Back from a Latvia research trip with my brilliant friend and co-author Mike Loader. We are working on the history of the planned Riga metro and its cancellation following widespread public protest in the 1980s. It's such a joy to work together in a place that we both adore at the best time of year

Colleagues and friends: if we are meeting online, Monty (a contender for the world's neediest cat) will be joining us. We now come as a package deal.

I have a new article out in the Journal of Contemporary History: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... It examines Soviet humanitarianism by focusing on Soviet Red Cross hospitals in Tehran, Addis Ababa, and Phnom Penh. 📷 Soviet Red Cross hospital in Addis Ababa, ICRC Audiovisual Archives

I've been reading the Russian Red Cross's magazine lately and the back covers perfectly encapsulate the whiplash of the 1990s. In one issue - a cute dog calendar, in another - an advert for a US-manufactured antibiotic to treat gonorrhoea

Back to reality after a brilliant couple of weeks at the National Archives of Armenia. Trying to convince myself that I love the understated beauty of the UK in autumn, rather than fantasising about sunshine and mountains.

Are you looking to publish your research in an academic journal? Then this ICCEES roundtable is for you! Featuring the editors of @conteurohistory.bsky.social sky.social @europe-asia.bsky.social, Diaspora, & Journal of Baltic Studies www.myeventflo.com/event-lectur...

En route to ICCEES and looking forward to catching up with colleagues. Come join our panel on solidarities and relief across the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. It's on Thursday 24th at 14:45 with @jolaycock.bsky.social and @catherinegibson.bsky.social www.myeventflo.com/event.aspx?m...

For my article, I was lucky enough to interview HIV educators who travelled to the USSR & participants of the International Gay and Lesbian Symposium and Film Festival (Moscow and Leningrad, 1991). Tom Boellstorff even shared his amazing archive of Symposium photographs muse.jhu.edu/pub/15/artic...

Ideal working conditions

What’s the opposite of a manel? It was great to discuss Soviet medical internationalism with @aschacht.bsky.social, Eva Rogaar, and Maria Vyatchina at our @esshc.bsky.social panel yesterday.

If you too are interested in rethinking histories of the sexual revolution in Europe, join us at our @esshc.bsky.social panel today at 16:30 in Lipsius 228. Featuring papers from @npapadogian.bsky.social, Anita Buhin, and Anna Dobrowolska

It's a beautiful morning in Newcastle for the beginning of the 'Counter-Hegemonic Internationalisms: Perspectives from the Past' conference. Looking forward to discussing internationalist initiatives beyond the mainstream across the next two days research.northumbria.ac.uk/glo/?p=1341

Proofs! Coming soon as part of an exciting special issue on transnational AIDS activism, edited by the wonderful @npapadogian.bsky.social and @somakbiswas.bsky.social

It's exciting to have the first tangible 'thing' from my current project out in the world! Also, thanks to the wonderful IFRC Archives, the article includes photographs of Henrik Beer, the League of Red Cross Societies' Secretary General, in Tashkent in the 1960s

Visual representation of the post-Christmas return to work

Thanks for sharing! More information here

I always enjoy reading the bizarre miscellaneous 'news' updates from the USSR yearbooks. This 1986 edition includes an enormous sunflower and a humble brag about a dog catching an eel.

Extremely on brand gift from husband's work trip, purchased not long after being in 'punching distance' of Nigel Farage (his words)

Very excited to have been translated into Estonian. A short essay I wrote for Deep Baltic a few years ago is now available in 'Kõlvatu Tallinn', a book recently published by the Tallinn City Life Museum www.apollo.ee/kolvatu-tall...

Writing second book energy

Go_A were absolutely amazing last night. It was also super special to hear so many scousers singing along in Ukrainian

Thrilling to see Vasily Petrenko back in Liverpool to conduct Shostakovich's 11th symphony last night, especially because I was close enough to essentially join the bass section

Soviet anti-AIDS poster from 1989, which depicts a heterosexual man and describes AIDS as the 'price of casual sex'. There are so many similar and evocative posters from this period, in which AIDS is presented as something exclusively spread by women through casual/paid sex

Gems from the Wellcome Collection - a series of photographs of Soviet anti-war marches of the 1980s that were tucked into the files of the UK section of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War