Bulletin

History Lab Bulletin 5 December 2011

Dear all,

See below for projects and events that may be of interest to History Lab members.

In this issue:

• Next in History Lab
• Workshops
• Calls for papers

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Next in History Lab:

• Seminar – Matthew Mesley - Gerald of Wales and the Episcopal Ideal, Thursday 8 December, Holden Room, Senate House, 17:30 – 19:30
• Meet the Historian - Richard J. Evans, Wednesday 14 December, Bloomsbury Room (Room G35), South Block, Senate House, 18:30-20:30
  For more information, see: http://www.history.ac.uk/historylab
• Speakers wanted:
  Are you methodical?
  The History Labs Methods Workshop is a programme of workshops which asks PHD students to reveal, discuss and consider each other's research methodologies. Each event features a short presentation by three PHD students on their methods, followed by a chaired discussion. We are looking for speakers at the following events:
  17 January 2012 6pm-8pm
  Methods Workshop: Managing the bibliography
  28 February 2012 6pm-8pm
  Methods Workshop: Facing a blank page, starting to write
  21 May 2012 6pm-8pm
  Methods Workshop: The upgrade (from MPhil to PhD)
  If you would like to take part in one of these events please email a short proposal to the co-ordinator: Guy Beckett at gbecke01@mail.bbk.ac.uk

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Workshops

• The Business Archives Council is once again organising a Meet the Archivists workshop for students. The workshop will be held on the 8^th December 2011 and will be hosted by The Rothschild Archive. The workshop aims to explore ways in which new, and existing, research students can identify and use business records in a surprising variety of different research fields. Participants will be able to explore the vast and varied materials available at many of the UK's business archives. The day will commence with an archives skills workshop run by eminent academic historians, followed by a buffet lunch, where participants will be able to meet the archivists. The event is free.
  For further details and to reserve a place please contact Michele Blagg at: Michele.Blagg@kcl.ac.uk

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Calls for papers

• Unofficial Histories
  Saturday 19^th May 2012 at Bishopsgate Institute, London
  A free public conference to discuss how society produces, presents, and consumes history beyond official and elite versions of the past.
  The “unofficial histories” conference seeks to bring together those who work in the academic, community and cultural fields to consider the value and purpose of historical engagements and understandings that take place within, on the edges of, or outside “official” sites and channels for the communication of historical ideas. Taking its cue from the assumption that history is, as Raphael Samuel put it, “a social form of knowledge; the work, in any given instance of a thousand different hands”, the conference aims to open up to examination the ways in which historians, curators, writers, journalists, artists, film makers, activists and others, seek to represent the past in the public realm, and in the spheres of popular culture and everyday life.
  What kinds of subjects, ideas and themes are presented? What styles and mediums are used to construct history? How is this history produced, transmitted and consumed?
  We hope to sharpen the awareness of the different sites and forms of historical production and consider how they impact public perceptions and consciousness of history. We are also concerned to understand the interactions between competing (and corresponding) impulses in the processes of formation: the scholarly and the political; the academic and the everyday; the imperatives of funding, ethics and access.
  Finally, we would like to consider whether or not such “unofficial histories” have political effects that might serve democratic and emancipatory goals, and/or can be seen as sources of dissent and resistance against conventional, privileged models of historical knowledge.
  Presentations of between 10 and 20 minutes (different approaches to communication are encouraged) are welcomed on any aspect of the above, which may include:
  People’s History and the History of Everyday Life
  Consuming History: History as Commodity
  TV, Radio and Internet
  Literature, Poetry and Folksong
  Museums, Heritage, Archives, and Education
  Feminist and Women’s History
  Historical Re-enactment and Living History
  Memory, Myth and Folklore
  Oral History, Testimony, and Biography
  Local, Regional and Community History
  Family History and Genealogy
  Art, Drama and Theatre
  The Role of the Historian in the Public Sphere
  Please submit abstracts of 250-300 words by 31^st January 2012 to Fiona Cosson,
  fiona.cosson@northampton.ac.uk
  For more information and to register for the conference, please see our website at
  www.unofficialhistories.wordpress.com

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Regards,

The History Lab team.