Clare Stainthorp
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claregs.bsky.social
Clare Stainthorp
@claregs.bsky.social
7.4K followers 1.2K following 290 posts
University-Policy Engagement & ARIs at UPEN/UCL ∣ Impact at the RCA ∣ Researches Victorian literature, social history, freethought periodicals ∣ Book: Constance Naden: Scientist, Philosopher, Poet ∣ she/her
https://clarestainthorp.wordpress.com/
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claregs.bsky.social
Next week @conwayhall.bsky.social is hosting what is sure to be a brilliant conversation between Daisy Dunn and Hetta Howes about the Lives of Ancient & Medieval Women. Looking forward to chairing! Join us in person or online 6:30 Wed 19 Nov. Details & tickets www.conwayhall.org.uk/whats-on/eve...
Red book cover. Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women by Hetta Howes Purple book cover. The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It by Daisy Dunn
November 15, 2025 at 12:19 PM
claregs.bsky.social
Find out more about the work I’m doing at the Universities Policy Engagement Network, plus my desert island disks!
upen.ac.uk/news/meet-th...
UPEN graphic that reads: MEET THE TEAM: Dr Clare Stainthorp, Policy Engagement Coordinator (UK-wide Areas of Research Interest), University College London. Photo inset of Clare smiling in front of large green banner that says ‘William Morris was Right’
October 29, 2025 at 11:29 AM
claregs.bsky.social
A great conversation about two new books on the histories and future of disability rights and dignities. Highly recommend seeking out both Rachel Charlton-Dailey’s ‘Ramping Up Rights’ and Stephen Unwin’s ‘Beautiful Lives’ 📚 @conwayhall.bsky.social
Photo of three speakers sitting in armchairs on a small stage - Rusty the dog is sitting on one of the women’s laps Photo of books for sale on a table: Rachel Charlton-Dailey’s ‘Ramping Up Rights: An Unfinished History of British Disability Activity’ and Stephen Unwin’s ‘Beautiful Lives: How we got learning disabilities so wrong’
October 15, 2025 at 6:31 PM
claregs.bsky.social
yess!
Cover of Michael Warner’s Publics and Counterpublics. A colour photo of four joyful (trans) women with bobbed hair crowded together, three taking photos of a subject beyond the photo, one pointing at the camera that has taken the cover photo.
October 10, 2025 at 5:35 PM
claregs.bsky.social
With contract signed and a couple of preliminary meetings today, it feels like time to announce that from October I’ll be joining UPEN as Policy Engagement Coordinator for the UK-wide ARI Programme. I’m looking forward to joining a fantastic team at UCL and getting stuck in!
upen.ac.uk
UPEN: Our mission UPEN's mission is to facilitate a connective and collaborative ecosystem where organisations can work together to strengthen the use of academic research in public policy.
September 29, 2025 at 4:29 PM
claregs.bsky.social
Check out this new podcast for ECRs - I’m proud to have been one of the guests on episode 3, where we talk about the importance of networks and mentors, and where to find them!
Episode 3 - Two heads are better than one: Networking and mentors in academia. Screenshot of podcast page banner with photo of three women (including me) in green tops smiling and talking in a relaxed podcast studio.
September 22, 2025 at 9:08 AM
claregs.bsky.social
On Tuesday 30 Sept I’ll be the respondent to Nyala Karla Nauwelaer’s paper ‘The feminization thesis under scrutiny: the case of the freethinking women of Ghent (late 19th - early 20th century)’. Join us for what is sure to be a fascinating conversation!
www.aehrc.es/sfm-nyala-ka...
Seminario Feliciano Montero de Historia Religiosa Contemporánea The feminization thesis under scrutiny: the case of the freethinking women of Ghent (late 19th - early 20th century). Speaker: Nyala Karla Nauwelaers, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Commentator: Clare Stainthorp, Royal College of Art & Queen Mary University of London Session: Tuesday, September 30, 2025, 6:00 p.m. (Central European Time) Location: virtual seminar To participate, please contact: aehrc.asociacion@gmail.com Organized by: Spanish Association for Contemporary Religious History (AEHRC) in collaboration with the Secular Studies Association Brussels (SSAB) and the TheoFem project: Lay Women: International Experts and Theologians avant-la-lettre. Legacies and Entangled Histories (1945-1962), Grant No. 101108049. Information and coordination: natalia.nunezbargueno@kuleuven.be
September 18, 2025 at 7:26 AM
claregs.bsky.social
I’m delighted to be part of this term’s London 19th Century Studies Seminar line up, and on a periodicals panel with @andrewkingc19.bsky.social no less! Join us at Senate House on Tues 14 Oct - all welcome!
Hark! The wild west wind rattles yonder casement, and autumn's own breath chills the under-insulated pedestrian trudging the pavement outside. These things betoken the return of hats and overcoats, umbrellas and germs, and of course students... but also the London 19th Century Studies Seminar! Please find the programme below, lovingly curated by myself, Mary Shannon and Briony Wickes. All events will be held from 6pm to 8pm in Room 243 at Senate House. 14th October: Andrew King (Greenwich), "Periodicals and the Materiality of Marketing", and Clare Stainthorp (Royal College of Art), "The British Freethought Movement and Periodical Form". 25th November: Kate Hext (Exeter) and Catherine Maxwell (QMUL) on Decadent Flowers and Gardens. 9th December: Peter Bryden (Exeter) and Robert Hampson (RHUL) on New Perspectives on Late Victorian Art.
September 16, 2025 at 4:54 PM
claregs.bsky.social
Julia Wedgwood (1833-1913) was an intellectual icon of the Victorian era ✍️
Alison Stone has created a fantastic #openaccess resource containing many of her diverse writings, inc lots of newly attributed journalism, plus a short biography and comprehensive bibliography.
www.juliawedgwood.org
Sepia photograph of Julia Wedgwood. A young white woman with dark hair sitting in profile wearing a buttoned dress with lace collage and a ribbon choker with cameo pendant
September 4, 2025 at 11:59 AM
claregs.bsky.social
I'll be running a workshop on 'thinking about impact' at the EC Festival in Derby on 18 Sept. Join us to explore how #EcologicalCitizenship is practised through creativity, community, and collaboration.

📣 Register now - attendance is free & incs lunch! ecologicalcitizens.co.uk/upcoming-eve...
Dark blue title slide: The EC Festival: Ecological Citizenship in Action Thursday 18 September 2025 - Museum of Making, Derby "And then what happened?" Thinking about Impact Clare Stainthorp, Research Impact Manager, Royal College of Art
September 2, 2025 at 12:11 PM
claregs.bsky.social
📣 Registration is open for #ECFestival2025 🌿
Join us in #Derby for a #FreeEvent exploring #EcologicalCitizenship through workshops, shared meals & creative action. All welcome!
Register here: ecologicalcitizens.co.uk/upcoming-eve...
Lime green poster: EC Festival Ecological Citizenship in Action A free festival of talks, workshops & conversations that explore multi-disciplinary perspectives on what it means to be an ecological citizen! 18 September 2025 10:00 - 16:30 The Museum of Making, Derby
August 7, 2025 at 3:36 PM
claregs.bsky.social
Such a joyous day yesterday at Trafalgar Square for The Triumph of Art 🥰
Me (white woman in a crochet top) grinning in front of a green fabric banner that reads William Morris was Right Photo of people dancing on a red mat in front of National Gallery. Some are modern Morris dancers in blue lipstick and bright costumes, others are in grey standing stone costumes. There’s a big crowd watching Selfie of 2 women smiling broadly wearing handcrafted green paper medallions. On Nelson’s column is a red banner that reads They wanna fight, We wanna dance. In the background a DJ is playing to a crowd from an elevated booth in the shape of a person playing a drum.
July 27, 2025 at 8:04 AM
claregs.bsky.social
Feeling good about having positioned myself for solstice yoga so I can focus on a Walthamstow motto: Fellowship is life and the lack of fellowship is death.
Photo of people waiting for an outdoor yoga class, in square in front of town hall with motto Fellowship is Life and the lack of fellowship is death above the columns. People sitting cross legged on yoga mats beneath a blue sky
June 21, 2025 at 6:20 PM
claregs.bsky.social
A good wise friend supporting my decision not to apply for a fixed term job at a department I used to work in
Screenshot of a WhatsApp conversation: it is like getting back with the toxic ex boyfriend He sleeps with you but he doesn't want anything serious, laughing emoji
May 21, 2025 at 6:09 PM
claregs.bsky.social
For Star Wars and sci-fi fans near London this #May4th - visit my cousin’s exhibition of quite incredible artwork.
Poster for Building Bigger Worlds, Troubadour Gallery London, W1D 7DW. AN EXHIBITION OF PUBLISHED LARGE-FORMAT ORIGINAL PAINTINGS BY STUDIO-ENDORSED ARTIST JOHN R. MULLANEY DEPICTING SOME OF SCIENCE-FICTION CINEMA'S MOST ICONIC HARDWARE. Star Wars Day open view, Sunday 4 May 12-5pm. Special cosplay appearances and meet the artist. Screen accurate drawing of yellow Alien loader prop
May 1, 2025 at 2:52 PM
claregs.bsky.social
Very proud of Craig running the Manchester Marathon in a brilliant 3 hours 32 for the @braintumourcharity.bsky.social
Photo of a group of people running a marathon on a sunny day. A white man with blue hat and vest and coral shorts is waving and smiling as he runs past
April 27, 2025 at 4:30 PM
claregs.bsky.social
I categorised each of the 1639 entries to statistically analyse and reflect upon how far Wheeler achieved his aim to include ‘freethinkers of all ages and nations’, considering different modes of reading. You can access the data here: doi.org/10.17636/101...
TABLE 1. The top ten countries ranked by number of entries in Wheeler's Biographical Dictionary All entries (in descending order): France, Britain, Germany, USA, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Ancient Greece C19 entries (in descending order): France, Britain, Germany, USA, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Russia. Table includes raw numbers and percentage for each category. These figures do not include individuals categorised as dual nationality, for example Thomas Paine (Britain/USA) and Ernestine Rose (Poland/USA), of which there are 23, all from the nineteenth century. The impression garnered by a reader who simply picks up the volume and browses might be starkly different, however. Inevitably, a casual reader will be drawn to the opening pages and here the preponderance of Arabic names is notable as a result of naming conventions: Abu Bakr Ibn Al-Tufail (twelfth-century "Spanish Arabian philosopher"), Abu-Fazil ("called Al Hindi, vizier to the great Emperor Akbar from 1572"), Abul-Abbas-Abdallah i (ninth-century "patron of science and literature"), Abul-Ola (eleventh-century "Arabian poet"), and Abu Tahir (tenth-century "chief of a freethinking sect at Bahrein") all appear on the second page. While these are relatively short entries (100 words or fewer), en masse they prime the reader to encounter figures that come from traditions of freethought outside of Europe and shaped by religious cultures beyond Christianity. Individuals hailing from the Middle East and Asia make up just 1.46% of all entries in the Biographical Dictionary but the specific affordance of the biographical dictionary's form mean that they are nonetheless prominent.
April 23, 2025 at 12:53 PM
claregs.bsky.social
Pleased to be part of this issue of Secular Studies focused on biography, ed @antnlj.bsky.social & J Tyssens. I focus on the affordances of the biographical dictionary to consider how JM Wheeler’s 1889 vol framed freethinker’s sense of themselves as a diverse counterpublic brill.com/view/journal...
Recording Secularist Lives: Multiplicity and Collectivity in J.M. Wheeler's A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations (1889) Clare Stainthorp c.stainthorp@qmul.ac.uk Published online 14 April 2025 Abstract: This article argues that the biographical dictionary was a crucial form through which nineteenth-century secularists conceptualised their own history as a movement that spanned time, place, and class, and envision themselves as part of this multitude. By illuminating how j.M. Wheeler negotiated gender, nationality, and contemporaneity in A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations (1889), it identifies how biographical compilation— a form commonly associated with nation building— was co-opted for radical ends. In contrast to longer-form secularist (auto)biographies that privileged the individual over the collective, the biographical dictionary did not impose a singular narrative and so enabled freethinkers to navigate a tension at the heart of the secular movement: the desire to work together to effect social change while upholding the right to draw their own conclusions about what constituted freethinking principles and exemplary lives.
April 23, 2025 at 12:43 PM
claregs.bsky.social
Had a great time celebrating the launch of @jadefrench.bsky.social’s brilliant book, Modernist Poetics of Aging. As a bonus, came home with these two wonderful prints from Kim Rae Taylor’s Aging Beyond Modernism project.
global.oup.com/academic/pro...
Photo of two expressive portraits of older women with quite piercing gazes - Peggy Guggenheim and Meret Oppenheim - propped on wooden bookshelf.
April 16, 2025 at 8:20 AM
claregs.bsky.social
Fitting that yesterday I finally framed my William Morris print, and today it is his birthday!
A framed print consisting for text in two columns, which repeats the sentences: “William Morris designed wallpaper, natural patterns repeating, soothing rhythms to civilise, a bourgeoisie's background beauty. He agitated too, though obituaries said 'poet', dismissing his socialist revolution.” The text spacing means that there is a sense of vines or other plant shapes winding between the words.
March 24, 2025 at 10:27 AM
claregs.bsky.social
The sweetest working from home pal 🐈‍⬛
Photo from the pov of me wearing a baggy cream cardigan sitting on an office chair looking to the side. A small black cat on her hind legs has her front paws on the edge of the chair. My hand is stroking the top of her head - Etta’s head is tipped back, eyes closed, very boopable nose
March 21, 2025 at 4:06 PM
claregs.bsky.social
Not today, but weekend tacos from scratch
Photo of a dining table set for 2 , with serving bowls containing slow cooker beef, salsa, guacamole, pickled onions, sweet potatoes, cheese, sour cream plus roasted corn cobs and a tea towel containing tortillas
February 25, 2025 at 9:08 PM
claregs.bsky.social
delightful! welcome to the black cat club!
Photo of a small black cat lying on her side on a sofa, back resting against my thigh. She has big alert eyes and ears, tummy floof, and paws at a jaunty angle
February 19, 2025 at 7:44 AM
claregs.bsky.social
The forum of articles I edited with Carolin Kosuch is out now and open access!“19th-Century Secularist Poetry: Form and Formation of a New Worldview” brings together brilliant contributors to shed new light on the role of poetry in shaping freethought internationally
muse.jhu.edu/issue/54115
Screenshot of journal contents page, indicating that all articles are open access. titles and authors: “19th-Century Secularist Poetry: Form and Formation of a New Worldview: Forum Introduction”, Clare Stainthorp, Carolin Kosuch “Satan's Luckless Harp: Antebellum Freethought Poetry in The Boston Investigator”, Michael Keller “Cremation Poetry: Probing Secularism in Verse”, Carolin Kosuch “Secular Community and Identity in the Poetry of British Freethought Periodicals”, Clare Stainthorp “Secularism and its Discontents: Forms of Freethought in Mathilde Blind's Periodical Poetry”, James Diedrick “Secularist Implications in the Satirical Poetry of 19th-Century Greece: The Case of Andreas Laskaratos and His Criticism of the Orthodox Christian Establishment”, Alexandros Sakellariou
February 10, 2025 at 8:52 AM
claregs.bsky.social
You can delve into the book yourself here! archive.org/details/cu31...
Slide with red bound cover of Rosa Amorosa on the left - it is embossed with large stained peacock feather. On the right the ‘explanatory note’: It has been suggested to me that owing to the appearance of another book of love-letters, I sbould volunteer some explanation as to these of mine. Arrangements for their publication were concluded early in last year, and most of she letters were obviously written before the ar-nouncement even of any other book of love-letters was made. Personally, I cannot see any probability of comparison, as I have heard from competent judges that the other book belongs to the region of exquisite literature; this pretends to be no more than the veracious expression of the thoughts and love of one little woman, of value only as truthfully buman.
January 7, 2025 at 9:34 AM