workshop is advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships in 2025, open to early career historians.

Are you an early-career historian interested in radical, public and digital history?

We are currently looking for two part-time, paid Editorial Fellows to join History Workshop.

Deadline is at midnight on 15th August. See below for more details!

www.historyworkshop....

Bernard Palissy and the Arts of the Earth A life of the sixteenth-century potter and scientist, with special attention to his natural philosophy.   Bernard Palissy, a French Renaissance artisan philosopher, saw intelligence and consciousness ...

🚨 📚 New book coming this August. Available for pre-order now!
This just went straight to the top of my to-read list:

"Bernard Palissy and the Arts of the Earth" — François Quiviger

#EarlyModern #HistSci #ArtHistory 🗃️
shorturl.at/SkTK8

The ‘Society, Culture and Belief, 1500-1800’ seminar at the Institute for Historical Research would like to appoint a doctoral student as a stipendiary postgraduate seminar convenor for 2025/26. You would be an active member of our lively, friendly seminar. Your main responsibilities would be to contribute to our social media presence, encourage other postgrads to attend the seminar, and occasionally assist with minor administrative tasks to help the seminar run smoothly. The expectation would be that you would come to the seminar as often as possible. We normally host nine seminar talks over the course of the academic year. In 2024/25, we hosted talks by Rachel Winchcombe (Manchester), Fara Dabhoiwala (Princeton), Will Tullet (York), Tiéphaine Thomason (Cambridge), Nikki Clarke (Birkbeck), and Juliet Atkinson (Leeds). The Institute will provide you with a stipend of £300 (£100/term) and will cover the cost of your meals if you attend post-seminar dinners. The current convenors are Holly Fletcher (UCL), Laura Gowing (KCL), Kate Hodgkin (East London), Eva Johanna Holmberg (Queen Mary), Tiéphaine Thomason (Cambridge), Emily Vine (Exeter), Brodie Waddell (Birkbeck) and Roisin Watson (Open University). To apply, please send a cover letter (max one page) indicating why this opportunity is of interest and a CV (1-2 pages) to b.waddell@bbk.ac.uk by September 1st.

#EarlyModern history PhD students around London: the 'Society, Culture and Belief, 1500-1800' seminar
@ihrscb.bsky.social at @ihr.bsky.social is looking for a postgrad convenor for 2025/26. Stipend of £300/yr and a chance to get involved in a great seminar!

Objects of Poverty edited by @joeharleyhistory.bsky.social & Vicky Holmes, is out in just over a month. It includes a chapter by me about cobbled together whistles. The cover features one of my whistles plus a bonkers barometer.

Pre-order your copy!
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/objects-o...

I’m so excited to share that I will be working as a Postdoctoral Researcher on the @leibniz-gemeinschaft.de project ‘Mining frontiers in the Kingdom of Hungary
(16th-18th century)’ at the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum (PI @tinasmussen.bsky.social). I can’t wait to join the team and get started!

A bunch of historians and friends refreshing themselves after reenacting the procession from Southwark to Wandsworth for the mock election of the Mayor of Garratt. Thanks to @cheeseandpeople.bsky.social & @annacusack.bsky.social for the dose of walking (and drinking) history!

Devastated that the Centre for Lifelong Learning @york.ac.uk is being closed after 40 years. What a loss to education in the region. Feel for students and staff. Being a tutor has been joy, doing what universities should be doing by sharing knowledge widely with our communities.

What a life enriching opportunity to work with the Multispecies Mutualisms project team. Please consider applying or sharing the word!

Bit later than some, but happy to have finally finished my marking and have had a little holiday up in Scotland.
If anyone knows of any teaching opportunities next academic year. Or if anyone needs a freelancer to do some archival work, please get in touch.