Dr Vicky Donnellan

getting comfortable with being uncomfortable Good academic writing means sitting with a discomfort that never entirely goes away. It’s not a discomfort that comes from having nothing to say. Most of us have more than enough ideas crowding the…

Academic writers often feel uncomfortable but that’s often OK Here’s why patthomson.net/2026/03/08/g...

Please teleport some down for me

The British Museum's Reading Room bsky.app/profile/fran... was a Very Significant place of work, inspiration and connection for many women in our @beyondnotables.bsky.social database, and the extant Readers' records at the Museum were a goldmine.

On World Book Day, where better to celebrate than the glorious Round Reading Room of the British Museum! Here’s a design image from the Illustrated London News in the 1850s, a photo by William Lake Price in 1855 & Smirke’s design for the windows. #worldbookday #britishmuseum #archives

Oooh enjoy! Making the most of your trip to London!

Barons Hall built 1341, with beautiful ceiling made from chestnut wood, fire in central hearth

Wood-panelled room hung with collection of porcelain plates

Historic kitchen dresser filled with plates and copper pots

Pleasant afternoon at Penshurst Place. The 14th-century Baron's Hall is incredibly impressive.

Women Working the Past This book offers a new history of women's integral contribution to archaeology, history, and heritage in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain and beyond. Born out of the Beyond Notability project...

That exciting feeling when you notice you have a new book out (even though you haven't quite finished it yet!) press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo... @amalexathorn.bsky.social @sharonhoward.bsky.social @corabeth.bsky.social

🗡️ Traitors: Greek Gods
Part 1! Can you guess who your favourite will be?

A classroom with students sitting around tables arranged in a square, and lecturers at the front with a powerpoint slideshow behind.

Today we started teaching the first ever co-designed and taught joint MA module between the University of London (ICS/KCL) and British Museum (Greece & Rome)!

The module provides hands-on experience in a real-world #museum environment, with half the classes taught behind the scenes at the BM.
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This is a great concept. I will henceforth aspire to be more Dog who Did.

Ellie's fundraiser for Step Forward (Tower Hamlets) Help Ellie Mackin Roberts raise money to support Step Forward (Tower Hamlets)

So I am running the London Lea Valley 50km in March and trying to raise some money for Step Forward - a youth centre in Tower Hamlets, Kiddo attends their LGBTQIA+ group and it's been such a brilliant and supportive space for them, which feels so important when trans youth are under constant attack.

Christmas Market at dusk with wooden chalet style stalls and a reindeer covered in lights

Glyptothek at night with lion sculpture standing guard in front and lights of Tivoli Gardens behind

Grand arched entrance to Tivoli Gardens all done up.with lights and Christmas trees

I'm in Copenhagen for a conference and it is LOVELY 😍

Photo of seven dials strung with pretty white strings of lights radiating from the central monument

London street with a swooping canopy of strings of white fairly lights

I vehemently object to Christmas starting the moment bonfire night is over, but I have to admit that the Christmas lights around Seven Dials do enormously cheer up my evening walk to the station

A museum text display with more information on upcoming redisplays at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Next time you visit the Pre-Raphaelite galleries at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, keep an eye out for more information about my project, Victorian Art & Design and the Global!

More information available at: www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/about/what-w...

My individually handmade recycled silver jewellery including intricate casts of real flowers (snowdrop, bluebell etc), casts of dragonfly Wongs & jay feathers & my tiny wearable sculptures of much-loved British bird species

One of my best-selling mounted art prints of flowers I grew & bought from an honesty florist

Victorian ink bottles that form part of my tiny posy-making mental health kits-they make great gifts

The 12 photos that make up my 2026 botanical calendar-each image is designed to improve mental health

Just added to my Etsy shop:
🌿final small print run of my '26 calendars
🪶my handmade recycled silver jewellery designs (incl intricate casts of real flowers)
🌸limited ed'n mounted art prints of my photos
💐tiny posy mental health kits
Last orders for📮 in time for🌲: 19 Nov
www.etsy.com/uk/shop/silv...

Two mannequins with costumes from a Room with a View: white dress on left (worn by Helena Bonham Carter) and cream suit on right (worn by Maggie Smith)

Mannequins with costumes for Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet from the BBC Pride and Prejudice

Mannequins with costumes worn by several key characters from Downton Abbey, including Hugh Bonneville and Maggie Smith

View over main ground floor room of the exhibition from above, crowded with mannequins on raised platforms and lots of visitors

Couple of days leave this week while my daughter's off for half term. Today was a visit to Fashion and Textile Museum to see the "Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop" exhibition. Lots of familiar outfits for me to get excited about and good inspiration for daughter's GCSE textiles

“Civilizing” the World: Classicism, Neo-Classical Sculpture, and Plaster Casts in the Service of Imperial Powers and Post-Colonial Elites (1780-1945) Please enable JavaScript in your web browser to get the best experience.

Call for Papers: “Civilizing” the World: Classicism, Neo-Classical Sculpture, and Plaster Casts in the Service of Imperial Powers and Post-Colonial Elites (1780-1945)

Papers deadline: 1 December 2025
Conference dates: 22 - 23 October 2026

Full details here: ics.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Revisiting the Ancient Mediterranean World at the British Museum: Nature, the Environment, and Culture Please enable JavaScript in your web browser to get the best experience.

Revisiting the Ancient Mediterranean World at the British Museum: Nature, the Environment, & Culture

4–6.30pm, Weds 5 Nov
In-person at Senate House
Full details and registration here: shorturl.at/h76mr

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figure | British Museum Bronze figure of Cerberus.

Here's the actual object

figure | British Museum share.google/Ne3YVOuNLoEk...

Bad pencil sketch of small bronze figure of three-headed dog, sitting nicely with middle head looking sort-of perky and ready for action.

I've missed many days of #classicstober but I couldn't miss day 21 and Cerberus. Very rough and ready sketch, but I always think this bronze looks like such a good obedient little hellhound

Anna North Thinks About the Roman Empire All the Time My father does not like to give unsolicited advice, and when I was going off to college, he gave me no warnings about drugs, drinking, or boys. He did, however, give me one tip: “Don’t study Latin.…

I wrote about what Latin can teach us about toxic nostalgia and the anxieties of the powerful. Thank you @lithub.com.web.brid.gy

LSE Collaborative Studentship with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew LSE Collaborative Studentship with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

This collaborative PhD project with the LSE and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, on Planting Decolonization: Plantation Science and Empire in the Twentieth Century, sounds amazing.

I’m sure many of you might be interested.

#STS #HPS #HistSci

www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse...

A week today! - Our first research seminar of the year with Dr Simon Glenn on ‘The Bactrian Mirage: coins and history in Hellenistic Central Asia’ on 16 October, 17:15-18:30 UK time. More details in the thread below. Please note the change of on campus venue to Michael Sadler 1.01. All welcome!

drawing | British Museum Ulysses and Circe; Ulysses in a boat with companions (in the form of pigs), Circe standing on the shore, offering him a vessel Pen and black ink, with red, blue, grey and brown wash, sheet cut down

Day 7 of #classicstober and the theme is witch/sorceress. Pressed for time today so here is a 16th-century drawing showing Circe with Odysseus plus crew members transformed into pigs

@classicstober.bsky.social #classicstober25

drawing | British Museum share.google/w117nan5PeNJ...

Pencil crayon and black fibre tip drawing of the Fates as featured in Disney film Hercules. Three caricatured old women draped in black. One sort of looks like a bird with a long beak, another sort of like a pig, maybe? The third has a long pointy chin and is holding an eyeball. They all have black eye sockets as they share that single eye. Lovely.

Day 6 of #classicstober and the theme is the Fates (moirai). Here's my quick rendition of the fabulous Fates from Disney's Hercules (a bit of a blend with the Graiai of day 3) #classicstober25 @classicstober.bsky.social

column | British Museum Marble column drum from the Later Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, showing a draped woman, perhaps Alcestis or Eurydike, between a youthful draped Thanatos (Death) and Hermes Psychopompos; also shown are...

column | British Museum share.google/nAYBgUONnCvU...

Pencil drawing of relief carving of Hermes, nude except for a cloak draped around his left arm, staff held in his right hand. Proportions are a bit off in the drawing, and best not to look too closely at the feet or hand

Day 5 of #classicstober and another drawing of a British Museum object for the theme of Hermes Psychopompos: part of a column from Ephesus. Full object details below
##classicstober25 @classicstober.bsky.social

View across a grassy field, line of autumnal trees at the end, low hill beyond. A path at far right.

Photo of table with teapot and mismatching vintage teacups, plate with a slice of Victoria sponge and two forks. One of the forks is held by my daughter, mostly out of shot

Another Sunday walk in the Kent countryside today. This week I persuaded my daughter to join me, by bribing her with a tea shop visit at the end

bead; shroud (?) | British Museum Faience beads coloured green, blue, pink, white and black, perhaps forming the decorative beadwork on a shroud or garment. At least 32,000 beads are under this registration number.

bead; shroud (?) | British Museum share.google/hB25LsfB129b...

Circular tray divided into four, each section containing many tiny beads shaped like rings, sorted by colour: muted yellow, blue, red and green

Day 4 of #classicstober and no chance to make art today so just sharing an object, or rather a lot of tiny objects! Beads found in a tomb in Vulci, which may have decorated a shroud (today's theme) #classicstober25 @classicstober.bsky.social