Programme: British Studies in Broken World

Please see the programme for british Studies in a Broken World to be held at the University of Birmingham between 5-7 July.

Information about travel, accommodation and accessibility is also available. You can download the Programme, but things are still provisional at the moment and might change!

WEDNESDAY 5 JULY

8.30am -1.00pm: Registration Open in Gisbert Kapp Reception

9.30am-12.30pm: PGR/ECR WORKSHOP (Gisbert Kapp Building NG15)

9.30am-11.00am: SESSION 1: ‘Continuing the Conversation: Modern British Studies Postgraduate Roundtable’

What is the relationship between academic labour and the histories we produce?

This is a roundtable discussion reflecting on the agenda set out by Birmingham PGRs in their Seeking Legitimacy call for papers and related blog post.

Speakers will include Amy Edwards (University of Bristol), Christienna Fryer (SUNY Buffalo State), David Geiringer (University of Sussex), Ruth Lindley (University of Birmingham), Sean Male (University of Birmingham), Ben Mechen (University of Birmingham), and Daisy Payling (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine).

The session is open to all PGRs & ECRs attending the conference.

11.30-12.15pm: SESSION 2: Writing and Publishing Workshop (Gisbert Kapp NG15).

An advice and discussion session on writing, preparing and publishing journal articles. This session features guidance from experienced editors of relevant publications including Josie McLellan & Guy Ortolano.

12.15-1.00pm: Lunch for participants in PGR/ECR Session (Gisbert Kapp, 1st Floor, The Link)

1.00pm-2.30pm: PLENARY SESSION 1 (Vaughan Jeffries Lecture Theatre, Education Building)

Fluid Presents, Turbulent Pasts: The session will address what it means to study the British past in a moment when Britain itself is in flux. The consequences of the European Union Referendum encourage us to think about where Britain is, where it was and what it has been.

Speakers: Matthew Hilton, Susan Pedersen, Caroline Elkins.

3.00pm-4.30pm: PANEL SESSION 1 (Gisbert Kapp)

A: British Healthcare in a ‘Broken World’ (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 1)

Chair: Alex Mold

Speakers: Jennifer Crane, Philip Begley, Peder Clark, Gareth Millward

B: “The workshop of the world”: race and place in the twentieth-century West Midlands (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 2)

Chair: Izzy Mohammed

Speakers: Simon Briercliffe, Shirin Hirsch, Rachel Yemm.

C: Expertise and the Voluntary Sector (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG16)

Chair: Chris Moores

Speakers: Caitriona Beaumont, Eve Colpus, Ruth Davidson

D: Psychiatry and modern Britain, past and present (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG15)

Chair: Janet Weston

Speakers: Fiachra Byrne, Hazel Croft, Louise Hide

4.30pm-5.00pm: REFRESHMENTS (Gisbert Kapp, 1st Floor, The Link)

5.00pm-6.30pm: PANEL SESSION 2 (Gisbert Kapp)

A: The cultural politics of race and nation: thirty years after Paul Gilroy’s There ain’t no black in the Union Jack (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 1)

Chair: Camilla Schofield

Speakers: Kennetta Hammond Perry, Marc Matera, Rob Waters

B: Partnerships, progress and pragmatism: rethinking feminist politics in the interwar period (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 2)

Chair: Caitriona Beaumont

Speakers: Helen Glew, Alexandra Hughes-Johnson, Lyndsey Jenkins

C: Broken Bodies, Fractured Empire (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG16)

Chair: Lucy Delap

Speakers: Will Jackson, Kate Imy, Hilary Buxton

D: Manhood in Crisis? Masculinities in Late Twentieth Century Britain (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG15)

Chair: Amy Milne-Smith

Speakers: Ben Mechen, Katie Jones, Paul R. Deslandes

6.30pm- WINE RECEPTION in the Barber Institute

THURSDAY 6 July

9.00am-10.30am: PANEL SESSION 3 (Gisbert Kapp)

A: Remaking Liberalism in the 1960s and 1970s: Race, Capitalism, and Civil Liberties (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 1)

Chair: Guy Ortolano

Speakers: Camilla Schofield, Chris Hilliard, Tim Rogan

B: Radical Britain? The Reception of ‘Foreign’ Radical Ideas in Twentieth Century Britain (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 2)

Chair: Matt Worley

Speakers: Max Hodgson, Benjamin Bland, María Fernanda Lanfranco

C: Money and Modernity in Modern British Studies (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG16)

Chair: Pam Cox

Speakers: George Gosling, Kathleen McIlvenna, Kate Bradley

D: Contested Expertise in Late Twentieth Century (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG15)

Chair: Rhodri Hayward

Speakers: Zoe Strimpel, Natalie Thomlinson, Chris Millard

E: Unwanted migrants, state power, and the spaces in-between: Immigration control in practice in Britain and the British World in the interwar years (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, N225)

Chair: David Feldman

Speakers: Julia Laite, Jean Smith, Becky Taylor

10.30-11.00am: REFRESHMENTS (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 1, The Link)

11.00am-12.30pm: PANEL SESSION 4 (Gisbert Kapp)

A: Working as Feminist Historians in a Broken World – A Conversation (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 1)

Speakers: Sally Alexander, Hester Barron, Caitriona Beaumont, Claire Langhamer, Lucy Robinson, Penny Summerfield

B: The Art Object and British Culture (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 2)

Chair: Greg Salter

Speakers: Sarah Monks, Kate Nichols, Amy Tobin, Alice Correia, Jiyi Ryu

C: Believing in Britain: Disruptive Narratives of Spiritual Modernity (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG16)

Chair: Lucy Delap

Speakers: Tim Jones, Ruth Lindley, Jane Shaw

D: British Sport at the end of Empire (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG15)

Chair: Martin Johnes

Speakers: Mathew Taylor, Tiffany Boyle, Matthew McDowell

E: History Acts: Black Lives Matters (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, N225)

This is a workshop organized by History Acts organized by Steffan Blayney & Guy Beckett with Tippa Naphtali founder of 4WardEva UK (click above for more info) and Malachi Thomas from Black Lives Matter UK with Christienna Fryar & Kennetta Perry.

12.30pm-13.30pm: LUNCH (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 1, The Link)

1.30pm -3.00pm:PLENARY SESSION (Vaughan Jeffries Lecture Theatre, Education Building)

Public Histories, Engaged Historians: In the context of the suspicion of ‘expertise’ in political and media discourse and the continued reforms directed towards the Higher Education sector, our interests as historians intersect with a more general interest in the roles of the University as civic institutions. A plenary session will bring together a variety of voices to reflect on historians’ relationship with the public.

Speakers: Pam Cox, Lucy Delap, Margot Finn, Peter Mandler.

Chair: Kate Smith

3.00pm-3.30pm: REFRESHMENTS (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 1, the Link)

3.30pm-5.00pm: PANEL SESSION 5 (Gisbert Kapp)

A: Roundtable on Histories of Empire (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 1)

Chair: Sadiah Qureshi

Speakers: Charlotte L. Riley, Christienna D. Fryar, Clare Anderson, John McAleer, Katie Donington, Saima Nasar, Sumita Mukherjee, Sundeep Lidher

B: The Democratisation of Hierarchy: Monarchy and Modern Britain, 1947-2017 (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 2)

Chair: James Greenhalgh

Speakers: Ed Owens, Toby Harper, Laura Clancy

C: Political Cultures and the Far Left in the 1970s and 1980s (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG16)

Chair: Matt Worley

Speakers: Daisy Payling, Diarmaid Kelliher, Jodi Burkett, Jack Saunders

D: Afterlives: Excavating the Political Ruins of the Twentieth Century (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG15)

Chair: Erika Hanna

Speakers: Sam Wetherell, Andrew Seaton, Amy Edwards

E: Learning, Transmission and Generational Change: Exploring Childhood in Twentieth Century Britain (Gisbert Kapp, 2nd Floor, N225)

Chair: Christina de Bellaigue

Speakers: Laura Sefton, Michael Roper, Eleanor Murray

5.30pm-6.30pm: PLENARY LECTURE (Vaughan Jeffries Lecture Theatre, Education Building).

Leela Gandhi, ‘British Socialism and the Long History of Postcolonial Thinking’

6.30pm- WINE RECEPTION (Gisbert Kapp, 1st Floor, The Link)

FRIDAY 7 July

9.00am-10.30am: PANEL SESSION 6 (Gisbert Kapp)

A: Different Worlds of Experience: Doing History with Socially Excluded Groups (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 1)

Chair: Paul Ward

Speakers: Shabina Aslam, Jessica Hammett, Karen Harvey, Laura King, Josie McLellan, Elizabeth Pente

B: Rethinking Women and the Professions, c. 1870-1920: Methods, Scales, and Sources (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 2)

Chair: Susan Pedersen

Speakers: Emily Rutherford, Harry Smith, Zoë Thomas

C: Crises of Labour Power: Work, Health, and the Body in Industrial Modernity (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG16)

Chair: Richard Hornsey

Speakers: Violeta Ruiz, Catherine Oakley, Steffan Blayney

D: Global Britons: transnational citizenship and belonging in postcolonial Britain (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG15)

Chair: Gurminder Bhambra

Speakers: Sundeep Lidher, Saima Nasar, Edward Anderson & Patrick Clibbens, Hira Amin

E: The Promise of Expertise: Advice literature and the self in twentieth-century Britain (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, N225)
Chair: Claire Langhamer

Speakers: Jill Kirby, Sian Edwards, Laura Cofield

10.30am-11.00am: REFRESHMENTS (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 1, The Link)

11.00am-12.30am: PLENARY SESSION (Vaughan Jeffries Lecture Theatre, Education Building)

Crossing Disciplines, Creating Studies: The conference will invite speakers to interrogate the notion of ‘studies’ within Modern British Studies and the relationship between history and other adjacent disciplines. How might we bring British history into closer conversation with related disciplines in the humanities and social sciences?

Speakers: Gurminder Bhambra, Leela Gandhi, Vanessa Heggie

Chair: Kate Nichols

12.30-1.30: LUNCH (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 1, The Link)

1.30pm-3.00pm:PANEL SESSION 7

A: Why British History Needs Irish History and Vice Versa (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 1)

Chairs: Mo Moulton & Erika Hanna

Speakers: Mo Moulton, Erika Hanna, Shahmima Akhtar, Ciara Breathnach, Darragh Gannon, Carole Holohan, Peter Leary, Conor Mulvagh, Kevin O’Sullivan.

B: The Stupid Party: Reconsidering Conservative Political Thinking in Twentieth-Century Britain (Gisbert Kapp, Floor 2, Lecture Theatre 2)

Chair: Gary Love

Speakers: Emily Jones, Emily Robinson, Kit Kowol

C: “Now There’s a Funny Thing”: Humour and Comedy in Post-War Britain (Gisbert Kapp, Ground Floor, NG16)

Chair: Gavin Schaffer