Age and Health 1500-1800 Conference

Jennifer McFarland and Olivia Formby, University of Cambridge jmm269@cam.ac.uk occf2@cam.ac.uk   Held at St John’s College, University of Cambridge on 24 June 2024, Age and Health 1500-1800 brought together nine postgraduate and early career speakers working on various aspects of health and the life cycle, with a further thirty attendees in person and online. In … Continued

Fat activism and resistance against ‘traditional’ lifestyle advice in the U.S. and the Netherlands

Jon Verriet, Radboud University Nijmegen  j.verriet[at]let.ru.nl ‘A fiercely antifat culture’, is how the LA Times described U.S. society in 1976. In the corresponding article, the founder of the activist Fat Underground, Vivian Mayer – then known by her radical name Alderbaran – was interviewed about prejudice against people with high relative body weight. At the … Continued

Death in the archives

Kate Brooks, Bath Spa University We may never know the exact number of deaths caused by this pandemic, not just because of Government obfuscation. Establishing a definitive cause of death is not as straight forward as it may seem, and the current debates about numbers can be read as yet another iteration of an almost … Continued

The Pandemic Victorian Post Office

Professor David Green and Dr Laura Newman, King’s College London @PostalHealth Much has been written in the news lately about how best to protect the health of postal workers during a pandemic. At a time when we’re all beginning to reconsider what or who constitutes a ‘vital’ worker, it’s becoming increasingly apparent just how critical … Continued