Dr Agnes Arnold-Forster
@agnesjuliet
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Writer, Historian of Medicine + Emotions | Chancellor’s Fellow @EdinburghUni | NOSTALGIA out now @PicadorBooks | Agent @OliAgent | Views own | FRHistS | She/her
London
Joined July 2011
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🌸🌷It’s publication day!! 🌷🌸 Available for purchase in all good bookshops, online or in-person. Can’t wait for the launch tonight 🥂
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After a two week ordeal, my sweet baby boy has finally been born. He’s had a bit of a rough ride so far, and he’s quite yellow, so we’re still in hospital. But he’s got so much hair and we’re having a lovely time getting to know each other. His name is Nye 💙
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It’s very stressful when your three month old baby cries as your plane lands because his ears hurt and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Do you know what doesn’t help alleviate that stress? When the woman sitting next to you takes out her phone to film the whole thing.
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Possibly the worst bit of an academic job advert I've ever seen: "This post is to cover maternity on a month-to-month basis up to 9 months or until the substantive postholder returns from maternity leave, or in the event of her resignation, whichever date is earlier."
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@Ellaj26927542
@LucyGoBag
It’s very strange to me that you’ve decided a whole lot not just about me and my character (I’m fine with confrontation, actually), but about women in general, from a two sentence tweet
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I don’t have much to say about the birth trauma report, but when a midwife came to my home after my baby was born, and I told her I was finding it hard to cope with how I felt about how his birth had gone, she shrugged and said “at least you didn’t bring home a death certificate”
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My mum has unearthed two diaries by my great great uncle, the naturalist JBS Haldane and his little sister, my great granny Naomi Haldane (later Mitchison) from 1902/04. I just can’t get over their handwriting, drawings, and Jack’s description of the ferrets: “so long and twisty”
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Tweeting for a friend, but an automated email rejection three weeks after a lengthy interview process is simply unacceptable.
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Hiking in the Pyrenees, came across about 50 vultures eating a dead cow
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I’m in Paris staying in a hotel with the best bathrooms
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This year, I’ve made a baby and a book. Cold, Hard Steel: The Myth of the Modern Surgeon is out with
@ManchesterUP
on the 27th June.
Available in hardback and for free download thanks to the
@wellcometrust
!
The baby is not for sale.
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By some work of magic, I'll be joining
@HCAatEdinburgh
as Chancellor's Fellow in the very near future. I don't really know how to capture the joy + relief in a single tweet, but yeah. I'm just so excited, and tired, but mainly excited.
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I’m getting my first vaccine dose tomorrow (yay) but I have a book due at the end of the month (boo). Does anyone have any reassuring stories of problem/side-effect-free pfizer/moderna jabs? 🙏🏼
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I am overjoyed and overwhelmed that I've been offered a contract to publish my first book with
@OUPHistory
! It is alliteratively titled 'Making Cancer Modern: Malignancy in Nineteenth-Century Britain' and should be out early 2021
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It’s experiences like this that make me want to scream when someone says that all the nhs needs is more funding. Like yes, and
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Now I’m in
@thebookseller
I can finally say that I’m writing my first trade book for
@picadorbooks
! It blends popular science with
#HistMed
+ the emotions to explore the evolution of nostalgia from 17thC 🇨🇭 (when it could quite literally kill) to now!
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Can someone in primary care justify my practice's policy of giving priority appointments to people who turn up in person (at 8:00am) - it seems so blatantly discriminatory to me that I can't fathom the explanation, but I want to make sure I'm not missing something...
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For the avoidance of doubt: I am, in fact, pleased my baby survived
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My family are staying in Pugin’s house in Ramsgate for my mum’s 60th birthday. It is…epic
@LandmarkTrust
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@DavidVeevers1
To show it to her sad friends to complain about how terrible babies are? Idk!
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2023 was a big year, so I hope ya’ll will excuse a bit of self-indulgence. I started the year by getting my first permanent [ish] job
@EdinburghUni
, finished my first trade book for
@picadorbooks
, published my second academic book with
@ManchesterUP
, and had the best baby ever.
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And that's a wrap! Pandemic, international move, two new jobs, a civil partnership, and a house purchase probably have colluded to make this not my finest work, but hey ho, it's done! Or at least done for now...
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I did my first ever stand up set on Friday night, 8 months pregnant. I talked about the history of cancer and people actually laughed. As a friend pointed out, I also look like a boa constrictor who has swallowed an antelope. Thanks
@steve_x
for the invite + the photo!
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"This post is on a part-time basis (24.5 hours)"
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There is something acutely disheartening about being told your debilitating pain during pregnancy is "really common" and "will almost certainly go away 6-12 weeks after you give birth"
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Following some lovely peer review comments, Feelings & Work in Modern History, edited by me &
@alison_moulds
, is going to be published by
@BloomsburyHist
in February 2022! Here's our lovely cover:
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Done! Published in June. You can pre-order here or wait and download it for free 💸 Please purchase/download with abandon, but under no circumstances is anyone to actually read it...
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I love being historian but I did just read 23 letters (double sided) debating the relative merits of one particular flooring material for a temporary ward to be built at a hospital in Newcastle in 1963
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I’ve bought my first ever piece of art at (online) auction (and had it delivered to my parents - it’s actually the first piece of art I’ve ever purchased - v adult) It’s a Wyndham Lewis print of my great grandmother, Naomi Mitchison.
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I think all these things are absolutely true, and surely factor in, but I also think that part of it is just that parenthood isn’t ‘compulsory’ anymore - socially, culturally - and so people just choose not to. I know that’s the case for many of my friends.
I get so frustrated with the “why aren’t people having more kids?” pieces because the answer is so obvious: nowhere stable to live, modern life requires 2 incomes, and many, many workplaces penalise motherhood. It doesn’t add up.
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Now that contracts have been signed, I can ✨🧙♀️🪄reveal🪄🧙♀️✨ that I'm returning to the UK this autumn to take up a role at
@LSHTMhistory
While I'm v sad to be leaving Montreal &
@McGill_ssom
I'm really looking forward to becoming part of another fab interdisciplinary department!
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The kind people over at
@EBIBristol
have awarded me an Early Career Fellowship to begin my project, 'Working and Feeling in the Modern British Hospital'. I proposed the project before
#COVID
ー19, but boy is there now so much more to say...
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I'm reading women's birth reports from 1959, and it is heartbreaking how many of them were just left to labour alone for hours and hours on end.
No pain relief, no partners, and told off by staff for "making a fuss" if they asked for support.
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Yesterday,
@Alison_Moulds
and I submitted the final (final final?) version of our manuscript, Feelings & Work in Modern History: Emotional Labour and Emotions About Labour. Published by
@BloomsburyHist
in February 2022 🍾
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One of the things about that Pret/junior doctors campaign is that it is in dialogue w/ a weighty history of medical exceptionalism, doctors’ social capital, and the continued entanglement of social class + “the professions.”
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I see it’s Leverhulme rejection day. They rejected me (as did all the other flashy postdocs funders) and frankly, they were wrong about me and they’re wrong about you ✊🏼❤️
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Healthcare should be a collaborative enterprise built on trust & mutual respect. The doc-patient relationship this physician is advocating is something I've never personally encountered, but would have made my clinical experiences infinitely more positive & productive
#MedTwitter
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It's so great when archival research basically becomes reading about scandal, gossip, and intrigue. Historical beef is the best beef.
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Very excited that
@Alison_Moulds
and I have signed a contract with
@BloomsburyHist
to publish an edited collection in their History of Emotions series entitled 'Feelings and Work in Modern History: Emotional Labour and Emotions about Labour' Out c. late 2021!
@BloomsburyAcad
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My book,
#TheCancerProblem
: Malignancy in Nineteenth-Century Britain, is being published by
@OUPHistory
next week. Since we can't do in-person book launches, I thought I'd compile a thread to give you a taster of what awaits if you/your uni is lucky enough to acquire a copy 🦀🧵
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Everyone say happy birthday to Nye. My tiny baby is one 🥲
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Tiktok just informed me (and I’ve verified) that just 1% of babies in the U.K. are exclusively breastfed at 6 months!! I’m so surprised, given the way midwives + NCT staff talked to me about the whole thing - like it was a given, the easiest + most natural thing in the world…
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When I was a PhD student, I had a male undergraduate email our head of department to say that he didn’t think I was intelligent enough (his exact words) to understand, let alone assess, his essays. Luckily I had very supportive senior colleagues…
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We had a big party and I made this face all day
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A proposal on my birthday? (don’t let the small fact of us already being civil partnered get in the way...) 💍
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Plague was endemic, smallpox was endemic. "Endemic" doesn't mean "no longer a problem" 🤷♀️
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Hey
#ECRs
/
#twitterstorians
would anyone be interested in a little support group / network / something dedicated to publishing in non-academic venues? Some way of sharing tips & tricks, things that have worked, woes? Not sure what form it would take, but I’d be happy to organise
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After a fair bit of COVID-related faff, I'm so excited to be joining
@McGill_ssom
as a postdoc in the new year. I'll be continuing my work on the emotional landscape of the modern hospital but hopefully also expanding my focus to North America 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
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I have one week left at
@LSHTM
before starting my new job as Chancellor's Fellow
@EdinburghUni
.
This will be my ninth contract since completing my PhD five years ago. And while I think this one is going to be a little more long-term, I imagine it's going to take time to adjust
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So, it turns out we're now getting married...the day after tomorrow !
I know this is very small fry in the grand scheme of things, but the prospect of spending the day on the phone trying to salvage something of the plans me and my partner had made for our wedding and life together next year is pretty miserable.
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I'm putting together a little package of sample job application materials/interview prep support for a PhD student friend of mine. What are some of the trickier questions you were asked in an academic job interview (for a postdoc/fellowship/lectureship, whatever)? Thank you! 🙏
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It's fine, I didn't want a permanent job in academia ANYWAY
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Very pleased that my first article ‘Mapmaking and Mapthinking: Cancer as a Problem of Place in Nineteenth-Century England’ has been accepted for publication with
@SSHMedicine
🎉
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PSA for any historian who takes a lot of photos on their iPhone in the archive. You can search your pictures for text and it will read photos of documents for you!!! Thanks
@hospital_senses
for this life-changing revelation 🙏
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I'm not going to post a link to That Article, but I simply cannot believe no one edited out this line: "If I can’t have his baby, then no one should be able to."
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I’m in the paper! Maybe one day this will lose its novelty/thrill factor, but today is not that day!
@ipaperviews
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It was supposed to be my hen party this weekend, but, coronavirus, so instead I spent the weekend walking through the rainy countryside in an 80s wedding dress and an elaborate headdress made by my costume-designer friend. It was wonderful
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The reason I’m a little vague here about when exactly I’m starting is because I’m also due to have a baby at the beginning of May. Here’s me 7 months pregnant in front of the “easy childbirth” pagoda in Kyoto.
By some work of magic, I'll be joining
@HCAatEdinburgh
as Chancellor's Fellow in the very near future. I don't really know how to capture the joy + relief in a single tweet, but yeah. I'm just so excited, and tired, but mainly excited.
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Really pleased that my article ‘Gender & Pain in 19th-Century Cancer Care’ has just been accepted for publication by Gender & History. It's about two of my favourite characters who never made it into the PhD, the surgeon Dr J Weldon Fell & the spiritualist Emily Bowes Gosse
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I'm writing another book! Cold, Hard Steel: The Surgical Stereotype Past & Present is under contract w/
@ManchesterUP
. Using my
@SurgicalEmotion
research, it asks how these characters & caricatures have altered real surgeons’ feelings and the meanings they attach to their labour.
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I have been going on about this article for months, nay years, so I am v pleased to see it up on the
@HistoryWO
website! 💕Racing Pulses: Gender, Professionalism & Healthcare in Medical Romance Fiction💕 is now available
#OpenAccess
ty to
@SurgicalEmotion
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It’s my birthday. Look how sweet I once was (and how terribly my parents dressed me)
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Sucky peer review amidst a strike really makes you feel as though the whole thing just isn't really worthwhile. Academic publications don't make you money, they don't even get you jobs anymore, they just license your peers to make snarky comments under cover of anonymity.
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Submitted an article to a journal, less than two (!) months (!) later, get three thoughtful, constructive peer reviews back. Simply unheard of 🫢
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All the thousands of people (!!) understandably outraged about this ad are not outraged over “incorrect wording”, but over the dismal state of academic working conditions that it reflects
@menysnoweballes
Hi Rachel, thank you and others who have bought the advert to our attention. We unreservedly apologise for the incorrect wording and for the understandable offence it has caused. The phrasing is not normal practice and in no way represents our values. It has been amended.
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@OwenJones84
@JLyons1991
I tweeted that it's bad that some people have to take annual leave to get smear tests and I got death threats.
Yes, because I said "people" rather than "women"
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I really do think junior doctors deserve a pay rise, I just think that that argument can + should be made without hauling service workers into the mix 🤷🏻♀️
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I thought I loved the
@britishlibrary
when it was a place to work and research, love it even more now I know it’s somewhere to take your baby to play for free
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I left my baby (with his dad) for the first time last night. Drank a cocktail with a friend and talked about non-baby things.
Eye bags and unbrushed hair courtesy of a five week old that refuses to sleep for more than 40 minutes at a time 💃
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The wellness culture >> alt-right pipeline is alive + well
Boys want arm candy.
Men want someone who isn't on birth control, is loving, graceful, who wants to buy a farm, start homesteading, homeschool the kids, who's obsessed with cows and is dying to make fresh breast milk ice cream.
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Thrilled that my article '"A Small Cemetery": Death and Dying in the Contemporary British Operating Theatre' has been accepted by
@MedHums_BMJ
. The article is based on a corpus of oral history interviews with surgeons that I conducted as part of my
@SurgicalEmotion
research.
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Who is working on a history of hospital car parking? Because I would like to read, but not write, that
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Yup: “The home secretary has instructed that if those here on visas choose to spew hate, *or protest*, or seek to intimidate people, we will remove their right to be here”
Did Rishi Sunak just say non-British citizens can’t protest or did I mis-hear?
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I’m just shy of three weeks in, and I can confirm, breastfeeding feels impossible almost all of the time, it requires a huge amount of support, it hurts (!), and it is 💸expensive💸
The fact that anyone can look at this study and think that it's because breastfed babies are smarter, rather than because people from a higher socio-economic background are more likely to breastfeed, is honestly fucking insane.
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I've been sitting on this for a little while, but my first book
#TheCancerProblem
is going to be published by
@OUPHistory
in paperback in August of this year!
A much more affordable version, just in time for autumn
#HistMed
courses
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The guy driving the 4x4 who deliberately drove me & another cyclist off the road (I’m fine, the other cyclist not so much) can rot in hell. But all the people who stopped, called the ambulance, gave me a cup of tea, and the sweet cabbie who drove me home for free are all gems 💎
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One of my favourite genre of museum is nineteenth-century American millionaire amasses vast quantities of medieval and renaissance European art and artefacts, ships back home, and builds a kind of bougie Disney land as their personal home/office
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This is one of the more personal things I’ve written recently.
It’s about the birth of my baby, “natural” childbirth, the inadvertent harms of some feminist activism, and a strange nostalgia for the world of reproduction before medicalisation.
Today,
@agnesjuliet
reflects on the nostalgia that surrounds pregnancy and childbirth - a strange emotional pull that even a historian of medicine wasn't immune to!
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It took three weeks longer than anticipated, but at 39 weeks pregnant my bathroom is finally complete and my flat no longer looks like a complete bomb site! 🍾🎉🎈
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I cannot believe this is out in the world 🫣🫣🫣
@ManchesterUP
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For the first time in over a year, my baby slept for 11 straight hours 😮
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@SarahRoseCrook
You are, obvs, right - but it's tricky when you're organising things that also include non-academics who can usually only participate in things outside normal working hours, plus precarious researchers/ECRs who also have other 'day' jobs but want to retain a connection to HE
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I have so many conversations with my friends and broader circle of women about whether or not to have kids, how many to have, and not once has a single person even alluded to “ruining” their bodies, not even as a joke or throwaway comment….
I repeat- women aren't having babies because they can't afford it but because western ideology has convinced them not to ruin their bodies and one is enough. That pregnancy is a bad look and babies will take away your freedom.
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