We are excited to announce the provisional programme for Rethinking Modern British Studies to be held between 1-3 July.
Registration is now open via the University shop. Registration (free for ECRs on temporary or part-time contracts/postgraduates/unwaged and £15 per day otherwise) will remain open until 30 May. Please be aware that we have a limited number of spaces.
UPDATE: We are amazed and delighted about the interest in the Conference. To make room for students/unwages we increased the number free to PGs/Unwaged to over 100 spaces. Unfortunately, these have now been filled. Delegates can still register at conference or day rates.
Information about travel, accommodation and accessibility is also available.
Download our Final Programme and Timetable or view panel abstracts below.
WEDNESDAY 1st JULY
9:30 – 12:30 pm – Postgraduate Workshop, details TBC
1 – 2 pm – Plenary 1
James Vernon, “What, where and when is the history of modern Britain?”
2 – 3:30 pm – Panel session 1
Interrogating British Boundaries
Speakers: Chloe Ward, Liam Byrne, Lauren Piko
Chair: Chris Hill
After Modernism: The Politics of Urban Renewal Since the 1970s
Speakers: Otto Saumarez Smith, Adam Page, Simon Gunn
Chair: Erika Hanna
Co-operation and Economic Democracy
Speakers: Donna Loftus, Nicole Robertson, Peter Gurney
Chair: Matthew Francis
Making Democratic People: Psychology, Politics, and Private Life after 1945
Speakers: Teri Chettiar, Rhodri Hayward, Michal Shapira
Chair: Mathew Thomson
3:30 – 4 pm – Break
4 – 5:30 pm – Panel Session 2
Imperial Trajectories: Britain’s Entanglement with the World
Speaker: Tehila Sasson, Aimee M. Genell, Radhika Natarajan
Chair: Kevin O’Sullivan
Cultures of Worship: Democracy, Royalty and Celebrity in Inter-War Britain
Speakers: Ed Owens, Frank Mort, Max Jones
Chair: Christine Grandy
Expertise, bureaucracy and the body: dilemmas of empowerment in post-war British governance
Speakers: Gayle Davis, Gareth Millward, Glen O’Hara
Chair: Tom Crook
Religion and Subjectivity in Modern Britain
Speakers: Harry Cocks, Sam Brewitt-Taylor, Laura Ramsay
Chair: James Vernon
5:30 – 6 pm – Break
6 pm – “What Produces Democracy? Revolutionary Crises, Popular Politics, and Democratic Gains in Twentieth Century Europe”
Vice Chancellor’s Lecture by the The Institute of Advanced Studies Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Geoff Eley
THURSDAY 2nd JULY
9 – 10 am – Plenary 2
Seth Koven, “Economies of Conscience in Early 20th Century Britain”
10 – 11:30 am – Panel Session 3
Ties that Bind: Refashioning Community and Responsibility for a Changing World
Speakers: Caroline Shaw, Christienna Fryar, Emily Baughan
Chair: Richard Huzzey
Humour and Comedy in Modern British Studies
Speakers: Gavin Schaffer, Peter Bailey, Lucy Delap
Chair: Julie-Marie Strange
Class and Gender in Post-war Social Science
Speakers: Helen McCarthy, Lise Butler, Jon Lawrence
Chair: Deborah Cohen
It’s different up here: Region, locality, and place in 20th Century British History
Speakers: Christine Grandy, Helen Smith, James Greenhalgh
Chair: Laura King
11:30 – 12 pm – Break
12 – 1 pm – Plenary 3
Stephen Brooke, “Spaces, Bodies and Emotions: The Everyday Culture of Democracy in 1980s London”
1 – 2 pm – Lunch
2 – 3:30 pm – Panel Session 4
Humanitarianism in Modern Britain: from Imperial Burdens to the Aid Industry
Speakers: Andrew Jones, Charlotte Lydia Riley, Anna Bocking-Welch
Chair: Matthew Hilton
Creative History: a dangerous undertaking
Speakers: Alison Twells, Matt Houlbrook, Helen Rogers
Chair: Charlotte Greenhalgh
Post-war Britain: from social democracy to neoliberalism?
Speakers: Aled Davies, Ben Jackson, Peter Sloman
Chair: Hugh Pemberton
Beyond Fatherhood: Histories of masculinity and the family in the 19th and 20th centuries
Speakers: Laura King, Jessica Meyer, Julie-Marie Strange
Chair: Helen Smith
3:30 – 4 pm – Break
4 – 5:30 pm – Panel Session 5
Destitution and its Discontents
Speakers: Raminder Saini, Hilary Buxton, Sarah Mass
Chair: Julia Laite
Speakers: Lucy Robinson, Keith Gildart, Matthew Worley, Chris Warne
Chair: Ben Jones
Visualising British Public Health
Speakers: Amanda Sciampacone, Alex Mold, Hannah Elizabeth
Chairs: Jonathan Reinarz and Vanessa Heggie
The history of emotions in modern Britain
Speakers: Charlotte Greenhalgh, Martin Francis, Celia Hughes
Chair: Claire Langhamer
5:30 – 5:45 pm – Break
5:45 – 6:45 pm – Plenary 4
Catherine Hall, ‘Slavery and Freedom re-visited: or What is a Man?’
FRIDAY 3rd JULY
9 – 10 am – Plenary 5
Deborah Cohen, “Love and Money in the Informal Empire”
10 – 11:30 am – Panel Session 6
Technologies of Rule between Colony and Metropole
Speakers: Erik Linstrum, Mircea Raianu, Toby Harper
Chair: David Edgerton
The 1970s and the Stories we Tell
Speakers: Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, Nathalie Tomlinson, Camilla Schofield, Emily Robinson
Speakers: Julie V. Gottlieb, Clarisse Berthezène, Krista Cowman
Chair: Laura Beers
Economic Life in the British Past and How its History Can Help Us Rethink Modern British History
Speakers: Desmond Fitz-Gibbon, Penelope Ismay, Maura O’Connor, Nick Valvo
Chair: James Vernon
11:30 – 12 pm – Break
12 – 1:30 pm – Panel Session 7
Money, Belief and Politics in Modern British Studies
Speakers: Julie-Marie Strange, Thomas Scriven, Sarah Roddy, Bertrand Taithe
Chair: Matthew Hilton
Speakers: Amy Edwards, Daisy Payling, Sam Wetherell
Chair: Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite
The Economy of Freedom: Consumption and Self-government in Mid Twentieth-Century Britain
Speakers: Eloise Moss, Simeon Koole, Ashley Wilkinson
Chair: Chris Moores
Speakers: Marcus Collins, Clive D. Field, Ben Clements
Chair: Laura Beers
1:30 – 2:30 pm – Lunch
2:30 – 4:00 pm – Panel Session 8
Roundtable: Future Histories of Race
Speakers: Sadiah Qureshi, David Feldman, Caroline Bressey, Tony Kushner, Doreen Foster, Hannah Ishmael, Rob Waters, Camilla Schofield, Radhika Natarajan, Gavin Schaffer
Speakers: Samantha Caslin, Kieran Connell, Sean O’Connell
Chair: Stephen Brooke
The political history blues (or whatever happened to Political History)?
Speakers: Kit Kowol, Laura Beers, David Ellis
Chair: Lawrence Black
‘Sex and Common Sense’: Secularization and ‘Modern’ Sexual Subjectivities in Evolution
Speakers: Alana Harris, Sue Morgan, Timothy W. Jones
Chair: Lucy Delap
4:00 – 4:15 pm – Break
4:15 – 5:30 pm – Plenary Roundtable: New Directions in MBS
Modern British Studies Birmingham 
This looks like an interesting and relevant programme of discussion throughout the conference. I wonder if the role of the mass media will be recognised in any of the sessions?