A spectre is haunting Clacton
10 hours ago
Thursday, 28 February 2013
New Beacon Book Club
Dear All,
New
Beacon Books and the George Padmore Institute are pleased to announce
the start of a new book club as part of the GPI’s current Bookman
Research Project into the early years of New Beacon Publishing.
This
will be an open forum bringing together different generations to talk
about important or influential books published by New Beacon. All will
be very welcome, regardless of previous knowledge of these books and
their histories. Extracts from the texts will be circulated for you to
read before each session and the conversations will be guided by someone
with specialist knowledge of each book and its historical context.
All sessions will take place at the George Padmore Institute. Attendance is free and refreshments will be provided.
Numbers
will be limited in order to allow everyone to participate, so if you
would like to take part, please email us as soon as possible at
info@georgepadmoreinstitute.org.
We will then send you a PDF file of the text for the first session. If
you would prefer a printed copy to be posted to you, please include your
mailing address in your email.
Our programme is as follows:
Session 1. Foundations and the poetry of John La Rose
Thursday March 14th, 6.30 – 8pm
Facilitator: Linton Kwesi Johnson
Session 2. Criticism at New Beacon (New Beacon Reviews and Tradition, the writer & Society, Wilson Harris)
Wednesday April 10th, 6.30 – 8pm
Facilitator: Rachael Gilmour (Queen Mary, University of London)
Session 3. How the West Indian Child is made educationally sub-normal in the British school system, Bernard Coard
Wednesday May 15th, 6.30 – 8pm
Facilitator: Roxy Harris (Kings College London/George Padmore Institute)
Session 4. Poems of succession and the poetry of Martin Carter.
Wednesday June 12th 6.30 – 8pm
Facilitator: Gemma Robinson (University of Stirling)
We look forward to seeing many of you and sharing ideas at these gatherings.
Ruth Bush, Sarah White, Sarah Garrod, Kate Duncan
George Padmore Institute
76 Stroud Green Road
London
N4 3EN
Edited to add: See also this event -
Monday, 25 February 2013
CfP: Little Britain's Memory of Slavery
Little Britain’s Memory of Slavery: The local nuances of a ‘national sin’
A partnership conference organised between University College London,
University of York and the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery
and Emancipation (WISE) Hull
UCL, London September 13th and 14th 2013
Keynote Speakers: Catherine Hall (UCL), Madge Dresser (UWE)
Plus ‘Artists in conversation’ interview session chaired by Professor Alan Rice (UCLAN)
Welcome Address from Professor John Oldfield (WISE, University of Hull)
Call for Papers
In recent years there has been an explosion of interest around the history
of the transatlantic slave trade fuelled largely by public, academic
and institutional activities and projects undertaken for the national
marking of 2007 as the Bicentenary of the Abolition Act in Britain.
Alongside this there has been a greatly heightened academic and
scholarly consideration of the way Britain has remembered this
history through museum exhibitions, memorialisation and cultural
representations in media, film and literature. Further large scale
research initiatives have been set in motion to assess and explore
the legacies of this history such as the ESRC funded Legacies of
British Slavery Project at UCL and the recently initiated European-wide
project combining genetics, archaeology and public history (EUROTAST).
Numerous postgraduate and early career researchers across the country
have also embarked upon individual projects of their own in a variety of
disciplines across the humanities, including the organisers of this conference.
Much of the research currently being done is turning away from the national
picture and increasingly focusing on the smaller scale specifics of British
involvement in transatlantic slavery, on the memory and legacies of individual
people and places in their specific contexts and we are honoured to welcome
some of the people pioneering these research strands from Catherine Hall’s
work on nineteenth century biography, Alan Rice’s research into Lancaster’s
memorial project, and Madge Dresser’s consideration of Bristol’s ‘obscured’
links to its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.
This two day conference aims to facilitate a dialogue across institutions, disciplines
and subject areas between people whose work addresses the smaller-scale specifics
of Britain’s memory of slavery in more ‘local’ projects,
looking at case studies of places, the lives and memory of individuals,
networks and organisations across a broad span of time, from the 18th century
to the present day. Through this intellectual exchange we aim to correlate
the micro with the macro and probe the extent to which the literature on
Britain’s national memory of slavery holds true for more nuanced case
studies and specific research currently being carried out. The dialogue will
thereby explore the interactions of 'levels of memory' in relation to this
history whilst giving focus to individual and local agency and aiding a more
complex understanding of the workings of memory in line with history.
Potential panel areas could cover though are by no means limited to:
• People and memory: enslaved and free black people living in Britain,
black and white abolitionists in Britain and their contexts; merchants and
the legacies of individual and family wealth; politicians (pro and anti-slavery),
historians and authors – writing slavery, artists and performers – contesting
and creatively engaging with memory
• Place and memory: towns and cities - the urban landscape of slavery
memory; ports and the ‘maritimization’ of slavery; country houses and the
elaborate display of excessive wealth; parks and gardens – open public spaces;
local art exhibitions and artist interventions; walking tours and history trails
• Organisations and Networks: public and private institutions (schools,
banks, high culture) and remembered/forgotten connections; charitable
organisations and people – the paradox of philanthropy; religious
organisations and campaigning
• Memory Work: local museums, galleries and the exhibition of memory;
local memorials – creating tangible memory; heritage projects and the communal
effort
• Education: teaching slavery in schools, informal learning and adult
education
• Engaging with communities and conducting outreach: token gestures or
meaningful encounters?
• Reparations, social justice and apologies: where are we now?
• The (contemporary) slavery question: the drive to highlight
contemporary global human rights abuses –natural succession or diversion tactic?
Papers are invited from postgraduate students, early career researchers, established academics and independent researchers from any discipline including History, English, Museology, Archaeology, Heritage, Geography, Politics, Philosophy, Sociology, Women’s Studies, Film, Theatre and History of Art.
Please send abstracts of 250 words for 20 minute papers along with a 50 word biography to the organisers: Kate Donington, Jessica Moody and Ryan Hanley via email LBMSconference@gmail.com by May 31st 2013.
www.lbms13.org
A partnership conference organised between University College London,
University of York and the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery
and Emancipation (WISE) Hull
UCL, London September 13th and 14th 2013
Keynote Speakers: Catherine Hall (UCL), Madge Dresser (UWE)
Plus ‘Artists in conversation’ interview session chaired by Professor Alan Rice (UCLAN)
Welcome Address from Professor John Oldfield (WISE, University of Hull)
Call for Papers
In recent years there has been an explosion of interest around the history
of the transatlantic slave trade fuelled largely by public, academic
and institutional activities and projects undertaken for the national
marking of 2007 as the Bicentenary of the Abolition Act in Britain.
Alongside this there has been a greatly heightened academic and
scholarly consideration of the way Britain has remembered this
history through museum exhibitions, memorialisation and cultural
representations in media, film and literature. Further large scale
research initiatives have been set in motion to assess and explore
the legacies of this history such as the ESRC funded Legacies of
British Slavery Project at UCL and the recently initiated European-wide
project combining genetics, archaeology and public history (EUROTAST).
Numerous postgraduate and early career researchers across the country
have also embarked upon individual projects of their own in a variety of
disciplines across the humanities, including the organisers of this conference.
Much of the research currently being done is turning away from the national
picture and increasingly focusing on the smaller scale specifics of British
involvement in transatlantic slavery, on the memory and legacies of individual
people and places in their specific contexts and we are honoured to welcome
some of the people pioneering these research strands from Catherine Hall’s
work on nineteenth century biography, Alan Rice’s research into Lancaster’s
memorial project, and Madge Dresser’s consideration of Bristol’s ‘obscured’
links to its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.
This two day conference aims to facilitate a dialogue across institutions, disciplines
and subject areas between people whose work addresses the smaller-scale specifics
of Britain’s memory of slavery in more ‘local’ projects,
looking at case studies of places, the lives and memory of individuals,
networks and organisations across a broad span of time, from the 18th century
to the present day. Through this intellectual exchange we aim to correlate
the micro with the macro and probe the extent to which the literature on
Britain’s national memory of slavery holds true for more nuanced case
studies and specific research currently being carried out. The dialogue will
thereby explore the interactions of 'levels of memory' in relation to this
history whilst giving focus to individual and local agency and aiding a more
complex understanding of the workings of memory in line with history.
Potential panel areas could cover though are by no means limited to:
• People and memory: enslaved and free black people living in Britain,
black and white abolitionists in Britain and their contexts; merchants and
the legacies of individual and family wealth; politicians (pro and anti-slavery),
historians and authors – writing slavery, artists and performers – contesting
and creatively engaging with memory
• Place and memory: towns and cities - the urban landscape of slavery
memory; ports and the ‘maritimization’ of slavery; country houses and the
elaborate display of excessive wealth; parks and gardens – open public spaces;
local art exhibitions and artist interventions; walking tours and history trails
• Organisations and Networks: public and private institutions (schools,
banks, high culture) and remembered/forgotten connections; charitable
organisations and people – the paradox of philanthropy; religious
organisations and campaigning
• Memory Work: local museums, galleries and the exhibition of memory;
local memorials – creating tangible memory; heritage projects and the communal
effort
• Education: teaching slavery in schools, informal learning and adult
education
• Engaging with communities and conducting outreach: token gestures or
meaningful encounters?
• Reparations, social justice and apologies: where are we now?
• The (contemporary) slavery question: the drive to highlight
contemporary global human rights abuses –natural succession or diversion tactic?
Papers are invited from postgraduate students, early career researchers, established academics and independent researchers from any discipline including History, English, Museology, Archaeology, Heritage, Geography, Politics, Philosophy, Sociology, Women’s Studies, Film, Theatre and History of Art.
Please send abstracts of 250 words for 20 minute papers along with a 50 word biography to the organisers: Kate Donington, Jessica Moody and Ryan Hanley via email LBMSconference@gmail.com by May 31st 2013.
www.lbms13.org
Defend the London Met Three!
Suspension of Trade Unionists at London Metropolitan University
Dear colleagues,
You may be aware that in addition to the suspension of the London Met UNISON Chair, Max Watson, and the London Met Staff Governor, Jawad Botmeh, Steve Jeffreys from London Met's widely respected ‘Working Lives Research Institute’ (WLRI) has also now been suspended. Steve is a UCU member and has made the statement provided at the end of this email.
Further to Steve's statement please also note that an online petition has now been created demanding the immediate reinstatement of Max, Jawad, and Steve. The petition was launched on Saturday 23 February and had attracted 350+ signatures by Sunday afternoon. Please add your name to the petition and circulate the petition link to your branch members: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-the-witch-hunt-defend-max-jawad-and-steve.html
In addition a new campaign blog for the reinstatement of Max, Jawad, and Steve, that provides all the latest campaign news has been set up at: http://stopthewitchhunt.wordpress.com
In solidarity
Mark Campbell
London Metropolitan University UCU (Chair)
UCU National Executive Committee
------
Dear Trade Union Friends,
I'm writing to let you know that I was suspended on Wednesday by Londonmet after a 45 minute investigation into the WLRI because I appointed a former prisoner who had served 13 years imprisonment to a part-time, casual three month maternity cover job in our social justice Institute.
Did I know that his conviction in 1996 was for conspiracy to blow up the Israeli embassy? Yes. I also knew that he had been refused parole for 6 years because he maintained his innocence, and that Paul Foot and Robert Fisk had campaigned for him. And I saw his CV which included his having completed an OU degree in sociology and an MA in Peace and Reconciliation (with merit), as well has having been prisoners' rep on equality issues.
But actually, although this all made him an ideal person to work with us, I felt there was also a basic human rights issues involved. Do we give people a second chance?
The inference involved in my suspension and possible disciplinary action is that either I was involved in some highly sophisticated conspiracy to place a Palestinian terrorist 'sleeper' in a position where he could influence young minds and eventually get elected as staff governor (which five years after Jawad Botmeh started work has now triggered three suspensions), or that I was criminally stupid.
Everyone who knows me or my work knows that I am a principled socialist. But for me, my decision not to discriminate against this applicant whom I had never met, and whom Max Watson (a now very active UNISON trade unionist who is also suspended) had met once at a party is actually the survival of a liberal approach to others in my university. If a Research Institute dedicated to the promotion of social justice in a public institution will not give someone like Jawad the chance to work, who else will?
You'll realise that we are all in a state of shock. Three of the 13 WLRI staff are now suspended. Two others are still under investigation. I fear for our future - just weeks after celebrating our tenth anniversary.
The UCU and UNISON are united in supporting the three of us who are suspended - and your protest, and those you can encourage others to take, will strengthen their hands in the 'informal contacts' that are taking place in the hope of preventing the university from taking the next step of firing those it has suspended.
thanks in advance
all the best
Steve
Dear colleagues,
You may be aware that in addition to the suspension of the London Met UNISON Chair, Max Watson, and the London Met Staff Governor, Jawad Botmeh, Steve Jeffreys from London Met's widely respected ‘Working Lives Research Institute’ (WLRI) has also now been suspended. Steve is a UCU member and has made the statement provided at the end of this email.
Further to Steve's statement please also note that an online petition has now been created demanding the immediate reinstatement of Max, Jawad, and Steve. The petition was launched on Saturday 23 February and had attracted 350+ signatures by Sunday afternoon. Please add your name to the petition and circulate the petition link to your branch members: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-the-witch-hunt-defend-max-jawad-and-steve.html
In addition a new campaign blog for the reinstatement of Max, Jawad, and Steve, that provides all the latest campaign news has been set up at: http://stopthewitchhunt.wordpress.com
In solidarity
Mark Campbell
London Metropolitan University UCU (Chair)
UCU National Executive Committee
------
Dear Trade Union Friends,
I'm writing to let you know that I was suspended on Wednesday by Londonmet after a 45 minute investigation into the WLRI because I appointed a former prisoner who had served 13 years imprisonment to a part-time, casual three month maternity cover job in our social justice Institute.
Did I know that his conviction in 1996 was for conspiracy to blow up the Israeli embassy? Yes. I also knew that he had been refused parole for 6 years because he maintained his innocence, and that Paul Foot and Robert Fisk had campaigned for him. And I saw his CV which included his having completed an OU degree in sociology and an MA in Peace and Reconciliation (with merit), as well has having been prisoners' rep on equality issues.
But actually, although this all made him an ideal person to work with us, I felt there was also a basic human rights issues involved. Do we give people a second chance?
The inference involved in my suspension and possible disciplinary action is that either I was involved in some highly sophisticated conspiracy to place a Palestinian terrorist 'sleeper' in a position where he could influence young minds and eventually get elected as staff governor (which five years after Jawad Botmeh started work has now triggered three suspensions), or that I was criminally stupid.
Everyone who knows me or my work knows that I am a principled socialist. But for me, my decision not to discriminate against this applicant whom I had never met, and whom Max Watson (a now very active UNISON trade unionist who is also suspended) had met once at a party is actually the survival of a liberal approach to others in my university. If a Research Institute dedicated to the promotion of social justice in a public institution will not give someone like Jawad the chance to work, who else will?
You'll realise that we are all in a state of shock. Three of the 13 WLRI staff are now suspended. Two others are still under investigation. I fear for our future - just weeks after celebrating our tenth anniversary.
The UCU and UNISON are united in supporting the three of us who are suspended - and your protest, and those you can encourage others to take, will strengthen their hands in the 'informal contacts' that are taking place in the hope of preventing the university from taking the next step of firing those it has suspended.
thanks in advance
all the best
Steve
CfP: The Black Jacobins Revisited: Rewriting History
The Black
Jacobins Revisited:
Rewriting History
International conference to be held at the
International Slavery Museum and the Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool, 27–28
October 2013
CALL FOR PAPERS
To mark seventy-five years of pioneering
anticolonial and historiography-shifting work, C.L.R. James’s The Black Jacobins, we are organising a
major international two-day conference at the International Slavery Museum and
Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool. Ever since The
Black Jacobins transformed the way colonial history was written, this
single work has for seventy-five years dominated all studies of the Haitian
Revolution and decolonization. Yet, uncharted areas of this standard reference
work still remain. Key aims of the conference are to break new ground and explore
new approaches where this classic history is concerned. Papers will be
considered on any aspect relating to The
Black Jacobins and its legacies, but possible topics could include:
- Discussion of The Black Jacobins in relation to James’s own evolving political practice and activism, including his collaborations as political organiser.
- The making and remaking of The Black Jacobins as the famous work morphs through major generic transformations, both beginning and ending life as a play.
- Contributions made by The Black Jacobins to problems of writing Caribbean history: gaps and perspectives in official historical records housed in metropolitan archives.
- Processes of rewriting history throughout the work’s evolution: revolutionizing previous historical interpretations of the Haitian Revolution; provincializing the French Revolution; engaging with processes of silencing and un-silencing stories of the Haitian Revolution, and of slavery-generated wealth in French and British cities.
- James’s rethinking of key relationship between leaders and masses; the progressive refiguration of Haitian Revolutionary Toussaint Louverture, and foregrounding of alternative protagonists.
- Caribbean identity as evolving theme of The Black Jacobins, and the related question of representation, e.g. James’s contributions to representations of slaves as principal actors of revolution in their own right, and to Caribbean ways of seeing the Haitian past and what constitutes the Caribbean from the Caribbean’s own perspective, and not that of others.
- Progressive reframing and historicizing of the work through a range of prefaces, appendices, epilogues
- James’s evolving use of source materials and alternative historical models
- Assessments of the work’s afterlives as founding text and key point of reference for all interpretations of the Haitian Revolution; issues of key editions, translation and mistranslation; and the work’s centrality to a range of political situations across Africa, the Caribbean and North America.
- Links between The Black Jacobins and other key Marxist, Caribbean, African works, including those of James’s own wider corpus.
Abstracts of 250 words should be sent
to Dr Rachel Douglas, Rachel.Douglas@glasgow.ac.uk by 15 April, 2013. Keynote speakers
will include: Professor Nick Nesbitt (Princeton) and Dr Matthew J.
Smith (University of the West Indies). Further keynote speakers to be
announced.
This event is organised in
partnership with the International Slavery Museum and the Bluecoat, Liverpool,
and supported by the University of Glasgow Knowledge Exchange Fund, the Society
for the Study of French History, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
CfP: The Future of Atlantic, Transnational and World History
Subject: CFP: Future of Atlantic, Transnational & World History
CALL FOR PAPERS
“The Future of Atlantic, Transnational, and World History”
We announce a conference to be held May 1-3, 2014 at the Department of History, University of Pittsburgh. The conference will explore four related themes in Atlantic, transnational, and world history, each introduced by a keynote speaker:
Labor: Marcel van der Linden (International Institute for Social History)
Race: Lara Putnam (University of Pittsburgh)
Empire: Richard Drayton (King’s College London)
Resistance: Vincent Brown (Harvard University)
Each keynote session will be accompanied by a panel session on the same theme. We therefore solicit papers on labor, race, empire, and resistance in Atlantic, transnational, and world historical contexts. Our goals are to push the boundaries of boundary-less history and to imagine new ways to explore perennial subjects of historical investigation. We are especially interested in original approaches and research strategies that link small units and large processes, the local and the global, and that propose innovative ways to think about those connections. We seek paper proposals from both established and more junior scholars. Preference may be given to those proposing to report on major work in progress. Proposals should include a title, a 250 word abstract, and a short CV. Abstracts should foreground the nature of the paper’s historiographical and methodological intervention.
Please submit all queries and materials by email attachment by June 1, 2013, to: futurehistory2014@gmail.com.
Marcus Rediker Conference organizer
Department of History
3508 Posvar Hall
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh,
PA 15260 USA
CALL FOR PAPERS
“The Future of Atlantic, Transnational, and World History”
We announce a conference to be held May 1-3, 2014 at the Department of History, University of Pittsburgh. The conference will explore four related themes in Atlantic, transnational, and world history, each introduced by a keynote speaker:
Labor: Marcel van der Linden (International Institute for Social History)
Race: Lara Putnam (University of Pittsburgh)
Empire: Richard Drayton (King’s College London)
Resistance: Vincent Brown (Harvard University)
Each keynote session will be accompanied by a panel session on the same theme. We therefore solicit papers on labor, race, empire, and resistance in Atlantic, transnational, and world historical contexts. Our goals are to push the boundaries of boundary-less history and to imagine new ways to explore perennial subjects of historical investigation. We are especially interested in original approaches and research strategies that link small units and large processes, the local and the global, and that propose innovative ways to think about those connections. We seek paper proposals from both established and more junior scholars. Preference may be given to those proposing to report on major work in progress. Proposals should include a title, a 250 word abstract, and a short CV. Abstracts should foreground the nature of the paper’s historiographical and methodological intervention.
Please submit all queries and materials by email attachment by June 1, 2013, to: futurehistory2014@gmail.com.
Marcus Rediker Conference organizer
Department of History
3508 Posvar Hall
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh,
PA 15260 USA
Saturday, 23 February 2013
LSHG conference on the Dublin Lock-Out of 1913
Dear Comrade
A reminder about next Saturday's conference on the Dublin Lock-Out. Details are below and attached.
Registration
is from midday and the room is in Stewart House [the new wing of Senate
House facing Russell Sq].The room is STB 3/6 in the basement which I am
assured is a conference style
facility..
I hope to see you there
regards
Keith Flett
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Dublin Lock-Out 1913 Half day event at the Institute of Historical Research on Saturday March 2nd
The Dublin Lock-Out from August 1913 to January 1914 is one of the most momentous events in Irish and British Labour History.
The 100th anniversary is being widely marked in Ireland and with some events in the UK.
The London Socialist Historians Group is holding an afternoon event at the centre of UK research history, the Institute of Historical Research in London, to both recall the Lock-Out one hundred years on and to review the current state of historical research on it.
The event is on Saturday March 2nd 2013 from Midday at the Institute of Historical Research
Areas covered may include the role of James Larkin and James Connolly in the Lock-Out; the importance and impact of the ideas of revolutionary syndicalism; The formation of the Irish TGWU and the Irish Labour Party; Links between socialists in Ireland and the UK and the role of the British TUC; The successful organisation of impoverished and unskilled Dublin workers in trade unions; The short and longer term impacts of the end of the Lock-Out
Admission is free though donations towards costs are welcome
The Dublin Lock-Out from August 1913 to January 1914 is one of the most momentous events in Irish and British Labour History.
The 100th anniversary is being widely marked in Ireland and with some events in the UK.
The London Socialist Historians Group is holding an afternoon event at the centre of UK research history, the Institute of Historical Research in London, to both recall the Lock-Out one hundred years on and to review the current state of historical research on it.
The event is on Saturday March 2nd 2013 from Midday at the Institute of Historical Research
Areas covered may include the role of James Larkin and James Connolly in the Lock-Out; the importance and impact of the ideas of revolutionary syndicalism; The formation of the Irish TGWU and the Irish Labour Party; Links between socialists in Ireland and the UK and the role of the British TUC; The successful organisation of impoverished and unskilled Dublin workers in trade unions; The short and longer term impacts of the end of the Lock-Out
Admission is free though donations towards costs are welcome
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