George Severs

My book on the history of British South Asian political activism is out this September!

Available to pre-order now from all good bookshops and online.

I’m on my way to Amsterdam where, later today, I’ll be speaking about Black HIV/AIDS organising in Leicester, and the establishment of new public sexual health work in the early 1990s. Room E1.02 Bushuis building, Kloveniersburgwal 48, 16:00-17:30.

Job Opening: Postdoctoral Fellowship – Department of the History of Medicine The Department of the History of Medicine and the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine (CMHSM), Johns Hopkins University, seeks applicants for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in…

Job Opening: Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Medicine & Medical Humanities to begin 7/1/2026. For more info & to apply: hopkinshistoryofmedicine.org/2026/03/06/j... Deadline to apply is April 5th.

I was sorry to read that the Rev. Dr. Malcolm Johnson, a pioneering gay priest within the CofE and a major figure in the Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement, died in February aged 89. As Rector of St Botolph without Aldgate in London, Malcolm provided a home for the LGCM and blessed gay couples.

This is a really important piece.
University of Glasgow research suggested that about 335,000 people died early as a result of Tory austerity policies. www.gla.ac.uk/news/archive...
This suggests those policies left us ill-prepared for Covid and have blighted healthy lives for years to come.

We are advertising a two-year lectureship in Modern British History at University of Cambridge, please spread the word!
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

This forms part of my contribution to the RE:SHARE project, led by the wonderful @carorusterholz.bsky.social www.graduateinstitute.ch/research-cen...

Next month, I'll be speaking at the Graduate Institute about the research I've been working on recently. I'll be looking at sexual and reproductive health experiences in three English cities and asking what they tell us about Britain's decolonising decades. www.graduateinstitute.ch/communicatio...

I am broadly supportive of not including place of publication in citations, with the obvious exception of the erasure of Basingstoke from our work.

I hope it's of some interest, and will look out for details of this future project! Best of luck with it.

Radical Acts Drawing on activist campaign literature and materials, broadcast media, and new oral history interviews, Severs reconstructs and discusses the overlooked world…

There is a February sale on at @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social which means you can get my book Radical Acts: HIV/AIDS Activism in Late Twentieth-Century England for just over £16. www.bloomsbury.com/uk/radical-a...

And what are one of the key engines of the ‘Manchester model’, according to this article?

Universities.

Reading and writing can lower dementia risk by almost 40%, study finds Cognitive health in later life is ‘strongly influenced’ by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments, say researchers

The study points to using libraries and visiting museums as bringing these enormous brain health benefits ... who would have thought? Well, librarians and museum folk for a start ... www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Today is the day! Record your day and be part of recording queer lives and histories in the UK. Sketch, type, write, or photograph your day. Even if you think your day isn't very interesting we'd still love to have it in our collection! All types of days, boring or brilliant are welcome #LGBTplusHM

The front page of the Daily Graphic newspaper published Saturday 25 August, 1917, featuring portraits of 'Women in the Order of the British Empire', including Lady Byron, the honourable Mrs Alfred Lyttelton, Her Majesty the Queen.

Apply for our PhD placement scheme to get involved in extraordinary research at the Library. There are eight available placements exploring a variety of themes including war poetry, 21st-century digital tools, illustrated newspapers and decarbonisation.

Find out more: link.bl.uk/PhDPlacements

History: Serious about Play: Childhood, Play and Policymaking in Wales, 1945 to the present (RS936) - Swansea University We offer a wide range of funded and fully funded research scholarships in all subject areas. Explore your options and apply now.

Please do share this doctoral opportunity with MA/MSt students - four years of AHRC funding to work on the history of children's play in Wales, supervised by me and the lovely and brilliant Dr Jacky Tyrie. Any questions get in touch! www.swansea.ac.uk/postgraduate...

Team Leader Modern Britain at The National Archives Start your UK & international job search for academic jobs, research jobs, science jobs and managerial jobs in leading universities and top...

My team are looking for a new team leader and Modern Britain (post-1782) specialist. Closes 22nd February and do get in touch if you have any questions www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQJ050/t...

Myself, Andrea Althaus, Linde Apel and Janine Schemmer have just submitted the first draft of our book Reusing Oral Histories: From Archive to Analysis to our series editor. Still a lot of work to do, but what a great feeling!

Remembering the General Strike, 100 years on

To mark the 100th anniversary of the General Strike we have a special event planned @ihr.bsky.social on Weds 29 April. Prof Jonathan Schneer will be discussing his new book on the strike alongside Paul Novak, Jon Cruddas, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite & Jim Moher. www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Huge thanks! Stupidly left my physical copy at home and I can never work out how to find the right page number on an eBook reader...

Does anyone have a copy of Participant Observers by @freddyfoks.bsky.social who can tell me on what page this appears? "The archives left by social anthropologists are exceptionally rich and have been surprisingly underexplored by historians." It comes directly after n15 in the introduction. Thanks!

Crossing the Floor: Tales from the Oral History Project - The History of Parliament Political defections, commonly known in Westminster parlance as ‘Crossing the Floor’, have been a phenomenon in Parliament since at least the 17th century.

Following the news of another political defection in Westminster, we're resharing our recent #HistParl article on the history of MPs 'crossing the floor' and changing their party affiliation, drawing heavily upon extracts from our #OralHistory archive.

historyofparliament.com/2026/01/16/c...

Topic Collection: Race, Sexual and Reproductive Health: Histories, Inequalities, Futures | Medical Humanities

We are delighted to share our call for papers for Medical Humanities. @georgesevers.bsky.social, Naomi Samake-Bäckert and I are guest editing a topic collection titled “Race, Sexual and Reproductive Health: Histories, Inequalities, Futures. Deadline: 31 October 2026

mh.bmj.com/pages/topic-...

Morning reading.

Bump for my CFP for Nostalgia and Radical Politics, Past and Present www.northampton.ac.uk/research-blo... Deadline 14 February! Have had a few abstracts already and it's shaping up to be great. 🗃️

Poster showing a cartoon strip of a couple watching a presenter on the TV. The presenter has a cold and to stop germs spreading to the viewers the later wrap the TV in a huge handkerchief. The male viewer carries on smoking his pipe. The caption reads "Coughs and sneezes spread diseases, trap the germs in your handkerchief".

"Coughs & sneezes spread diseases" but it's fine to carry on smoking a pipe.

Timely Government advice from the 1940s, from the Brewers' Society archive.

mrc-describe.epexio.com/records/BLR/...

Here's what it looked like on my return to work this morning - beautiful red brick gabled building of Girton's Hall, with a dusting of snow on the grass in front.

JOB ALERT!

3-year postdoc at @girtoncollege.bsky.social - research anything you like in History, Archaeology or Anthropology in a wonderful, welcoming scholarly community.

PLEASE SHARE! Closes 12 January

www.girton.cam.ac.uk/job-vacancie...

That's why Trump is decapitating and gutting the CDC - a bit like what's happening to those chlorinated chickens he wants to force into our supermarkets.

Sundials say ‘I only tell the sunny hours’ because it is all they can do. Given half a chance, our memories would do the same. But life would not be half as interesting.

Ronald Blythe

19th century New Year's card with the caption 'A bright New Year'. It includes a picture of a man in sports gear (red fitted shorts and a stripy top) bent double on a penny farthing bicycle, speeding along a country road. A flattish green field is in the background with a town or city with smoky chimneys far in the distance. The precariously hurtling cyclist is described as 'Making the Pace'. This card is one of a series of cycling postcards and greetings cards in the archives of the Cyclists' Touring Club / Cycling UK (document reference: MSS.328/C/5/5/2).

We're back, rested and ready for more archive exploration in 2026!

As we balance precariously on the metaphorical penny farthing of time, here's hoping for a healthy, happy and peaceful New Year for us all - wobbling slightly but still upright and speeding onwards (fitted sportsing shorts optional)