Blog Posts

CALL FOR PAPERS NOW OPEN
Food in History: Anglo-American Conference 2013, 11-12 July 2013
Senate House (London)
 
From famine to feast, from grain riots to TV cookery programmes, dieting to domesticity, food features in almost every aspect of human societies since prehistoric times. At its annual summer conference in 2013 the Institute of Historical Research aims to showcase the best of current scholarly writing, research and debate on the subject. Our plenary lecturers include Ken Albala, Susanne Freidberg, Cormac O’Grada and Steven Shapin. The  conference will include a publishers’ book fair, policy forum, film screenings and a historic food recreation event. Bursaries will be available enabling postgraduate students to attend.
 
Panel proposals (three papers each plus chair) and individual paper proposals are invited on topics across the full range of food history from ancient to contemporary times, and from all areas of the world: for example: food technology and regulation; global foods and the globalisation of food trade; migration and culinary culture; restaurants; food religion and status; diet and nutrition; individual commodities; agriculture, distribution and markets; retail, advertising and consumption. Early career researchers are particularly encouraged to participate.
 
Please send your proposal to [email protected]by 15 December 2012. The finalised conference programme will be published in January 2013.

Ancients and Moderns
81st Anglo-American Conference of Historians
5-6 July 2012
Senate House, London

Registrations are now open for this year’s Anglo-American Conference of Historians, this year on the theme of 
Ancients and Moderns.

With the Olympics upon us in the UK it seems an appropriate moment to think more broadly about the ways in which the classical world resonates in our own times, and how successive epochs of modernity since the Renaissance have situated themselves in relation to the various ancient civilisations. From political theory to aesthetics, across the arts of war and of peace, to concepts of education, family, gender, race and slavery, it is hard to think of a facet of the last millennium which has not been informed by the ancient past and through a range of media, including museums, painting, poetry, film and the built environment. The Institute’s 81st Anglo-American conference seeks to represent the full extent of work on classical receptions, welcoming not only those scholars who work on Roman, Greek and Judaeo-Christian legacies and influences, but also historians of the ancient kingdoms and empires of Asia and pre-Colombian America.

Our plenary lecturers include: Paul Cartledge (Cambridge), Constanze Güthenke (Princeton), Mark Lewis (Stanford), Sanjay Subrahmanyam (UCLA) and David Womersley (Oxford).

For programme and registrations details, please visit www.history.ac.uk/aach12 or contact the IHR Events Office at [email protected] or on 0207 862 8756.

The University of London is an exempt charity in England and Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (reg. no. SC041194)

Time: Tuesday, 21 February, 5.15 pm GMT

Venue: ST276 (Stewart House, second floor) and streamed live on the web at historyspot.org.uk

Magnus Huber (Giessen), 'The Old Bailey Corpus: Spoken English in the 18th and 19th centuries'

On Tuesday Magnus Huber will be talking about the use of historical court records in the investigation of language change.The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London's central criminal court, were published between 1674 and 1913 and constitute a large body of texts from the beginning of Present Day English (almost 200,000 trials, ca. 134 million words). The Proceedings were digitalized by the social historians Robert Shoemaker (University of Sheffield) and Tim Hitchcock (University of Hertfordshire) and are searchable at the excellent Old Bailey Proceedings Online (http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/), which also provides detailed background information on the Old Bailey and the publication history of the Proceedings.

This talk reports on a project that turned the Proceedings into the linguistic Old Bailey Corpus (OBC). Corpus linguistics relies on the statistical analysis of large collections of electronic texts to investigate language variation and/or language change. In the absence of recorded speech samples before the invention of the phonograph, language historians have turned to written text types that are close to spoken language. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey are particularly suitable for the study of spoken English as they were taken down by shorthand scribes, and their verbatim passages are arguably as near as we can get to the spoken word of the 18th and 19th centuries. The OBC identifies about 114 million words as direct speech from the 1720s onwards, of which 22 million words have received detailed mark-up for sociolinguistic (sex, profession, age, residence of speaker, role in the court-room) and textual variables (the shorthand scribe and publisher of individual Proceedings).

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The IHR Seminar in digital history is actively engaged in presenting and discussing new methodologies which have been made possible through the development of computational methods for the study of history. Further information can be found on the IHR Seminar page at http://www.history.ac.uk/events/seminars/321.  Follow us on twitter @IHRDigHist or join the mailing list for seminar announcements: http://groups.google.com/group/ihr-digital-history-seminar-announce

CALL FOR PAPERS
Ancients and Moderns:
81st Anglo-American Conference of Historians

5-6 July 2012
Senate House, London

With the Olympics upon us in the UK it seems an appropriate moment to think more broadly about the ways in which the classical world resonates in our own times, and how successive epochs of modernity since the Renaissance have situated themselves in relation to the various ancient civilisations. From political theory to aesthetics, across the arts of war and of peace, to concepts of education, family, gender, race and slavery, it is hard to think of a facet of the last millennium which has not been informed by the ancient past and through a range of media, including painting, poetry, film and the built environment. The Institute’s 81st Anglo-American conference seeks to represent the full extent of work on classical receptions, welcoming not only those scholars who work on Roman, Greek and Judaeo-Christian legacies and influences, but also historians of the ancient kingdoms and empires of Asia and pre-Colombian America. Our plenary lecturers include: Paul Cartledge (Cambridge), Constanze Güthenke (Princeton), Mark Lewis (Stanford), Sanjay Subrahmanyam (UCLA) and David Womersley (Oxford).

Proposals for individual papers, panels (of up to three papers and a session chair) and roundtables are invited. Please send a half-page abstract to the Events Officer, Institute of Historical Research at [email protected] by 1 December 2011. Acceptance of proposals will be confirmed by 31st December and the full conference programme published at the end of January. Registrations open on 1 March 2012. Further information on the conference can be found at www.history.ac.uk/aach12.

On behalf of the 2012 Anglo-American Conference Programme Committee:

Hugh Bowden, King’s College, London
Catherine Edwards, Birkbeck College, London
Mike Edwards, Institute of Classical Studies
Rosemary Sweet, University of Leicester
Miles Taylor, Institute of Historical Research
Giorgios Varouxakis, Queen Mary University of London

2011 Anglo-American Conference: Health in History

29th June – 1st July 2011
Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG
www.history.ac.uk/aac2011
Supported by the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society of Medicine

This year, the Institute of Historical Research will be holding its flagship event, the Anglo-American Conference, on the subject of Health in History. The history of medicine and of human society in sickness and health is an ever widening window through which the present can view the past. The study of the ways in which societies over time and at war and in peace have defined and treated their ‘sick’, the changing content and status of medical expertise and ethics, and those episodic moments when the globe has been transformed by epidemic, panic and panacea is now an integral part of mainstream history.

The medical humanities are now critically placed in most cultures at the meeting point of research and social policy. The 80th Anglo-American Conference of Historians will feature papers and panels across all periods and areas of the history of medicine. Plenary lecturers include David Arnold, Joanna Bourke, Samuel Cohn, Mary Fissell, Monica Green, Helen King and Paul Starr. The conference will also feature a Publishers’ Fair featuring major international publishers such as Oxford University Press, I B Tauris and Wiley-Blackwell among many others. A Policy Forum organised by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine will also be taking place during the conference, with key academic and professional health experts discussing the role played by historians in the policy environment.

The 3-day conference will be taking place just around the corner from Senate House at the Brunei Gallery, part of the School of Oriental and African Studies on Thornhaugh Street, London. A wine and canapé reception will also be held on Friday evening at the Wellcome Collection (Euston Road, London) and will feature a private viewing of their latest exhibition, ‘Dirt’.

For programme and registration details, please visit http://www.history.ac.uk/aac2011 . For any queries, please contact the IHR Events Office at [email protected] or on 0207 862 8756.

Dear NACBS colleagues,

I am writing to you about the redevelopment of the Institute of Historical Research, which is scheduled to begin later this year.

As was announced before Christmas, the IHR will be moving this summer into a temporary location for two years, as the University continues with the refurbishment of Senate House. We will be rehoused in the 3rd floor of the South Block and in the Mezzanine. IHR staff have now been allocated new offices and we hope to finalise soon the relocation of the Common Room facilities as well.

We have now agreed with the Senate House Library which sections of the IHR Library will remain on open access during the temporary relocation, and full details of the new arrangements are now available on the IHR website: on the news page and on the Library pages. I have also attached this information to this email for your convenience.

I can also announce that the University has confirmed that it will be able to rehouse all of the IHR Events programme, that is our seminars, colloquia, conferences and Friends’ Events programme. It has also been agreed that external scholarly organisations which use IHR rooms and facilities will be charged the same rates during 2011-13 as they would in our usual premises. During 2011-13 our seminars and other events will run in the Ground Floor rooms of the South Block of Senate House, and on the Second Floor of Stewart House (also part of the Senate House complex).

The University will give final approval to these moves in the Spring, and we will continue to keep our members, users and visitors as fully informed as possible. Later in the year I will also be able to announce in more detail the planned modernisation of our current premises into which we shall move back in 2013. In the meantime, if you have any queries or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me.

I look forward to seeing you at the NACBS in Denver next November, when we will be inviting you to join our IHR 90th birthday celebrations. Whilst we face a huge logistical challenge in making this temporary move, we are all delighted and excited by the prospect of creating an IHR fit for the 21st century. I hope very much that you will join us in bringing that project to life.

With best wishes,

Miles Taylor

Professor Miles Taylor
Director
Institute of Historical Research
University of London
Senate House
Malet Street
LONDON  WC1E 7HU
t: +44 (0)20 7862 8759
f: +44 (0)20 7862 8811
e: [email protected]

Web: www.history.ac.uk

______
Library arrangements during temporary relocation of the IHR

The IHR has now agreed with the University which sections of the Library collection should take priority for open access during the next phase of the refurbishment of Senate House.  As indicated in the Director’s statement in December, during the two year period of relocation to the 3rd floor of the South Block only one-third of the IHR Library will remain on open access.  The bulk of the remainder of the collection will be housed in the Senate House Library Tower and available through a dedicated fetch service.

In order to ensure the most effective use is made of the space available, a survey of collection usage has been running throughout this academic year.  The usage level of each collection has been the main criteria for retention on open access, amongst other considerations such as usage patterns, growth rate, the needs of Institute staff and students, ease of requesting and fetching, type of shelving available, the size of the individual books within the collections, online availability (mainly in the case of periodicals), and availability elsewhere in other local libraries. The outcomes have been discussed and approved by both the IHR Library Committee and the IHR Advisory Council.

The following collections are to remain on open access, with the exclusion of folio material and periodicals:

Ordering and consultation arrangements for materials in the closed stacks

It has been agreed that the IHR library staff will administer a dedicated hourly fetch service from the 3rd floor temporary location.  Library staff will aim to ensure the service is as responsive to demand as possible, and requests for material can be made in person, or via telephone, email, or the website, where there will be a request form.  Please note that due to staffing restrictions it will not always be possible for material to be fetched outside the core hours of 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.  The Library would strongly encourage those wishing to request closed access material to contact the Library in advance of their visit wherever possible, so we can ensure material is waiting on arrival.  In addition, material can be kept out for readers who wish to consult closed access items over a longer period.  As is the case currently, library staff will work in an accessible enquiry office throughout library opening hours, ensuring continuity of service to readers.

Reader facilities
The current IHR photocopiers and microform reader/printer will be available in the temporary location, in addition to reader desks, catalogues terminals and PCs.

Opening hours
The IHR Library will maintain its current opening hours in the temporary location.  However, please be aware that there will definitely be a period of closure in August to enable the move to take place.  The moving schedule is yet to be agreed but closure dates will be publicised as soon as they are known.

If you have any queries about these proposed changes, please contact the IHR Librarian Jennifer Higham on [email protected]

The following reviews of possible interest to readers of the British and Irish Studies Intelligencer were published in May in the Institute of Historical Research’s e-journal Reviews in History.

Firstly Drew Gray reviews (no. 897, with the editor’s response) a resource which since its inception in 2003 has proved to be a time-saving boon for social historian, The Old Bailey Proceedings Online.

Our next review (no. 898, by Jennifer Cole) is of After the Bomb: Civil Defence and Nuclear War in Britain, 1945–68 by Matthew Grant. This looks at the evolution in post-war Britain of the policy of civil defence. It draws on recently declassified documents to show that though anti-nuclear campaigners didn't succeed in banning the bomb, they did play a significant part in exposing flaws in the central tenet of this policy, namely that a nuclear war could be survived.

The emergence of material culture as a subject for historical enquiry has brought to the fore the question of what constitute 'proper' sources for 'proper' history. Amanda Vickery's new book Behind Closed Doors. At Home in Georgian England combines the old and the new, utilising both an 'impressive array of original archival evidence' and 'kaleidoscopic range of material sources'. Read Helen Berry's review (no. 901) and the author's response.

Elsewhere, Oliver Blaiklock reviews (no. 900) a valuable contribution not just to the study of voluntary organisations and charities, but more broadly to the history of British civil society and citizenship, Kate Bradley’s Poverty, Philanthropy and the State: Charities and the Working Classes in London.

Nick Holder has written a monumental review of the fifteen paperback books on English local history produced by the England's Past for Everyone project, which aim to take the authoritative research tradition of the red Victoria County History volumes and package it in a more accessible and contemporary format. Read his review (no. 904) and VCH Director John Beckett’s response.

Finally Keith Lilley sets out to educate historians of medieval urbanism with a detailed account of medieval ideas on the city as macro- or microcosm, City and Cosmos: the Medieval World in Urban Form, reviewed (no. 906, with a response by the author) by Frances Andrews

A list of all our British and Irish history reviews can be found here.

As always, all comments or suggestions should be sent to [email protected].

Danny Millum
Deputy Editor, Reviews in History

The following reviews of possible interest to followers of the Intelligencer were published in March in the Institute of Historical Research’s e-journal Reviews in History (http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews).

We begin with Pauline Croft assessing (no. 865, with the editor’s response here) the special issue of Historical Research devoted to Henry VII and then John Baxendale finding much to praise in Brian Harrison’s contribution to the New Oxford History of England, Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom 1951-1970 (no. 867, with response).

Next up is a work on the evolution of British unionism, the less-studied counterpart to Irish nationalism. The Making of British Unionism, 1740-1848: Politics, Government and the Anglo-Irish Constitutional Relationship by Douglas Kanter is reviewed for us here (no. 869) by Jacqueline Hill.

In the field of religious history we have a review (no. 873, by Carmen Mangion) of Carol Engelhardt Herringer's new book covering Victorian representations of the Virgin Mary, Victorians and the Virgin Mary: Religion and Gender in England, 1830-85.

On a completely different tack we have the first comprehensive study of medieval parks, as Aleks Pluskowski reviews (no. 877) Stephen Mileson’s Parks in Medieval England.

Barbara Yorke then tackles (no. 878) Marilyn Dunn’s new work The Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons c. 597-c. 700. Discourses of Life, Death and Afterlife, in which ethnography and anthropology are combined with a historical approach in an erudite, but sometimes controversial, contribution to the debate.

Finally John Beckett takes issue (no. 879, with a response by the author here) with a book (Image of A Lost Frontier Revealed: Regional Separation in the East Midlands by Alan Fox) seeking to test the hypothesis that there was, in England, a patchwork of historical regions that largely coincided with major drainage basins, which in turn allied closely with pre-1974 counties.A list of all our British and Irish history reviews can be found here: http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/subject/geographical-area/britain-and-ireland

As always, all comments or suggestions should be sent to [email protected].

Registration is now open for 'Cities', the 78th Anglo-American
Conference of Historians, to be held at the Institute of Historical
Research, London, 2-3 July 2009.

We are delighted to announce that our keynote speakers will be Wim
Blockmans, Swati Chattopadhyay, Derek Keene, and Lynn Hollen Lees.
Altogether, more than 80 speakers will be presenting papers on a wide
range of themes, covering the development of cities across the world
from the ancient world to the present day.

The conference includes a publishers' fair, exhibition, and a
reception, to be hosted at London's historic Guildhall by the City of
London Corporation.

Full details of the programme, delegate rates and online booking
information are available at http://www.history.ac.uk/aac2009.

Matthew Davies

--
Dr Matthew Davies
Chair, 'Cities' Programme Committee
Centre for Metropolitan History
Institute of Historical Research
Senate House
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU

Anglo American conference of historians 2009: Cities
Institute of Historical Research, 2 - 3 July 2009

For 10,000 years cities have shaped the affairs of mankind. Now, more than half of the world's population is urban, dwelling in settlements that we identify as 'city' or 'town', some of them so extensive and so complex that they seem to transcend traditional notions of urban organisation and form.

While the impact of cities has grown rapidly in recent times, its essential nature has been apparent from the beginning. Cities mark the transition from nomadic to settled society and drive the development of agriculture and ideas of the rural, as well the exploitation of water, minerals and other natural resources. As both organising forces and habitats, cities are at least as important for animals as for humans. They rest on networks of contracts that regulate the exchange of goods and services and the management of risk, yet the instabilities that characterised pre-urban societies remain with us today, and in many new forms.

Cities facilitate the aggregation of wealth and power and the emergence of distinctive religions, beliefs, cultural behaviour, social structures and institutions. They evolve laws and governmental systems to deal with the particular problems of urban life, including those arising from disorder and disease. As sites of inquiry and information exchange they promote knowledge and understanding of the wider world.

Within the city, the key public locations are those of the market, popular assembly, power, authority, religion and defence, while the occupation of spaces for work, residence and recreation is exceptionally dense. In meeting these and other needs, cities promote innovation in building and architecture, often so as to fulfil the ambitions of the powerful. City plans and forms can also bear symbolic meaning and express ideas of social, political, economic or cosmological order. Such environments are often oppressive or corrupting, yet many cities also offer the individual a freedom of thought and expression not found elsewhere.

Cities' relations with subordinate settlements and with other cities, along with their need to control territory and communications, give them a central role in the formation of states and empires, and now in the process of globalisation. At the same time, they absorb and express the characteristics of the regions in which they lie and of more distant places with which they have contact. With migration and trade they become places where languages and cultures co-exist, intermingle or merge.

The conference will deal with cities throughout the world. Proposals are sought for papers or panel sessions on any aspect of city life, form, ideology and culture over this period. Thematic contributions making comparisons over time or across space will be especially welcome, as will those on networks of cities and their role in cultural formation, on the relations between cities, territories and larger political units, on the ideologies and cosmologies of the city and on what distinguishes the city or town from other forms of settlement or ways of life.

Many of these topics are touched on in general writing on cities, but it is remarkable how rarely they are subject to serious historical analysis. This raises questions for our understanding of cities now, when so much of their past as invoked in relation to the present is misunderstood. As so many of us mass together in cities, are we at a turning point in our identity as humans? Or does past experience of cities offer some clues for the future, whether one of hope or of disaster?

For more information visit: http://www.history.ac.uk/aac2009/