Brycchan Carey
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brycchancarey.bsky.social
Brycchan Carey
@brycchancarey.bsky.social

Professor of Literature, Culture, and History; scholar of slavery, empire, and natural history; Stalwart of BSECS, ASLEUKI, the Linnean Society, and Alnwick FoE. From Cornwall, now living in Alnwick, Northumberland. Website: https://www.brycchancarey.com .. more

Brycchan Carey is a British academic and author with research interests in the environmental humanities and the cultural history of slavery and abolition. He was educated at Goldsmiths' College, University of London and Queen Mary, University of London, where he completed a doctorate on "The Rhetoric of Sensibility: Argument, Sentiment, and Slavery in the Late Eighteenth Century". He lectured at Kingston University from 2000 before taking up the role of Professor of Literature, Culture, and History at Northumbria University in 2016. .. more

Political science 30%
History 18%

Shocking to see Panorama’s dodgy editing of Donald Trump. Is this the kind of honest, responsible journalism that we’ve come to expect from the show that exposed the failure of the Swiss spaghetti harvest as far back as 1957?

The Arran Butcher does amazing pork and seaweed sausages! (In other news, when I was a child my next door neighbour was known as “The Butcher of Broadmoor”. He’d previously worked in the kitchen at Broadmoor Prison!)

Reposted by Brycchan Carey

A huge range of studies covered by @charlottegoodge.bsky.social & Thomas Leonard-Roy, from @brycchancarey.bsky.social’s The Unnatural Trade to @rhyskamjones.bsky.social's ‘Queering Thomas Gray’s Celticism’. Itching to get reading & #editing!

@englishassociation.bsky.social
@cecs-york.bsky.social

Reposted by Dolly Jørgensen

A date for your diary: Please join the ASLE-UKI Online Seminar on Eighteenth-Century Literature and Environment, 29 Jan 2026, 3-7 pm GMT. Convened by Brycchan Carey (Northumbria) and Tess Somervell (Oxford). Further details and registration information at: asle.org.uk/events/semin...

I spotted this poster on the community noticeboard of my local supermarket. I’m glad to see the word is getting out and I hope to see vast crowds at the Whittingham Memorial Institute next Wednesday evening to hear my talk about William Turner, the Tudor botanist from Morpeth.

Reposted by Brycchan Carey

Northumberland Wildlife Trust are appealing for donations to save the Rothbury Estate, a breathtaking mix of moorland, woodland, rivers, and farmland. Until 30 September, whatever you give will be doubled, up to £100,000. You can find out more and donate at www.wildlifetrusts.org/appeals/roth...
Rothbury Estate Match Appeal | The Wildlife Trusts
In the heart of Northumberland, a rare, wild and historic 3,800-hectare estate is at risk of being sold off and lost for nature. Until 30 September 2025, your gift will be doubled to help save it, up ...
www.wildlifetrusts.org

My travel plans for the week reveal one way British English is clearer than American English:

American: I'm going to Sheffield Wednesday!

British: I'm going to Sheffield on Wednesday.

Reposted by Brycchan Carey

We're teaming up with Alnwick Playhouse to present Christo Waller's film Leaving it Better, a compelling story of what happened when environmentalists met with Teesdale farmers. Join us on Tuesday 7 October, 7.30pm. Admission FREE! More information and book at alnwickplayhouse.co.uk/event/leavin...

Reposted by Brycchan Carey

ASLE-UKI Online Seminar Eighteenth-Century Literature and Environment

29 January 2026, 3:00-7:00pm GMT

Convenors: Brycchan Carey (Northumbria University) and Tess Somervell (University of Oxford)

Further details: asle.org.uk/events/semin...

Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/asle-uki-s...

Just had a grand day out in #Coldstream - first at the museum (sadly at risk of closure) with a fascinating exhibit on the Coldstream Guards, then the Guards Monument overlooking the Tweed, and finally tea and a walk round the lake at the Hirsel, home of the Douglas-Home family.

Reposted by Brycchan Carey

📣Did you know that ASLE-UKI members are entitled to a 30% discount via Taylor and Francis? You can access this on our website: asle.org.uk/green-letters/

Here’s a lovely rainbow visible from my back garden in #Alnwick this evening, although as usual the crock of gold appears to have landed in the castle rather than the town centre.

I’ve been at High Hauxley on this rather grey day today where at 3pm sharp every birder, and every bird, was startled by the emergency phone alert test. But saw my first snipe, ruff, pochard, shoveler, and goosander of the year, and my first ever wood sandpiper. Success!

I'm very excited to learn that my book The Unnatural Trade is one of the final seven candidates for the 2025 Society for the History of Natural History Book Prize (The Thackray Medal). My thanks to the @sochistnathist.bsky.social readers! You can see the full list at >> shnh.org.uk/news/announc...
Announcing the SHNH Natural History Book Prize (Thackray Medal) longlist - Society for the History of Natural History
The Redouté brothers: Masters of scientific illustration in Paris Hans Walter Lack, James A. Compton & Martin W. Callmander. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. 2024. 822pp. ISBN 978-2-38327-020-1. ...
shnh.org.uk
The deadline for submitting proposals for #BSECS2026 is only two weeks away. Get scribbling! #skystorians #18thC 🗃️
This year's theme is 'Big and Small', 7-9 January, Pembroke College, Oxford.
www.bsecs.org.uk/conferences/...
BSECS - Submit a Proposal
Submit a Proposal. BSECS welcomes proposals for the Annual Conference. The deadline for submission of papers and panel proposals is usually November.
www.bsecs.org.uk

"Carey’s razor-sharp key insight is that C18th abolitionism engaged as much with emerging environmental and life sciences as with the moral philosophy with which it has long been associated" - Monique Allewaert reviews The Unnatural Trade in the William & Mary Quarterly: muse.jhu.edu/pub/275/arti...

Reposted by Brycchan Carey

📣Green Letters: Call for Applications for Co-General Editor

For details, please visit
asle.org.uk/green-letter...
Green Letters: Call for Applications for Co-General Editor | ASLE-UKI
asle.org.uk

I was at Kilkenny Castle today with @rosiepaice.bsky.social and Páraic Finnerty. It has many C17th and C18th portraits of the Butler family - Dukes of Ormande - their family, and English royals. If you’re after Stuart monarchs, come here, but if it’s Hanoverians you’re after, try elsewhere.

I visited the Hill of Tara, Co. Meath, today with @cobrunstrom.bsky.social and @rosiepaice.bsky.social This ancient site has prehistoric burial sites, ancient carvings, the Irish Stone of Destiny, and fabulous views over most of central Ireland. As recommended by generations of high kings!

Despite Seamus Heaney’s warning, I did park along the Flaggy Shore and try to capture the slate-grey lake full of swans, the glittering sea, somewhat less wild on an August evening, and the flagstones full of fossil corals like ghostly ferns pressed into the limestone.

Reposted by Patrick Lonergan

The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE-UKI) conference in Galway is concluding with novelist Lisa McInerney reading from her Cork novels and in conversation with Patrick Lonergan. A fabulous end to a fantastic conference! @asleuki.bsky.social

In the cavernous lecture hall at the @asleuki conference in Galway, John Brannigan is giving his keynote talk “On the place of herons in archipelagic writing”.

If you’re at the @asleuki.bsky.social conference in Galway, take a look at my book The Unnatural Trade on the book stall. I have copies for sale at the special conference price of €30 - ask me in the coffee/lunch breaks. If you’re not in Galway, find out more at brycchancarey.com/bookshop/ind...

I’m in Galway this week for the conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment UK and Ireland (@asleuki.bsky.social), which this year has the theme of “Erosion”. Conference organiser Ashley Cahillane is giving us a warm welcome!

I took a drive around the Connemara coast this afternoon. Visibility was often poor but the stunning landscape invariably shone through.

"Among the many virtues of The Unnatural Trade... are its deep knowledge of abolitionist thought, its systematic approach to cultural and literary history, and its striking and persuasive turns of phrase" -- Timothy Erwin's review in Modern Philology. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

I paid my respects to W.B. Yeats today. I stopped at his grave in Drumcliff church, Co. Sligo, in the shadow of Ben Bulben. Yeats was the one who really turned me on to the power of poetry. Thank you.
We have a new review on our website: Nayanika Shome reviews Brycchan Carey's The Unnatural Trade: Slavery, Abolition, and Environmental Writing, 1650-1807 (www.bsls.ac.uk/2025/08/care...)
Carey, Brycchan, The Unnatural Trade: Slavery, Abolition, and Environmental Writing, 1650-1807 – The British Society for Literature and Science
www.bsls.ac.uk

I’ve been walking around Donegal today - including the Eske Estuary, the ruined abbey, and the once ruined but now partly restored castle. I saw my first kingfisher of the year in the river under the castle!

I’m staying in Stranraer tonight. The abandoned ferry terminal in front of the hotel sadly reminds me of what Daniel Defoe said of nearby Kirkcudbright: “Here is a harbour without ships, a port without trade, a fishery without nets, a people without business.”