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Staff Profiles

Dr Clare Hickman

Reader in Environmental and Medical History

Background

I work at the intersection of environmental and medical history. My research takes a historical approach to topics generally investigated by social and natural scientists such as human-environment relationships in relation to ideas of health and wellbeing. As a scholar with a background in science communication as well as history, I often investigate current issues through the lens of the past and I believe historic research on landscape and human health will become increasingly relevant as we have to adapt to the Climate Crisis. I am also beginning to take a sensory approach in my research as I feel that this will allow for a new understanding of human-environment relationships and plant-human interactions as well as providing a more inclusive approach to historic landscape interpretation. 

 

Areas of expertise include the design and use of nineteenth and twentieth-century English hospital and asylum gardens, cold bathing as a healthy activity in the eighteenth-century landscape garden and the role of medical practitioners in the Victorian parks movement. By examining the creation and use of green and blue spaces in relation to changing medical concepts, my research crosses the disciplinary boundaries of medical history, landscape history and history of science.


Before arriving at Newcastle in 2019, I was a Senior Lecturer in History at the University Chester, a Wellcome Fellow in Medical History & Humanities at King’s College London (2013-15) and a Research Fellow on the Leverhulme funded Historic Parks & Gardens of England project at the University of Bristol (2007-2012). I have also worked as a museum assistant, writer and editor for Usborne publishing and as a Research Facilitator for Oxford University.

 

 



Research

My research bridges the intersection of environmental and medical humanities in a variety of ways as can be seen through my current funded project portfolio: 


I am also Co-I on the AHRC funded ‘In All Our Footsteps: Tracking, Mapping and Experiencing Rights of Way in Post-War Britain’ (2021-2024) led by Professor Glen O'Hara at Oxford Brookes University. I lead the strand on pathways for meaning, health and wellbeing which is investigating how rights of way are central in facilitating activities for physical and mental health such as walking, and the ability to connect humans to nature for wellbeing. Our work has important policy as well as practical implications, so the team will therefore work with The Ramblers, as our Project Partner, as well as representatives from Historic England, Natural England, The National Trust, walking practitioners and academics from a range of disciplines to interrogate the importance of rights of way in their past and present context.

 

I’m also a Co-I on the large cross-disciplinary project funded by NERC, ‘Connected treescapes: a portfolio approach for delivering multiple public benefits from UK treescapes in the rural-urban continuum’ (2021-2024) led by Professor Piran White of York University. 


I recently led two networks. The first funded by the Wellcome Trust, 'MedEnv: Intersections in Medical and Environmental Humanities' (2020-2023) was organised with colleagues at Liverpool, Cardiff and Bristol Universities. Our ambition was to lead research in this field from an historically-informed humanities standpoint and to develop future research collaborations to consider the rich nature of human and more-than-human interrelationships and their impact on health and wellbeing.  

 

The second was the AHRC ‘Unlocking Landscapes Network: History, Culture and Sensory Diversity in Landscape Use and Decision Making’ (2020-2023) which was funded under the Research Networking Highlight Notice for Changing Landscapes: ‘Towards a new Decision Making Framework for UK Landscapes and Land Assets. By bringing together academics, practitioners, artists and policy makers, ‘Unlocking Landscapes’ seeks to bridge traditional policy silos. This was a collaborative network with Dr Sarah Bell of the University of Exeter, and included colleagues from the Universities of Exeter and Bristol, Historic England, the National Trust, the Sensory Trust, Sense, and Natural Inclusion. You can read more about our findings here: https://sensing-nature.com/unlocking-landscapes


Alongside these I have also been a core collaborator on the ‘Senses and Health/Care Environments’ Network led by Victoria Bates, University of Bristol. 

 

I am interested in supervising any PhD projects or other postgraduate research projects that investigate the modern history of medical and/or environmental history, landscape design, architecture for health or that use history to understand current issues such as the climate crisis, air pollution and urban life in a post-pandemic world.

 

Teaching

I am module leader for the following courses:

 

  • HIS1101: Sources and Methods
  • HIS2321: Destroying Nature: Disasters, Diseases and Environmental Injustice
  • HIS3349: Healthy Spaces for Healthy Bodies: Medicine, Humans, Places
  • SHS8124: Introduction to the History of Medicine


And I am part of the teaching teams on the following modules:

 

  • HCA1007: Stuff: Living in a Material World
  • HIS3020: Writing History



 

Publications