UWE History Society is hosting a talk, by award winning author Mike Jay, about a little known episode from Bristol’s History, at St Matts Campus, Lady Chapel, 6.30pm on Thursday 12th November. 

Mike Jay, studied philosophy at Cambridge University and has written extensively on scientific and medical history. He specialises in the history of madness and psychiatry and in the social history of drug use.

His books include the award-winning The Air Loom Gang: The Strange and True Story of James Tilly Matthews and His Visionary Madness. Lloyd Levin, producer of Hellboy and The Field of Dreams, is currently considering purchasing the film rights for Air Loom Gang.

 Mike will be speaking on the subject of his latest book, Atmosphere of Heaven: the Unnatural Experiments of Thomas Beddoes and his Sons of Genius, about Thomas Beddoes and the Pneumatic Institution.

His talk will be illustrated with pictures and there will be opportunity for questions.
History Society Secretary, Paul Moorhouse said:

‘The talk should be of interest not just to historians, but also to anyone who is interested in the English Romantic poets, advances in science, or how the use of hallucinogenic drugs helped to expand our understanding of the human mind.
Above all, Mike’s talk will cast a new light on Georgian Bristol and the health, lives, and political struggles of its inhabitants, rich and poor.’
 
Atmosphere of Heaven has received rave reviews from the press and experts alike. Historian Richard Holmes said it was

‘Enthralling. This is exactly the kind of cross-cultural biography we need. Lively and sympathetic, it restores the renegade Dr. Thomas Beddoes to his rightful place in scientific history, but also to his revolutionary circle of literary friends’ 

Leading psychiatrist Oliver Sacks, simply called it ‘magnificent’.

Now UWE students can learn just how magnificent and ask the author himself about the way in which ‘drug addled young intellectuals’ shocked the good citizens of Bristol 200 years ago.

To join the History Society or for more information, please contact:

uwehistorysoc@hotmail.co.uk