Tom Quick (T.R.)

After obtaining my doctorate from UCL in 2011, I worked at a range of academic institutions around the UK, including the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester and the University of Leeds. I joined Maastricht University Science and Technology Studies (MUSTS) in March 2022, after being awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship.

My work addresses intersections between three broad historical trends: the constitution from around the turn of the nineteenth century of the life sciences as critical to human self-understanding; the re-orientation of emotional and inter-personal experience around non-human animals during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the emergence of technology-oriented culture over the last 300 or so years.

My current focus is on the place of (especially experimental) animals in the history of logistics, and the ways in which bodies have shaped logistical regimes. At Maastricht I am investigating how animal bodies were caught up in human regimes of commodity exchange, knowledge production, and care. I aim to chart how animals were not only moulded by such regimes, but came also to influence their historical emergence.

I have work addressing the above themes published or forthcoming in a range of journals, including the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, the Journal of British Studies, the British Journal for the History of Science, Science in Context, and Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. In addition to these publications, I have helped develop digital tools for historical analysis (see http://cslide.medsci.ox.ac.uk/), presented television programs relating to the history of medicine and medical science (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Pharmacy), and contributed to a wide range of outreach and educational activities both within and outside of academia.