Dr Richard Hamblyn

Overview

Biography

I am an environmental writer and historian, with a particular interest in the cultural cross-currents that run between the arts and the sciences. My books include The Invention of Clouds, which won the 2002 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; Terra: Tales of the Earth (2009), a study of natural disasters, and The Art of Science: a Natural History of Ideas (2011), an anthology of readable science writing from the Babylonians to the Higgs boson. I've also written several illustrated books on weather in association with the UK Met Office, and edited Daniel Defoe's first book, The Storm (1704) for Penguin Classics (2005).

More recently, my monograph Clouds: Nature and Culture, came out in 2017, with a companion volume, The Sea: Nature and Culture, published in 2021. Current writing projects include a history of meteorology and a book of (mostly) true stories about real and imagined places. 

Highlights

• Here is a link to an animated short I wrote for TedEd about the naming of clouds in 1802:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuW1jhxCgx0

• And here is a link to an article on the cultural legacy of Albert Einstein that I wrote and recorded for BBC Radio 3's 'The Essay' series. 

• You can read a fun London Review of Books essay review on the life cycle of the Atlantic salmon here: link

• Here's a link to an article I wrote about the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins's letters describing the Krakatoa sunsets of 1883.

Qualifications

• BA (Hons), University of Essex
• MA, University of Essex
• PhD, University of Cambridge
• PGCHE, Birkbeck, University of London

Web profiles

• My personal website

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (since 2011)

Research

Research interests

• Creative Non-fiction
• Weather and climate
• Environmental writing
• Nature and culture

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within Birkbeck:

5

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any area of environmental writing / cultural geography. Prospective PhD students should submit an informal inquiry, followed by a proposal of 2,000-4,000 words, including an indicative bibliography.

Current doctoral researchers

• MELANIE JONES

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Oct 2023 onwards

Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

• LILY DUNN

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Oct 2017

  Title of thesis:

  The Aesthetic of Hybrid Literary Memoir, and its Relationship to Healing: Is There a Contradiction Between Writing Well and Writing to Get Well?

  Awarded:

  2023

• LEE CHRISTIEN

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2016

  Title of thesis:

  Captives of Classification: Unlocking the Representations of Animals from the Daily Occurences, Library, and Cages of London Zoo

  Awarded:

  2021

• GOLNOOSH NOURPANAH

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Oct 2014 to Sep 2016

  Title of thesis:

  The Iranian Queer

  Awarded:

  2019

Teaching

I teach on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules in English, Theatre, and Creative Writing, mostly in the realm of prose non-fiction, but also venturing into fiction and other forms, including poetry, graphic works and verbatim drama. 

Teaching modules

• Narrative Methods (AREN005S5)
• Creative Non-fiction (AREN100S5)
• Independent Reading Portfolio: Critical Reflection (AREN181H6)
• Fiction Workshop 1 (AREN287S4)
• The Writing Industry (AREN289S5)
• Creative Non-Fiction (ENHU002S7)

Publications