News and Events

 

Royal Historical Society Card of Session 2008

 

The Gerald Aylmer Seminar 2007.

'Digital Horizons: how the digital revolution changes the relationship between historians and their historical sources.'.

To read the report of the 2007 seminar, click HERE.

 

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News from the Academic world

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The Threat to the Teaching of History in Schools

A report from the President of the Historical Association, Professor Barry Coward.

To read the report please click HERE

 

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Lectures and Conferences

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KENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Two Series of History Lectures

Dr Jacqueline Bower will present two series of lectures in the KAS's Library in Maidstone Museum, both beginning on 22 September 2008 and continuing weekly until April 2009.

In the mornings Dr Bower's subject will be 'Life in Elizabethan and Stuart England, 1558-1720', a period of religious and political difficulties and economic transition. Topics will include population and plague; agriculture; trade and industry; twons; cultural and intellectual life; and the politics of the seventeenth century. In the afternoons, Dr Bower will discuss 'The History of Kent from Hengist to Jack Cade, 450-1450'. These talks will focus on the land and people of Kent from the earliest Jutish settlements to the end of the Middle Ages. Topics will include place names and settlement; peasants; population and plague; and towns and trade. This is the first in what is planned as a three-year course, studying the history of Kent up to the twentieth century.

The fee for each course is £80. For further details and booking forms contact Joy Sage, KAS Library, Maidstone Museum, St Faith Street, maidstone ME14 1LH, tel. 01622 762924, email joysage@tesco.net.

Jacqueline Bower has a BA in History (London), MA in English Local History (Leicester) and PhD in Economic and Social History (Kent). She is a part-time lecturer for the WEA and University of Kent. her research interests are maritime Kent, the economic and social history of early modern Kent, and family history.

 

SCRIBAL CULTURE AND POLITICAL INFORMATION IN ITALY 1450 - 1650

AN INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

Birkbeck College, University of London, Friday 12 September 2008

Many of Italy's most famous authors combined literary production with work that is now less known as professionals of political information, whether as secretaries, counsellors, authors of reports, newswriters, or scribes. Other writers who specialised in information have been almost universally ignored but were important figures in thier own time. One reason for this is that traces of their information activites have remained in manuscript, while (mostly) literary works were printed at the time and have often been reprinted.

This interdisciplinary workshop - the first step in a wider collective project on scribal culture in early modern Italy - seeks to understand the uses and mechanisms on manuscript as a means for obtaining, elaborating, storing, and ciculating political information. We welcome participation by all those inetrested in the social history of literature, the history of the book, the history of information, the cultural history of politics, and the history of diplomacy and diplomatic pratcice in Italy at this time.

Speakers include: Filippo De Vivo (Birkbeck College, University of London), Dilwyn Knox (University College London), Robert Black (Leeds), Catherine Fletcher (Royal Holloway, University of London)), Brian Richardson (Leeds), Warren Boucher (Queen Mary, University of London), Camilla Russell (University of Newcastle), Angela Nuovo (University of Udine), Dorit Raines (Ca' Foscari, Venice), Stephen Milner (University of Manchester), Mario Infelise (Ca' Foscari, Venice), Gianvittorio Signorotto (University of Modena e Reggio Emilia).

Sessions include: 'Secretaries, Diplomats and Scriveners'; 'Practices of Long and Short-distance News Gathering'; 'Events and Information in the Seicento'.

For more information, and for registration (by 1 September 2008), please contact Filippo De Vivo (f.de-vivo@bbk.ac.uk) or Brian Richardson (B.F.Richardson@leeds.ac.uk).

For a copy of the programme, click HERE.

A registration fee of £15 (£7.50 for postgraduates) will include coffe/tea and lunch. Cheques should be made payable to 'Birkbeck College', and sent to Filippo de Vivo, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX.

On the morning of Saturday 13 September, a half-day workshop on planning further collaborative projects in scribal culture will be held at the British Library. If you are interested in participating, please weite to one of the organisers.

This workshop is supported by the British Academy, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of London and the British Library.

 

PUBLIC HISTORY 2008

Registration is now open for the conference 'Public History' , organised by the Institute of Historical Research, the University of Liverpool and National Museums, Liverpool. This is the annual winter conference of the Institute of Historical Research, 2008.

This major international conference develops debates on the uses of history for public purposes and the involvement of the public in the study and consumption of history, that began with conferences at the IHR in 2006 and Swansea University in 2007. It offers a meeting ground for those in higher education, museums, heritage and commercial sectors, and members of the public. Some 50 speakers from 7 countries in 3 continents will explore the nature of the relationship between academic history, museums, the heritage sector and popular culture; current issues in the investigation, preservation and presentation of historical environments and museum collections; and the challenges that public history and 'knowledge transfer' pose for the professional practice of scholars, their scholarly values and ethics. Disciplines represented include History, Archaeology, History of Art, Museum Studies and Film Studies.

Keynote address by Sandy Nairne (Director, National Portrait Gallery) and the Rt. Hon. Frank Field, MP.

Other key speakers to include: Rebecca Conard (Middle Tennessee State University), David Dean (Carleton University), Thomas Thurston (Yale University), Helen Weinstein (University of York).

Museum Directors to include: Kevin Fewster (National Maritime Museum), Christoph Grunenberg (Tate Liverpool), Wayne Modest (Institute of Jamaica), Lojnnie Bunch (National Museum of African American Culture, Smithsonian Institute).

Early registration recommended. See the conference website: www.liv.ac.uk/public-history.

 

HISTORIC BUILDINGS CONFERENCE

KENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Saturday 18 October 2008, 10am - 4.00pm

KAS's annual Historical Buildings Conference, to which non-members are welcome, will be held at the Lenham Community Centre, Groom Way, Lenham, Kent ME17 2QT.

Illustrated talks will be presented by Andrew Linklater of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust on Kentish Rock - An Examination of Kent's Natural Resources; Charles Brooking (creator of the Brooking Collection of architectural features) on The Window of Time - Dating by Detail; Jane Davidson of House Historians on Following the Sources - Some Examples of House Histories.

During the event there will be a guided tour of Lenham parish church.

Tickets for the conference cost £10. For a booking form send an s.a.e. to David Carder, 53 The Ridgeway, Chatham, kent ME4 6PB. For more details, email david.carder@baesystems.com.

 

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CALLS FOR PAPERS

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Doing Public History

We announce the launch of a new public history initiative in the UK (out of the History Department at Royal Holloway, University of London)

Now is a timely opportunity to prompt public debate about the nature and role of history in Britain. Indeed, for example, the current discussion in the press about 'Britishness' and the selection of a national memorial day, as well as TV Series like Great Britons, indicated that there is popular context and demand for such discussion.

Beyond engaging with the local commemoration of important anniversaries, centenaries and bicentenaries (think of The Gunpowder Plot, Trafalgar Day, Magna Carta Day, Holocaust Memorial Day, Black History Month and a number of WW2 events) there is little cogent reflection on the relationship between the academic historian and the public.

On the contrary in the USA, Australia, and France during the late 1980s and after, (for example the 500th anniversary of Columbus, the bicentenary of white settlement/First Fleet in 1988 for Asutralia, The 200th anniversary of the 1776 and 1789 Revolutions) the public events were driven, reflected in and prompted considerable scholarly and public debate. These were all huge, government funded productions which brought in academics to serve a national agenda with the possibilities of attempting to narrate a 'national history'.

In other cultures control and definition of the historical past has very significant current political ramifications; the example of a contested public history is more evident in the case of Northern Ireland than in the rest of the UK.

We would very much like to attract participants - editors, reviewers, commentators, readers - from all parts of the globe.

Contact: Justin Champion, Department of History, Royal Holloway, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX

See the project site at: www.doingpublichistory.org.

 

POWER AND HISTORY

29TH IRISH CONFERENCE OF HISTORIANS

University of Limerick 12 - 14 June 2009

We invite proposals for papers and panels exploring aspects of the theme 'power' in all its historical manifestations. There is no restriction on the nature of power, its chronology or location. We welcome proposals for individual papers and panels that explore the complexities, convtroversies, and contradictions of power. In particular we are keen to attract international scholars offering comparative studies and papers examining historiographical debates and/or contestations of power in relation to warfare and the state, racial, religious, gendered, class, linguistic and cultural hegemony, symbols and rituals, and visual and architectural expressions of power. We particularly welcome proposals from postgraduate students.

Confirmed speakers include Marshall Sahlins, Jinty Nelson, Joe bergin, Nicholas Canny, Catriona Crowe, Judith Devlin, Padraig Lenihan.

300-word proposals should be sent to irishconferenceofhistorians09@gmail.com before 15 January 2009. The conference programme will be drawn up by the end of February 2009. general enquiries about the conference can be directed to Liam Chambers (Liam.Chambers@mic.ul.ie) or Anthony McElligott (Anthony.McElligott@ul.ie).

Centre for Historical Research, University of Limerick/Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland.

 

 

News

NEXT EVENT

Friday 26 September

Professor James Walvin

"The slave trade, abolition and public memory"

5.00pm

Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre

University College London

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